Barbara Covett: We are bound by the secrets we share.
Barbara Covett: When I was young I had such a vision of myself. I dreamed I'd be someone to be reckoned with, you know, in the world. But one learns one's scale. I've such a dread of ending my days alone. But recently, I've allowed myself to think that I may not be. Am I wrong?
Barbara Covett: People languish for years with partners who are from another planet. We want so much to believe that we've found our other. It takes courage to recognise the real as opposed to the convenient.
Barbara Covett: She's the one I have waited for.
Barbara Covett: People like Sheba think they know what it is to be lonely. But of the drip, drip of the long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. What it's like to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the launderette. Or to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin. Of this, Sheba and her like have no clue.
Richard Hart: I knew who you were when we met. You were young. I knew it might get tough, but I was prepared. You're a good mother, but at times you've been a fucking lousy wife. Why didn't you come to me? You could have told me how lonely you were. You never trusted me to help you. I'm not saying I was so fucking fabulous, but I was here.
Sheba Hart: I hadn't been pursued like this for years... I knew it was wrong, and immoral, and completely ridiculous, but, I don't know. I just allowed it to happen.
Barbara Covett: The boy is fifteen.
Sheba Hart: But he's quite mature for his age.
Sheba Hart: This is going to sound sick, but something in me felt... entitled. You know, I've been good all my adult life. I've been a decent wife, a dutiful mother coping with Ben. This voice inside me kept saying "why shouldn't you be bad, why shouldn't you transgress? I mean, you've earned the right."
Sheba Hart: My father always used to say... you know, on the tube..."Mind the gap."
Barbara Covett: Oh um.
Sheba Hart: I don't know... it's just the distance between life as you... dream it, and... life as it is.
Barbara Covett: I know exactly what you mean.
Sheba Hart: When you started teaching, didn't you want to give them a real education to help overcome... the poverty of their backgrounds?
Barbara Covett: Oh yes, of course. Bu one soon learns that teaching is crowd control. We're a branch of the social services.
Sue Hodge: Console yourself with the gems. That's when it's satisfying. Then you can make a real difference.
Barbara Covett: The rest is just cattle-prod and pray.
Steven Connolly: You're beautiful, Miss. Ya don't know how beautiful ya are.
