That’s where proper stories begin, don’t they, when the handsome stranger arrives and everything goes wrong?

Perhaps you should put your head down.” I knew this was the thing to do, although I’ve never fainted and I don’t intend to.

Boxing’s not that straightforward,” said Eldric. “You can practice and practice, but the real experience will always be different. Lots of things are like that, actually.

Our English monarchs are so unimaginative,” said Eldric. “They execute people in such tediously conventional ways.

It is true that I can trip over anything and nothing – a speck of dust, a patch of sunlight, an idea. I move through life like a person with one eye, through a landscape that looks flat, but is really tricked out with hidden depths and shallows. It didn’t use to be so, but no matter. I navigate the world well enough in my own way.

He scooped up my arm, swung me round. “Let go, Cecil,” I said. “I’ve a strange dislike of being forced.” “But Briony,” he said, “I’m so full of good spirits. I could walk to London, I think!” Why didn’t he?

We laughed a lot and I grew warmer still, lovely and warm. I do realize that some of that warmth was due to the wine, but there was much more to it than that. There are two distinct aspects to Communion wine: one aspect is the wine itself, the other is the idea of communion. Wine is certainly warming, but communion is a great deal more so.