I was covering for holiday leave, but everyone’s back. So are Mark and Helen, with their Ibiza tans. I meet them for a drink in the Black Horse. ‘Aren’t you going off somewhere?’ Mark asks. ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘It’s complicated.’ ‘Have you met someone?’...
It was unpaid but not without remuneration — a rent-free room in Soho was worth a lot, while bookshops on the Charing Cross Road gave me a quarter of the cover price of any review copy I took in. I wrote to Francine, giving her my new address and boasting about my part-time job. She would never h...
She called her agent. Winston was trying to set up a public debate between her, the Liberal Democrat and the new Tory candidate. The Tories had selected Jeremy Atkinson, the candidate she had seen off in the by-election. She had wiped the floor with him during all three public debates then. Now t...
Apples swell on the trees but are still too small and sharp to eat. The old ones are all gone. I work most days. No one comes to look for me, or Nadimah. We spread nets over the fruit bushes to stop birds from eating the berries. On the light evenings, we read. Mrs Babcock gives me old books from...