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The tree at Y’s front gates has apples on it. They are as startlingly abundant as the white blossom was, yet they are round and hard and heavy, the pregnancy after the white bridal whirl of romance. Y wants to know where my cruelty comes from and why I am so wedded to it. Cruelty is an aspect of ci…

I rent somewhere to stay near a riding school where they will ride every day. I drive west, through unfamiliar hills. I am shaking with nerves; in fact, I can’t remember what it feels like to be at ease. This ceaseless effort to manufacture normality is a kind of forger’s art, so laborious compared…

Once, perhaps, their differences had invigorated them, but as time passed they seemed to find something more troubling in them, something whose deadliness became ever more apparent as they themselves neared death. It was as though, in old age, they were coming to the realisation that because of one…

But it’s a bad day, the day on which I meet J. Things are difficult; it’s hard to talk about anything else. I can talk to J without anxiety. She knows my life and I know hers: our talk is the talk of episodes; the story itself never needs to be explained. All the same I feel guilty. The drama of my…

Her silence is portentous, smooth and sealed.