When Will There Be Good News? (Jackson Brodie, #3)

by Kate Atkinson

“Women cook food because people need to eat,” Dr. Hunter said. “Men cook to show off.”

Life was easier if you were an unimaginative pragmatist, a happy idiot.

For the first time in her life she had relinquished control. And what did that do to you? It sent you completely off balance, that’s what it did.

She was a woman, so, technically speaking, she could do anything.

All her life she had been fighting.

Love wasn’t sweet and light, it was visceral and overpowering. Love wasn’t patient, love wasn’t kind. Love was ferocious, love knew how to play dirty.

Somewhere, in some Utopian nowhere, women walked without fear. Louise would sure like to see that place. Give medals to all the women.

Sometimes women got lost right there in plain sight.

“Good save,” he murmured. He was so English. A different class of person from Louise. Louise had a knee-jerk reaction to the accent of a dominant culture. It was funny how sometimes you could realize you were all alone in a roomful of people. Well, four people, one of whom was you. Stranger in a strange land, a Ruth amongst an alien middle-class corn.

“Don’t worry, I’ll look after Patrick,” Bridget said, and Louise—in-law to outlaw at the flick of a switch—growled, “I’m not worried, he’s fifty-two years old, he can look after himself.” The bitch was out.