"Alfred Grayson, recently widowed and lonely, buys a dog. Sheba gives him a passport to the diverse multi-racial community of dog-walkers and bench-sitters who meet in a down-at-heel London park. Here Grayson engages with the cunning Finbar, theatrical Arabella and her absurd tango-dancing sidekick, Harold Heyhoe, Jamaican Maryanne, tortured by her demons, Rastafarian Rootsman, old Uncle Nat from Sierra Leone, tattooed Judy and abandoned Lucy." "Grayson, originally from Barbados, has passed for white and kept his origins quiet during his civil service career, but two, in particular, of the relationships he makes in the park cause him to rethink his past." "In the park, characters, who would not otherwise meet, make unlikely alliances and feel able to expose various identities, or in Alfred's case begin to reconstruct one. Both park and characters have their times of wintry bleakness, shabbiness and moments of glorious display. For Alfred and Lucy there is even the hope that late flowering lust might bloom into lasting love."--BOOK JACKET.