More First Lines . . . This Time as "Scene-Setters"

As a follow up to yesterday's post on my own first lines (see here) as well as last week's first line on Frederick Forsyth's first line of The Veteran, I offer two more. I inadvertently stumbled into a nest of short stories. Didn't mean to. I was looking forward to a nice, long, British, spy-thriller. I got a series of shorties.

Still, the first lines of each help illustrate exactly what I was writing about yesterday. In both of the below cases the first lines act as scene-setters. I like reading the way Forsyth is able to produce a fantastic word picture of exactly where the reader is finding themselves in the story.

THE ART OF THE MATTER 

The rain came down. It fell in a slowly moving wall upon Hyde Park and, borne by a light westerly wind, drifted in grey curtains of falling water across Park Lane and through the narrow park of plane trees that divides the northbound and southbound lanes. A wet and gloomy man stood under the leafless trees and watched. 

The entrance to the Grosvenor House Hotel ballroom was brightly lit by several arc lights and the endless glare of camera flashes. Inside was warm, snug and dry. Under the awning before the door was an area of only damp pavement and here the uniformed commissionaires stood, gleaming umbrellas at the ready, as the limousines swept up, one by one. 

As each rain-lashed car drew up by the awning one of the men would run forward to shield the descending star or film celebrity for the two-yard dash, head down, from car to awning. There they could straighten up, plaster on the practised smile and face the cameras. 

The paparazzi were either side of the awning, skin-wet, shielding their precious equipment as best they could. Their cries came across the road to the man under the trees.

Forsyth, Frederick - The Veteran

THE MIRACLE

The sun was a hammer in the sky. It beat down on the clustered roofs of the walled Tuscan city and the medieval tiles, some pink but mostly long baked to umber or ashen grey, shimmered in the heat. 

Shadows dark as night were cast along upper windows by the overhanging gutters; but where the sun could touch, the rendered walls and ancient bricks gleamed pale, and wooden sills cracked and peeled. In the deep and narrow cobbled alleys of the oldest quarter there were restful pools of further shade and here the occasional sleepy cat sought refuge. But of local humans there was no sign, for this was the day of the Palio. 

Down one such alley, lost in a maze of tiny cobbled ways, hardly wider than his own shoulders, the American tourist hurried, red as beef. Sweat trickled down to soak his short-sleeved cotton shirt, the tropical-weight jacket felt like a blanket dangling from his shoulder. Behind him his wife tottered painfully on unsuitable platform sandals. 

They had tried to book far too late for a hotel inside the city, in this of all seasons, and had finally settled for a room in Casole d’Elsa. The rented car had overheated on the road, they had eventually found a parking slot beyond the city walls and now scurried from the Porta Ovile towards their goal. 

They were soon lost in the labyrinth of alleys dating back five hundred years, stumbling on the hot cobbles, feet on fire. From time to time the Kansas cattleman cocked an ear towards the roar of the crowd and tried to head in that direction. His well-upholstered wife sought only to catch up and fan herself with a guidebook at the same time.

Forsyth, Frederick - The Veteran

I find it interesting that the first one is about rain coming down near Hyde Park, then the very next one is sun in Italy. The rain soaked start is for a revenge fantasy regarding a painting con. The sun is the first line for a story about a miracle. Forsyth is a good enough author where I think both of those are intentional.