The Men's Room by Ann Oakley
First published in 1988 The Men's Room chronicles the long and painful can't-live-with-you/can't-live-without-you affair between Charity and Mark. I re-read this book every five years or so, and every time I do my sympathies and reactions to their wearyingly awful behaviour are different -reflecting the change in my attitudes and on-going experience of life. Nothing is ever stable between them, and the detritis of their infidelities and quarrels litter their feet. The conclusion was that their passion was so great they were unable to sustain a relationship in 'the ordinary' and had to hurt each other to prove the worth of their existance. But even when the death knell has been sounded, and Mark has finally married a girl twenty-four years his junior, Charity knows she hasn't lost his soul, nor ever will. She states, in a tirade to his absent self' ' . . .I know there's not a moment of any day when you don't miss me . . . but it's only a matter of time. Time will make you reach out for me again.'
7/10
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