“The Tribute” by Jane Gardam (1980)

John McGahern and Annie Proulx are among my favourite authors, but to dispel

gloom I choose this story from Jane Gardam’s 1980 collection The Sidmouth

Letters. Reading this gleeful story in my expatriate days, I recognised the cast of

“diplomatic wives”, trailing inebriate husbands through the ruins of empire. Mostly

dialogue, it is a deft, witty tale in which a small kindness – though not by a

diplomatic wife – pays off 40 years later. I must have read it a dozen times, to see

how its note is sustained and the surprise is sprung; every time it makes me smile

with delight. Hilary Mantel