AustLit

'So, there we were, for the last time again, looking at the menu which I don’t think they had in the old days, I’m sure if there had been a menu I’d have written about it, about someone sitting there, fingering it, fiddling with it, turning it over and reading aloud from it, written that for something to begin with before getting going properly. We sat there down at the back, so we could see the whole length down to the glass front and open door, see people coming in and sitting sipping their coffees or cokes, and going out, and others coming. And three years ago, then it had been new; it had just been redecorated then, given a smooth sliding surface. They’d done that well; still it showed no marks of the time, no furrows of the years.'   (Introduction)