But Who Knows Their Own Child? You

The Days Of Our Lives Vanish Utterly, More Insubstantial Than If They Had Been Invented. Fiction Can Seem More Enduring Than Reality.

I Do Like To Embed A Fictional Character Firmly In An Occupation.

The Place Didn't Look The Same But It Felt The Same; Sensations Clutched And Transformed Me. I Stood Outside Some Concrete And Plate-glass Tower-block, Picked A Handful Of Eucalyptus Leaves From A Branch, Crushed Them In My Hand, Smelt, And Tears Came To My Eyes. Sixty-seven-year-old Claudia, On A Pavement Awash With Packaged American Matrons, Crying Not In Grief But In Wonder That Nothing Is Ever Lost, That Everything Can Be Retrieved, That A Lifetime Is Not Linear But Instant. That, Inside The Head, Everything Happens At Once.

I'm Now An Agnostic But I Grew Up On The King James Version, Which I'm Eternally Grateful For.

I'm Intrigued By The Way In Which Physical Appearance Can Often Direct A Person's Life; Things Happen Differently For A Beautiful Woman Than For A Plain One.