“Flappin’ their gums and wavin’ their hands in the air.” He performed a quick skit, the sort of exaggerated performance that even Kenneth Williams might have thought over the top, before marching off and leaving me to tidy the mess he’d created. “You’ll have them all in now, I suppose,” he continued, throwing it back where he’d found it and unsettling the display. “I think it’s about more than that,” I said. I glanced up at him, my hackles already raised.
He held it away from himself as if whatever was inside those pages might be catching. “So that’s the book they’re all talking about,” he said to me, lifting a copy and reading the blurb on the inside jacket.
