The events in this story take place one Friday in March
and concern the residents of four houses in Moreland
Road in Bath. Their lives change when a mail van
catches fire and four letters are destroyed.
One of the people is a seventeen-year-old schoolboy
called Jason, who lives with his mother. His father left
twelve years before. Jason loves a girl called Maria
whom he has grown up with. On this particular
Friday night, he goes round to her house and finds out
that she is in love with a French boy she met earlier.
She is going to study in Paris the following autumn.
Jason is devastated by the news and spends the night
wandering around on his own. Eventually he shelters
from the rain in a mail van, where he falls asleep with
a lit cigarette in his hand. After he gets out of the van,
it catches fire. In the burnt mail sack is the letter from
art college offering Jason a place for the following
September. The letter asks him to reply immediately if
he wants to accept the place. He never finds this out.
He spends the next year doing odd jobs until he can
take up his place. In the meantime, he gets to know his
father, who has come back into their life.