Corfu is the setting of a holiday that turns Dexter Mayhew’s carefully imagined proposal to Emma Morley into a turning point in their relationship. What he pictures as a romantic beginning becomes, after Emma refuses the ring, a fortnight of unhappiness; the holiday’s failure precedes the affair that changes Emma’s life at home.

The Planned Proposal

Before the trip, Dexter keeps the engagement ring in a small crimson box lined with crumpled silk, hidden inside a balled-up pair of walking socks. He imagines proposing on a beach in Corfu, at a restaurant overlooking the sea beneath a full moon, with Emma tanned and smiling and calamari between them. He rehearses comic ways to present the ring, including disguising it among the calamari, before considering simply giving it to her. The detailed fantasy makes the holiday carry the weight of a future he has already pictured.

The Failed Holiday

The proposal does not secure the future Dexter hopes for. After the holiday, Emma recalls saying, “I think we want different things.” The following fortnight passes amid sunburn, sulking, self-pity, and anxiety over whether the jewellers will take the ring back. Left in their hotel-room suitcase, the unwanted ring becomes an emblem of the proposal’s reversal: what Dexter had treated as a romantic promise is now a source of melancholy.

Consequences and Significance

Emma returns from Corfu brown and unhappy. Her mother, who knew about the proposal and had nearly bought a dress for the wedding, berates her for rejecting it; Emma nevertheless feels that accepting would mean giving in. The holiday thus marks a choice Emma continues to defend even under pressure from her family.

The affair between Emma and her married boss, Phil Godalming, begins the September after the disastrous Corfu holiday. Corfu therefore stands at the hinge between Dexter’s anticipated engagement and the changed circumstances that follow: the ring remains unwanted, while Emma’s response to the proposal helps set the next phase of her life in motion.