Briony Began To Understand The

One Could Drown In Irrelevance.

Four Or Five Years - Nothing At All. But No One Over Thirty Could Understand This Peculiarly Weighted And Condensed Time, From Late Teens To Early Twenties, A Stretch Of Life That Needed A Name, From School Leaver To Salaried Professional, With A University And Affairs And Death And Choices In Between. I Had Forgotten How Recent My Childhood Was, How Long And Inescapable It Once Seemed. How Grown Up And How Unchanged I Was.

I Did Not Kill My Father, But I Sometimes Felt I Had Helped Him On His Way. And But For The Fact That It Coincided With A Landmark In My Own Physical Growth, His Death Seemed Insignificant Compared To What Followed.

When They Kissed She Immediately Felt His Tongue, Tensed And Strong, Pushing Past Her Teeth, Like Some Bully Shouldering His Way Into A Room. Entering Her.

What Was It With Men, That They Found Elementary Logic So Difficult?