“You may not sympathize with us but you don’t have to despise us. The cover isn’t meant to convince the SSP. If they started taking an interest in us no cover would protect us. They’d break us in ten minutes. We know that. The cover gives us a reason, an excuse for meeting regularly and in churches. We don’t publicize it. It’s there if anyone asks, if we need it.” Gascoigne said: “I know the prayers are called Collects. Do you know the one you asked me?” He wasn’t being accusatory, merely interested. Theo said: “I was brought up with the old Book. The church my mother took me to as a boy must
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You could teach a whole course on what is going on here. The lesson:
Never give a binary response to anyone trying to hijack a narrative. Keep the conversation sideways. Use it to place in more specificity.
It does two things at once: 1) creates a knowing defiance in the protagonist; 2) expands the world they are living in much beyond the borders of the plot
