Tea at the Midland, By David Constantine. Comma Press, £9.99

The title story of Tea at the Midland is very short but gives us all we need to know about an adulterous couple in the process of breaking up. They sit beside a plate-glass window in the restaurant of the Midland Hotel. Isolated from the ferociously windy day outside, the sky "torn and holed by the wind", their urgent and bitter talk contrasts with the sheer physical joy and freedom of the wind surfers on the sea. In miniature, the story encapsulates the themes that distinguish David Constantine's fourth collection of stories.






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