These Years: 1986

Ruth Whitehead, now 25, returning to the States after a trip to Italy, stops off for a few nights in England to visit her English cousin, the artist Greg Adams. She has not seen him since his stay in Massachusetts thirteen years previously. Memories of the crush she had then developed on him now amuse her, but when back in his company she finds that her adolescent feelings are not entirely extinguished. His friendliness and obvious pleasure in seeing her again not only contrast with the palpable hostility of his disabled wife, but also shed an uncomfortable light on the state of her relationship with boyfriend Darren, awaiting her back in Boston.

The continuing effect on her later life of Ruth’s youthful crush is sensitively, and at times humorously, explored, and will be resumed in a third novella, These Years: 1991.