Me on the verge of being Sultan'd Nanna Ak, dressed in her dinner lady's shallows-blue tabard, would read all day. Beside the gas fire; slurping humbugs; tweaking, smoothing and sifting her hair, seams and hems. Finishing one library book, she would immediately take another off the pile in the grate. Lots of pink on the book covers - mainly fondant, some rose, occasionally hot when, as she explained, 'The setting's off an aeroplane, all over some water, exotic.' She knew she would like a book if she turned to page seventy-six to find, say, a sultan and Moreland nanny having their first kiss. 'Listen to this, now,' she would sigh, '"The sultan's eyes were like ...
Just a flaneur, flanning away.