imagining is one legacy of natural selection in a dangerous world. This past hour he's been in a state of wild unreason, in a folly of overinterpretation. It doesn't console him that anyone in these times, standing at the window in his place, might have leaped to the same conclusions. Misunderstanding is general all over the world. How can we trust ourselves? He sees now the details he half ignored in order to nourish his fears: that the plane was not being driven into a public building, that it was making a regular, controlled descent, that it was on a well-used flight path - none of this fitted the general unease. He told himself there were two possible outcomes - the cat dead or alive. But he'd already voted for the dead, when he should have sensed it straight away - a simple accident in the making. Not an attack on our whole way of life then.
Half aware of him, Rosalind shifts position, fidgeting with a feeble turn of her shoulders so that her back is snug against his chest. She slides her foot along his shin and rests the arch of her foot on his toes. Aroused further, he feels his erection trapped against the small of her back and reaches down to free himself. Her breathing resumes its steady rhythm. Henry lies still, waiting for sleep. By contemporary standards, by any standards, it's perverse that he's never tired of making love to Rosalind, never been seriously tempted by the opportunities that have drifted his way through the generous logic of medical hierarchy. When he thinks of sex, he thinks of her. These eyes, these breasts, this tongue, this welcome. Who else could love him so knowingly, with such warmth and teasing humour, or accumulate so rich a past with him? In one lifetime it wouldn't be
39 Ian McEwan
possible to find another woman with whom he can learn to be so free, whom he can please with such abandon and expertise. By some accident of character, it's familiarity that excites him more than sexual novelty. He suspects there's something numbed or deficient or timid in himself. Plenty of male friends sidle into adventures with younger women; now and then a solid marriage explodes in a fire fight of recrimination. Perowne watches on with unease, fearing he lacks an element of the masculine life force, and a bold and healthy appetite for experience. Where's his curiosity? What's wrong with him? But there's nothing he can do about himself. He meets the occasional questioning glance of an attractive woman with a bland and level smile. This fidelity might look like virtue or doggedness, but it's neither of these because he exercises no real choice. This is what he has to have: possession, belonging, repetition.
It was a calamity - certainly an attack on her whole way of life - that brought Rosalind into his life. His first sight of her was from behind as he walked down the women's neurology ward one late afternoon in August. It was striking, this abundance of reddish-brown hair - almost to the waist - on such a small frame. For a moment he thought she was a large child. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, still fully dressed, talking to the registrar in a voice that strained to contain her terror. Perowne caught some of the history as he stopped by, and learned the rest later from her notes. Her health was generally fine, but she'd suffered headaches on and off during the past year. She touched her head to show them where. Her hands, he noticed, were very small. The face was a perfect oval, with large eyes of pale green. She had missed periods now and then, and sometimes a substance oozed from her breasts. Early that afternoon, while she was working in the law department library at University College, reading up on torts - she was specific on this point - her vision had started, as she said, to go wonky. Within minutes she could no longer see the numbers on her wristwatch. She left her books,
40 Saturday
grabbed her bag and went downstairs holding the banisters tightly. She was groping her way along
Half aware of him, Rosalind shifts position, fidgeting with a feeble turn of her shoulders so that her back is snug against his chest. She slides her foot along his shin and rests the arch of her foot on his toes. Aroused further, he feels his erection trapped against the small of her back and reaches down to free himself. Her breathing resumes its steady rhythm. Henry lies still, waiting for sleep. By contemporary standards, by any standards, it's perverse that he's never tired of making love to Rosalind, never been seriously tempted by the opportunities that have drifted his way through the generous logic of medical hierarchy. When he thinks of sex, he thinks of her. These eyes, these breasts, this tongue, this welcome. Who else could love him so knowingly, with such warmth and teasing humour, or accumulate so rich a past with him? In one lifetime it wouldn't be
39 Ian McEwan
possible to find another woman with whom he can learn to be so free, whom he can please with such abandon and expertise. By some accident of character, it's familiarity that excites him more than sexual novelty. He suspects there's something numbed or deficient or timid in himself. Plenty of male friends sidle into adventures with younger women; now and then a solid marriage explodes in a fire fight of recrimination. Perowne watches on with unease, fearing he lacks an element of the masculine life force, and a bold and healthy appetite for experience. Where's his curiosity? What's wrong with him? But there's nothing he can do about himself. He meets the occasional questioning glance of an attractive woman with a bland and level smile. This fidelity might look like virtue or doggedness, but it's neither of these because he exercises no real choice. This is what he has to have: possession, belonging, repetition.
It was a calamity - certainly an attack on her whole way of life - that brought Rosalind into his life. His first sight of her was from behind as he walked down the women's neurology ward one late afternoon in August. It was striking, this abundance of reddish-brown hair - almost to the waist - on such a small frame. For a moment he thought she was a large child. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, still fully dressed, talking to the registrar in a voice that strained to contain her terror. Perowne caught some of the history as he stopped by, and learned the rest later from her notes. Her health was generally fine, but she'd suffered headaches on and off during the past year. She touched her head to show them where. Her hands, he noticed, were very small. The face was a perfect oval, with large eyes of pale green. She had missed periods now and then, and sometimes a substance oozed from her breasts. Early that afternoon, while she was working in the law department library at University College, reading up on torts - she was specific on this point - her vision had started, as she said, to go wonky. Within minutes she could no longer see the numbers on her wristwatch. She left her books,
40 Saturday
grabbed her bag and went downstairs holding the banisters tightly. She was groping her way along
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