As soon as Fay got home from Goode’s, she began to attack her flat. The area of battle was not large: it consisted of a medium-sized room with two armchairs and a divan bed and a few occasional tables, and a kitchenette. She shared a bathroom which she was not obliged to clean but often did. When she had dealt with her flat she did her laundry in her landlady’s copper and hung it all out on the clothesline where it flapped wildly in the ocean breeze, and then she had a bath and washed her hair and did her nails.
She had finished the Women’s Weekly by dinnertime, so when she had cooked herself some macaroni cheese she sat down on the floor to eat it, propping Anna Karenina open at the first page, and she began to read. Late on Sunday night she said to herself, it’s really amazing how fast time goes by when you’re reading a book. I never realised.