Sacked from his job but maintaining the fiction of work, sixty year old Matthew encounters an old friend as he whiles away an afternoon at Tate Modern.

Anna, it's the girl - well, woman now - he fell for in 1967. The girl who asked him to go to Europe with her, the one who got away.

But Matthew isn't sure that he should level with her and confess that they have met before. Maybe he deserves a bit of inside information. He also deserves a glass of wine.

As Matthew contemplates the unending horrors of retirement, his mind lures him back to a past when the future he was gambling on seemed full of promise and excitement.

Jim Powell's short novel is a miniature tragi-comedy, blending elements of King Lear and Reggie Perrin. Mordant wit accompanies a spiralling mania with flashes of brilliant perception. Love and hope battle with a fear of change and the perilous appeal of an ending.

Author : Jim Powell
Reader : Toby Jones
Abridged and produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4. Show less