So Late in the Day: Stories of Men and Women

by Claire Keegan

That was the problem with women falling out of love; the veil of romance fell away from their eyes, and they looked in and could read you.

‘You know what is at the heart of misogyny? When it comes down to it?’ ‘So I’m a misogynist now?’ ‘It’s simply about not giving,’ she said. ‘Whether it’s believing you should not give us the vote or not give help with the dishes – it’s all clitched onto the same wagon.’

Then a line from something he’d read somewhere came to him, to do with endings: about how, if things have not ended badly, that they have not ended.