I hadn’t told Dom about the incident on the path. I didn’t want him questioning my rationality. Privately though, I’d been thinking a lot about the objects we’d chosen to surround ourselves with: the chipped plates and bowls; the second hand mirrors and scratched paintings; the crazed broken statues. The way they spoke of a history that didn’t belong to us, even in their inanimate state; the way they blurred the distinction between the living and the dead.
From The Lantern
At Les Genévriers, the imaginary version of our property, the garden is enhanced by old stone statues, lichen-encrusted and decrepit. No such artefacts are there in real life – such is the fun of literary invention! But, as always, the life of the novel is inspired by reality, and here are two of the figures that provided the images for those scenes: Ceres and the Water-Carrier.
Actually, I’m not going to tell you exactly where they are. But if you watch The TV Book Club, starting tomorrow on More 4 at 7.30pm (repeated on Saturday, July 2 at 1.20pm on Channel 4) I’m pretty sure that they will be in shot…
