There was now quite a show, some broken chairs had been tossed on and the whole thing had a wild dangerous heat and snap to it, loud cracks and sparks, a roll of black smoke from a foam-rubber cushion. Little Jack was awed, standing back beside his mother, but with a look of calculation about dares of his own. They seemed to stretch ahead.
‘Find anything?’ said Debbie. Of course it was a sign of her excellence that he hadn’t. It occurred to him, as he went back down the drive and on to the unknown street, that Valance had never sent the promised letter, on the eve of the Somme, after all – if he had done, the careful memorious Hewitt would surely have transcribed it too. And now Rob had to get back into Town – he had a date at seven with… for a moment he couldn’t think of his name. He looked on his phone for the text, and caught the smell of smoke on his hands.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am very grateful to the Belgian literary organization Het Beschrijf for a month’s residency in the Passa Porta writers’ apartment in Brussels, where part of this novel was written.
Alan Hollinghurst
