Well, Lol knew what it would be and had resisted opening it, thinking it might be nice if he did it when Merrily was here. An introduction to a possible future. Never mind. He risked his bass-string thumbnail slitting the tape. Inside, a slim, brown-paper parcel, just over twelve inches square – wouldn’t be the same in millimetres. At its centre, a Knights Frome Studios card carrying a short message from Prof Levin. LAURENCE, I WILL ADMIT THAT WHEN I TOOK DELIVERY OF THESE, I WAS CLOSE TO TEARS. IF I’D THOUGHT EARLIER, I WOULD HAVE HAD THOSE IMMORTAL LINES OF YOURS EMBLAZONED ON THE BACK. ‘MOURN THE BARREN YEARS, ALL THE TIME WE’VE LOST.’ Lol slid out the album with the matt sleeve: firelight from an inglenook, a spindly rocking chair, a guitar – the Takamine, not the Boswell, which had been indisposed at the time. But at last you could make out the titles of the paperbacks on the rug: Thomas Traherne, Selected Poetry and Prose and Select Meditations.
