James Runcie
Author of The Grantchester Mysteries
I met Lucy at a dinner party in the early 1980s. By the main course we were holding hands under the table. She told me she was about to go travelling in China. By the time we reached the pudding I told her that I would wait, and after a bit of late-night kissing (in which I was told that I tasted of ‘erotic raspberries’) she went home.
She phoned before she left. ‘When we sleep together it will be like a wedding night,’ she said. Then she added that her stepfather wanted to meet me. Even I thought this was a bit speedy, but I went to see him all the same. We talked about politics, the miners’ strike and the Cold War. The miners would be all right, he thought, since they all had video recorders and could spend their enforced leisure time watching films.
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