The Ticket Collector. Jane and Frank.

While I'm at it recommending things, here's one of Marc Barber's that I love:

It hasn't been read that often, and most of those times were by me, noir has it got a cherry - so this is by way of tipping anyone off who's casting about for a good read. I think I'd go so far as to say that this is my favourite piece on ABC.

I love stories that read like plays, and this one would work a treat on the stage, in my opinion. It's classic subtextual dialogue: here's Barry visiting Rose, but neither of them is interested in the other, only in their exes, Jane and Frank. So the scene is really about6 Jane and Frank, who aren't there.

Dialogue like this makes me laugh my head off:

‘My God, you’ll catch pneumonia. Step out of those clothes, you must be freezing sitting in the wet like that.’

She fetches a dressing gown. ‘This was Frank’s,’ she says, handing it to me.

I take the gown and go the bathroom and undress. I dry myself with a towel and put on the dressing gown. I look at my reflection in the mirror and see an F for Frank sewn onto the left breast. I drape my clothes over a radiator and leave the bathroom.

In the lounge, sitting in a chair, Rose asks if she can sit on my lap. I tell her yes. She fills both our glasses and sits across my legs.

‘Did Jane ever tell you about my suspicion that Frank was having an affair?’

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

And I admire how Marc shows Rose's drunkenness through speech rhythm alone. And makes Rose's Canary Wharf apartment visual without hardly describing anything.

A classic, as far as I'm concerned.

d.beswetherick.

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