AN urban boy falls in love with a rural girl and they set up home near Wimbledon Common.

Here their idyll begins to fall apart. She mocks his job and, when two young men move in next door, they are drawn into the relationship. It seems valid only when conducted through an alcoholic haze or in front of others.

Soon the stresses of daily life begin to reveal themselves in nightmares with the narrator pursuing his girlfriend through an enchanted forest. Can he rescue her? Beguiling and claustrophobic.

Frances Perkins