A story by one of the pre-Great War writers of horror (10 July, 12.45am) was read so marvellously by the actress Ruth Gemmell, it sounded as though she’d taken immense pains preparing, marking the text in different pens and doodles and directions – an aural latticework of minutely choreographed technical decisions.
The story, The Transfer, is about a child obsessed with a stretch of the garden in a smart country estate, an “ugly patch where nothing grew” beyond the rose bushes. Gemmell, with a hint of sourness, described it as a “bald, sore place, cracked with fissures”, and then increased the vocal pressure (only infinitesimally, none of this was blatant) when quoting the child on this peculiar corner of the garden: “It’s empty, it’s hungry.”
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