Copyright

First Houghton Mifflin Harcourt edition 2013

Copyright © 1980 by Margaret Drabble

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Originally published in Great Britain by Weidenfeld & Nicholson
First U.S. edition by Knopf in 1980

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

eISBN 978-0-544-28618-4
v1.1013

Acknowledgment

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Elsevier/Nelson Books: Synopsis of “The Silver Saucer and the Transparent Apple" and re-telling and direct quote from “Alenouska and Her Brother” from Old Peter’s Russian Tales, by Arthur Ransome. Copyright 1916, 1944 by Arthur Ransome. Used by permission of the publisher, Elsevier/Nelson Books.

Frank Music Corp.: Excerpt from On a Slow Boat to China by Frank Loesser. Copyright 1948 by Frank Music Corp. Copyright © renewed 1976 by Frank Music Corp. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Harvard University Press: Excerpts from poem number 1551 by Emily Dickinson. Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas T. Johnson (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). Copyright © 1951, 1953, 1979 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Dedication

For darling Becky

The Middle Ground

Thoughtfully, Kate cut up Hugo’s steak and spread each piece with a dab of mustard, then started to turn over her own spinach with her fork, as though inspecting it. Hugo watched her, and then said (for many things that Kate did were little performances, requiring applause, enquiry or comment), “What are you looking for?”

“Ladybirds,” said Kate.

“Why?”

“Once I had lunch here and ate a ladybird without noticing it.”

“If you didn’t notice it, how did you know what it was?”

“Because there was another one, in the spinach. So I thought back, and realised what the crunchy thing was that I’d just eaten. Anyway, I’d kind of half seen it out of the corner of my eye.” Satisfied with her investigation, she looped up a mouthful, and ate it. “It was during that ladybird plague year,” she said, “do you remember? They were all over the place, swarming on beaches, biting old ladies on the tops of buses. How’s your steak?”

“It’s fine. But the courgettes taste of chlorine.”

Kate leaned over, helped herself to one, ate it.

“Yes, so they do. Funny, isn’t it? I wonder why I go on coming here, it’s a terrible restaurant. Loyalty, I suppose.”

“Did you send the spinach back?”

“No, of course not. Women never send things back in restaurants, didn’t you know? ”

And she smiled at him, her wide, infuriating double-edged smile, her smile full of duplicity.