“It was like trying to think about what he’d be thinking if he never existed. He wouldn’t be thinking about what he was thinking. He just wouldn’t exist. It wouldn’t hurt.”

“If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Sometimes Sarah would be up and about and when she saw Pete she would let something slip.He would walk into the kitchen to say hello and she would say, ‘Do you think whoever has him knows that he likes to read about space? Do you think they know he loves pasta but hates corn?’They were random questions. Pete tried to answer at first but then he realised that Sarah wasn’t really talking to him. She was simply voicing out loud the questions that went through her head every day, all day, tormenting her. 'Do they know he likes Vegemite toast for breakfast?’‘Do they know how he likes his scrambled eggs?’‘Are they making sure he has his milk every day?’‘Are they keeping him warm?’‘Are they being kind to him?’‘Is he going to school?’‘Do they know he hates to be tickled?’‘Are they hurting him? Are they hurting my little boy?’What could he say to that? Pete said nothing. He hung his head and waited for her to stop asking questions.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Work, my dear Blushweaver, is like fertilizer.”“It smells?”He smiled. “No, I was thinking that work is like fertilizer in that I’m glad it exists; I just don’t ever want to get stuck in it.”

“He also thinks there’s something in the Carpathian woman’s chemistry that makes it impossible for the female chromosome to beat out the male.”“Wouldn’t you know he’d think it was the woman,” Shea sniffed contemptuously.”

“I think it was the ChapStick that did it; he tasted like ChapStick and Jack Daniels. That reminder of human vulnerability got to me in a way that polished experience wouldn’t have. Not that he had lied about the experience.”

“That’s what Lockie was—a little boy.It could do your head in if you thought too much about the cruelty that one person could inflict on another. It was best not to think about it, but here in front of Tina stood an example of the worst cruelty in the world.There was a large bump on one of his ribs. Tina knew what a bone that had healed itself looked like; Mark and the boys were always getting themselves into trouble.It was too much to think about. Too much to try and imagine the pain Lockie must have been in. Too much to imagine him crying for his mother and father. He was so small, so defenceless.”