"Many weeks later, on another hot day, they took a punt on the Cherwell, upstream to the Vicky Arms, and later drifted back down toward the boathouse. Along the way they parked among a clump of hawthorns and lay on the bank in deep shade, Edward on his back chewing a stalk of grass, Florence with her head resting on his arm. In a break in conversation they listened to wavelets pattering under the boat and the muffled knock as it swung against its tree-stump mooring. Occasionally a faint breeze brought them the soothing airy sound of traffic on the Banbury Road. A thrush sang intricately, repeating each phrase with care, then gave up in the heat. Edward was working at various temporary jobs, principally as a groundsman for a cricket club. She was giving all her time to the quartet. Their hours together were not always easy to arrange, and all the more precious. This was a snatched Saturday afternoon. They knew that it was one of the last days of full-blown high summer -- it was already early September, and the leaves and grasses, though still ambiguously green, had an exhausted air. The conversation had returned again to those moments, by now enriched by a private mythology, when they first set eyes on each other.

    In answer to the question Edward had put several minutes before, Florence said at last, "Because you weren't wearing a jacket."

    "What then?"

    "Um. Loose white shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, tails almost hanging out..."

    "Nonsense."

    "And gray flannel trousers with a mend in the knee, and scruffy plimsolls starting to come out at the toes. And long hair, almost over your ears."

    "What else?"

    "Because you looked a bit wild, like you'd been in a fight."

    "I'd been on my bike in the morning."

Ian McEwan
On Chesil Beach (2007)