*
Later, she drove into London, alone. The city gathered around her as she penetrated it, the houses and shops closing ranks, the traffic slowing and thickening. The grey wintry afternoon was jewelled with lights, green and red and amber in a brilliant avenue ahead all the way down the streets. When she reached her own part it was almost night; the long perspectives of the terraces gleamed pale behind the wrought-iron precision of bare trees and the sudden brilliant flare of street-lamps. The tail-lights of cars glowed, piling up ahead in a bank of colour. An office-block soared into the sky like an incandescent bar and the sky itself was orange, not sky but an extension of what lay beneath, a huge wild reflection of the city. She thought it beautiful, and was quietly exhilarated, as though this were some private vision. She drove towards her house, neither happy nor grieving, looking not backwards into the day but on into the next.
Penelope Lively, Perfect Happiness
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