No wonder he looked so pasty, she was surprised he wasn’t diabetic. All those dirndls and knee-socks, God help us. Everyone knew that he preferred his women demure and wholesome, Bavarian preferably. The blonde lit a cigarette, making a phallic performance out of it. There was a woman she had never seen before – a permed, platinum blonde with heavy make-up – an actress by the look of her. He was at a table at the far end of the room, surrounded by the usual cohorts and toadies. A regiment of white-aproned waiters rushed around at tempo, serving the needs of the Münchner at leisure – coffee, cake and gossip. She had come in from the rain and drops of water still trembled like delicate dew on the fur coats of some of the women inside. Not just Teddy, of course, the rest of the world, too.Ī fug of tobacco smoke and damp clammy air hit her as she entered the café. If I thought it would save Teddy, Ursula thought. Could you do that? Could you kill a baby? With a gun? Or what if you had no gun, how about with your bare hands? In cold blood.’ You might have to kill him instead of kidnapping him. And anyway he might have turned out just the same, Quakers or no Quakers. ‘ But nobody knows what’s going to happen. If Hitler had died at birth, or if someone had kidnapped him as a baby and brought him up in – I don’t know, say, a Quaker household – surely things would be different.’
‘If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean. ‘ Don’t you wonder sometimes,’ Ursula said. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves. With wit and compassion, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life’s bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to? What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?ĭuring a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.ĭuring a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.
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