Alan Taylor, an experienced journalist, one day interviewed Muriel Spark in a hotel near Arezzo and became an immediate friend of hers. The same thing happened to me, with the difference that Taylor flew in from Scotland and I drove over from Florence. Oliveto is a picturesque Tuscan hilltop town not far from Arezzo, and a dusty track snaked away through olive orchards to a rather ramshackle casa colonica with a large BMW on the grass in front of it. The house belonged to Penelope (Penny, normally) Jardine and the car to Muriel.

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