The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan Page B

stared at her plate.
    In the hallway, he dialled his assistant at the laboratory in London. All inventors have at least one assistant.
    ‘How’s the anti-gravity machine coming along?’ Peter asked. ‘Did you get my latest drawings?’
    ‘Your drawings made everything clear,’ the assistant said. ‘We made the changes you suggested, then we switched the machine on for five seconds. Everything in the room started floating about, just as you said. Before we try again we’re going to have to screw the tables and chairs to the floor.’
    ‘I don’t want you to try again until I’m back from holiday,’ Peter said. ‘I want to see it for myself. I’ll drive back at the weekend.’
    When he had finished on the phone, he stepped out into the orchard and stood by the stream. It was a beautiful day. The water flowing under the wooden footbridge made a lovely sound and he was excited about his new invention. But for some reason he did not feel like moving away from the house. He heard a sound behind him and turned. Gwendoline was standing in the doorway, watching him. Peter felt the tightness in his stomach again. It was a cold, falling sensation. He felt a little weak about the knees. Gwendoline rested her arm on the rim of the ancient water butt which stood by the front door. Morning sunlight, broken by the leaves of the apple trees, bobbed about her shoulders and in her hair. In all his twenty-one years, Peter had never seen anything so, well, perfect, delicious, brilliant, beautiful … there was no word good enough for what he saw. Her green eyes were fixed on his.
    ‘So you’re going for a walk,’ she said lightly.
    Peter could hardly trust himself to speak. He cleared his throat. ‘Yes. Want to come?’
    They went down through the orchard to the raised cinder path where the railway track had once been. They talked about nothing in particular – about the holiday, the weather, news- paper stories – anything to avoid talking about themselves. She put her smooth cool hand in his as they walked along. Peter seriously thought he might float off to the tops of the trees. He had heard about boys and girls, men and women, falling in love and feeling crazy, but he had always thought that people made too much of it. After all, how much can you really like someone? And in movies, those bits which they always had to have, when the hero and heroine took time off to get soppy and gaze into each other’s eyes and kiss had always seemed to him ridiculous time-wasting junk that did nothing more than hold up the story for minutes on end. Now here he was, melting away at the mere touch of Gwendoline’s hand, and he wanted to shout, to roar for joy.
    They came to the tunnel, and without stopping to talk about it, they stepped through the gap in the boards, into the cold smoky blackness. They clung to each other as they went further in, and giggled when they trod in puddles. The tunnel was not very long. Already they could see the far end, glowing like a pink star. Half-way along they stopped. They stood close. Their arms and faces were still warm from the sun’s heat. They stood close together and, to the sound of scurrying animals and water plop-plopping into puddles, they kissed. Peter knew that in all the years of a happy childhood, and even in its very best moments, like playing out with The Beach Gang on a summer’s evening, he had never done anything better, anything so thrilling and strange as kiss Gwendoline in the railway tunnel.
    As they walked on towards the light she told him how one day she would be a doctor and a scientist and she would work on new cures for deadly diseases. They stepped blinking into the sunshine and found a place under the trees where blue flowers grew on slender bendy stems. They lay on their backs, eyes closed, side by side in the long grass, surrounded by murmuring insects. He told her about his invention, the antigravity machine. They could set off together soon, climb into his green