Ordinary People: Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019

There was a picture of them both with the children on the shelf above the television that he was trying not to look at.

the way she ate a doughnut, as if she were not eating a doughnut, whereas when Stephanie ate a doughnut she looked as if she was eating a doughnut.

Standing by the window, he was aware of the street below and the darkness of it, thick with vengeance and violence.

This is what happens to a man who was made for a great love and not a suit when he does not feel the love. He closes in. He becomes weary. On the bus he looked out of the top-deck windows and saw less of life and felt less sturdy, less sexy, less rich. He was beginning to forget his magnificence. A darkness was coming down over his face like the pu

Michael poured himself a drink, still knowing this kitchen, inhabiting it. Every so often he moved past her and touched her gently, almost subconsciously, in the small of her back. She realised that she missed him doing that, the possibility of him doing it.

He couldn’t seem to stop the flow of his thoughts to his mouth.

‘What you sayin’,’ Michael said, and Damian replied also with a question, ‘What’s up,’ neither of which were answered strictly and thus do not require question marks.

Nutella, the spread of holidays, a chocolated knife lying across the upturned lid, brioche, croissant crumbs and a carton of orange juice, all gently congealing beneath the shade of a dirty Heineken parasol.

there are people who touch, who should not touch, and once they touch, all their talking is ruined. That is how it was.