She Glanced Across To Where Tilly And

You Can Live Your Whole Life Not Realizing That What You're Looking For Is Right In Front Of You.

I Worry Sometimes That I'm A Bit Moralistic; Always Writing About Men Who Are Learning To Grow Up, Not Be So Self-absorbed, Selfish Or Badly Behaved. I Wonder If That's Dull And Liberal And Wimpy? I Should Probably Write Something That Celebrates Wickedness.

At University, I Used To Write Silly Little Sketches And Monologues, But Never Fiction.

The Future Rose Up Ahead Of Her, A Succession Of Empty Days, Each More Daunting And Unknowable Than The One Before Her.

Occasionally, Very Occasionally, Say At Four O’clock In The Afternoon On A Wet Sunday, She Feels Panic-stricken And Almost Breathless With Loneliness. Once Or Twice She Has Been Known To Pick Up The Phone To Check That It Isn’t Broken. Sometimes She Thinks How Nice It Would Be To Be Woken By A Call In The Night: ‘get In A Taxi Now’ Or ‘i Need To See You, We Need To Talk’. But At The Best Of Times She Feels Like A Character In A Muriel Spark Novel – Independent, Bookish, Sharp-minded, Secretly Romantic.