And there will be Ethel watching, just standing there, stirring something on the kitchen stove, or dusting the mahogany sideboard, or polishing the silver, and looking out the window, staring, just staring, as though she were watching the spinifex growing, or the sky hanging there, just staring with that terrible effrontery of someone who will not deign to react.
1996, Janette Turner Hospital, Oyster, Virago Press, paperback edition, page 269