Lessons

by Ian McEwan

After twenty-six months it came in a single payment, £24,000. It should have been uncomfortable for a left-of-centre voter like Roland that courtesy of Mrs Thatcher the top rate of tax was at 40%. Down from 83% under Labour. More awkward was the matter of his pride. His integrity as a poet was in ruins. Since Grand Street returned his revised submissions without comment he had written nothing. One more failed career to add to the list. Daphne was aggrieved on his behalf. He was able to tell her he was no longer a burden on the state. What he couldn’t confess to anyone was his lightness of being. To have money! Why had no one told him, it was a physical thing? He felt it in his arms and legs. Especially in his neck and shoulders. Mortgage paid off, son brightly clothed, two weeks together on an overlooked Greek island reached by a three-hour speedboat dash across a flat cerulean sea.