Tina
Dearest, I’d love to have your Tina to stay — what are aunts for? — but I’m not sure if…
Losing a Crown in the National Portrait Gallery
The cafe was full of connoisseurs of the scones. As he bit into his flapjack a sinister uncoupling took place…
Sharing the Dog
The Dog share didn’t work out well in the end. For a start, Dog — no mean manipulator — cadged…
December
The ferns around the badgers’ sett are dying down, and fine webs fret the brambles. By late afternoon the moon…
Heron
Walking to the bus stop after a hospital visit, in an unfamiliar, dusty suburb, I pass a small park on…
New Neighbour
The trellis between her garden and her new neighbour’s garden is heavy with passion flower, honeysuckle and roses, so that…
The Time of Shoring Up
After the years at the gym, the diets and the supplements, he comes — nevertheless — to the time of…
On the way to Plumpton
We pull up at Wivelsfield, under a blue sky, and glance out at the one figure on the platform: a…
Hermit
Let’s celebrate the solitary meal: the serendipitous trawl through the fridge; the hopeful foray into the deep freeze, the obliging…
Love-lies-bleeding
Of course the bride’s dog came to the wedding and was allotted a chair at the top table at which…
Message
A tiny fly is moving over the page of my dull book this sultry evening, and it is my conceit…
i.m. AMSTRAD
Dear Lord Sugar, it’s been a sad week. A kind of bereavement, really. Today, a council employee in a yellow…
For the Time Being
Time slips away while we conjecture how to make best use of it. Waking late, the hours already sliding by,…
Don’t Look Back
No, let’s not look at the old photographs any more: our hair was so full and shiny then, and anyway…
Wendy Cope on hating school, meeting Billy Graham and enduring Freudian analysis
A surprise! I took this book from its envelope expecting a fresh collection of Wendy Cope’s poems, and opened it…
Mr Dixon
I can’t think of anyone else still alive who knew him, and could reminisce with me about his special kindness,…
Sometimes it’s Better to Give than to Receive
I can see your teeth clench with rage at the gift I have pressed on you, which manoeuvres you into…
The breasts that launched Les Fleurs du Mal
This novel is based on the life of Charles Baudelaire and the relationship he enjoyed — or endured — with…
A Short Attachment
I was in love for a whole week after Episode One: Your voice so tender, so knowledgeable, your slender hands…
Forgiveness
The bunting was hardly down, and the bones of the feast hardly buried in sand, when the prodigal son started…
Decorous Confessions
Unexpectedly, he made a sober success with his self-published book of decorous confessions. It eschewed turmoil in the bedchamber and…
