![]() While two village lads serve them from a trolley, they can hear the sound of the waves and a strengthening of the wind. They had envisaged walking along the beach, a bottle of French wine in hand. After a huge wedding lunch, they have no appetite for the long-ago carved beef sitting in its congealed gravy, potatoes of a blueish tinge. The couple are served a silver service dinner in their honeymoon suite. Philip Larkin describes this turning point in his poem: It was a time ‘when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of a cure.’ But in the summer of 1962 the Pill was just a rumour and the repression of the fifties still reigned. The Beatles had just released their debut single ‘Love Me Do’ and the era of British Rock and Roll and sexual permissiveness was about to begin. McEwan set his story at the point when Britain, emerging from the austerity of wartime, was teetering on the brink of enormous social change. Their navigation of this significant act reflects not only their individual experience but also says a great deal about their times. The focus is on their fraught wedding night and the consummation of their marriage. So begins this novella written by an author at the height of his powers. ![]() They believe themselves to be deeply in love, but they are anxious about what will shortly take place on the four-poster bed – big and white, and waiting in the next room. ![]() Florence and Edward are both twenty-two and know little to nothing about sex. ![]()
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