Cockfosters holds a mirror up to the way we live -- the old, comfortable friendships and small, slight connections we make with the people we pass. From the middle-aged school friends on an unplanned journey to the end of the Piccadilly Line to the recipe written to a daughter on the verge of adulthood, Helen Simpson writes with great warmth, wit and candour about the complexities of modern life.      Her previous collections have been compared to Flannery O'Connor and Alice Munro, and Verticals and Horizontals is yet another masterpiece -- sly on gender, dazzling on love, and interwoven with the skill we have come to expect from one of our greatest authors.