I’ve had a blitz on Jean Rhys. Not “Wild Sargasso Sea” but her collected short stories and her interwar novels: “Quartet”, “After Leaving Mr Mackenzie” and “Good Morning, Midnight”. It was reading Ford Madox Ford that prompted me.

The narrative voice in the novels doesn’t vary much and really does qualify for its own term, “Rhysian”. Despite ranging from the Caribbean to Vienna via Paris and London (Tottenham Court Road is a landmark), her world is quite small. Even Jane Austen’s “little piece of ivory” exceeds Rhys’s. She’s very insightful on being English but (having grown up in Dominica) not being seen as English by the English. She is an eternal, rejected outsider. The events of these stories – or a version of them – largely happened to Rhys, but the narratives are viewed through an increasing detached authorial lens. A woman – or, rather, three separate women – moves further and further into a spiral of drink, grotty hotel rooms and men to support her.

With decreasing success. I highlighted all of this passage just to remember the flavour of her stark prose.

We cross the road unsteadily and stand under a sickly town-tree waiting to signal a taxi. I start to giggle. He runs his hand up and down my arm.

I say: ‘Do you know what’s really the matter with me? I’m hungry. I’ve had hardly anything to eat for three weeks.’

‘Comment?’ he says, snatching his hand. ‘What’s this you’re relating?’

‘C’est vrai,’ I say, giggling still more loudly. ‘It’s quite true. I’ve had nothing to eat for three weeks.’ (Exaggerating, as usual.)

At this moment a taxi draws up. Without a word he gets into it, bangs the door and drives off, leaving me standing there on the pavement.

And did I mind? Not at all, not at all. If you think I minded, then you’ve never lived like that, plunged in a dream, when all the faces are masks and only the trees are alive and you can almost see the strings that are pulling the puppets. Close-up of human nature – isn’t it worth something?

l expect that man thought Fate was conspiring against him – what with his girl’s shoes and me wanting food. But there you are, if you’re determined to get people on the cheap, you shouldn’t be so surprised when they pitch you their own little story of misery sometimes.

*

In the middle of the night you wake up. You start to cry. What’s happening to me? Oh, my life, oh, my youth . . .

There’s some wine left in the bottle. You drink it. The clock ticks. Sleep . . .

That’s fairly typical, I think. Downbeat, sordid, melancholy, cynical – but so fascinating. Vulnerable and razor-sharp at the same time: you wonder how long it took – and how many tears were shed – for Rhys to hone that edge.

And now I want to go to Paris (and think of Tottenham Court Road while walking down the rue de Rennes)!