Lydia On the balcony opposite, Lydia is sitting on a plain, wooden chair. She is a child nine nearly ten. She is wearing only a fuchsia-coloured t-shirt and a pair of cut-off denim shorts, frayed at the …

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Even Fourscore and Ten are not enough I took my father’s comb. An ordinary cheap black plastic comb: snowflakes of scalp caught between the teeth, and, on the last prong, a single fishing-wire-thin hair, knotted like a silver tournique…

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McCullum McCullum knows the smell of wretchedness the moment he enters a room.  Three mothers: one has a baby tethered to breast. One has a squalling toddler grabbing at ankle, knee, skirt. One is squa…

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