Summary
A week later, Tony introduces Veronica to his friends from high school. They walk around central London like tourists. She gets along best with Adrian, who is in the same moral sciences program at Cambridge as Veronica’s older brother, Jack. They take a photo together in front of a fountain, Veronica much shorter than the men. After she leaves, the others go for a drink. Tony seeks his friends’ approval of Veronica; they say she is nice. Adrian is reticent to elaborate on the statement.
Tony and Veronica date through their second year of university. They advance sexually. Now when they make out, Tony puts his hand down her underpants and braces his palm on the floor so she can rub herself against his wrist until she climaxes. He then masturbates when on his own. Tony comments that he has few other memories from his time at Bristol. One that sticks out is when he witnessed the Severn Bore, an otherworldly natural phenomenon. Out at night with his friends carrying flashlights, Tony watches as the three-foot-high tidal surge moves upstream.
Tony says he and Veronica don’t sleep together until after they break up. Tony believes it’s over and then runs into her at a pub. They go home together, kiss, and then she’s rolling a condom over his penis. Afterward, as he disposes of the full condom, he decides he doesn’t want to be with her. The next time they meet, she calls him a bastard and says, “That practically makes it rape.” She asks why he didn’t tell her he wanted to be apart before they slept together. He says he didn’t know. In a tense exchange, they agree they can’t be friends.
A while later, Veronica’s mother sends Tony a letter saying she is sorry he and Veronica broke up. She implies that he is fortunate to be out of the relationship and hopes for the best for him. Tony comments that he wishes he kept the letter, because “it would have been proof, corroboration.” Some time passes and Tony receives a letter from Adrian asking Tony’s permission to go out with Veronica. They are already going out together and it seems better that Tony hears it from Adrian. Tony is amused by the hypocrisy of a letter informing him that Veronica traded up to his cleverest friend, but something warns him not to get involved. On a postcard of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, he tells Adrian that “everything is jolly fine by me, old bean.”
After finishing his exams, Tony keeps returning to Adrian’s letter and re-reading it. He writes another letter to Adrian, advising him to watch out, because he believes Veronica suffered some “damage” in the past. Tony comments to the reader what he means by damage. Upon looking back on Veronica’s family interactions, a suspicion crept into his mind that something unspoken wasn’t right with them. He speculates that perhaps Veronica was sexually abused by her father or brother. Tony also acknowledges he may have invented this idea, and that he himself may have experienced some damage that makes his perception of things unreliable.
Upon leaving university, Tony travels around America for six months. It is the 1960s, so there are no ways of getting in touch with him. He starts sleeping with a woman named Annie. In contrast to Veronica, everything is straightforward and there are no stakes in the relationship. Tony enjoys that he and Annie can come together and part without drama—easy come, easy go.
When Tony returns, he learns from his parents that Adrian killed himself. He meets Alex at a bar in Charing Cross to discuss how Adrian cut his wrists in the bath while his roommates were away on vacation. He left a suicide note he requested be made public. In it, Adrian calls life a gift no one asks for, and it is a moral and human duty to act on the consequences if someone renounces that gift. Alex says he met Adrian three months earlier in the same bar. Adrian was on his way down to Veronica’s house and was happy; he said he was in love. This confuses Tony, but he comes to respect Adrian’s decision, assuming his philosophical reasoning must have been sound.
Tony covers several decades as he recounts how he begins a career in arts administration, marries Margaret, and has their daughter Susie. They buy a house in London. After twelve years of marriage, M starts an affair. Following their divorce, Tony has his own affairs and girlfriends, but nothing serious. He and M remain close, meeting often for lunch. Susie marries a doctor and has her own children. Tony is now retired, and keeps up with a few friends he drinks with. He is a member of the local history society.
Tony concludes the summary of time passing quickly by saying that history isn’t the lies of the victors, as he once told his professor. Rather, “It’s more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated.”
Analysis
The reluctance to communicate directly about how they feel leads to conflict between Veronica and Tony. Tony assumes her unwillingness to have sex with him means the relationship doesn’t have to be “going somewhere,” failing to understand that she is a virgin and seems to want her first time to be with someone who is committed to her.
In an instance of situational irony, Tony and Veronica don’t have sex until after they have broken up—at least as far as Tony is concerned. In reality, the couple has drifted apart and the desire to break up is something Tony assumes is mutual. It isn’t until immediately after he finishes and is removing the condom that Tony makes a definite decision about not continuing to see Veronica. Veronica reacts with outrage, suggesting that taking her virginity when he didn’t intend to keep seeing her “practically makes it rape.” The miscommunication, precipitated by their reticence, means they cannot pretend to be friends after parting ways.
Unexpectedly, Veronica’s mother sends Tony a letter in which she expresses sympathy for the end of the relationship. Building on her implication that Veronica is someone who would try to take advantage of Tony, Veronica’s mother implies in her letter that Tony ought to be relieved he is out of the relationship. But again, she doesn’t explain why she is disparaging her own daughter.
Another unanticipated letter arrives when Tony is finishing his exams, hoping to achieve decent but not excellent grades. In a shock to Tony, Adrian reveals he has been seeing Veronica and wants Tony to know from him directly. Although slighted to learn his ex has traded up to his most-clever friend—someone Tony already envied—Tony replies politely and in friendly, joking language that he is fine with them being together. However, Tony’s tendency to see himself as a victim arises when he dwells on the news, interpreting the letter as a condescending insult designed to hurt him.
Acting out of anger, Tony provides a lengthy reply to Adrian’s letter. In his memory, Tony remembers denouncing the couple and wishing them ill, not providing more than a brief summary of what he wrote. He also recalls implying that Veronica was subjected to sexual abuse by her father or brother—a suspicion he has no evidence to support. Oblivious to the future harm it will cause, Tony suggests that Adrian speak with Veronica’s mother to learn about what potential trauma occurred in her daughter’s past.
Tony doesn’t think about his letter while traveling through America for half a year. He returns home to the news that Adrian has killed himself by cutting his wrists in the bathtub. As with Robson, Alex and Tony can only speculate about what prompted the drastic decision to end his life. As far as either of them knows, Adrian had been happy with his relationship during the last months of his life, and the suicide note he left obscured his feelings in philosophical language.
The first part of the novel ends with Tony quickly covering the forty years that followed. From his tone, it is clear Tony is comfortable but not quite content with the life he has led. Recalled dispassionately, the events suggest there has been a lack of excitement. Tony sees himself as an average, uninteresting person who has survived long enough to share memories from a far more neutral perspective than he was capable of while living them.
