Status Updates From Blaming

It had been like trying to have a conversation with an ostrich, he would tell Maggie when he got home.

Sometimes,” Martha said, “I have thought that there might be quite pleasant and peaceful ways of becoming insane. This could be one – just slowly burning things. It’s hypnotic almost. Another thing would be a big colouring book and some crayons, and quietly fill in the pictures. Remember that. A large colouring book for me if it should happen.”

Now that his father was dead, he and Maggie had rather hoped for Christmas in their own home. No obstacles to that from Maggie’s side, whose parents were in Malta for their retirement and tax-evasion.

Amy, who hated tube trains and hardly ever went on one, tried to keep up. On the platform she stood pressed to the wall, against an advertisement for a plunge bra. She always felt terror as the train sped towards her, lest she should be sucked under in its onrush, or, that in some fit of madness, she might take it into her head to leap onto the electric rail.

Mourning seemed to give the go-ahead to every sort of rudeness and selfishness, he thought, fearing more of the same thing to come.