plane in 1954, which causes Sybil Maiden to faint. Angelica has left the hall in the interim, but Persse runs through the hotel and sees a woman he takes to be Angelica, kisses her and declares that he loves her. She takes him up to her hotel room where they make love, in Persse's first sexual experience. However, after this encounter, she reveals that she is not Angelica, but the twin sister, Lily. Persse feels ashamed, but Lily convinces him that he was "in love with a dream". Later in the evening, Arthur Kingfisher announces that he will offer himself as a candidate for the UNESCO chair, to the disappointment of the other candidates. Right afterwards, Sybil Maiden surprises everyone with the announcement that she is Angelica and Lily's mother (the mother of the twins found on the KLM plane in 1954). Moreover, Kingfisher is their father. The revelation throws the entire meeting into a joyous uproar, where various conflicts (Parkinson and Frobisher, the Zapps) are reconciled. Angelica introduces Persse to her fiancé, Peter McGarrigle, the person whose job Persse was interviewed for back in Ireland. However, Peter is not angry, because as a result, he went to America and there met Angelica. Swallow has returned to his wife, saying "Basically I failed in the role of a romantic hero." All of the narrative threads of the novel wrap up but for one: Persse realises that Cheryl Summerbee, not Angelica, is the woman for him, and he flies to Heathrow to see her. He arrives at the airport on New Year's Eve, but learns that Cheryl no longer works there, having been fired the day before Persse arrives. The new attendant tells Persse that Cheryl wanted to travel anyway at some point, and took this as her chance. No one knows where she has gone. The novel ends with Persse wondering "where in the small, narrow world he should begin to look for her." Adaptations Granada Television presented a television adaptation of the novel for British television in 1988. References External links Interview with David Lodge about Small World 1984 British novels Modern Arthurian fiction Novels by David Lodge Sequel novels Fiction set in 1979 Secker & Warburg books Campus novels