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Sport 8: Autumn 1992

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She'd solved her problem by adding a second layer—the story of the writer writing the story. It was what James had liked least about her novel, but he could see why she'd done it. There could be no end, so there had to be many ends—many possibilities, all left open. It was called 'meta-fiction' these days and it was very fashionable, but how could you get around the basic human appetite that every story should have a beginning a middle and an end, and that to be enjoyed it had to be believed?

The rain was getting heavier. The whisper on the roof became a rustling, and briefly a roar. There was the sound of water rushing along gutterings and through down-spouts, and dripping from punga fronds on to the lawn. Then it died away again to a gentle hissing.

He thought of his Northamptonshire garden, the roses and hollyhocks, the woods across fields with crows circling and crying. At last drowsiness returned, and sleep.

He dreamed that he was talking to Angela McIlroy over lunch, or rather, listening while she talked. She spoke in fluent Maori, though words like salade niçoise and frascati were mixed up in it. Now and then she paused in her monologue to turn the blade of her knife back and forth across her open palm.

He strained to catch what it was she was telling him, certain that he did understand—that he was capable of it—but never quite making sense of it. It was like something just beyond reach, or a word on the tip of the tongue.