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4th Estate
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London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019
Copyright © Lucie Whitehouse 2019
Lucie Whitehouse asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover photography Face: © Plainpicture / Cristopher Civitillo; Match: Shutterstocl
Epigraph taken from The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin, by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780008268992
Ebook Edition © February 2018 ISBN: 9780008269012
Version: 2019-01-09
For Bridget
I leant far out, and squinnied for a sign
That this was still the town that had been ‘mine’
So long, but found I wasn’t even clear
Which side was which.
Philip Larkin
Contents
Robin surveyed the table with its heap of crumpled napkins and burger boxes, stray fries and onion rings, the pile of bleeding ketchup packets. Aftermath of the cholesterol bomb. They’d had breakfast back in London, too, but as the road signs had started to portend BIRMINGHAM, her stomach started churning, and by the time they’d reached Warwick Services, it had felt completely empty or at