Elly Griffiths

I spent many an afternoon there

Why do people do this? Why do they pour out their hopes and fears, night after night, to an audience of no one? Clare had this habit of peppering her diary entries with what were clearly quotations. Why did she do that? Did she imagine that her diaries would be read out on Radio 4 one day? Sometimes she even takes the time to attribute the quotes, as if she were writing a sixth-form English essay. ‘Nothing in the world is hidden forever’—Wilkie Collins, No Name. And why, when she was supposedly writing for herself, did she take so much care to craft her sentences? Is married love always a casualty of maternal love? Who the hell is she asking? And all that dialogue, in careful quotation marks. ‘Hope it keeps fine for you.’ It reads like a chick-lit novel, the sort you buy at the airport and regret before the cabin staff have finished their safety demonstration.

‘Diaries don’t tell you what people think. Just what they think they think.