Quartet in Autumn

by Barbara Pym

Somebody had reached out towards her. They could have spoken and a link might have been forged between two solitary people.

Now he had all the freedom that loneliness brings

‘Some of us at the Centre have been worrying about the lonely ones.’ Could she really have prepared that sentence, for this was what came out.

‘I can never understand why people have to leave their homes the way they do,’ said Marcia. ‘When you’re older you don’t really need holidays.’

Oh God, I sometimes think this myself!

her own blend of Christianity – a grey, formal, respectable thing of measured observances and mild general undemanding kindness

people weren’t necessarily rewarding, one just had to plod on.

‘How will you spend the rest of the holiday?’ Priscilla asked, as if she were determined to punish herself further.

The hymns chosen were ‘He who would valiant be’, and another with modern words that might seem to have been specially written so as not to offend the most militant agnostic or atheist, set to a tune that nobody seemed to know.

‘What are you going to do when you retire?’ people had asked her, some in a genuine spirit of enquiry, others with ghoulish curiosity.

the comfortable assumption of so much that could be left to the women.

there was really no suitable time to ring people in the evening now that television had been invented,

What was it about the French, or the idea of the French? Surely now that we were a part of the EEC things would be different, attitudes would change?

I wouldn't count on it.