she was a lost soul down there in the irish channel , a woman speaking better and dressing better than those around her , begging to go back to work as a sales clerk in a department store , and always being told no ; a woman who lived for her paperback novels late at night -books by john dickson carr and daphne du maurier and frances parkinson keyes - sitting on the living room couch , dressed only in a slip on account of the heat , when everyone else was asleep , drinking wine slowly and carefully from a bottle wrapped in brown paper .