Jan-Maat’s Reviews > Brief Lives > Status Update

When she addressed her roast lamb it was clear to me that more than one appetite was in play.

-that seems to be the case for all the eating in this book, it all seems to expressing emotion, while the feeding seems to be more abiut socual obligation.

Oh you haven't changed all that much. I used to listen to you when I was in the army going my national service.
- so if she is 61ish on this page that puts in or around the late 1980s or the cusp of 1990 when this book was published.

I was not born to be a mistress; I doubted if I was even born to be a wife. In my own mind I existed as a hopeful adolescent in a tight-waisted cotten frock, practising my scales, or as a young girl, singing all those touching old songs with dedication but without sorrow. Maybe, like Julia, I should never have left my mother. I am aware that no woman of any sense thinks like this today...[maybe early 1980s?]

Those songs were somehow too much for me. When I was young they did not move me so much: I sang them unaffectedly then, unshadowed by knowledge. Now, even the words seemed unbearable. But I sang on as if I were giving my final performance, as if all that mattered was to get through the programme, & then to say goodbye.

I went downstairs & asked the woman if I could have a cup of coffee. 'On ne fait pas de cuisine ici,' she said 'vous avez le bistrot en face.' I gave up, went back upstairs, & fell on the bed.
-😁 damn those french with their impenetrable foreign lingo! Whad ja mean they don't talk english with a silly accent like in films?

I had not known then that it is not necessary to marry every man one loves. I know it now. Now I realise that it is marriage which is the great temptation for a woman, & that one can, & perhaps should, resist it...I think differently now. But old women have more courage than young ones. They have no choice but to be brave.

Julia was a dedicated woman. She was dedicated principally to herself, butvthat did not seem to lessen her charm,

From her first entrance into our drawing room that evening, in tavishing black silk, with a black turban, it was evident that she had thrown herself body & soul into the character of a simple suburban wife. 'My darlings!' She announced, sweeping a black chiffon hankerchief from her bag & drapping it around her neck, 'I want you to treat me as one of yourselves'.

I grew up thinking that the world could be won with a pair of dancing feet or a pretty singing voice, & that all one had to do was to keep one's white collars cresh & one's hair regularly shampooed. And so it proved to me.