Early one morning in London – on Boxing Day – a minicab driver and his customer discover they have much in common. They are of a certain age, came to Britain at about the same time, in their teens, lived in the same street in Kilburn in the 1950s and together can boast 100 years’ residence here.

In lifestyle and expectation they seem to live in different Englands. One struggles with the language, the other teaches it and writes books. But the second is seeking to establish a new home in ‘Europe’, while the first dreams of returning to Jamaica. Over two days of adult truancy they discover the divergences that have accompanied their overlapping histories, as they flatter, argue, undermine and adopt each other. What next?

Born in 1939, E.A. Markham has lived mainly in Britain and Europe since the mid-1950s. He has published a campus novel, three collections of short stories, a travel book and seven collections of poems, the most recent of which, `A Rough Climate’, was shortlisted for the 2002 T.S. Eliot Prize. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University.