Mrs Hunt, and the girls are fair; and you could see that Mrs Hunt had been a very beautiful girl down there in Atlanta, where she comes from. And she still had – has – that look, that don’t you touch me look, that women who were beautiful carry with them to the grave.

But it’s something, when you think about it, how many babies were brought into those places, with rats as big as cats, roaches the size of mice, splinters the size of a man’s finger, and somehow survived it. You don’t want to think about those who didn’t; and, to tell the truth, there’s always something very sad in those who did, or do.

Sharon gets to Porto Rico on an evening plane. She knows exactly how much money she has, which means that she knows how rapidly she must move against time – which is inexorably moving against her.

He is young, very, very young, but also very old; but not old in the way that she had expected him to be. She had expected the age of corruption.

She is confronting the age of sorrow. She is confronting torment.