Jean Rhys’ second novel, set in Paris and London, follows Julia Martin, aged 36, after she splits from her lover Mr Mackenzie.

The cinema as in other Jean Rhys fiction (see Lisa Stead on Voyage in the Dark) is somewhere – like cafes, hotels, restaurants – for her protagonists to spend time and there are numerous references to cinema-going throughout the novel.

In the extract below, she has left Mr Mackenzie in a Paris café after he has cancelled the allowance he has been paying her. She is befriended by George Horsfield, who buys her a drink and takes her to the cinema.