. .‘Sir,’ She Said” Chapter XVIIJulia At half-past twelve Julia went out to lunch. She had an hour for lunch. And at the end of each week she and Jean cut cards to see who should go first and who wait till a later and more civilised hour. Lately Julia had been rather unlucky. Still, if she had wo...
He showed the message to Diana. ‘It seems strange coming back from that to this,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it’s as well there should be contrasts.’ ‘This is the kind of thing that makes me hate myself.’ ‘We all have to hate ourselves at times.’ ‘At those times it’s a relief to me to have you down the pa...
Not only did a steady stream of houses from North End village and Child’s Hill demand an appropriate allotment of shops at the hill’s foot, but from the north-east towards Finchley the roads and houses of the Garden Suburb enclosed Golders Green within a rough-cast barrier. Within two years no on...
A pot of tea was beside his bed, and a plate with three thin slices of bread and butter. Parker was standing in silhouette against the window. Francis looked at his watch. It was eight o’clock. “What kind of day is it?” he asked. “It’s not actually raining, sir. That’s about all that you can say ...
For months I had been planning to go there. For weeks I had been dreaming of going there. But on the eve of my arrival I craved for one thing only: a magic carpet that would carry me to London. I had been travelling for eight months and I was very tired: tired of new places and new settings. My e...
I saw Somerset Maugham for the last time in Nice, in January 1965. We were strolling in opposite directions along the Promenade des Anglais. It was a warm, sunny day, freshened by a breeze. We paused for a brief gossip. He said to my companion, ‘The wind in your cape makes you look like a bird.’ ...
Before I had been there many days, I realized that it was impossible for me to understand its way of life until I had some knowledge of its history. In 1947 the publishing house of Evans Brothers invited me to contribute to the Windows of the World series of travel books, a book on the Caribbean....
The world lived in terms of headlines. Up to then Guy, with many million others, had lived his postwar life independently of big events. The General Strike of 1926, the abandonment of the gold standard in 1931, were the only clear dates in those fifteen years. He remembered separate years in term...