He and she sat side by side like two wax people while the waiter stretched across to unwrinkle the tablecloth and straighten the knives.

A pitiless, death-bearing posterity lies on the earth without cries of grief. Meanwhile wives and even gray mothers — one on one side of the raised altar, the other on the other — lament, praying for protection from the deadly misfortunes.

McEwan certainly has a flair for unusual points of view. Adam, like the baby-in-waiting who narrates Nutshell, is an extraordinarily smart, well-informed, and unorthodox character who catches his supposed caretakers off-guard with his perspicacity.

You need to excavate and remove the topsoil, line the subsoil with a geotextile, then lay and compact hardcore. Follow this with a layer of compacted hoggin – compacted clay, gravel and sand. This is then sprayed with hot bitumen, and has a layer of pea shingle rolled into it.