I was due to sail tomorrow but I'm staying home this time.

Back Home Again' tends to get the TV time, which 'On the Banks' doesn't. But I don't consider one more important than the other.

But you can tell me he was at home under your watchful eye for months at a time?

You can't be a part-time Richard Dawkins.

Every relationship has its own language. It takes a long time to evolve and read one another. Just as it's true for people, it's also true on a national or cultural level.

Holly steps back. Being warned about a ghost and seeing him are not the same. 'What did they do to you?'

Some of the Anchorites laugh. Hugo looks back at his long-ago lover. 'They'-he looks about the Chapel-'cured me. They cured me of a terrible wasting disease called mortality. There's a lot of it about. The young hold out for a time, but eventually even the hardiest patient gets reduced to a desiccated embryo, a Strudlebug...a veined, scrawny, dribbling...bone clock, whose face betrays how very, very little time they have left.