A summer insect flew into the metal dome of the Anglepoise and knocked around like a tiny knuckle. - Bernard MacLaverty

Neil offered his arm as she lowered herself from the step to the ground. "What a polite young man." "That's my mother's fault."

He succeeded in persuading her back to look at The Jewish Bride. There was a crowd gathered around it. It was huge, big as a hoarding, a great slash of browns and yellows and reds. Two figures, a man and a woman on the edge of intimacy, or perhaps just after, about to coorie in to one another. Hands. Hands everywhere. A painting about touch. Stella joined the crowd and wormed her way to the front. Gerry watched her bite her lip as she gazed. She became aware of Gerry watching her. He excused himself and threaded his way to her side. "Well?" "There's a great tenderness in him," she said. "You can see he cherishes her." "Look at that big hand of his," Gerry said. "And the sleeve. Like a big croissant. The way he's put the paint on." "And the faces," she said. "But she's not so sure. Shy, yes. Sure, no. What sumptuous clothes." She pointed out the groom's hand around the woman's shoulder and his other hand resting on her breast. The bride's touch of the groom's hand.

Gerry had once said to her in the middle of an argument that he didn't believe in souls but if, just perchance, they did exist, hers would be like a razor. She had been made that way by the Catholic Church, he said. Inflexible, narrow, capable of doing terrible damage by her adherence to rules and systems. But she totally objected. She told him that if she was a good person at all, it had come from her religion. If she had any sense of justice and fairness, any concept of equality, then it had come from the Church.