As his widow, she knew who she was and what she had inherited. She had loved him in her way and sometimes missed him. She knew what words like “loved” and “missed” meant when she thought of her husband. When she thought of Blunt, on the other hand, she was unsure what anything meant except the sonnets she had written about their love affair.

I first went to Barcelona in 1975 after university, and I stayed for three years. I learnt Catalan because that’s what everyone speaks in the mountains. They speak English to foreigners, but what people say to each other is much more important than what they say to you.

I live in words. I like looking at things, but I don’t have a strong visual imagination.

I work very deliberately, with a plan. But sometimes I come to a point that I planned as the end and it needs softening. Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can’t be done abruptly.

John McGovern taught me that it’s OK to write repeatedly about the same things.

Writer’s block! It doesn’t exist. You just long for ideas to go away so you have an idea of peace.

It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they’re on the other side of the world.

You create a world away from home and make new rooms for yourself. But when you arrive back home in your old rooms, the world you’ve made for yourself ceases to be real. Everything seems to crumble. Anyone who’s been sent away to boarding school can understand that.

I was first in Sydney in 1993, and have been a few times since then. For someone who didn’t know Australia, it came as a shock how intelligent, interesting and funny the people were. If I lived there I might see it differently, but as a visitor it was a lot of fun.

I suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I’ve never really seen the point.