“The war and all its deprivations seem relentless, but for Cristabel, there is a strange and guilty thrill running through it, for it is exactly this thinning of the ordinary that allows the unordinary through. How can it be that she loves this murky, blighted and pockmarked England more than she loved its peaceful green predecessor? Because she can drive a car through it, in a uniform; because she can be with a man in it, without marriage;.”
