The recipes were wonderfully satisfying; it was like doing an equation, in which the correct answer was edible.

That was what happened when you tried to do something straight: the world simply laughed at you.

The first time he’d ever seen her he’d thought of a magpie, but now she seemed more like a pigeon, drab and directionless, pecking at anything that looked as if it might be edible.

Noel didn’t have any friends and in any case she’d never seen him do anything as childish as play. In detention, she thought, for correcting the teacher too many times.

The day after that, all the children disappeared, as if London had shrugged and the small people had fallen off the edge.

It revealed a world of calm and quiet activity, whereas the truth was that you never knew, when you lifted the flap, who you’d find hitting whom, who’d be crying in the corner, who’d be steeling themselves to jump from a window. There were bombs outside, but inside was worse.

She didn’t know how she could ever have thought him simple; he was the opposite – he was like one of those fancy knots, all loops, no ends.

She was used to his conversation now, the long words, the oddity and arrogance; half the time she didn’t know whether to clout him or applaud. It wasn’t nice, getting the silent pudding back again.

She was losing words.

She had been gaoled five times as a suffragette; she still had the scars of handcuffs on her wrists.