The lemon table

Among the Chinese the lemon is the symbol of death. At the 'lemon table' it is permissible - indeed obligatory - to talk about death, and each of Barnes' characters is facing death, but each in a very different way. The settings range from eighteenth-century Sweden and nineteenth-century Russia to the 'Barnet Shop', a hairdessing salon where an old man measures out his life in haircuts, or a South Bank concert hall where a music lover carries out an obsessive campaign against those who cough in concerts. In 'Knowing French' an eighty-four-year old woman, a former teacher 'incarcerated' in an old people's home, begins a correspondence with an author - 'Dear Dr Barnes' - that enriches both their lives. In 'Appetite' a woman reads elaborate recipes to her sick husband as a substitute for sex. In 'Hygiene' an old soldier makes his regular trip to town to do errands for his wife - stilton from Paxton's, rubber rings for Kilner jars, Elizabeth Arden powder - and to spend the afternoon with a tart called Babs.