Chapters (30)
I went into the kitchen and filled the electric kettle; after I had filled it I ran the tap for a moment longer for the pleasure of seeing clear water. I plugged in the kettle and set out the tea things on the tray that Harry had made during the summer holidays. When the kettle had boiled I remembered the Orange Pekoe tea that I had bought at Twinings in the Strand; after I had fetched it in from my case in the hall I stood by the whistling kettle for a moment, wondering whether to blend it with Indian tea and then decided against it. As I took up the tray to carry it to the drawing-room I saw that I had forgotten something.
I took out a lemon from the vegetable rack. I cut a slice from it, then stopped and put down the knife. With no warning, through no conscious effort I was happy, happier than I had been since childhood. It could not last, it was already evaporating as I began to be grateful for it; but I knew it would come again.
About the Author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Gerard Braine was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1922. He sprang to immediate fame in 1957 with the publication of his first novel, Room at the Top, which was a critical success and a major bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic and was adapted for the screen in an Oscar-winning 1959 film starring Simone Signoret and Laurence Harvey. Braine’s second novel, The Vodi (1959), met with mixed reviews and disappointing sales, but was his favourite of his own works. His next book, Life at the Top (1962), a sequel to Room at the Top, sold well and was filmed in 1965.
Braine, who was commonly associated with what the British media dubbed the “Angry Young Men” movement of working-class writers disenchanted with the traditional British class system, continued writing until his death in 1986, though as of 2013, when Valancourt began republishing his novels, all his works were out of print.
About the Cover
ABOUT THE COVER
About the Cover: The cover is a reproduction of the original jacket art by George Salter (1897-1967) for the first U.S. edition, published in 1962 by Houghton Mifflin. A major figure in 20th-century American book design, Salter’s art for books such as Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, John Hersey’s The Wall, John Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer, and William Styron’s Lie Down in Darkness, among many others, remain iconic examples of mid-20th-century American book design.