And also, does that suggest that you start with an idea of a sort of large, unformed mass and that you hope, believe that somewhere in that mass is going to be a story? Is that remotely the process?

Gosh, it is, yes.

I mean, that's very good.

Most of my novels have sprung from a concept, an idea, as it were, The operation of memory, I've always been fascinated by the way in which memory works, the way in which memory is not linear.

We don't have a line of memory.

We have, as it were, a sort of pack of cards which pop up in a kind of random way.

And that certainly very much informed Moon Tiger.

What's the most important thing about gardening for you?