Excerpt from Mrs. Engels by Gavin McCrea, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Frederick," I says. The bump and jolt of the wheels makes my voice tremble. "Frederick?"

He sighs. "What is it?"

"My love, forgive me if my insistence bores you, but still I don't understand why we must stop with the Marxes. If our house is ready, why don't we go there direct and move ourselves in? Then we could see Jenny and Karl at our leisure, when we're right and settled."

He lets loose another sigh. Crosses his leg over and lands a sharp elbow on the windowsill. "Really, Lizzie, I cannot discuss this with you again."

"I just don't see the need, that's all. Causing trouble for Jenny, when our house is there, biding to be walked into."

"For blazing sake, Lizzie, you know well it was Jenny's idea to have us for these few days. She desires us there so we can make the final arrangements together. Besides, it's too late to change the plans. We've been kindly invited, we've accepted the kind invitation, and that, if you'll be so kind, is the end of it."

And though it feels to me like the depths of unkindness, I know this must indeed be the end. When a man's mind is set, there's rot-all you can say to change its direction.

I turn to watch out the window. Soon the giant station hotels give way to workshops and warehouses; now to rows of brick and stone; now to terraces and park. Like Manchester, the whole of human history is here, only more of it. I make to point something out to Frederick—the door of a house on a better kind of street—but he's not looking. He's quiet in his seat. Like a statue he sits stock-still, his gaze on his lap, his mouth pulled down.

"A penny for your thoughts," I says.

"What's that?" he says, blinking at me like a dazed child.

"You looked a hundred miles away. Were you thinking anything?"

"Nein, nein." He brings a fist to his mouth and clears his throat. "I wasn't thinking anything. Nothing at all."

He says this, and of course I ought to credit it, but his face and manner go for so much; I can tell he's lying. He's thinking about her, and it makes me sad and envious to know it. Spoken or unspoken, she hangs there between us; an atmosphere.

I arrange the cuffs on my wrists till I'm able to look at him again. When I do, I can tell he has noticed a hurt in me, though I'm sure he doesn't know what's caused it. He brightens, his mood freshens, and he speaks in the tone of a man who wants to make up for he doesn't know what.

"I have always thought it interesting," he says, bringing his face close to the glass and squinting through it, "I've always thought it interesting that the English divide their buildings perpendicularly into houses, whereas we Germans divide them horizontally into apartments."

I shrug to tell him I've never thought to think about it.

"In England," he goes on, "every man is master of his hall and stairs and chambers, whereas back home we are obliged to use the hall and stairs in common. I believe it is just as Karl says: the possession of an entire house is desired in this country because it draws a circle round the family and hearth. This is mine. This is where I keep my joys and my sorrows, and you shan't touch it. Which is a natural feeling, I suppose. I daresay universal. But it is stronger here, much stronger, than it is in the Fatherland."

I make a face—"Is that so?"—and pull the window down to let the breeze in.

Don't I deserve to have some days that aren't about her?

The cab stops outside a detached house of fair style: three up and one down, a good-sized area, a flower garden and a porch. That they live bigger than their means—that they live at the rate of knots and don't use their allowance wise—isn't a surprise to me. Even so, I feel called on to speak.

This extract is taken from the novel Mrs. Engels, which is available now from Catapult Books and appears courtesy of Scribe Publications.