At last he could admit to himself that he had never
met anyone he loved as much, that he had never found anyone, man or woman, who
matched her seriousness. Perhaps if he had stayed with her, he would have been
more focused and ambitious about his own life, he might have written those
history books. It was not his kind of thing at all, but he knew that the
Ennismore Quartet was eminent, and was still a revered feather of the classical
music scene. He would never attend the concerts, or buy, or even look at, the
boxed sets of Beethoven or Schubert. He did not want to see her photograph and
discover what the years had wrought, or hear about the details of her life. He
preferred to preserve her as she was in his memories, with the dandelion in her
buttonhole and the piece of velvet in her hair, the canvas bag across her
shoulder, and the beautiful strong-boned face with its wide and artless smile.
When he thought of her, it rather amazed him, that he had let that girl with
her violin go. Now, of course, he saw that her self-effacing proposal was quite
irrelevant. All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his
reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them. Love and
patience-if only he had had them both at once-would surely have seen them both
through.
Ian Mcewan , Chesil Beach
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