To love someone need you know everything about them? hen Alice and Joseph meet they fall quickly into a tentative but serious relationship. She is a nurse he a painter and decorator; both are still young and hopeful of each other but each brings with them an emotional burden. Alices father has been a yawning absence all her life and her beloved grandmother - who helped raise her - has recently died. or his part Joseph refuses to speak about his army experiences in Northern Ireland and Alice suspects that his general reticence hides an even more deeply troubled past. When her widowed grandfather begins to tell Joseph about his own RAF experiences in l950s Kenya - stories he had shared only with his wife - something still raw is tapped in Joseph; his reaction to the older mans unburdening of guilt is both unexpected and devastating for them all. orally complex understated and powerfully moving Afterwards confirms Rachel Seifferts remarkable talent.