Language exists less to record the actual than to liberate the imagination.

They thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never dissapointed.

First she would try to kill him, but failing this give him food and her body, breast-feed him back to a state of childishness and even, perhaps, feel affection for him. Then, the moment he was asleep, cut his throat. The synopsis of the ideal marriage.

However, for all his affection and loyalty towards the animal, the dog would soon be leaving him - they would both be present at a celebratory dinner when they reached the roof, he reflected with a touch of gallows-humour, but the poodle would be in the pot.

He methodically basted the dark skin of the Alsatian, which he had stuffed with garlic and herbs.'One rule in life', he murmured to himself. 'If you can smell garlic, everything is all right'.

Dissembling was so large a part of middle-class life that honesty and frankness seemed the most devious stratagem of all. The most outright lie was the closest one came to truth.