This is The Writer's Voice, New Fiction from the New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writers's voice, we'll hear

Tessa Hadley read her story Vincent's Party from the July 1st 2024 issue of

the magazine. Hadley has published 12 books of fiction, including the novel Free Love, and the story collections, bad dreams, and after the funeral, which came out last year.

She's a winner of the 2016 Wyndham Campbell Literature Prize.

Now here's Tessa Hadley.

Vincent's Party

The party was in full swing. Evelyn could hear the sexy blair of the Trad Jazz almost as soon as she got off the, sent Mary Redcliffe and began walking over to the steam packet,

the pub that Vincent, who was a friend of Evelyn's older sister Moira, had commandeared for the evening. He decided that they all needed a party to cheer

them up because the winter had been so bitter and because now in February the incessant rain

had turned the snow to slush. It was raining again this evening.

The bus's wiper had beat its numb rhythm all the way into town. The pavements were dark and the gutters ran with water.

Frozen filthy formless lumps, the remainder of the snow, persisted at the street

corners and in the deep recesses between buildings loomed sinisterly in the gaping bomb sites.

Crossing the road, Evelyn had to put up her umbrella.

Actually, her mother's worn old green

umbrella with the broken rib and the duck's head handle which she'd borrowed without

asking on her way out because she'd lost her own somewhere. Probably she'd get into trouble for

this tomorrow but she didn't care. She was too full of agitated happiness.

Anything could

be now and tomorrow. Evelyn couldn't believe her luck that she was going to an actual party

...