Amsterdam

by Ian McEwan

The thought of children playing his music made him feel faintly depressed.

Pullman’s ear. “You never fucked her, you lying reptile. She wouldn’t have stooped to it.” It wasn’t his intention to walk away at this point, for he wanted to hear Pullman’s reply, but just then two loud groups cut in from left and right, one to pay respects to George, the other to honor the poet, and in a swirl of repositioning Clive found himself freed and walking away.

There wasn’t really much else to do. Make something, and die.

Now she was fine ash in an alabaster urn for George to keep on top of his wardrobe.

This exercise of authority did not sharpen his sense of self, as it usually did. Instead it seemed to Vernon that he was infinitely diluted; he was simply the sum of all the people who had listened to him, and when he was alone, he was nothing at all.

was generally accepted that “Pategate,” a story that dominated American domestic politics for almost a week, had been broken by Vernon Halliday of the Judge.

What was clear now was the pressure of choice: he should either go down and protect the woman, if she needed protection, or he should creep away round the side of Glaramara to find a sheltered place to continue his work, if it was not already lost. He could not remain here doing nothing.

Powerful scene

He was trying to call it back, but his concentration was being broken by another voice, the insistent, interior voice of self-justification:

The old guard would rather see the paper die than let it reach out to an under-thirties readership.

Hypocrisy would be exposed, the country would stay in Europe, capital punishment and compulsory conscription would remain a crank’s dream, social welfare would survive in some form or other, the global environment would get a decent chance, and Vernon was on the point of breaking into song.

the Lakeland rapist had struck for a second time in a week and a man had been arrested last night,

Centered below, in thirty-two-point lower-case bold, was a single line: “Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary.” There was nothing else on the page.

It was rather like this morning, when he had lain in bed contemplating his successes, denied full happiness by the single fact of Clive’s disapproval.

What day was it you were in the Lake District?”

“Listen. The guy you saw attacking this woman, and you decided not to help her—it was the Lakeland rapist.”

“I want you to go to the police now and tell them what you saw.” “Out of the question.” “You could identify this man.” “I’m in the final stages of finishing a symphony that—” “No, you’re not, dammit. You’re in bed.” “That’s none of your business.” “This is outrageous. Go to the police, Clive. It’s your moral duty.”

“There are certain things more important than symphonies. They’re called people.”

These were the first images Vernon saw after he had slammed down the phone, searched in vain for the remote control among the papers on his desk, and bounded across to the monitor mounted high in a corner of his office.

It hadn’t entirely been a secret either, this curious thing about Julian, because a friend of the family, Molly Lane, who died recently, once took some pictures, rather in a spirit of celebration. Mrs. Garmony was lifting up a white cardboard folder, and as she did so Annabel kissed her father on the cheek, and Ned, who was now seen to be wearing a nose stud, leaned across and put a hand on his father’s arm.

“Oh God,” Vernon croaked. “It’s a spoiler.”

it should prompt insecurity in the listener; it was a caution against clinging too tightly to what we knew.

The outrage of it! He was framing the letter he would like to send to this scum he had mistaken for a friend.

He knew from long experience that a letter sent in fury merely put a weapon into the hands of your enemy. Poison, in preserved form, to be used against you long into the future.

As soon as he sat at the piano and tried out a couple of approaches to the variation, he found that not only this passage but the whole movement had died on him—suddenly it was ashes in his mouth.

he blamed Vernon for the fact that he could not work, and his anger redoubled.

It was becoming clear that he had been denied his masterpiece, the summit of a life time’s work.

Every idea he had was dull. He shouldn’t be let near this symphony; he was not worthy of his own creation.

Vernon had been forced to resign! Clive hurried out to buy the papers. He had read or heard nothing since Friday’s Judge, otherwise he would have been aware of how opinion had been turning against its editor.

He turned and hurried from the room. He had an idea, a quarter of an idea, and before it went he had to get to the piano.

He had to clear out now, and he could leave with or without a sum in the low six figures.

Lying on the bed beside him was a venomous little card gloating over his downfall, written by his oldest friend, written by a man so morally eminent he would rather see a woman raped in front of him than have his work disrupted.

It turned out that Clive had not broken the law. He would be inconvenienced into doing his duty, nothing more than that.

In a language as idiomatically stressed as English, opportunities for misreadings are bound to arise.

As with words, so with sentences.

For clearly Clive had lost his reason and something had to be done.

This resolve was bolstered by Vernon’s sense that at a time when the world was treating him badly, when his life was in ruins, no one was treating him worse than his old friend, and that this was unforgivable.

And i...

It can happen sometimes, with those who brood on an injustice, that a taste for revenge can usefully comb...

he noticed that the policeman in the driver’s seat was the very man he had picked out of the line the second time. But neither Clive nor the driver found it necessary to comment on the fact as they shook hands.

There was never a city more rationally ordered.

He was delivering himself up to Clive.