Stop Press (2012)
“Though the room was large it failed quite to hold the party, or perhaps quite to fit it. The furniture was not excessive, but it seemed to be disposed in lines and masses which resented and subtly resisted the unfamiliar rhythms and manoeuvres around it. At Rust one grew up with the knowledge that the only wall-space that could be found for great-uncle Richard’s moose was some five feet from the floor; as a result one never caught one’s hair in its antlers or got jabbed in the nape of the neck.... Though interest in Timmy’s enormous collection of butterflies was entirely a thing of the past, the show-case in which it reposed still stood in the place of honour to which it had been promoted ten years before. It was unnecessary to remove it; everybody knew that since the historic scrap which its owner had fought with a visiting cousin at the age of fifteen it was a treacherous article on which to lean. And everyone was aware that the cushions on the window-seats squeaked loudly when one stood up; this was no longer the glorious Christmas novelty it had once been; it was no longer even a mild joke, but simply the way in which cushions in window-seats naturally behave.MoreLess
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