Low life | 10 March 2016

Nice airport was more or less deserted. Two-and-a-half hours early for the easyJet flight to Gatwick, I had a leisurely cup of tea and a bun at a café kiosk before going through security, sharing a counter with a couple of young gay Frenchmen who were bickering respectfully over the timing of some future arrangement.

I took out my 99p 1987 charity-shop paperback, Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse by Patrick Hamilton, and began to read. I love Patrick Hamilton’s novels, but until that moment hadn’t bothered to try the later ones, which he wrote when his alcoholism had taken a grip and he couldn’t get out of bed, as they are generally considered to be disappointingly bad. But for 99p I thought I may as well see for myself, and I read hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

The first sentence was: ‘There are, clearly, in England and all over the world, countless Colonels with hard-working, valiant and enchanting characters.’ There followed a page of desiccated jollity about how Colonels, especially retired Colonels, have such a terrible reputation for being ‘peppery’ or ‘choleric’ that saintly Colonels living meekly in boarding houses are unfairly tarred with the same brush. I imagined the tremulous, ill, disillusioned Marxist propped up on pillows, the first of his three whisky bottles within easy reach, determined to produce something. (The final novel of the Gorse trilogy was dictated drunk.)

The gay couple picked up their luggage and sauntered off still arguing. Then I, too, hoisted my bag on to my back and went up the escalator and into the security-check hall. I was the only customer. I forgot to take my toiletries out of my bag and put them in the tray, but the bag passed through the scanner without comment.