Ronald Frame

Some things belong to the past.

That__ what friends are for,_ Sheba

We were perfectly decorous together. It took the will of both of us. I trusted him with me, and myself with him.

At the age of nine, I could cross the length of Glasgow on a succession of buses, wearing regulation garter-topped stockings and compulsory cap and - if I'd done well enough to earn the honour in last week's test - with a First World War medal on a striped ribbon pinned to my brown blazer. I must have looked like a chocolate soldier.

Let's say I find a lot of current American fiction too overwritten for my tastes, too self-conscious; I like something that's simpler and more direct. The story is what matters to me. I hope to make it seem real to readers, as if it happened just like this - so I don't want fancy descriptions getting in the way.

Why d__ou think she did it?__ told him I had no idea. He seemed disappointed that I shouldn__ know.__ broken heart,_ I suggested.__o people suffer so much?___or love? Oh, I imagine so.___o drown herself?___hy does that astonish you? Dido threw herself on the flames.___n legend.___nd real life__ different?_ I asked.

Don__ we have to live a little first? And read later?

I__ not just a face, or a body. I__ a Havisham.

Experience can never be undone, or knowledge unlearned.