A Stairway To Paradise After the party, Alex, in the driving seat, seems rather out of sorts, whereas Barbara, who.s sitting in the back is singing her way through the George Gershwin songbook, which seems to indicate a state of happiness, or at least contentment. Andrew, third passanger in the car, riding shotgun beside his old friend Alex, whom he.s just met again after a ten-year interval when he was living in America, can.t quite decide . he isn.t entirely used yet to reading all the signs of his native landFeeling their way, both figureatively and literally, through the ensuring situation, each of the people in Madeleine St. John.s fourth novel at once reveals, and aquires, the mysterious attribute we call character