"What was that noise? He wound the window right down and stuck his head out. Someone was sobbing in the carpark, a woman, a girl. She was wailing choking, trying to talk. He pulled his head in and went for the door handle but the moronic thumping of the music stopped dead and a man's voice spoke, light, reasoning, impatient.
      'Look, Donna' it said, 'what can't you just accept it? And make the best of it?'
         'But you don't - you never - I can't - '
She was weeping without shame. They were standing in the dark behind Dexter's car. He heard the man click his tongue and sigh, then the sobbing became muffled. He's put his arms around her, thought Dexter, but he doesn't love her any more. He rolled up the window as quietly as he could, although his urge to go on listening was almost sexual. His heart was beating. The music began again, stamp, stamp, stamp. The girl's grief passed though the metal and glass and became part of Dexter. His cells were sodden with it. He would carry it forever, long after she had recovered from it and gone on to love someone else."

 -from The Children's Bach by Helen Garner (1984)