Diane Williams

He’d never quite seen anyone in that state before, even though he has a mother and all that.

Today Lizzie is, he thinks, irresistibly plaintive.

Then the doorbell jerked the husband to his feet.

Does Lizzie live here?

Who are you?

Where did she go? Where did Lizzie go?

Who wants to know?

Lizzie meant to answer hurriedly and hotly, but nevertheless stayed hidden.

Around here real and imaginary...

I had had enough of everything during what I took to be my turn.

‘Can I just pet it,’ I said, when Tim and I were in bed, ‘instead of my taking it inside?’ But Tim said no.

And then, at the task, he pulled himself back and forth inside of me with many repetitions, enough to get to the next step for him – to stabilise the project. He was cramming rather a lot into...

How best to touch these woody objects or a person?     She batted together the parts of the sycamore stick she had broken in two and then made of them the self-important capital letter T – and she spun one.     She rolled the stick over her thumb and then she tried for greater twirling speed, as she sat on the park bench that bore a personalised inscribed...

The bird’s voice was such a thick voice – it could never have been carried away by the high wind. It was a passionate voice that might have answered the question, ‘What am I living for?’ – had there only been words to accompany it.

And I did get to see the bird out on a limb, opening and closing its mouth, its breast pulsing.

Ruby had said, There is the bird that is...

I was able to get Harriet Mounce to shriek and I think I must have thought any shriek would do.

When she first stood there naked, I remember she was solemn or she looked annoyed or was she really pained? But she did seem to like me. The cues – she had really focused her eyes on me and she had smiled while on her haunches by the hearth a bit earlier.

Because she is a brunette, the sight of...