P.D. James

Innocent Blood

1980. Faber & Faber paperback, 2000.

The canal, rich and sluggish as treacle, slipped undisturbed under the low bridges and seeped into the moist fringes of the bank...The air was rich with a rank river smell overlaid with loamy earth and spiced with the drifting scent of lawn cuttings and roses from the high gardens above the canal. The birds were silent now, except for the occasional distant cry, plaintive and alien, from the zoo aviary.

Philippa and her mother, a child-murderer now out on parole, have come to throw a suitcase full of prison clothes into the canal. 'The case rose slowly, slid along the greasy surface of the water, then reared itself like a sinking ship, toppled and was gone'. A few weeks later they are recognized by the child's father in Queen Mary's Rose Garden, where they have come after a church service.

Time To Be In Earnest

Faber & Faber, 1999.

In this autobiography the author describes walking in the park with her daughter, also after a church service, in March 1998.

At the restaurant 'we had a light lunch sitting outside. Although the sun was fitful, the air was warm and moist. Just to breathe, particularly in this green and flower-scented place, was a sensual pleasure'. Comparing the park with St. James's Park she finds it 'more formally splendid' but 'less intimate'; its visitors are 'intent on going somewhere, pausing less often than in other parks to sniff, touch and wonder'.