Almost at once I found myself lifted; thin arms and hands held me and raised me on to bony shoulders. I was above them, and all their faces seemed to be turned to me with...

‘You mustn’t be silly.’ I tried to kiss her, and she evaded me. ‘No; don’t start like that again. David, I want to get things straight. I like you a lot, but I don’t quite...

Isaak said: ‘For you, Hilda, it matters. It matters that David should not think bad of you because what you say is silly and bad.’ I expected her to flare in her own defence. She...

I sat on a divan with Jinny; Hilda and Isaak were in armchairs; Siegfried sat in an upright chair, near the window. The trumpets were raw and lovely. ‘When beauty’s the prize, when beauty’s the...

‘I shall ask you again.’ Serious, as she was now, she looked very young; the sophistication was no longer there to mislead, and she was only eighteen. ‘You must be prepared for that.’ Her smile...

‘To get back to the point – are you going to marry me?’ She sat up, and ticked off points on her fingers. ‘I hardly know you. I’m too young. And you haven’t had enough...

‘I want to kiss you now,’ I pointed out. ‘In due course, Jinny will be back.’ ‘I hope so, coz. I’ve got no intention of being left alone with you in a flat for long.’...

We had reached the entrance of Hampstead Court. The years had not dealt kindly with it; it had escaped bombing, but there were jagged cracks in the facing, which was no longer white, but different...

‘Good business,’ I observed. ‘Ours is not as healthy as that.’ He shrugged. ‘It brings money. As for your business, think of what is to come. Millions of people wanting homes, all at once. God...

Hilda started to go upstairs with Patrick; on the turn, halfway up, she stopped and looked down to where I stood in the hall. She said: ‘I wonder if I could have a glass of...