The Collected Stories of Muriel Spark<\/em>, originally published in the late 1950s, early 1960s.<\/p>\nThe title one is a cracker with a real sting in its tail. Narrated by \u2018Needle\u2019, an epithet gained from an incident in childhood where playing in a haystack with friends George, Kathleen and Skinny, the protagonist finds and is pricked by a needle! Whether said sharp was an actual needle or just something capable of puncturing the skin is never told \u2013 I went with the latter \u2013 but the nickname stuck. <\/p>\n
Years later she is mooching about the Portobello Road market stalls when she sees her old friends George and Kathleen, and she says hallo. . .<\/p>\n
\u2018Look!\u2019 said George. \u2018Look who\u2019s there, over beside the fruit stall.\u2019
Kathleen looked but didn\u2019t see.
\u2018Who is it?\u2019 she said impatiently.
\u2018It\u2019s Needle,\u2019 he said. \u2018She said, \u201cHallo George.\u201d \u2018
\u2018Needle<\/strong>,\u2019 said Kathleen. \u2018Who do you mean? You don\u2019t mean our old friend Needle<\/strong> who. . . \u2018
\u2018Yes. There she is. My God!\u2019
He looked very ill, although when I had said, \u2018Hallo George\u2019, I had spoken friendly enough.
\u2018I don\u2019t see anyone faintly resembling poor Needle,\u2019 said Kathleen looking at him. She was worried.
George pointed straight at me. \u2018Look there<\/strong>. I tell you that is Needle.\u2019
\u2018You\u2019re ill, George. Heavens, you must be seeing things. Come on home. Needle isn\u2019t there. You know as well as I do. Needle is dead.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\nThat\u2019s all you need to know really. Needle tells her story of how the friends split into two couples, and she went off to Africa with Skinny, returning to England after he died, and then something happened\u2026 Classic Spark with great characterisation of Needle and George \u2013 and a nice sting in the tale. <\/p>\n
The middle two stories, Bang, Bang You\u2019re Dead<\/em> and The Seraph and the Zambesi<\/em> didn\u2019t grab me as much. In the former, a woman watches reels of film made during her childhood with an audience, and the truth is rather different to what\u2019s on screen; the latter is set in Africa and involves a Nativity and an angel!<\/p>\nThe final of the foursome, The Dragon<\/em>, was another classic though, and could easily have been the inspiration for the movie Phantom Thread<\/em> with Daniel Day Lewis as the designer obsessed with his craft. It concerns an exclusive dress designer, and the assistant she employs to maintain her privacy \u2013 to be her dragon, so to speak. And when the dragon rather takes over, something must be done . . . Loved it.<\/p>\n
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