Sublime

Don’t drop a bollock, Charlie, she’s fond of saying,

‘I didn’t get you anything,’ said Nathan, with the good cheer of a sinner already absolved, ‘I forgot.’ Then Ronald Macaulay came in with holiness in the pleats of his trousers. The atmosphere thinned, as if the room had been elevated nearer heaven.

An air altogether of occupying a time not his own – might he be more at ease in an Edwardian dining room, say, or on a pitching clipper’s deck? Very likely.

That Thomas had worked for the Chronicle since 1976 was easily established, as was the fact that he’d published three brief novels since that date. Out of a sense of delicacy Carleton never mentioned that he owned all three of these, and found them elegant and elliptical, couched in prose that had the cadence of the King James Bible, and concerned

‘You’re our longest-serving contributor,’ said Carleton, flinching at the bang. ‘Our most admired. Indeed I should say our most popular.’ I’m beginning to speak like him, he thought: Thomas Hart is catching, that’s the trouble. ‘I’ve often heard it said that it’s a consolation – that’s the general feeling, as I said to the board – to wake on

we skipped the formalities and instead spoke about scones and swimming and I ate pizza out of my pocket as they proudly told me about the history and heritage of their beloved town.