Kate Evans

And his pupils admire and listen to him.

He's also married to a woman called Evie and they have one child.

They're a professional couple.

their son has moved out, living in a very nice house that she's inherited from her family.

So there's a slight class thing going on where he's sort of married up in a way.

He also goes out sailing by himself.

When I was reading the character, actually, I was trying to picture him, and I don't know if you agree, Kate, but the person that came to my mind, and this might sound like two steps sideways, but it was Tim Waltz, you know, the governor of Minnesota, who...

Ran as the vice president.

That sort of guy, you know, if you can picture him, you know, good-hearted in his late 50s and sort of genial and for the community and loved.

That was the sort of picture of what this guy was in my head.

Yeah.

Well, no, and that's probably one of the early surprises of the book is that he has this idyllic life going on and there's inner demons.

And obviously that's part of what the book is about is bringing them out and quite soon into the book.

he has this fixation of wanting to kill himself, which, you know, as a reader, that comes across as sort of a bit of a surprise because his life is so good.

But yeah, I mean, that's, you know, the title of the book, you know, the things we never say is he can't explain this to anyone.

You know, he's meeting a lot of people like Flossie, but it never bursts through.

And that's the tension, definitely in the first half of the book.

I was.

I mean, the one criticism I have, it's not really a criticism.

It seemed that every character had this black mark in their lives.