A newly married couple, Edward (historian, Chiltern) and Florence (musician, Oxford), are about to sleep together for the first time, in an era when youth was a condition of slight embarrassment for which marriage was the first stage of therapy. They're both 22. Edward has performance anxiety. Florence's worries are more to do with disgust at the physical act, at being "penetrated" (even by his tongue in her mouth), though she doesn't fear giving birth.
They're honeymooning in a hotel, finishing their evening meal. It's about 1962. They hear downstairs old people at the bar still in the shadow of the war. They hear a distant radio. The couple think it's time to move on; after all, the States have Kennedy. The UK's losing what influence it had. The empire's shrinking. The couple's conversation is awkward, with many silences - Edward's keen to go to bed, Florence is dreading it, hoping she won't be sick, but neither dare say what's going through their minds. He thinks about politics to distract himself from getting too excited.
We wind back to their first meeting, which only happened because of a succession of chance events. They'd both studied in London but never knowingly met. We learn that Florence has a younger sister, that her mother isn't physically expressive emotionally. Florence has sometimes gone on holidays just with her father. Edward was raised in respectable but poorer surroundings. His mother's a bit strange and arty. He has younger twin sisters. She wants to set up a string quartet. He doesn't get classical music, preferring Chuck Berry. He plans to write a series of books on forgotten historic figures.
Back at the action, there's progress. Each movement's recorded, as if in slo-mo. She admits to being a bit afraid - an understatement, but they're her first ever words on the subject. He replies that he is too. She has a physical sensation caused by Edward which might be the first sign of pleasure. He has a messy premature ejaculation. In horror she runs to the beach.
We then read about Edward's stays with Florence's parents - his tennis games with her father (a businessman), his political/history debates with her mother (a lecturer), his caution about winning or losing. He experiences many things there for the first time, not least stereo, and cheese that isn't cheddar. He tries to delay her visit to his parents' dirty cottage. She turns up unannounced and enjoys herself.
In the hotel he thinks that she's tricked him into marriage feeling no physical attraction for him. He finds her far along the shore. She doesn't have a vocabulary to describe what happened, let alone an explanation. He's angry. They argue about money. She admits her difficulties, says she knows of a couple of homosexuals who live together. She suggests that she and Edward could make up their own rules about how to live together. He says she's broken her marriage vows and that's she's frigid. She packs and sets off to her parents before he's returned to the hotel. They divorce. He becomes a rock music journalist, lives for 3 years in Paris with a french wife, doesn't really do anything with his life. He reads in 1968 a review of her successful string quartet group. Had they met a few years later they'd have been able to talk about things more openly. The book's carefully located in time so that the gulf between intellectual and emotional openness is at its greatest. An image that's mentioned at least twice is whether the storms really do sort the pebbles on the shore (whether strong emotion gives order to randomness).
It's about 130 pages long.
No comments:
Post a Comment