Dispatch from the Desk: the Home Stretch

Suddenly, the end is in sight. A few days’ work, if only life didn’t present all these other demands to get in the way. In the periods when the mind gives out in exhaustion I’ve been browsing in old favourite mysteries and reading wistfully of the days when authors, on the strength of a hundred pounds advance, got married to a fellow-novelist, took a house, and had “a girl” to do the cooking and cleaning. I so, so want a girl to do the cooking and cleaning. Or a boy. I’m not fussy. Equal opportunity in the servant’s hall, that’s what I say.