Memories of childhood are haphazard things. They are events in another dimension, knife-edged and inapprehensible, shifting on the axis of an instant from oblivion to coloured reality and back again. At a word, a sound,...

Here was Kensington Road, and the traffic flowing swiftly between the Park and the stubborn, stately houses. I entered Kensington Gardens through a futile, isolated gate and followed the path towards the Memorial. As I...

The sunlight was gone again as I crossed the road into Hyde Park, and the Serpentine lay below me, black and unfriendly and ruffled into petty anger by the shifting breeze. Higher up, on the...

Howard turned, half sitting on the piano keys. ‘I like to hear about impromptu arrangements,’ he said, ‘especially when I’m left out of them. Tell me all about it.’ I heard the door open and...

Howard stepped away from the piano and stood in front of Piers looking down at him. He was like a small boy in front of a garden god of his own creation, part bullying, more...

‘This is for profit, Tenn. You are in publishing to make a profit, aren’t you? And I know very well that for the last six months you’ve gone steadily deeper into the red. Well, I’m...

‘Presley?’ I said. ‘I think I’ve been through it. Near Liverpool?’ He nodded. ‘You might have done. The main Manchester road runs through it. We lived on that road until I was twelve – over...

He said: ‘That’s rather nice. What is it?’ I managed the development as well as I could, but that was not very well. ‘Brahms,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t there scope for living in New York?’ He...

I walked across to the french windows and opened them. The air came in chill and damp with the very flavour of this desolate summer but the windows opposite mirrored striped fires from the briefly...

Olivia said: ‘And what do you propose to do over here, Mr. Britton? Write poetry?’ Her voice had a flat, uninterested contempt. Strangely enough, it irritated me, as though her scornful lack of interest put...