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If we avoid sadness in life, why do we seek it in art?
by Tara Venkatesan, cognitive scientist and operatic soprano
Philosophers and psychologists have puzzled over the allure of tragic art. New findings show how sadness can be a comfort
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As an opera singer, I’ve noticed that some of my favourite soprano arias are incredibly sad: about dying, losing the love of your life to someone else, or even lamenting that you’ve been cursed by an evil sorceress. When it comes to art, I’m far from the only one drawn to dark themes. From Taylor Swift’s breakup anthems to Picasso’s Blue Period paintings to poignant movies like The Notebook (2004), many people seek out art that expresses profound feelings of sadness. Maybe you do too?
It’s a phenomenon that has long puzzled psychologists and philosophers alike. Given that we usually dread sadness and strive to avoid it because it feels so bad – from painful conversations to the grief of loss – why do we actively seek it in art? Why do we pick films that we know will leave us sobbing in the movie theatre, or stream Sad Girl playlists carefully curated to provoke sorrow and melancholy? Why, when we look at paintings depicting human suffering, do we find them beautiful?
As well as being a singer, I’m also a cognitive scientist. Together with my research colleagues at Yale University, I recently embarked on a series of studies to help unravel this mystery. We think we’re getting closer to understanding how and why art transforms an otherwise aversive emotion into something that can be a comfort. But we started by looking at some of the existing theories for the allure of sad art.
Scholars have previously argued that it is the ‘formal features’ of art, such as meter, melody and contour, that can make expressions of sadness in books, songs or paintings more enjoyable than a real-life sad conversation with a friend. To an extent, this chimes with my own experience – a lot of what I find so enjoyable about listening to and singing those sad arias I mentioned is the other stuff surrounding the sadness: the beautiful melodies, the sweeping orchestrations and the poetic language. Earlier research backs this up. The literary scholar and philosopher Winfried Menninghaus and the psychologist Valentin Wagner, together with their colleagues, showed that increasing the presence of formal features, such as alliteration and rhyme, in a poem, increased people’s liking for the work, regardless of how sad it was.
So, the formal features of art are likely part of the story, but there’s much more to it. Wagner, Menninghaus and others have also proposed that merely thinking that we’re engaging with art (as opposed to something that’s not art) can change our experience – perhaps because it allows us to view it through an aesthetic, rather than real-life, lens.
Simply believing that something sad is a work of art can influence how much you like it
In one study to test this, Wagner and co showed that, when people were told they were looking at a picture from a recent exhibition at a famous art museum, as compared with looking at the same picture from a website on cleanliness and hygiene, they tended to rate the picture much more positively – even when it was a scene that many people would usually find disgusting, such as a pile of worms or intestines.
Relatedly, a different team of researchers led by the cognitive neuroscientist Sarita Silveira found greater activation of emotional processing areas in participants’ brains when they viewed a painting that they believed was from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as compared with when they viewed the same painting but thought it was from an adult education centre.
My colleagues and I wondered if these ‘framing effects’ might be especially relevant to the way people experience sad art. What if simply calling something that’s sad a ‘work of art’ changes how we receive it? To test this, we showed participants identical sad texts but with a crucial difference in framing. Some were told they were reading a work of art, such as a short story, song lyric, theatre monologue or movie script. For others, the same text was framed as not-art, such as a blog post, a Tweet, a diary entry or a dialogue.
For example, we showed people the following excerpt from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000) and told some of them that they were reading a monologue from a play, while we told others that they were reading an entry from someone’s personal diary:
Tonight I am ugly. I have lost all faith in my ability to attract males. And in the female animal that is a rather pathetic malady. My social contact is at the lowest ebb. Bill, my one link with Saturday night life, is gone, and I have no one left. No one at all. I don’t care about anyone, and the feeling is quite obviously mutual. What is it that makes one attract others? Last year I had several boys who wanted me for various reasons. I was sure of my looks, sure of my magnetism, and my ego was satiated. Now, after my three blind dates – two of which flopped utterly and completely, the third has also deflated. I wonder how I ever thought I was desirable.
Strikingly, we found that participants liked and enjoyed the exact same sad text more when they were told they were reading a work of art versus not-art. So, beyond any formal features that distinguish art from not-art, simply believing that something sad is a work of art can influence how much you like it.
But what is it about believing that something is ‘art’ that makes it enjoyable, even when it’s sad? The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle proposed that tragic plays provide us with catharsis, a purging of negative emotions, because the play is a work of fiction that creates a safe space where we can explore intense feelings without facing real-world consequences. By this account, we enjoy reading the above monologue because we believe that the descriptions of depression and mental trauma are not based on real sadness. And because fictional sad things are less traumatic than real sad things, we can enjoy the work.
However, the results from another of our studies throws a wrench into this hypothesis. Once again we showed people the same text, and again, for some of them, we labelled it in a way that implied it was ‘art’ (such as a lyric, a story or a script) and for others we labelled it in a way that implied it was ‘not-art’ (such as a blog post or a diary entry). Then we asked all of them how real they thought the emotions and events described in the text were. While people generally assumed that pieces labelled ‘art’ were more likely to be fictional, their liking for these sad texts didn’t stem from this perception of fictionality. In fact, in direct contradiction of Aristotle’s theory, we found something startling: the more participants believed the sad emotions and events described in a text were real, the more they liked it.
As a musician, this finding makes intuitive sense to me. If I suddenly learned that Nick Cave’s songs about addiction were just made up and not actually based on his own struggles with drug use, I think I would find that extremely off-putting. It would feel disingenuous and inauthentic. Our findings seem to reflect this idea that we like sad art more to the extent that we think the sad things actually happened to the artist.
Seeking out sad art when you’re feeling low can actually be a positive step to take. It can give voice to your own feelings
All this led us to an alternative idea that might help explain the allure of sad art as proposed by philosophers such as Anna Christina Ribeiro – appropriation. According to Ribeiro, when we engage with a work of art, we experience it as an expression of our own emotions rather than an expression of someone else’s emotions.
As a singer, this appropriation hypothesis sounds right. Imagine you’re at a Taylor Swift concert and she sings: ‘I know it’s long gone and that magic’s not here no more. And I might be OK, but I’m not fine at all.’ In singing these lyrics, Swift wants to communicate her feelings but she’s also doing something else. She’s inviting you to think about your own emotions and experiences. You would not, however, be expected to ask Swift how she’s doing and comfort her after the show – that would be weird! Similarly, when I write a song about a heartbreak or loss, I write based on my own experiences, but I don’t expect the audience to be thinking about me and my life when I sing for them. I assume they’re thinking about their own experiences and feelings.
The appropriation hypothesis suggests that simply calling something a work of art could give us licence to experience the emotions expressed as though they are our own feelings, and that could explain our liking for sad art.
To test the appropriation hypothesis empirically, we again presented people with the same texts, and again sometimes labelled them as ‘art’ and sometimes as ‘not-art’. For example, people read the from the song ‘My Immortal’ (2003) by Evanescence, and were told they were either reading song lyrics or a Tweet:
I’m so tired of being here …
I wish that you would just leave
’Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won’t leave me alone.
These wounds won’t seem to heal. This pain is just too real.
There’s just too much that time cannot erase.
But, this time, we asked our participants how much they experienced the text as an expression of their own thoughts and feelings. We found that people were indeed more likely to appropriate the sad text when it was presented as art compared with when it was presented as non-art. And, crucially, the more they appropriated the text, the more they liked it.
Our experiments cannot explain why appropriating art leads to greater liking, but as Ribeiro posits in her article Heavenly Hurt: The Joy and Value of Sad Poetry, it is possible that appropriating makes us feel less alone ‘because we feel the way others do or have felt’. This, in turn, might lead us to enjoy the sad art, even though we generally try to avoid sad things. This jibes with our recent research, led by the philosopher Mario Attie-Picker and Joshua Knobe, in which our participants told us they enjoy sad music because it makes them feel more connected to others. It seems highly plausible that appropriating sad art in all its forms – be that music, stories, poetry, or paintings – makes us feel as if someone else understands our sadness, and it is this sense of connection that explains the feelings of liking and enjoyment.
If this account is correct, Ribeiro proposes that it could also help to explain another paradox – the way that so many of us are drawn to sad art when we’re feeling down – and why that might actually be helpful. Although excessive wallowing in sad art can be a mark of depression, especially in individuals prone to rumination, our experimental findings corroborate Ribeiro’s theory that seeking out sad art when you’re feeling low might actually be a positive step to take. It can give voice to the feelings that you, perhaps, have had trouble expressing yourself. So, the next time you’re feeling low, playing a tear-jerker, watching a sad movie or reading a lament might be just what you need to feel seen, understood and comforted.
Tara Venkatesan is a cognitive scientist and operatic soprano. She is the Director of Cognitive Science Research at Universal Music Group.
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To be is to participate
Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight – hers and the one by the empty chair opposite. On the sideboard behind her, two tall glasses, soda water, whisky. Fresh ice cubes in the Thermos bucket.
Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home from work.
Now and again she would glance up at the clock, but without anxiety, merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come. There was a slow smiling air about her, and about everything she did. The drop of the head as she bent over her sewing was curiously tranquil. Her skin – for this was her sixth month with child – had acquired a wonderful translucent quality, the mouth was soft, and the eyes, with their new placid look, seemed larger, darker than before.
When the clock said ten minutes to five, she began to listen, and a few moments later, punctually as always, she heard the tyres on the gravel outside, and the car door slamming, the footsteps passing the window, the key turning in the lock. She laid aside her sewing, stood up, and went forward to kiss him as he came in.
‘Hullo, darling,’ she said.
‘Hullo,’ he answered.
She took his coat and hung it in the closet. Then she walked over and made the drinks, a strongish one for him, a weak one for herself; and soon she was back again in her chair with the sewing, and he in the other, opposite, holding the tall glass with both his hands, rocking it so the ice cubes tinkled against the side.
For her, this was always a blissful time of day. She knew he didn’t want to speak much until the first drink was finished, and she, on her side, was content to sit quietly, enjoying his company after the long hours alone in the house. She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man, and to feel – almost as a sunbather feels the sun – that warm male glow that came out of him to her when they were alone together. She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in a door, or moved slowly across the room with long strides. She loved the intent, far look in his eyes when they rested on her, the funny shape of the mouth, and especially the way he remained silent about his tiredness, sitting still with himself until the whisky had taken some of it away.
‘Tired, darling?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m tired.’ And as he spoke, he did an unusual thing. He lifted his glass and drained it in one swallow although there was still half of it, at least half of it, left. She wasn’t really watching him but she knew what he had done because she heard the ice cubes falling back against the bottom of the empty glass when he lowered his arm. He paused a moment, leaning forward in the chair, then he got up and went slowly over to fetch himself another.
‘I’ll get it!’ she cried, jumping up.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
When he came back, she noticed that the new drink was dark amber with the quantity of whisky in it.
‘Darling, shall I get your slippers?’
‘No.’
She watched him as he began to sip the dark yellow drink, and she could see little oily swirls in the liquid because it was so strong.
‘I think it’s a shame,’ she said, ‘that when a policeman gets to be as senior as you, they keep him walking about on his feet all day long.’
He didn’t answer, so she bent her head again and went on with her sewing; but each time he lifted the drink to his lips, she heard the ice cubes clinking against the side of the glass.
‘Darling,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to get you some cheese? I haven’t made any supper because it’s Thursday.’
‘No,’ he said.
‘If you’re too tired to eat out,’ she went on, ‘it’s still not too late. There’s plenty of meat and stuff in the freezer, and you can have it right here and not even move out of the chair.’
Her eyes waited on him for an answer, a smile, a little nod, but he made no sign.
‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I’ll get you some cheese and crackers first.’
‘I don’t want it,’ he said.
She moved uneasily in her chair, the large eyes still watching his face. ‘But you must have supper. I can easily do it here. I’d like to do it. We can have lamb chops. Or pork. Anything you want. Everything’s in the freezer.’
‘Forget it,’ he said.
‘But, darling, you must eat! I’ll fix it anyway, and then you can have it or not, as you like.’
She stood up and placed her sewing on the table by the lamp.
‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Just for a minute, sit down.’
It wasn’t till then that she began to get frightened.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’
She lowered herself back slowly into the chair, watching him all the time with those large, bewildered eyes. He had finished the second drink and was staring down into the glass frowning.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘What is it, darling? What’s the matter?’
He had become absolutely motionless, and he kept his head down so that the light from the lamp beside him fell across the upper part of his face, leaving the chin and mouth in shadow. She noticed there was a little muscle moving near the corner of his left eye.
‘This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘But I’ve thought about it a good deal and I’ve decided the only thing to do is tell you right away. I hope you won’t blame me too much.’
And he told her. It didn’t take long, four or five minutes at most, and she sat very still through it all, watching him with a kind of dazed horror as he went further and further away from her with each word.
‘So there it is,’ he added. ‘And I know it’s kind of a bad time to be telling you, but there simply wasn’t any other way. Of course I’ll give you money and see you’re looked after. But there needn’t really be any fuss. I hope not anyway. It wouldn’t be very good for my job.’
Her first instinct was not to believe any of it, to reject it all. It occurred to her that perhaps he hadn’t even spoken, that she herself had imagined the whole thing. Maybe, if she went about her business and acted as though she hadn’t been listening, then later, when she sort of woke up again, she might find none of it had ever happened.
‘I’ll get the supper,’ she managed to whisper, and this time he didn’t stop her.
When she walked across the room she couldn’t feel her feet touching the floor. She couldn’t feel anything at all – except a slight nausea and a desire to vomit. Everything was automatic now – down the stairs to the cellar, the light switch, the deep freeze, the hand inside the cabinet taking hold of the first object it met. She lifted it out, and looked at it. It was wrapped in paper, so she took off the paper and looked at it again.
A leg of lamb.
All right then, they would have lamb for supper. She carried it upstairs, holding the thin bone-end of it with both her hands, and as she went through the living-room, she saw him standing over by the window with his back to her, and she stopped.
‘For God’s sake,’ he said, hearing her, but not turning round. ‘Don’t make supper for me. I’m going out.’
At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head.
She might just as well have hit him with a steel club.
She stepped back a pace, waiting, and the funny thing was that he remained standing there for at least four or five seconds, gently swaying. Then he crashed to the carpet.
The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table overturning, helped bring her out of the shock. She came out slowly, feeling cold and surprised, and she stood for a while blinking at the body, still holding the ridiculous piece of meat tight with both hands.
All right, she told herself. So I’ve killed him.
It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began thinking very fast. As the wife of a detective, she knew quite well what the penalty would be. That was fine. It made no difference to her. In fact, it would be a relief. On the other hand, what about the child? What were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill them both – mother and child? Or did they wait until the tenth month? What did they do?
Mary Maloney didn’t know. And she certainly wasn’t prepared to take a chance.
She carried the meat into the kitchen, placed it in a pan, turned the oven on high, and shoved it inside. Then she washed her hands and ran upstairs to the bedroom. She sat down before the mirror, tidied her face, touched up her lips and face. She tried a smile. It came out rather peculiar. She tried again.
‘Hullo, Sam,’ she said brightly, aloud.
The voice sounded peculiar too.
‘I want some potatoes please, Sam. Yes, and I think a can of peas.’
That was better. Both the smile and the voice were coming out better now. She rehearsed it several times more. Then she ran downstairs, took her coat, went out the back door, down the garden, into the street.
It wasn’t six o’clock yet and the lights were still on in the grocery shop.
‘Hullo, Sam,’ she said brightly, smiling at the man behind the counter.
‘Why, good evening, Mrs Maloney. How’re you?’
‘I want some potatoes please, Sam. Yes, and I think a can of peas.’
The man turned and reached up behind him on the shelf for the peas.
‘Patrick’s decided he’s tired and doesn’t want to eat out tonight,’ she told him. ‘We usually go out Thursdays, you know, and now he’s caught me without any vegetables in the house.’
‘Then how about meat, Mrs Maloney?’
‘No, I’ve got meat, thanks. I got a nice leg of lamb, from the freezer.’
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t much like cooking it frozen, Sam, but I’m taking a chance on it this time. You think it’ll be all right?’
‘Personally,’ the grocer said, ‘I don’t believe it makes any difference. You want these Idaho potatoes?’
‘Oh yes, that’ll be fine. Two of those.’
‘Anything else?’ The grocer cocked his head on one side, looking at her pleasantly. ‘How about afterwards? What you going to give him for afterwards?’
‘Well – what would you suggest, Sam?’
The man glanced around his shop. ‘How about a nice big slice of cheesecake? I know he likes that.’
‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘He loves it.’
And when it was all wrapped and she had paid she put on her brightest smile and said, ‘Thank you, Sam. Good night.’
‘Good night, Mrs Maloney. And thank you.’
And now, she told herself as she hurried back, all she was doing now, she was returning home to her husband and he was waiting for his supper; and she must cook it good, and make it as tasty as possible because the poor man was tired; and if, when she entered the house, she happened to find anything unusual, or tragic, or terrible, then naturally it would be a shock and she’d become frantic with grief and horror. Mind you, she wasn’t expecting to find anything. She was just going home with the vegetables. Mrs Patrick Maloney going home with the vegetables on Thursday evening to cook supper for her husband.
That’s the way, she told herself. Do everything right and natural. Keep things absolutely natural and there’ll be no need for any acting at all.
Therefore, when she entered the kitchen by the back door, she was humming a little tune to herself and smiling.
‘Patrick!’ she called. ‘How are you, darling?’
She put the parcel down on the table and went through into the living-room; and when she saw him lying there on the floor with his legs doubled up and one arm twisted back underneath his body, it really was rather a shock. All the old love and longing for him welled up inside her, and she ran over to him, knelt down beside him, and began to cry her heart out. It was easy. No acting was necessary.
A few minutes later she got up and went to the phone. She knew the number of the police station, and when the man at the other end answered, she cried to him, ‘Quick! Come quick! Patrick’s dead!’
‘Who’s speaking?’
‘Mrs Maloney. Mrs Patrick Maloney.’
‘You mean Patrick Maloney’s dead?’
‘I think so,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s lying on the floor and I think he’s dead.’
‘Be right over,’ the man said.
The car came over quickly, and when she opened the front door, two policemen walked in. She knew them both – she knew nearly all the men at that precinct – and she fell right into Jack Noonan’s arms, weeping hysterically. He put her gently into a chair, then went over to join the other one, who was called O’Malley, kneeling by the body.
‘Is he dead?’ she cried.
‘I’m afraid he is. What happened?’
Briefly, she told her story about going out to the grocer and coming back to find him on the floor. While she was talking, crying and talking, Noonan discovered a small patch of congealed blood on the dead man’s head. He showed it to O’Malley who got up at once and hurried to the phone.
Soon, other men began to come into the house. First a doctor, then two detectives, one of whom she knew by name. Later, a police photographer arrived and took pictures, and a man who knew about fingerprints. There was a great deal of whispering and muttering beside the corpse, and the detectives kept asking her a lot of questions. But they always treated her kindly. She told her story again, this time right from the beginning, when Patrick had come in, and she was sewing, and he was tired, so tired he hadn’t wanted to go out for supper. She told how she’d put the meat in the oven – ‘it’s there now, cooking’ – and how she’d slipped out to the grocer for vegetables, and come back to find him lying on the floor.
‘Which grocer?’ one of the detectives asked.
She told him, and he turned and whispered something to the other detective who immediately went outside into the street.
In fifteen minutes he was back with a page of notes, and there was more whispering, and through her sobbing she heard a few of the whispered phrases – ‘… acted quite normal … very cheerful … wanted to give him a good supper … peas … cheesecake … impossible that she …’
After a while, the photographer and the doctor departed and two other men came in and took the corpse away on a stretcher. Then the fingerprint man went away. The two detectives remained, and so did the two policemen. They were exceptionally nice to her, and Jack Noonan asked if she wouldn’t rather go somewhere else, to her sister’s house perhaps, or to his own wife who would take care of her and put her up for the night.
No, she said. She didn’t feel she could move even a yard at the moment. Would they mind awfully if she stayed just where she was until she felt better? She didn’t feel too good at the moment, she really didn’t.
Then hadn’t she better lie down on the bed? Jack Noonan asked.
No, she said, she’d like to stay right where she was, in this chair. A little later perhaps, when she felt better, she would move.
So they left her there while they went about their business, searching the house. Occasionally one of the detectives asked her another question. Sometimes Jack Noonan spoke to her gently as he passed by. Her husband, he told her, had been killed by a blow on the back of the head administered with a heavy blunt instrument, almost certainly a large piece of metal. They were looking for the weapon. The murderer may have taken it with him, but on the other hand he may’ve thrown it away or hidden it somewhere on the premises.
‘It’s the old story,’ he said. ‘Get the weapon, and you’ve got the man.’
Later, one of the detectives came up and sat beside her. Did she know, he asked, of anything in the house that could’ve been used as the weapon? Would she mind having a look around to see if anything was missing – a very big spanner for example, or a heavy metal vase.
They didn’t have any heavy metal vases, she said.
‘Or a big spanner?’
She didn’t think they had a big spanner. But there might be some things like that in the garage.
The search went on. She knew that there were other policemen in the garden all around the house. She could hear their footsteps on the gravel outside, and sometimes she saw the flash of a torch through a chink in the curtains. It began to get late, nearly nine she noticed by the clock on the mantel. The four men searching the rooms seemed to be growing weary, a trifle exasperated.
‘Jack,’ she said, the next time Sergeant Noonan went by. ‘Would you mind giving me a drink?’
‘Sure I’ll give you a drink. You mean this whisky?’
‘Yes, please. But just a small one. It might make me feel better.’
He handed her the glass.
‘Why don’t you have one yourself,’ she said. ‘You must be awfully tired. Please do. You’ve been very good to me.’
‘Well,’ he answered. ‘It’s not strictly allowed, but I might take just a drop to keep me going.’
One by one the others came in and were persuaded to take a little nip of whisky. They stood around rather awkwardly with the drinks in their hands, uncomfortable in her presence, trying to say consoling things to her. Sergeant Noonan wandered into the kitchen, came out quickly and said, ‘Look, Mrs Maloney. You know that oven of yours is still on, and the meat still inside.’
‘Oh dear me!’ she cried. ‘So it is!’
‘I better turn it off for you, hadn’t I?’
‘Will you do that, Jack. Thank you so much.’
When the sergeant returned the second time, she looked at him with her large, dark, tearful eyes. ‘Jack Noonan,’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘Would you do me a small favour – you and these others?’
‘We can try, Mrs Maloney.’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘Here you all are, and good friends of dear Patrick’s too, and helping to catch the man who killed him. You must be terribly hungry by now because it’s long past your supper time, and I know Patrick would never forgive me, God bless his soul, if I allowed you to remain in his house without offering you decent hospitality. Why don’t you eat up that lamb that’s in the oven? It’ll be cooked just right by now.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Sergeant Noonan said.
‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Please eat it. Personally I couldn’t touch a thing, certainly not what’s been in the house when he was here. But it’s all right for you. It’d be a favour to me if you’d eat it up. Then you can go on with your work again afterwards.’
There was a good deal of hesitating among the four policemen, but they were clearly hungry, and in the end they were persuaded to go into the kitchen and help themselves. The woman stayed where she was, listening to them through the open door, and she could hear them speaking among themselves, their voices thick and sloppy because their mouths were full of meat.
‘Have some more, Charlie?’
‘No. Better not finish it.’
‘She wants us to finish it. She said so. Be doing her a favour.’
‘Okay then. Give me some more.’
‘That’s the hell of a big club the guy must’ve used to hit poor Patrick,’ one of them was saying. ‘The doc says his skull was smashed all to pieces just like from a sledgehammer.’
‘That’s why it ought to be easy to find.’
‘Exactly what I say.’
‘Whoever done it, they’re not going to be carrying a thing like that around with them longer than they need.’
One of them belched.
‘Personally, I think it’s right here on the premises.’
‘Probably right under our very noses. What you think, Jack?’
And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle.
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