A departure can feel like a desertion, a judgement on the place and people left behind. - V. S. Naipaul

In his original design the solicitor's clerk seemed to have forgotten the need for a staircase to link both the floors, and what he had provided had the appearance of an afterthought. Doorways had been punched in the eastern wall and a rough wooden staircase - heavy planks on an uneven frame with one warped unpainted banister, the whole covered with a sloping roof of corrugated iron - hung precariously at the back of the house, in striking contrast with the white-pointed brickwork of the front, the white woodwork and the frosted glass of doors and windows.
For this house Mr.Biswas had paid five thousand five hundred dollars.

Whatever they say about going back to the beginning, they’ll be interested in the car.

But this is madness. I am going in the wrong direction. There can’t be a new life at the end of this.