On A Change of Climate

Hilary Mantel, A Change of Climate - When she was thirteen or fourteen, she had made up her mind to go to a foreign country: preferably a distant one. Her idea was that she would say goodbye to her parents, and write to them twice a year. - - She wanted peace from her own thoughts, from their relentless, spinning nature. She realized that not once since she had been in prison had she prayed. It had not crossed her mind to do it. She looked into her heart, on this sixth morning of her imprisonment, and found a void...