This statement causes anticipation and wills the reader to continue.
'Innocent of the grief this entanglement would bring.
This line is a crucial point in the first chapter, because it refers to the future, to the story about to unfold.
The third section of the chapter refers to Clarissa, whose reactions to the incident had been mentioned in little detail previously.
'What was Clarissa doing?'.
Joe's sudden concern for his wife/partner (unknown at this stage) shows the emergence of the situation and how his rational mind had overtaken his emotional one, noticing and stating the facts of the circumstances, previous to the deeds or responses of Clarissa.
On page three, McEwan suddenly abandons the balloon incident and goes back to the happenings before it.
Joe Rose, the narrator tells the story of his reunion with his partner Clarissa after a six-week separation.
Although at first this seems unnecessary, the importance of the affairs preceding the balloon accident quickly becomes apparent.
McEwan uses these descriptions to clarify the relationship between Joe and Clarissa, as the reader is up to this point uninformed of their situation.
Joe's rational and cynical view on life is highlighted on page four when he observes the reunions of individuals at Heathrow airport.
He states the emotions conveyed between those persons, but concentrates more on the physical features of each character:.
a thin-lipped Scottish granny and a pale, correct Japanese businessman'.
This paragraph, I think accentuates the presumptuous and pessimistic outlook Joe expresses.
Joe almost scorns the people, all so predictable in their ways, but when it comes to his reunion with Clarissa, as with all the rest of the people he observed, he succumbed to the same sighing sound on a downward note', as a greeting for his partner.
For the next few pages, Joe concerns himself with describing Clarissa and her relationship with him. We discover a lot about her that we did not know, such as her love of Keats and her inability to have children.