" That was the way it worked. Hard to define, this stalking, this predation, because it was piecemeal. A bit here, a bit there, maybe, maybe not, perhaps, don’t know. It was constant hints, symbolisms, representations, metaphors. He could have meant what I thought he’d meant, but equally, he might not have meant anything. Taken on their own, or to describe each incident separately, particularly while in the middle of it, might not seem, once relayed, to be all that much at all. If I’d said, ‘He offered me a lift as I was walking along the interface road reading Ivanhoe,’ it would have been, ‘Why were you walking along that dangerous interface road and why were you reading Ivanhoe? "

― Anna Burns , Milkman