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...

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...

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,...

Lulu said: ‘I think I’ll go up to my room. See you all at breakfast.’ Leslie drew a deep inhalation of his cigarette before following her. I turned to go myself. At the door I...

Leslie broke in: ‘Was he – a lover of the arts?’ The table rapped once. Olivia said, explaining: ‘You can put your questions directly.’ ‘Right,’ Leslie said. He paused briefly. ‘Did you know the painter,...

Leslie asked: ‘What does happen, anyway? Ghosts? Long white figures?’ Howard had found another chair for himself and carried it round to wedge himself in between Leslie and Helen. I saw Cynthia lean forward on...

Howard said softly: ‘Nothing much to-night.’ As though in answer the table jerked quickly, pushing against us, coming down again on the floorboards with a clatter of wooden feet. Jupiter had given way to Saturn....

Having offered the invitation he stood on one side, watching with interested friendliness while the rest of us made the necessary preparations. Olivia and I pushed the carpet back, drew the four chairs up to...

‘We could take an office in town and get a small staff. Run your publishing as a front.’ Why did he want me? Did he really want me at all? I was wondering about this...

I knocked at Piers’s door and entered. He was standing on a chair by the window, struggling with the black-out board. I helped him to lift it into place, and he climbed down, rubbing his...