Checking out

"dewy and fresh” appearance"

"There were difficulties in her life that he wanted to know more about, parts of her thick, shapely body that he longed to touch, but he was wary of complicating things. He would wait until after their wedding, until the business side of their relationship was finished"

"Removed. The word made Obinze feel inanimate. A thing to be removed. A thing without breath and mind. A thing."

"Sometimes he would stop outside a tube station, often by a flower or a newspaper vender, and watch the people brushing past. They walked so quickly, as if they had an important destination, a purpose to their lives. His eyes would follow them, with a lost longing, and he would think, You can work, you are legal, you are visible, and you don’t even know how fortunate you are."

"wistfully, like an admiring foreigner”"

"averse to foreign young men”"

"a real gent”"

"weightless menace,” while the buildings “all [wear] a mournful face”"

"asylum seekers draining the National Health Service” and feels scrutinized and judged"

"They walked so quickly, as if they had an important destination, a purpose to their lives. His eyes would follow them, with a lost longing, and he would think, You can work, you are legal, you are visible, and you don’t even know how fortunate you are.”"

"I’ve never been to Africa. I’d love to go.’ She said ‘Africa’ wistfully, like an admiring foreigner, loading the word with exotic excitement. Her black Angolan father had left her white Portuguese mother when she was three, she told him, and she had not seen him since, nor had she ever been to Angola. She said this with a shrug and a cynical raise of her eyebrows, as though it had never bothered her, an effort so out of character, so jarring, that it showed him just how deeply it did bother her.”"

"He wanted to kiss her, her upper lip pinker and shinier with lip gloss than the lower, to hold her, to tell her how deeply, irrepressibly grateful he was. She would never flaunt her power over him.”"