Sanjida Kay > Quotes

“It’s quiet in the suburbs. It’s too cold for people to be in their gardens; and it’s not a thoroughfare so few cars drive by. I look past decaying roses and through the first flush of Michelmas daisies, blazing a glorious purple, into the darkened windows of the houses we walk by. Who lives here? Are they watching us? Did one of our neighbours do something seven years ago that he now regrets? How little we know of the people who surround us.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“Make no mistake, my darling. I am coming for you. I will take you back.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“Here we are, squabbling over tuna fucking sandwiches and there she is – almond-shaped green eyes, snub nose, lopsided grin, the hint of a dimple in her cheek. ‘MISSING’ is stamped over her face in large black letters.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“Hello my darling,
I’m your real father. I’ve been searching for you ever since you were stolen from me. I love you so much.
Daddy”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“Where I’m taking you, no one will ever find us. We’ll have all the time in the world for you to grow to love me as much as I love you.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“Let her go… Because that girl has got to die so that you may live.”
― Sanjida Kay, My Mother's Secret

“I think about the story I always tell her – of the kind lady who gave her to us. I suppose that must be how she imagines her father – as a kind man who gave her away too, as if she were a gift. Only now he wants her back.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“Only one small, pale spot on her cheek was visible where her skin, free of blood, gleamed, as polished as bone.”
― Sanjida Kay, Bone by Bone

“The dark edge of the moor and the Cow and Calf rock are crisp against the blue-black sky. I can’t see anyone outside, watching us. As I shut the door behind me, I hear a noise. It came from the hall. I feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“She shivers. ‘I can’t understand why anyone would want to live out there. You’d be totally isolated.’
 I do. I could imagine waking up each day and instead of looking out of the window and seeing the moor in the distance, you’d be in the heart of it, feeling the wind turn, the storm rage, the rain lash, hear the plovers piping.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“it wasn’t until the train went past that she saw the small body lying in the long grass by the side of the wood.”
― Sanjida Kay, Bone by Bone

“Autumn put in the DVD she’d been watching every night. It was Deadly 60. It was all about animals that could be a bit tricky if you tried to catch one. There was something comforting about watching it over and over and over again. You knew what was going to happen. There were no surprises. And even though all those animals bit, squeezed, stung, spat or poisoned, they did it because they were hungry or frightened. They didn’t do it because they thought you were stupid and ugly and they wanted to hurt and humiliate you.”
― Sanjida Kay, Bone by Bone

“It’s as if he’s trodden in my footsteps, seen what I’ve seen, felt what I’ve felt, as I’ve criss-crossed the moors countless times.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“There was no sign of her daughter, no sign of a small body crumpled by the railway.”
― Sanjida Kay, Bone by Bone

“She realized that she no longer believed her husband: it was as if the certainty that he’d betrayed her had settled into her bones like the chill of a damp day.”
― Sanjida Kay, My Mother's Secret

“Autumn imagined the girl, with long dark hair in plaits and a red cape, running through the wood and stopping because she hears something: soft paws crushing damp moss, an animal breathing. She runs on. She’s frightened. She knows what will happen is inevitable. All the while the wolf is keeping pace with her, watching her, its pink tongue lolling over its sharp, white teeth. Waiting for its chance.”
― Sanjida Kay, Bone by Bone

“The lines began to sing, a shrill, electric song, and then the cacophony of the train roared out of the darkness. The carriages were almost empty and painfully bright as they hurtled along the tracks to the heart of the city. In the fleeting light she saw the meadow, dotted with stunted hawthorns, their twisted limbs dense with red berries, and then a shape: achingly familiar, child-sized, shockingly still.”
― Sanjida Kay, Bone by Bone

“Jack thinks I take things that’ll cover every eventuality, but I don’t. I only take what’s necessary. When I’m with my family, I bring what will keep them safe. But suppose you’re on your own, like I am now, and something happened to you, and you couldn’t get back, what would you need? What would be important to you? When you think about it like that, it’s surprisingly little.
A credit card and a passport; a driving licence. Mini first-aid and wash kits. A decent moisturizer, lipstick and lip balm. It’s surprisingly freeing because, of course, you can’t take what is most important to you: your family and friends. I have photos, though, printed out, not just on a phone. Mobiles are easily lost, aren’t they? And two recipes, the ones I think I couldn’t live without. But all of it, when it comes down to it, is dispensable. Almost everything is.”
― Sanjida Kay, My Mother's Secret

“I walk over to see what it is: it’s a paperweight with a dandelion clock perfectly preserved inside. I hold it in my hand. It’s smooth and heavy. It would be just right for my husband. I can imagine it sitting on his desk: a single, solitary objet d’art in the midst of that smooth expanse of wood. As I pay for it, I start to blush, a blush that grows stronger and deeper, flaring over my chest and making my ears burn.
I’m buying a present for my husband while I’m with my lover.”
― Sanjida Kay, My Mother's Secret

“He places the skull in the palm of my hand. There are four canines; the top two are so long and curved I can feel them pricking my skin. There’s a green tinge round the eye socket and in a fine line across the cranium. I’m not sure what animal it’s from.
‘Stoat,’ Harris says, as if I’ve spoken out loud. ‘They hunt grouse and partridge. I found it behind my house. I buried the body in the furze until it was just bone.’
His hand is still beneath mine, supporting it. I think of him seeing the small dead creature and digging a tiny grave for it. Planning ahead for all those months just so he’d see the skeleton. Or maybe he severed the animal’s head and that was the only part he buried.
‘It’s been waiting for you all this time. Like I have.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“I doubt you are a martyr, but should you decide to risk your own life, I can assure you that, as well as killing you, I will hunt down your family and I will kill them, and then I will find your friends and I will kill them too.”
― Sanjida Kay, My Mother's Secret

“I don’t believe he was deliberately taking indecent pictures, they’re too artistic; he’s managed to capture that magical moment when a child’s mind spins into a make-believe world. But actually, what Jack did is steal something – a child’s innocence – whilst creating something darker that will resonate with the adults looking at these photos: themes of sexuality and death, the leitmotifs that run through fairy tales, the stories that we tell ourselves about our children.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“She had a moment of clarity, sharp and hard, that pierced the fogginess of her thinking: this is what it’s going to be like from now on. I will live in fear of every man, of every stray sound, of every footstep in the dark, of every shadow in the night.”
― Sanjida Kay, My Mother's Secret

“When Autumn was born, it was as if she recognized her, as if she’d always known that it would be her, this little person who had come to live with her and reside permanently in her heart. It was a love unlike any other: fierce and powerful.”
― Sanjida Kay, Bone by Bone

“They stole you from me. They took you away for seven years. Your entire lifetime. A life sentence. The waiting has been endless. The watching. The planning. Now, finally, I’m almost ready. I’ve got a few things to take care of and then we can be reunited.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“She said that the mummy and the daddy took their daughter up onto the moor. They had a picnic. They’d brought all of her favourite food – cheese sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off and strawberry-pink cupcakes – and when the little girl had finished eating, she looked around for her mummy and the daddy. But they’d gone. They’d left Evelyn on the moor by herself.”
― Sanjida Kay, The Stolen Child

“I go downstairs to my bedroom and get out my diary from where I’ve hidden it in the wardrobe under my jumpers.
I write, ‘My mother has a secret.”
― Sanjida Kay, My Mother's Secret

“I wonder if that is what he really feels; if he’s accidentally hit on the words that will set off small explosions in my mind – trigger- phrases like risk and safety, danger and security, love and loss, and the other ones, the ones that I never say.”
― Sanjida Kay, My Mother's Secret

“His voice reminded her of Christmas: of old movies and cigar smoke, of sweet sherry in cut-glass tumblers and the crackle of a real log fire.”
― Sanjida Kay, My Mother's Secret

“She was more exposed to the elements now: the wind and rain howled through the metal cage enclosing her. It seemed impossible that someone could fall or be shoved from the bridge. She forced herself to look down. She had to prepare for the worst.”
― Sanjida Kay, Bone by Bone