ABSTRACT
The sun blazed on Regent’s Buildings, making the rooms stuffy and close. The noise of footsteps, the clatter of people going up and down the steps, was clearer than usual – ‘parched’ Priscilla had once called the sounds. The mothers bundled their babies in shawls and gave them to the other babies to carry out of the flats into the streets. They opened their windows, and hung out bed-clothes and pieces of carpet to air. They shook the dust of weeks on to the heads of people passing below. The roar of the Euston Road came louder through the open windows. A brass-band was humorous somewhere near. The lark, hanging outside in the sun, shrilled of the skies.
