Those stiff little Lowry figures hide terrible secrets behind their mufflers: cancers, malignant hypertension, anemia. They have inhaled asbestos fibers and been downwind of chemical escapes. They drink, smoke, cough blood. Bus conductors fall on them, and knock them “cockeyed” with their ticket machines. Bales of cotton tumble from lorries and bowl them over.

Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self-…, loc. 195