She had one of those husky voices that sounded as if she were permanently coming down with a cold. Men seemed to find that sexy in a woman, which Jackson thought was odd because it made women sound less like women and more like men. Maybe it was a gay thing.

Je suis désolé,' he said. You had to wonder about the French, how they could make a simple 'sorry' sound so extreme and forlorn.

Pamela produced placid babies. "They don't tend to turn feral until they're two," she said.

This Henry lived in Edinburgh, making him inaccessible and giving her something to do on the weekends — 'Oh, just flying up to Scotland, Henry's taking me fishing,' which is the kind of thing she imagined people doing in Scotland — she always thought of the Queen Mother, incongruous in mackintosh and waders, standing in the middle of a shallow brown river (somewhere on the outskirts of Brigadoon, no doubt) and casting a line for trout.

Twittering just seemed to be people telling other people what they were doing--getting in the shower, making coffee. Who on earth wanted to know these things?...Babble and twitter. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Well, you know, Ruby, people are given the mother they need for a particular incarnation". But then she shrugs helplessly because neither of us can think why we needed Bunty.