Transcription

by Kate Atkinson

prepared somewhere up the road, to satisfy the need for pomp and circumstance.

There was a better life somewhere, Juliet supposed, if only she could be bothered to find it.

It was a thread in the labyrinth, one that she could follow back to the world before the war, to her self before the war.

there was no metaphor too ostentatious for grief.

Inside each pearl there was a little piece of grit. That was the true self of the pearl, wasn’t it? The beauty of the pearl was just the poor oyster trying to protect itself. From the grit. From the truth.

wasn’t artistic endeavour the final refuge of the uncommitted?

A girl could die of old age following a metaphor like this, Juliet thought.

The war had thrown up plenty of unpaid debts – why should she be the one being presented with the bill?

Talking of Yanks – shall we have a drink in the American Bar? I believe the sun is below the yardarm.’ ‘It’s nowhere near.’ ‘Yes, but it is somewhere,’ Hartley said. ‘Moscow, say.’