Jean Rhys

Voyage in the Dark

1934. Penguin Classics, 2000.

Sometimes it was hot that summer...I had been sitting out on Primrose Hill. There were swarms of children there. Just behind my chair a big boy and a little one were playing with a rope. The little one was being tied up elaborately, so that he couldn't move his arms or legs. When the big one gave him a push he fell flat. He lay on the ground, still laughing for a second. Then his face changed and he started to cry. The big boy kicked him - not hard. He yelled louder. "Nah then," the big one said. He got ready to kick him again. But then he saw I was watching. He grinned and undid the rope

Anna is in a troubled relationship with her wealthy lover, and despondent about the future: 'When it was sad was when you woke up at night and thought about being alone and that everybody says the man's bound to get tired.' Primrose Hill does not offer much consolation.

There was no sun, but the air was used-up and dead, dirty-warm, as if thousands of other people had breathed it before you...After a bit I went home and had a cold bath