Eva's apples

A nervy young man becomes romantically entangled with Eva and drifts through taxis, editorial anterooms, dances and salons while a varied cast — including Lord Ottercove, the triumphant Me-Too, troubled Zita, and émigré acquaintances such as Mrs. Kerr and Tamara Leonidovna — enact rivalries, humiliations and uneasy intimacies. The narrative threads alternate light comedy and melancholy, exploring insecurity, social pretence, and doubts about sanity and identity. Presented as linked episodes and vignettes, the work exposes shifting alliances, unspoken tensions, and the delicate commerce of attraction within a milieu of nightlife, gossip and personal disappointment.