Michelle's corner

With the first two men in her life she had also learned something that linked up with her childhood behaviour mechanisms, the more distressed her family was by her romantic choice, the more attention she received. She was evolving her own form of the game; falling in love as a tantrum.

I have taken to a period of eating, drinking and reading. This book is taking concentration. Even in this stage, the main players are all still alive, breathing and causing their own brand of mayhem on the world, and leaving serious scars on each other.

Fiona, who had had to talk Alexander into the meeting, later said she had to, "beat heads together." She let them discharge their rancor for each other for a time, then called a halt to their bickering with the clear-sighted observation: "With a father like yours, you can't afford to be enemies."