Cate Kennedy

“Whatever the pretexts, let me say that disinhibition kicked in around dusk. The photocopier challenge began, as it probably always does, with people photocopying their faces and hands. Personally I regret the direction it took from there, but as team …”

“It’s not easy, being on the road. The roads being what they are, and my companions always keen on finding something low-budget. Melchior is generally okay with a twin share, but Gaspar – another story. It’s embarrassing, standing there …”

“There comes a moment when they both fall silent as her daughter takes a long shuddering breath, and that’s when the memory drops into Caro’s consciousness, perfect as a drop of water off a stalactite. Down it smashes, tiny but insistent, into …”

“Things are dim, inside the museum. There is no flash photography in the galleries but leaning in close reveals that the blues and the dark indigo in the set also show signs of use: they are splashed and grooved, as if Smith was trying to paint while sailing …”

“The doctor they’d made him see had called it catastrophising but it was hard to believe that guy was a real doctor and not just some uni student with a bunch of brochures, and Lucas doesn’t want any of the medication now because it makes him …”

“She smells like adrenalin and painkillers, antiseptic and ointment. She has been irradiated. Across the left side of her back is another pink square, flecked with uniform dots of red rash. The radiation has gone straight through her body, straight through …”