Brother-sister
Laurel is not very close with either with her sisters, but this fact does not concern Gerry. She always felt him to be special, and he really was. Their warm relationships are easily traced in the novel. One of their conversations proves it: “Gerry?' Laurel had to strain to hear thought the noise on the other end of the line. 'Gerry? Where are you?' 'London. A phone booth on Fleet Street.' 'The city still has working phone booths?' 'It would appear so. Unless this is the Tardis, in which case I'm in serious trouble.” Tardis is an imagined element of famous British TV series Doctor Who - namely, a time machine and spacecraft. Gerry alludes to it and a humorously ironic situation is created.
Too close
During her investigation, Laurel finds a woman called Kitty who used to know her mother during the war years. Laurel visits her and Kitty told her everything she knew. Kitty herself is portrayed as a gossip girl and even a scandalmonger; she lives with her daughter Isabel, who seems to be very devoted to her mother. Kitty remembers Dorothy very well and tells some facts that Laurel did not know, to which Kitty makes a sharp remark: “It seems that not every mother is plain open with her daughter”. Such content shows that Kitty appreciates her daughter and in this way makes her very proud, but the irony is that neither Kitty nor Isabel sees how these frank relationships damage the poor girl. She in her fifties still lives with her mother, has no family on her own; she is not acknowledged in society beyond the life of her mother’s. The situation is very sad and pitiful.
