Sublime

crags

Before what? Lucy wants to ask, but she can’t bring herself to intrude on the other woman’s memories, her grief.

bear

Viola imposed upon her lover but a short probation. They were married, as was becoming, with great privacy, – almost with secrecy, – in the hope perhaps, as was waggishly remarked at the time, that the late Mrs Lloyd wouldn’t hear of it.

‘Can’t you do something more socially responsible?’ her mother used to ask, when Lucy spoke of her admiration for Nellie Bly and Veronica Guerin, for Christiane Amanpour and Susan Sontag.

earliest

the stench of the prison deck, the yeast and blood and sweat. A female smell. Mary liked to imagine it as a sort of force, a power in and of itself. A protective circle.

sophistical.