In Between the Sheets, Aiding and Abetting and Bilgewater

 

Seven short stories of around twenty "odd" pages. All quite unsettling, surreal, strange and occasionally pretentious. Having read all of the author's books ( I skipped through the separately published short story "The Cockroach" which may in fact have been a precursor to one of these stories), this was the only one to which I could not relate. It was first published in 1978, so the stories were obviously published well before then.

In "Dead As They Come", our narrator is extremely wealthy and just happens to have a birthday on Christmas Day. (Like me.) But this is how the author describes him: "my predilection is for pleasure unmitigated by the yelpings and whinings of the soul". (Typical of the prose in this book). He is obsessed with a beautiful woman he sees as he passes a shop window every day. But she is a dummy! "He could buy her, buy the shop, buy the street". Yes, some are a little sordid, some have bits of horror, some have a glum look at the future. None uplifting, just McEwan practicing his writing.

A short novel imagining some people involved with the disappearance of Lord Lucan. It's quite clever how the author manages to bring in everything known about this event, mixing it with fictional accounts of other imagined characters. The only problem is that there is just not enough of a story to warrant even this short book. There is a lot of musings about their plight both by Lucan, a colleague Walker and others.
Fortunately there are the typically wonderful quips from the writer. "He would have loved to have been a catholic, the churches were so much more cheerful than any others, so full of colour and glitter, incense and images". 

When Hildegard finishes one of her sessions with a patient : Most of the money wasted on psychoanalysis goes on time spent unravelling the lies of the patient. Your time is up!" And then talking about a boyfriend Hildegard says he "lacked duplicity whereas they (Lucan and Walker) were altogether a double proposition".  So a strange story, not one of Spark's best but still worth the read.

My last novel by Jane Gardam was her very first. I cannot believe how good it was. Helped by the fact that before it starts there is a quote from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, one of my favourite plays: "Now - counter to the previous syllogism (I had to look it up): tricky one, follow me carefully, it may prove a comfort?". I was sold.

The book is told in the first person. Marigold Green is known as Bilgewater, a derivation from her father's name. Or Bilge for short. Except for dreamy Jack Rose who always uses her Christian name. Her father is an elderly master at an all boys school where some are boarders. He and Marigold live at the school. Unattractive she may be, Marigold studies with the boys and soon reaches the sixth form. She had surprised everyone with top grades at "O" Level.

There is much humour in Gardam's writing, there are the occasional moments where the prose seems off kilter, but I found it captivating. We have to wait until Chapter 9 a third through for the story to turn on it's head. Here is the author at full throttle. When all the masters are discussing who in the sixth form might make it to Uni, a lot would fail: "Clegg then?" ... "Worse. Hull if he's lucky". (Your reviewer even failed for Hull).

The story just gets more and more hilarious, especially those parts with nurse and general helper Paula. She is a huge comfort to Marigold. She should get her own story. Events suddenly gain momentum as a weekend away for Marigold turns into a farce. She somehow escapes until she is rescued. The father of a friend at the school is the Reverend Boakes: "We have the whole day in front of us - my dears, the whole day! Not a meeting, not a service, not a Boy Scouts jumble sale, not a marriage, a confession or Holy Unction ...... Makes up for everything a day like this."  Then towards the end, and after the Cambridge entrance exam, she has finished with school. A brilliantly written piece about all those years there .... "the pattern, the plot, the safety ..... the sureness of what to do next".

Of the dozen Jane Gardam novels (there are still some of her short stories to read) the final trilogy is completely magical. They are too familiar to read again now, but I'm looking forward to some future time when I can read them in succession.