Remarkable things, books

Graham H

Lots of good bits. I like this especially for "sympathy and scones". She meets him at her grandmother's funeral...

"He kissed my ankles, and my calves, and he lifted up my dress and kissed my thighs and I took down his trousers. And then suddenly a seriousness came over what we were doing, and I thought about laying my little known grand-mother in the ground, and I thought about that last day of summer, and almost at once we were making love. Really, urgently, absolutely making love.
I'd never before felt such a deep need to move that way, slowly, inexorably.
It made me feel primitive, rooted, connected to the dirt of the earth and the light of the stars, a spun thread pulled across the span of generations.
I was swollen and pregnant with desire, and the need swept through me in waves, my hands clutching like a newborn baby, clutching the sheets, his skin, the air, whitening my knuckles, straining to pull us into closer and tighter and deeper embrace, and when we were finished the bed-sheet was torn and the mattress had slipped to the floor.

And when I left before midnight, I didn't leave my phone number and I didn't ask for his.
I don't think my mother would understand that either, if I told her, if she was ever to ask.
I went back to the relatives' house, and when they asked me where I'd been I said I went for a walk and got lost, and they looked at me sweetly and fed me sympathy and scones.
And the next day I made the long journey home, and I had a secret dazzle of a thing I could smile quietly about at work."

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