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At the beginning of the summer of 1986, my parents separated. My mother and I left the flat on Gurusaday Road where I’d lived all my life, to stay with my grandparents on the opposite bank of the Hooghly River in the district of Shibpur. As we sat in the taxi, Ma told me that at the end of the hol

My husband and I live along a West Cork boreen. Heather and gorse brocade the fields, and the hedges are heavy with hawthorn and blackthorn. Some evenings, this landscape seems to exhale an almost uncanny light. We are both in our forties, and work from home. We collaborate on ‘historical rom

Sally locked the door hastily and darted into the alley flanking her gift shop. Because there she was again. Her new neighbour. What was she doing, wafting about the village at five o’clock on a rainy evening in February? Almost certainly yet another import from London, newly-ensconced in what sho

A woman drives through woods in winter. On either side of the car, tall trees stand and sulk, resisting winter’s demise at the year’s turn. The woman is scared. She is the fifth carer for the old man, and no one has told her why. But she’s heard the stories and she is afraid. It’s New Yea

The snow began as I was driving home from Sunday dinner with Maria and her family. Really Christmas, I thought, and felt comforted. Maria’s family had welcomed me as an honoured guest. Probably, I’d thought, the first foreigner ever to enter their home. Certainly the first welcome foreigner.

In rain, sunshine, mist and high winds we tottered through the fields as fast as Elspeth’s little legs and my dodgy knees allowed. Both of us breathless, we rushed up the hill – more of a hillock really – that Elspeth had named The Big Mountain. The vista from the top encompassed the sweep of

Mrs Clarke opened the door. It was on the latch, and she peeped cautiously through the small gap. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘My name’s Jennifer. I’m here from the Sunshine Programme.’ Mrs Clarke’s face brightened immediately on hearing this. She closed the door, unlatched it and then open

The woman in the house opposite sits in her window, net curtains falling in an arch around her. She stares into the deserted road as though watching a switched-off TV waiting for a programme to begin. At regular intervals she wanders off, returning with a sandwich or a cup and saucer, and drinks wit

Miss Rosie Burns, 1960 Rosie Burns expected to be a famous pianist. She preferred sleek, black concert grand pianos, which showcased her petite prettiness and pearly arms. Much of her student grant was invested in hand creams. Her fair hair was pampered with camomile rinses. And she transformed c

Chapter 1 The Duchy of Lancaster’s housing estate in Harrogate is described euphemistically by local estate agents as ‘The favoured Duchy Estate’. It was built towards the end of the Victorian era for the successful merchants of Harrogate’s booming spa town, and consists of large stone