The Diplomat’s Wife

Начало книги

‘Mean bastard!’ Phil muttered as he reread the first page of what had over the last six months become his favourite book:

He pitched the already tatty paperback on to the floor next to his bed and stared down at the cover. The words Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to Europe stood proud above an enticing red rucksack with bulges containing maps, a sleeping bag and clever survival tools, its fabric scattered with colourful stickers that were almost legible.

He glanced across the floor at his own brand-new rucksack, green, with a small Union Jack poorly sewn on to its centre.

This had been Phil’s bedroom since the age of four. He was a bit of a hoarder, and a sucker for teenage nostalgia of lost childhood. He liked the random objects which traced his life dotted around the room: a Matchbox Ford Zephyr, a platoon of plastic Afrika Korps soldiers, an Airfix model of HMS Victory. Arsenal’s Liam Brady crossed a football from one wall towards the stick figures of Lowry’s satanic mills on the other. Phil’s bookshelf traced a similar path, beginning with Enid Blyton, Arthur Ransome and Biggles, moving through a row of war comics, on to Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, John le Carré and Georges Simenon.

Читать дальше →