Melvyn Bragg

They could be seen together almost every evening of that spring on the high-fell road, and people would look out for them making their way back in the dusk, Cedric 'the trainer' leading on his motor-bike, the bright blob of his headlight a shifting beacon on the hillside, and behind him Josh, heavy...

PROLOGUE She got an atlas in the reference section of the library and sought out Burma. In the poky little room above the fire station in the Council yard, she stared at the name and tried to imagine what it was like to be there. She was not allowed to take it home but she returned to it more...

As he woke, the word 'wife' raced up from the fathoms of his dream and broke the surface of his mind as gently as the moonlight met his eyes. And the word basked under the light, rubbed itself against his unnerved flesh, tumbled slowly about the lapping waves of sense before plunging once more...

ONE Darling Bemadette, As you have forbidden me to talk to you I must write. Today, if I am lucky, I will see you but not touch you; follow but not meet you; love at a distance, shunned. Amor vindt omnia. Remember? That was the love for God which conquered everything. Your religion. Mine too...