ATDTDA (9): Refined to an edge, 267

[Paul Nightingale]

In the previous section the church is hidden from the day-to-day survival
strategies that characterise town life. Here, the writing is somewhat coy,
as though attempting to distance the reader from the marital sex being
described.

Was Lake sexually active, as Webb suspected at the time they argued
(189-191)? Was she "a badgirl" in Silverton (191)? The most obvious point to
make is that there is rather more (unambiguous) detail in the earlier
passage, eg ". hard to say which of them . had less sense about who she went
upstairs with". On 267, however, one might wonder about the opening ("She
was a virgin bride") juxtaposed to the final sentence ("Child of the
storm"): the latter takes the careless, forgetful reader back to the
argument with Webb, that is to say, back to the moment she ceased to be his
daughter. Parallel worlds, landmarks and anti-landmarks? Perhaps this brief
section is simply designed to emphasise/confirm the (anti-realistic)
reinvention of character that seems to be Lake's narrative function.