On the black cotton was printed a white skull and crossbones – the skull head grinning as if he were mocking her. The nun struggled for her breath and wanted to drop the evil little...

Vera had also hated lipstick, Marzipan and Lutherans – excluding her husband, but not her late mother-in-law. Most of all she hated being governed by anyone or anything.

A brief whiff of her mother had come through a cracked window that opened to a weed-infested courtyard. It was a fragrance that almost spoke to her, saying, ‘Yes, it was an unjust end to...