The light was poor, the bulbs glowing dully on the inadequate voltage. He ruffled the pages back awkwardly, peering at dates and headlines – back through the early days of scientific reports, dubious prognostications, tucked...

It was difficult to tell, looking back, how good a summer that had been. The records gave a statistical answer – at Kew, the century’s fourth best for dryness, the third best in hours of...

‘Extraordinarily rosy-cheeked, that girl.’ ‘Effect of high-altitude living,’ David said. ‘She comes from some tiny village up in the Italian Alps. You get that sort of thing above the fifteen hundred metre level. The small...

‘Everything degenerates into habit – nausea, vanity, everything. For a year after I began drinking beer, I couldn’t stand the taste of it. All I was getting was the satisfaction of being one of the...

‘I do like you for being old-fashioned,’ she said. ‘No, I suppose he wouldn’t, under the circumstances.’ The last phrase carried a shadow of emphasis. ‘There’s nothing wrong – nothing basically. He’s meeting … a...

Over the week-end, the snow stopped falling. There was a thawing rain on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and on Monday it was clear and cold, with small clouds skating over a chill blue sky. In...

She said: ‘I’m going to leave you, Andy.’ He was aware of a slight shiver that ran across his shoulders and down his spine; he hoped the tremor had not shown. The girl behind the...

‘For weeks you were sleeping with my wife and meeting me seemingly as a friend.’ ‘Nothing seeming about it. It started with Carol when I hardly knew you – that first time you came round...

‘You’re something of a bastard,’ Andrew said, ‘aren’t you?’ ‘In both senses of the word, as a matter of fact. That’s probably what made her so self-sacrificing. I’m also something of a realist.’ Andrew said...