When a man of my father’s wealth dies of cancer, you know they haven’t found a cure. - Edward St Aubyn

Patrick imagined Kay’s father sunk in the back of the car, his eyes glazed over with exhaustion and his lungs, like torn fishing nets, trawling vainly for air.

Mrs Hickmann was inclined to forgive Patrick the apparent purposelessness of his life and the sinister pallor of his complexion, when she considered that he has an income of one hundred thousand pounds a year, and came from a family which, although it had done nothing since, had seen the Norman invasion from the winning side.

But do you know what struck me, apart from Nancy’s vibrant self-pity, which she had the nerve to pretend was grief?