Clare Wilson, long widowed, nearly eighty, and mostly alone in the Kensington flat where she has lived for decades, is used to the losses of old age. Her oldest friend has died; after years the pain of losing a child has not faded; and the young have lives of their own to live. While she struggles to sustain her faith in God and her hope for an England which makes her increasingly unhappy and increasingly ashamed, she is astonished and sustained by the gift of a new friendship. This, appearing so late in her life, is something she could not have imagined. It brings her not only someone to talk to during the peculiar months of Covid restrictions and distancing, but understanding of a country and a tragic history of which she knew nothing. Two old people in London, keeping each other company, should surely be safe from the horrors of the outside world.

About the Author

Lucy Beckett is a novelist, historian and literary critic. Her novels include The Time Before You Die, set in the English Reformation, A Postcard from the Volcano, set in Weimar Germany, The Leaves are Falling, set in the borderlands of Poland and Russia during World War II, The Year of Thamar’s Book, a powerful evocation of La France profonde in counterpoint to the horrors of the Algerian War for independence, and In the Grieving of her Days.

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