Thursday Murders Club Quotes

In life you have to learn to count the good days. You have to tuck them in your pocket and carry them around with you. So I’m putting today in my pocket and I’m off to bed.

After a certain age, you can pretty much do whatever takes your fancy. No one tells you off, except for your doctors and your children.

You can have too much choice in this world. And when everyone has too much choice, it is also much harder to get chosen. And we all want to be chosen.

You always know when it’s your first time, don’t you? But you rarely know when it’s your final time.

It was a well-known fact that there were no calories in homemade cakes.

People without a sense of humor will never forgive you for being funny.

More women are murdering people these days,” says Joyce. “If you ignore the context, it is a real sign of progress.

It’s great to be the fastest runner, but not when you’re running in the wrong direction.

Many years ago, everybody here would wake early because there was much to do and only so many hours in the day. Now they wake early because there is much to do and only so many days left.

And if one is never lost in life, then clearly one has never traveled anywhere interesting.

...There are silly, proper tears now. I'll let them fall. If you don't cry sometimes, you'll end up crying all the time.

If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.

We all have a sob story, but we don't all go around killing people.

But, however much life teaches you that nothing lasts, it is still a shock when it disappears. When the man you love with every fibre starts returning to the stars, an atom at a time.

If murder were easy, none of us would survive Christmas.

Everyone wants to feel special, but nobody wants to feel different,

Some people love their children more than they love their partner,’ says Ibrahim, ‘and some people love their partner more than their children. And no one can ever admit to either thing.

Why diet at eighty-two?” says Joyce. “What’s a sausage roll going to do to you? Kill you? Well, join the queue.

He’s all the things that can go wrong with men if you leave them to their own devices.

Well, imagine if we only ever did what we were supposed to,

Always look where the action isn't, because that's where the action is.

The sun is up, the skies are blue, and murder is in the air

Donna has always been headstrong, always acted quickly and decisively. Which is a fine quality when you are right, but a liability when you are wrong. It’s great to be the fastest runner, but not when you’re running in the wrong direction.

People love to sleep, and yet they are so frightened of death.

Everyone who dies is alive. We call people "dead" because we need a word for it, but "dead" just means that time has stopped moving forward for that person? You understand? No one dies, not really.

I'm afraid I don't know WTF. I only discovered LOL from Joyce last week

Don’t get a small dog though, Joyce,’ says Ron. ‘Small dogs are like small men: always got a point to prove. Yapping it up, barking at cars.

I know the difference between alone and lonely,

I know from experience that grief rides alone.

There are scars, yes, but that at least means the bleeding has stopped.

because you know that getting out of a garden chair at our age is a military operation. Once you are in one, you can be in it for the day.

We complain about life so endlessly and so bitterly, and yet we cling to it so dearly? Surely that makes no sense?

Revenge is not a straight line, it’s a circle. It’s a grenade that goes off while you’re still in the room, and you can’t help but be caught in the blast.

God cries every time someone lies to a Canadian.

We think time travels forward, marches on in a straight line, and so we alongside it to keep up. Hurry, hurry, mustn't fall behind. But it doesn't, you see. Time just swirls around us. Every thing is always present. The things we've done, the people we've loved, the people we've hurt, they're all still here?

You are simply a little lost, Donna. And if one is never lost in life, then clearly one has never traveled anywhere interesting.

What is it about Christmas? Everything that’s wrong seems worse, and everything that’s right seems better.

If you don’t cry sometimes, you’ll end up crying all the time.

Very few things are so important you would risk your life for them, but all sorts of things are important enough to risk somebody else’s life.

I don’t know why we’re on this earth,” says Stephen. “Truly I don’t. But if I wanted to find the answer, I would begin with how much I love you.

If life ever seems too complicated, if you think no one can help, sometimes the right person to turn to is an eight-year-old.

You must die before your children, of course, because you have taught them to live without you. But not your dog.

I would never have therapy, because who wants to unravel all that knitting? Not wroth the risk, thank you. My daughter, Joanna, has a therapist, although you'd be hard-pressed to know why if you saw the size of her house.

It’s the people, in the end, isn’t it?” says Viktor. “It’s always the people. You can move halfway around the world to find your perfect life, move to Australia if you like, but it always comes down to the people you meet.

Day after day, mission after mission, ridding the world of evil? Waiting for the last devil to die? What a joke. New devils will always spring up, like daffodils in springtime.

You got to be careful with money. Don't let it be in charge.

People drift in and out of your life, and, when you are younger, you know you will see them again. But now every old friend is a miracle.

It was the perfect trip, and as far as Stephen was concerned, the whole weekend was one magical accident. And that's because he is the weather, and I am the weather forecaster. He believes in fate, while I am fate.

It was a community, and in Ibrahim's opinion that was how human beings were designed to live. At Coopers Chase, anytime you wanted to be alone, you would simply close your front door, and anytime you wanted to be with people, you would open it up again. If there was a better recipe for happiness than that, then Ibrahim was yet to hear it.

Was he a content man, doing the things he liked alone? Or was he a lonely man making the best out of what he had? Alone, or lonely?

Days of death are days when we weigh our relationship with love in our bare hands. Days when we remember what has gone, and fear what is to come. The joy love brings, and the price we pay. When we give thanks but also pray for mercy.

Thank you so much for reading The Thursday Mystery Club. Unless you haven’t read it yet and have just turned straight to the acknowledgments, which I accept is a possibility. You must live your life as you choose.

I have been Googling, but there’s not much out there. I got so desperate I even used Bing,

We are all gone in the blink of an eye, and there is nothing to do but live while you’re waiting.

You always know when it’s your first time, don’t you? But you rarely know when it’s your final time.

You know when you look into someone's eyes for the first time and the whole world breaks apart And you just think, "Of course, of course, this is what I've been waiting for all this time"?

At least I have discovered that online dating is not for me. You can have too much choice in this world. And when everyone has too much choice, it is also much harder to get chosen. And we all want to be chosen.

At one point he brushed my hand and there was electricity, but I think that was the combination of the deep carpet outside the restaurant and my new cardigan.

It was best to grab everything while you could. Who knows when your final swim might come, your final walk, your final kiss?

I’m involved about as much as I want to be with the Thursday Murder Club. If they can plant cocaine in someone’s cistern, I don’t want to think about what they’d do with my love life.

The real secret was that when they looked at each other, they each thought they had the better deal. But, however much life teaches you that nothing lasts, it is still a shock when it disappears. When the man you love with every fiber starts returning to the stars, an atom at a time.

Whatever they say about time healing, some things in life just break and can never be fixed.

And, by the by, Joanna solved the mystery of my private messages. She went into my account and searched all of them for me. She told me that if I didn't want to be sent an endless tide of photographs of men's genitals, I should really change my username. Needless to say, I haven't changed it.

So every day Elizabeth opens her diary to a date two weeks ahead and writes herself a question. And every day she answers a question she set herself two weeks ago. This is her early-warning system. This is her team of scientists poring over seismology graphs. If there is going to be an earthquake, Elizabeth will be the first to know about it.

They say that time softens the pain, but that’s a fairy tale. Who would ever love again if anyone actually told the truth? I’m afraid there are some days when I could still rip out my own heart and weep myself hollow for Gerry. Some days? Every day.

Our memories are no less real than whatever moment in which we happen to be living.

I would never have therapy, because who wants to unravel all that knitting?

Save your good luck for big things, and your bad luck for small things.

Love always finds a language.

When old friends die, you’re furious, because you’ve never quite finished what you were saying to them.

Would Ron like a team of officers rooting through his underwear?” “I don’t think anyone would like that,” says Ibrahim. “Least of all the officers.

So what do I do now?” “You climb the next mountain, of course.” “Oh, yeah, of course,” says Donna. Simple. “And what’s up the next mountain?” “Well, we don’t know, do we? It’s your mountain. No one’s ever climbed it before.” “And what if I don’t want to? What if I just want to go home and cry every night and pretend to everyone that everything’s okay?” “Then do that. Keep being scared, keep being lonely. And spend the next twenty years coming to see me, and I will keep telling you the same thing. Put your boots on and climb the next mountain. See what’s up there. Friends, promotions, babies. It’s your mountain.” “Will there be other mountains after that one?” “There will.

Of all the things to lose, to lose one's mind? Let them take a leg or a lung; let them take anything before they take that. Before you become "poor Rosemary" or "poor Frank," catching the last glimpses of the sun and seeing them for what they were. Before there were no more trips, no more games, no more Murder Clubs. Before there was no more you.

It is fine to say ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ It is admirable. But it no longer applies when you’re eighty. When you are eighty, whatever doesn’t kill you just ushers you through the next door, and the next door and the next, and all of these doors lock behind you.

I'm afraid I don't know WTF. I only discovered LOL from Joyce last week. I'm going to assume that it doesn't refer to the Warsaw Transit Facility, as that was shut down in 1981 when the Russians came sniffing.

One by one, the lights of the village switch off. The only remaining illumination comes from behind the thick hospital blinds of Willows. The business of dying keeps different hours than the business of living.

What if pretending to enjoy life is the same as actually enjoying it? He has been smiling from the moment Patrice arrived, so perhaps there was something in it.

Night-time is for questions without answers,

No animal is better than any other animal. We are all just a collection of atoms smashed together. Even people. Even trees.

Not rollercoasters, not skyscrapers, just the accumulation of small moments that turn acquaintance into friendship.

No kneeling for him these days, though, arthritis and Catholicism being an uneasy mix.

Life is about understanding opportunities. Understanding how rarely they come along, and then rising to meet them when they do.

I fear I might be barking up the wrong tree with this one. I just hope I can bark up the right tree one of these days. Before I run out of trees. Or before I stop barking altogether.

Had she really understood then that those were the best of times? That she was in heaven? She thinks she did understand, yes. Understood she had been given a great gift. Doing the crossword in a train carriage, Stephen with a can of beer ("I will only drink beer on trains, nowhere else, don't ask me why"), glasses halfway down his nose, reading out clues. The real secret was that when they looked at each other, they each thought they had the better deal.

Mankind finds futility very hard to stomach. People find all sorts of things to give their brief lives meaning. Religion, football, astrology, social media. Valiant efforts all, but everyone knows, deep, deep down, that life is both a random occurrence and a losing battle. None of us will be remembered. These days will all be covered, in time, by the sands.

She had used all the tricks in the book to encourage him, to convince him, to cajole him into looking after himself. But it turned out that, all along, the only real motivation he needed to change was to start having sex with her mum. You have to be so careful what you wish for.

Patrice has fallen in love before, and this is beginning to show all the signs. That might just be the wine and the Jane Austen, though.

kneeling over the age of sixty-five is a pipe dream, so she sits on the step above instead. Elizabeth kneels. Is there nothing she can’t do?

I keep Gerry in a tight little ball just for me. I think if I let him loose here, it would overwhelm me, and I worry he might just blow away.

Ron, I didn't really know how to ask for just an instant coffee, so I got us Caramel Frappuccinos.

There comes a time when progress is only for other people.

That’s what happens when you get older. Too many funerals, not enough weddings.

You will go completely mad waiting for life to be fair

Always alone, and never alone: that was grief.

Good to see you, Elizabeth. Are those flowers for me?” “No, I have taken to carrying flowers around with me as an affectation,” says Elizabeth, handing them over as she is ushered in.

I am learning that it is important to stop sometimes, and just have a drink and a gossip with friends, even as corpses start to pile up around you. Which they have been doing a lot recently. It's a balancing act, of course, but, by and large, the corpses will still be there in the morning, and you mustn't let it spoil your Domino's.

We might see a million white swans, and yet we are not able to say that all swans are white. Yet we see just one black swan, and we can say with absolute certainty that not all swans are white.

There comes a point when you look at your photograph albums more often than you watch the news. When you opt out of time, and let it carry on doing its thing while you get on with yours. You simply stop dancing to the beat of the drum.

Pearson Street is just what you want a shopping street to be—busy, friendly, local, and happy. Joyce thinks it’s so perfect that it’s surely only six months away from having a Starbucks and losing what it now has.

There is another dating app for gay men called Grindr. Perhaps it’s for gay women too? I don’t know, I didn’t ask. Would they use the same one? That would be nice.

They can take me as they find me,' says Ron. 'I've earned this face, it tells a story.

Ever so ambitious, but they only use 'ambitious' as a criticism about women, don't they?

They say a man who desires revenge should dig two graves, and this is surely right.

Elizabeth taps her head. “My palace has many rooms. Some are dustier than others.

Big is the same as small. There's just more of it.

Every true soul is unknowable,

One day, spring will come without her.

Everyone has to leave the game. Once you’re in, there is no other door but the exit.

I’ve always found that shirts sort of iron themselves while you’re wearing them.

Life goes on, until it doesn’t.

Funny to think of the year 2000 as ancient history.

He had read a headline about Diet Coke once, which was so worrying he had chosen not to read the article.

Elizabeth looks to Donna like the sort of teacher who terrifies you all year but then gives you a grade A and cries when you leave.

He keeps finding pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but no one will show him the picture on the front of the box.

The life she had with Stephen will always mean more to her than the life she will now have going forward. She will spend more time there, in that past, she knows that. And, as the world races forward, she will fall further and further back.

How many more autumns for Elizabeth? How many more years of slipping on a pair of comfortable boots and walking through the leaves? One day, spring will come without her. The daffodils will always come up by the lake, but you won’t always be there to see them. So it goes; enjoy them while you can.

I am not a vegan and have no intention of ever becoming one, but I still feel like it's something that should be encouraged. I read that if mankind doesn't stop eating meat, there will be mass starvation by 2050. With respect, I am nearly eighty, and so this won't be my problem, but I do hope they sort it out.

That twinkle in his eye was undimmed. The twinkle that gave an entirely undeserved suggestion of wisdom and charm. The twinkle that could make you walk down the aisle with a man almost ten years your junior and regret it within months. The twinkle you soon realize is actually the beam of a lighthouse, warning you off the rocks.

Like someone reached in and took out my heart and my lungs and told me to keep living. Keep waking up, keep eating, keep putting one foot in front of the other. For what? I don’t think I ever really found an answer to that.

Chess is easy,' says Bogdan, continuing the walk between the lines of graves and now flicking on a torch. 'Just always make the best move.' 'Well, I suppose,' says Elizabeth. 'I've never quite thought about it like that. But what if you don't know what the best move is?' 'Then you lose.

Quite so,” agrees Stephen, his voice quiet. “Nail hit well and truly on the head there, old girl. We think time travels forward, marches on in a straight line, and so we hurry alongside it to keep up. Hurry, hurry, mustn’t fall behind. But it doesn’t, you see. Time just swirls around us. Everything is always present. The things we’ve done, the people we’ve loved, the people we’ve hurt, they’re all still here.

I volunteer because it makes me look helpful, and it gives me first dibs on the refreshments.

The business of dying keeps different hours than the business of living. 45.

Don’t get a small dog, though, Joyce,” says Ron. “Small dogs are like small men: always got a point to prove. Yapping it up, barking at cars.

He eats salmon and broccoli now. He eats so much broccoli he can spell it without looking it up.

Does it hurt?" asks Ibrahim. "Only when I breathe," says Donna.

Because things are more fun for you when they’re not planned, and they were more fun for him when they were planned. It’s best to have one of each in every relationship.

She shook off her faith slowly, like the leaves from a tree, until nothing remained.

I’m just organized,’ says Joyce. ‘It’s out of fashion. If I say I’m going to Zumba, I go to Zumba.

He always found it easy to wake up in the morning; he just found it hard to sleep at night

Life continues, whatever you do. It’s a bulldozer like that.

Wherever there is turmoil, people try to protect their assets. Or sell them.

I need you to talk less. I have a low boredom threshold. I was born with it, the doctors can't do nothing.

Joyce turns her face up to the sun and closes her eyes. 'Well, isn't this lovely, Ron? I never knew I liked beer. Imagine if I'd died at seventy? I never would have known.

Normal is an illusory concept, Bogdan," adds Ibrahim.

I still haven't quite worked out how my Instagram works, which is very frustrating. As @GreatJoy69 now has over 200 private messages.

The immediate pain goes, however much you might want it to stay,

The pain is temporary, but the lesson the pain teaches you is forever.

Trouble is much like love: when the time is ready, it will find you.

It never gets better, but it gets easier.

What happened” is never what defines you in life; “What you did next” is what defines you.

Perhaps I’ll kill her too?” says Davey. “You can’t,” says Bogdan. “Only God can kill Elizabeth.” “And even he’d think twice,” says Ron.

the pool would still be here in the summer. “Ah, but we may not be,” Joyce had replied, and she was right. It was best to grab everything while you could. Who knows when your final swim

That’s the thing about Coopers Chase. You’d imagine it was quiet and sedate, like a village pond on a summer’s day. But in truth it never stops moving, it’s always in motion. And that motion is ageing, and death, and love, and grief, and final snatched moments and opportunities grasped. The urgency of old age. There’s nothing that makes you feel more alive than the certainty of death.

I don't think you're supposed to use your mobile telephone in here, Elizabeth," says John. She gives a kindly shrug. "Well, imagine if we only ever did what we were supposed to, John." "You have a point there, Elizabeth," agrees John, and goes back to his book.

Elizabeth sits completely still, and waits. It can take a while, but, if you are still long enough, they come to you. Fitful babies, zooming kittens, men with secrets. With nothing to bounce off, their nervous energy eventually seems ridiculous to them, and across they trot.

Donna smiles again. Her eyes have remained shut. This is peaceful, this is helping. Just saying things out loud. Was this therapy? It didn’t feel like it. It just felt like finally telling somebody the truth.

The weather forecasters,” continues Elizabeth, “and here that’s me and Ibrahim—we always have our fingers in the air, trying to feel which way the wind is blowing. We never want to be surprised or caught out.

Let it go. Remember it as a happy time. You were at the top of the mountain, and now you’re in a valley. It will happen to you a number of times.” “So what do I do now?” “You climb the next mountain, of course.

Elizabeth can fool herself no more, can keep Stephen to herself no longer. The day she knew must arrive was here. She has been losing him, a paragraph at a time, but the chapter is done and the book is close to its end.

Connie leans forward again, getting as close to Ron as she possibly can. She hisses, “When I get out, you’re a dead man.” Ron looks back at her. “Well, I’m seventy-five, and you’ll be doing thirty years so, yeah, agreed.

How will life go on now? How is that possible? She hears a car on a distant road. Why on earth is anybody driving? Where is there to go now? Why is the clock in the hall still ticking? Doesn’t it know it stopped days ago?

I’d outlive a dog through pure spite,’ says Ron. ‘We’d just sit in opposite corners of the room, staring each other out, and see who went first. Not me. It’s like when we were negotiating with British Leyland in ’seventy-eight. The moment one of their lot went to the loo first, I knew we had ’em.’ Ron knocks back more wine. ‘Never go to the loo first. Tie a knot in it if you have to.

I texted "Happy New Year" to Joanna, and she texted back "HNY," as if the effort of spelling out the words was a bit too much. I texted "Happy New Year" to Victor too, and he texted back. "May you be granted health and wealth and wisdom, and may you see your beauty reflected in those around you," which was much more like it.

Her dad sitting in his gardening trousers doing the crossword as the madness played out around him? "Cup of tea, Dad?" "Only if you're making one." "Mum out, is she?" "Being shot at in a warehouse." "That's nice - need any help with the crossword?

I see,” says Elizabeth, lips pursing. “And what happens if I still choose to say WPC? Will there be a warrant for my arrest?” “No, but I’ll think a bit less of you,” says Donna. “Because it’s a really simple thing to do, and it’s more respectful to me.” “Damn, checkmate, okay,” says Elizabeth, unpursing her lips. “Thank you,” says Donna.

The sudden thought that explains things, that shines a light where there once was darkness. The closest she can come to describing it is that inspiration strikes when two completely different thoughts come together, and they suddenly make sense of each other.

If you hit women, you hit women

If you don't cry sometimes, you'll end up crying all the time

I think that if I have a special skill, it is that I am often overlooked. Is that the word? Underestimated, perhaps?

And Stephen had still chosen her? Stephen had made her, that was the truth. Had glued her together. And here she lies. Unmade. Unglued.

that life was daring to continue. Didn’t they know? Hadn’t they heard? Everything has changed, everything. And yet nothing has changed. Nothing. The day carries on as it would.

The back is ramrod straight. It would be the most uncomfortable chair that Chris had ever sat in, had he not just made the flight to Cyprus on Ryanair.

You can’t expect favours without being asked to repay them. So what was it to be?

I’m sure,” says Elizabeth. “If murder were easy, none of us would survive Christmas.

Bear in mind, also, that this was past ten and I had already said, “Well, this has been lovely,” more than once.

The prophet is often unheralded in his own land.

The only remaining illumination comes from behind the thick hospital blinds of Willows. The business of dying keeping different hours from the business of living.

DCI Chris Hudson is addressing the team. He always seems nice enough. He once opened some double doors for her without looking like he wanted a medal for it.

Everyone wants to feel special, but nobody wants to feel different.

She looks over at Bogdan, sitting there silent in his sunglasses like Mr. Darcy.

would never have therapy, because who wants to unravel all that knitting? Not worth the risk,

Donna, like any modern woman, I am any number of things, as and when the need arises. We have to be chameleons, don’t we?

all I know is that I will be there for her. That’s all I have to give.

We call people ‘dead’ because we need a word for it, but ‘dead’ just means that time has stopped moving forward for that person? You understand? No one dies, not really.

They didn’t speak, because there was too much to say.

Time for me to turn in now. I know it sounds silly, but I feel less alone when I write. So thank you for keeping me company, whoever you might be.

Yes, you never know when you might need pictures of corpses,' agrees Bogdan.

She closes her eyes in silent apology to her husband. I’m still here, darling. Still here, while you are gone. I suspect I should just make the best of it.

I suppose that's how people get away with forging things? It suits everybody to pretend it's real.

When are your hunches ever wrong?’ says Ron. ‘Actually, quite often,’ says Joyce. ‘She just says them with confidence. She’s like a consultant.

We'll let's take it a day at a time. I enjoyed yesterday, I'm having fun today, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Stephen shrugs. “We all go at some point, my Viking friend. I’d rather she wasn’t killed by a cowardly Swede, but best to bow out doing something decent. I’m sure I’d miss her, but someone else would turn up soon enough. Beautiful spies everywhere you look. Falling out of trees.

but, really, unconditional love has a huge flaw. If you love me no matter what, who I actually am doesn’t matter. If someone loves your essence, your very being, what can you do to make them love you more or love you less? Nothing: there is no space. So the only option left to you is to continually prod at that unconditional love, to test it and stretch it, to mock it even.

You’re not hungover?’ You drank just as much as me.’ ‘The moment I got in I drank two raw eggs with Tabasco sauce,’ says Elizabeth. Joyce nods. ‘I ate some wedding cake, then had a Baileys.

What was he thinking? That was the one question she knew not to ask a man. They were almost always thinking nothing at all, so were thrown by the question, and felt compelled to make something up.

Whereas Joyce and Ron, you are the weather,” says Elizabeth. “You move as you choose, you act as you feel. You make things happen without fannying around worrying about what those things might be.

We are all tiny insignificant blinks in history, in a world that couldn't care a hoot if we live or die. You think whoever made this box six thousand years ago cares if we do Pilates and eat our five-a-day?

Well, yes, I am [a criminal]," says Jamie. "But not what you're talking about. Not planting bombs, not killing people. I'm a coward." "Don't be so hard on yourself," says Bogdan. "We all have different strengths.

Can I say, by the way, that Poppy had put a Post-it note on the front of the file, and had put a little kiss and a smiley face on that Post-it note? And I just wonder if that’s really the sort of thing a murderer would do?

Everything is about death, you see.’ ‘Well, recently, yes,’ agrees Joyce. ‘But surely not everything? That seems a bit much?’ ‘In essence,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Our existence only makes sense because of it; it provides meaning to our narrative. Our direction of travel is always towards it. Our behaviour is either because we fear it, or because we choose to deny it. We could drive past this spot once a year, every year, and neither the horse nor ourselves would get younger. Everything is death.

Dear Stephen,’ he begins. ‘This is a difficult letter to write, but I know it will be a great deal more difficult to read. I will come straight to it. I believe you are in the early stages of dementia, possibly Alzheimer’s.’ Elizabeth can hear her heart beating through her chest. Who on earth has chosen to shatter their privacy this way? Who even knows? Her friends? Has one of them written? They wouldn’t dare, not without asking. Not Ibrahim, surely? He might dare. ‘I am not an expert, but it is something I have been looking into. You are forgetting things, and you are getting confused. I know full well what you will say – “But I’ve always forgotten things. I’ve always been confused!” – and you are right, of course, but this, Stephen, is of a different order. Something is not right with you, and everything I read points in just one direction.’ ‘Stephen,’ says Elizabeth, but he gently gestures for hush. ‘You must also know that dementia points in just one direction. Once you start to descend the slope, and please believe me when I say you have started, there is no return. There may be footholds here and there, there may be ledges on which to rest, and the view may still be beautiful from time to time, but you will not clamber back up.’ ‘Stephen, who wrote you this letter?’ Elizabeth asks. Stephen holds up a finger, asking her to be patient a few moments more. Elizabeth’s fury is decreasing. The letter is something she should have written to him herself. This should not have been left to a stranger. Stephen starts

Everything I’ve done and everything I’ve been is present in the same place. But we still think the thing that has just happened, or is about to happen, we think that’s the most important thing. My memories aren’t my memories, my present isn’t present, it’s all the same thing . . .

Was he a content man, doing the things he liked alone? Or was he a lonely man making the best out of what he had? Alone, or lonely? This question cropped up so often these days, Chris could no longer be confident of his answer. Though if he was a betting man, his money would be on lonely.

There is only so much reading you can do, so many cups of tea you can make, before the loneliness crowds in around you. You breathe it in, you cry it out, and the clock ticks slowly, slowly, until you are allowed to sleep. He hadn’t even dressed up on Christmas Day. Who was there to dress up for?

We think time travels forward, marches on in a straight line, and so we hurry alongside it to keep up. Hurry, hurry, mustn’t fall behind. But it doesn’t, you see. Time just swirls around us. Everything is always present. The things we’ve done, the people we’ve loved, the people we’ve hurt, they’re all still here.

The first trip I ever went on with Stephen was to Venice. He wanted to look at the art and the churches for a weekend, and I wanted to look at him for a weekend.’ ‘That’s romantic,’ says Joyce. ‘Looking at a man you love isn’t romantic, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It’s just the sensible thing to do. Like watching a television programme you like.

We normally meet in the Jigsaw Room, you see,’ says Joyce. ‘But it’s not Thursday and the Jigsaw Room is being used by Chat and Crochet.’ ‘Chat and Crochet is a fairly new group, Detective Chief Inspector,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Formed by members who had become disillusioned with Knit and Natter. Too much nattering and not enough knitting, apparently.

Douglas is chuckling. "So, your friends know everything about you?" "Everything they need to, yes." says Elizabeth. "Do they know that you're Dame Elizabeth?" "Of course not." "So, not everything. When was the last time you used your title, Elizabeth?" "When I needed to borrow a motorcycle to get out of Kosovo in a hurry. When was the last time you used yours, Sir Douglas?" "When I tried to get tickets for Hamilton.

Why does she always push her mum away? There’s something about that relationship, something about being a child, and the need of a child to be an individual, to be something more than the things she’s been taught and the way she’s been raised. The need to somehow teach a lesson to the person who has taught her so many lessons? Joyce’s love for her is unconditional, Joanna knows that, but, really, unconditional love has a huge flaw. If you love me no matter what, who I actually am doesn’t matter. If someone loves your essence, your very being, what can you do to make them love you more or love you less? Nothing: there is no space. So the only option left to you is to continually prod at that unconditional love, to test it and stretch it, to mock it even. And it’s not just that. There is a further problem with unconditional love, isn’t there? Because what if you don’t love yourself? What if, like Joanna, you obsess over your flaws and weaknesses, you constantly update the balance sheet of your own personality and find it wanting? Well, then the unconditional love of a parent is a sign that they simply don’t know you. If they truly knew you, their love would be peppered with caveats. “I love you, but…