It was not a house where secrets could be kept easily.

We say very little, for we do not need to. We are silent together, each in her own world, knowing the other is just at her back.

Younger women tend to be busier, wearing more layers and more make-up. I don't know if it's because older women are more confident, or just that we don't care any more. But that pared-down approach is the same with the sentences I write; I take out adjectives and adverbs and keep the description to a minimum.

Say something worth the words.

Although I always said that I wanted to be a writer from childhood, I hadn't actually done much about it until I came to London.

He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.

It was not a house where secrets could be kept easily.