by Joanna Baker
Georgie looked at him blankly, managing not to voice her thoughts. Veronica knew what they were. Libby called you a slut. They both hate you.
Seeing her daughter’s anguish, Veronica wanted to tell her to let it go, to find a way to forgive him. Georgie didn’t deserve this. Children needed a relationship with their father.
Alan said, ‘I’ll give you a ring.’
They watched him carry out the second box.
Veronica said, ‘George. Nobody’s perfect.’
‘What?’ George looked shocked, and slightly alarmed. ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’ She stalked off out the back door.
When Alan came inside for the last box, Veronica accompanied him back out to the driveway. A small, sexy car, two bikes on the roof. But there was strain in his face, the same pain as Georgie had, which made the silly car just sad.
He put the box onto the tiny back seat, squared his shoulders and stood very upright. ‘You look tired,’ he said.
He had meant it kindly, but immediately it raised that version of herself she felt when she was with him: saggy Veronica, disorganised, uncooperative, dishevelled, fat. Old. She told herself he hadn’t meant it that way.
The day had that stillness, full of cloud and unfallen rain, where everything seems to have stopped, as if there was something thick in the air and time had to push through it. Behind her, over her left shoulder, there was the mountain, blocking the view, drawing the eye, the hulk on the horizon, that big reminder of everything.
She could hear laughter and a squeal from Mayson. Even the sounds of voices from the lawn were muted.
Georgie came out of the house carrying a towel. ‘Mayson’s in the fish pond and we can’t get him out. John’s wet through.’ She ran off towards the lawn.
Alan said, ‘How long is this going to go on?’
‘As long as necessary.’
Paul came out of the house carrying some of Mayson’s clothes. ‘Don’t let Paul exploit you. You know he does.’
‘I don’t mind. I love him.’
They were both looking back at the house. Under the scaffolding, the walls were a soft pinkish colour. The stained glass at the door glowed rich red and green. By the steps the winter rose beds were all bare sticks and angles. There was one bright rose hip, missed by the pruners, sticking up on the end of a stalk. It seemed to be pro-claiming something.
They walked along the driveway to where they could see the young people at the fish pond. John was shaking his arms, trying to free them from his saturated sleeves. Paul was holding Mayson and Georgie was trying to pull his shoes off. She was laughing.
Veronica realised how happy she was that they were all here. Suddenly it seemed precious, this cobbled together family. She found herself wondering how she could manage to keep it.
‘Chaos,’ said Alan. It was something they used to say about the children. He had hoped they would share a wry smile. And for a moment she felt pity for him.
Not pity. Not yet. But a glimmer, a hint of something she might be able to feel one day. Pity for his solipsism, his narrow vanity; pity that he could choose an Alfa Romeo and a fitness regime and a town house, that he had never seen what they had.
Vicky was coming up the lawn towards them. ‘Veronica.’ A strong figure, dressed by John now, in a long cardigan the colour of cherries. Behind her, the two young men were struggling with the flailing toddler, everyone covered in slimy water.
Vicky ignored Alan and spoke to her with a smile. ‘You’re needed.’
Works quoted or referenced
______
Judith quotes many works of literature in the novel, often inaccurately. Here is listed the reference for each, as well as other allusions to works of literature and philosophy that appear in the novel.
Chapter 1
‘Madame Merle’
Character from Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1881).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2008) at www.gutenberg.org/files/2833/2833-h/2833-h.htm
Original quotation: ‘Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she stood there in a kind of proud penance. “You’re very unhappy, I know. But I’m more so.”’
Chapter 4
‘See or shut your eyes … ‘Tis the Last Judgement’s fire must cure this place.’
From Robert Browning, ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ (1855), in The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning, Cambridge Edition (1895), H. E. Scudder (ed), Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2016) at www.gutenberg.org/files/50954/50954-h/50954-h.htm#Page_287
Original quotation:
‘… See
Or shut your eyes,’ said Nature peevishly,
It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
Tis the Last Judgement’s fire must cure this place.’
‘Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim gaping at death … and dies while it recoils.’
From ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ as above.
Original quotation:
‘… a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.’
‘The Cheerybles’
Reference to Charles and Edwin (Ned) Cheeryble, two brothers in Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1838).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2006) at www.gutenberg.org/files/967/967-h/967-h.htm
‘He has been dragged into mud and slime and low passion and delusion … The iron bit that destiny had put in his mouth … the blight on his life.’
From George Eliot, Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861). Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2008) at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/550/550-h/550-h.htm
Original quotation: ‘It was an ugly story of low passion, delusion, and waking from delusion … And if Godfrey could have felt himself simply a victim, the iron bit that destiny had put into his mouth would have chafed him less intolerably. … he had let himself be dragged back into mud and slime, in which it was useless to struggle.’
‘Around the church widdershins. Woe to the mother’s son who attempts it.’
From Anonymous, ‘Childe Rowland’ (A fairly tale based on the Scottish ballad of Childe Rowland and Burd Ellen) in Joseph Jacobs (ed) English Fairy Tales (1890).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2005) at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7439/7439-h/7439-h.htm
Original quotation: ‘“The fair Burd Ellen,” said the Warlock Merlin, “must have been carried off by the fairies, because she went round the church ‘widershins’—the opposite way to the sun. She is now in the Dark Tower of the King of Elfland; it would take the boldest knight in Christendom to bring her back.” …
“Possible it is,” said the Warlock Merlin, “but woe to the man or mother’s son that attempts it…”’
Chapter 5
‘She must be wicked to deserve such pain’
From Browning, ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ as above.
Original quotation:
‘Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.’
Chapter 7
‘and dies while it recoils’
From Browning, ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ as above.
Original quotation:
‘Then came some palsied oak,
a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.’
Chapter 8
‘and the door did open and he went in and he was in darkness’
From Jacobs, ‘Childe Rowland’ as above.
Original quotation: ‘And the third time the door did open, and he went in, and it closed with a click, and Childe Rowland was left in the dark.’
Chapter 9
‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’
From Browning, ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ as above.
Chapter 11
‘she must be wicked to deserve such pain’
From Browning, ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ as above. Original quotation: ‘He must be wicked to deserve such pain.’
Chapter 12
‘MOLLY’
Reference to character Molly Farren in George Eliot Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), as above.
‘the land of lost content … And cannot come again’
From A. E. Houseman, ‘Into my heart on air that kills’ in A Shrop-shire Lad (1896).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2009) at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5720/5720-h/5720-h.htm
Chapter 13
‘Woe to the mother’s son’
From Jacobs, ‘Childe Rowland’ as above.
Original quotation: “Possible it is,” said the Warlock Merlin, “but woe to the man or mother’s son that attempts it…”
Chapter 14
‘He said it was from a book called Silas Marner. Apparently there’s a character called Molly that no-one remembers.’
Reference to character Molly Farren in George Eliot, Silas Marner (1861) as above.
‘BERTHA … This is Bertha Rochester from Jane Eyre.’
Refers to character Bertha Rochester in Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: An Autobiography (1847).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2007) at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1260/1260-h/1260-h.htm
‘Rosanna from … um, The Moonstone, I think’
Refers to character Rosanna Spearman in William Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2006) at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/155/155-h/155-h.htm
‘and Justine from Frankenstein.’
Refers to character Justine Moritz in Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2008) at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/84/84-h/84-h.htm
‘walking dully along’
Reference to W. H. Auden, ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ in Collected
Shorter Poems, 1927-1957 (1939).
Chapter 15
‘Bertha’
Refers to character Bertha Rochester in Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847) as above.
‘Tenniel’s Alice’
Refers to the illustrations by John Tenniel, for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871).
Illustrations available through Project Gutenberg (2008) at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/114/114-h/114-h.htm
Chapter 19
‘She must be wicked to deserve such pain’ From Browning, ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ as above. Original quotation: ‘He must be wicked to deserve such pain.’
‘I know that there is a light world and a dark world, and they are not very far apart. I know that you in the light have no idea of anything on the other side, that you choose not to know. I know that every now and then a messenger slips through. They try to tell you what they have seen, but you can’t understand them.’
Composed by Joanna Baker, inspired by a passage in Margaret Drab-ble, The Gates of Ivory (p. 3, 1991). Harmondsworth, UK and New York: Penguin Books.
Original quotation: ‘Good Time and Bad Time coexist. We in Good Time receive messengers who stumble across the bridge or through the river, maimed and bleeding, shocked and starving. They try to tell us what it is like over there, and we try to listen.’
Chapter 20
‘This is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller’s cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds … It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.’
From Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853).
Available through Project Gutenberg (1997) at
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1023/1023-h/1023-h.htm
Original quotation: ‘But the evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller’s cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.’
‘cold sunlight’
From Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853). As above.
Original quotation: ‘Through the same cold sunlight’
‘There is a general smell and taste as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves.’
From Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853). As above.
Original quotation: ‘On Sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit breaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell and taste as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves.’
‘The desolation of boredom and the clutch of giant despair.’
From Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853). As above.
Original quotation: ‘…only last Sunday, my Lady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair, almost hated her own maid for being in spirits.’
‘The church in the park is mouldy. The oaken pulpit breaks into a cold sweat.’
From Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853). As above.
Original quotation: ‘On Sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit breaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell and taste as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves.’
‘Weariness of soul lies before her, as it lies behind.’
From Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853). As above. Original quotation: ‘Weariness of soul lies before her, as it lies behind.’
‘My grief lies all within, and these external manners of lament … are merely shadows.’
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Richard the Second, Act IV, scene I (1597).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (1998) at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1512/pg1512-images.html
Original quotation: ‘My grief lies all within; and these external man-ner of laments are merely shadows of the unseen grief that swells with silence in the tortur’d soul.’
‘The grief that does not speak … whispers the o’er-fraught heart … and bids it break.’
William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene III (1623). Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2000) at
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2264/pg2264-images.html
Original quotation:
‘Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.’
Chapter 23
‘A savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound’
From Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847), as above.
Original quotation: ‘What a cry! The night--its silence--its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.’
‘A demonic laugh, uttered at the keyhole of my chamber door’
From Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847), as above.
Original quotation: ‘This was a demoniac laugh – low, suppressed, and deep – uttered, as it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door.’
‘To cross the silent hall. To ascend the darksome staircase.’
From Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847), as above.
Original quotation: ‘…to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome staircase’
‘A moment you must and cannot have.’
Composed by Joanna Baker, inspired by the writings of Jacques Derrida, especially Aporias (1993), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Original quotation: ‘Dying – awaiting one another at the limits of truth’
Chapter 25
‘The Three Snarks’
Refers to mythical creature in Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the
Snark (An Agony in Eight Fits) (1874).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2008) at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13/13-h/13-h
.htm
The following stanza inspired Veronica’s children to christen her friends as ‘Snarks’:
‘The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
And it always looks grave at a pun.’
Chapter 26
‘six terrible things before breakfast … six impossible things’
Refers to Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (1991) at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12/12-h/12-h.htm
Original quotation: ‘Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”’
Chapter 27
‘Slithy Tove’
Refers to Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky” in Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) as above.
Original quotation:
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe’
Chapter 30
‘The immortals have ended their sport.’
Refers to Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891).
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (1994) at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/110/110-h/110-h.htm
Original quotation: ‘“Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.’
‘O you have torn my life all to pieces.’
Refers to Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) as above.
Original quotation: ‘… my sin will kill him and not kill me! ...
O, you have torn my life all to pieces.’
‘Mesdames et messieurs’
From Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1924). Also alludes to Christie’s other works containing the character Hercule Poirot.
Available to read through Project Gutenberg (2008) at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/863/863-h/863-h.htm
Original quotation: ‘“Mesdames and messieurs,” said Poirot, bow-ing as though he were a celebrity about to deliver a lecture, “I have asked you to come here all together, for a certain object.”’
