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Of all things, Alex and Lydia had this in common – the loss of Zachary; there was some literal, physical sense in which their lovemaking assuaged their loss. Lydia was generous with herself, with her body – Alex took possession of her greedily, overwhelmed by the release and the relief of the sweet…

[...] She was more used to her mother’s writing on shopping lists or birthday cards, or in contained, funny little postcard messages from holidays abroad. It was excruciating for her to see this turmoil exposed, garrulous and banally confessional as a teenager’s: like a mature person falling down i…

Isobel, softening, said she couldn’t imagine how bad Lydia must be feeling. Christine could imagine it. She knew Lydia better than Alex ever would or could, she thought; Lydia would always be performing for him. — She tells herself it was fated, it was bound to happen. And also that passion is alwa…

— Something’s always lost though. Even in the end of the Cold War.

— Nothing good was lost! Really, was it?

He thought about it. — Something crabbed and cobwebby and disenchanted. I hated that crabbed thing in my father. Yet it was also very ambitious, very purely intellectual. We may come to…

[...] A young woman, blonde, wearing a leather skirt and a white ribbed jumper tight over her breasts, was standing alone at the bar drinking coffee, her light mac folded over her arm because the night was warm. The bartender didn’t seem to know her. Perhaps she was a prostitute; Alex wasn’t confid…