I broke off in the slow movement and looked up. I was about to say, “I can’t go on any more,” but the three of them were on their feet clapping and smiling broadly at me. In parody of concert-goers George and Terence cupped their hands around their mouths and called out “Bravo! Bravissimo!” Mary came forward, kissed me on the cheek and presented me with an imaginary bouquet. Overwhelmed by nostalgia for a country I had not yet left, I could do no more than put my feet together and make a bow, clasping the flowers to my chest.
Then Mary said, “Let’s go. I’m tired.”
Copyright
In Between the Sheets
Copyright © 1978 by Ian McEwan
Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2009 by RosettaBooks, LLC
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover by Simon and Schuster, New York, in 1978, and subsequently published in trade paperback by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York in 1994.
First Anchor Books Edition, March 2003
First electronic edition published 2009 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York.
ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795301698