Hitting Trees with Sticks

A gifted young textile designer leaves Britain to work for a Nigerian women’s refuge, confident in the conviction that this is her one chance to make a difference; a 16-year-old accepts a low-paying job as a window-cleaner for the opportunity it affords him to peer into other people’s lives, and carefully plan his own; and a leading scientist risks his career by taking a secret lover back to his house one night, driven by a passion to share his new theory. The characters in this short story...