Dangerous Calm is a selection of twenty-one short stories taken from Elizabeth Taylor's four volumes with additional uncollected and unpublished stories.
From "Hester Lilly"
SPRY OLD CHARACTER
Harry is blind and living in a specialist care home. He is only interested in the horse racing on the TV, but they are always changing channels. And nobody will read him the runners and riders. The Sporting Life (which was occasionally for delivery on my paper round) is not in Braille. The outing to the fair is memorable, as they insist Harry try the coconut shy. He actually gets quite near. 24 Pages.
NODS AND BECKS AND WREATHED SMILES
Ladies meet in a cafe. 4 Pages.
OASIS OF GAIETY
Here is an elderly auntie. She has a daughter, Dosie (who "had no beauty as there was none to inherit"), who has already had two husbands, and a son, Thomas, fifteen years later. "Auntie's last bit of nonsense." But "he was an uncouth cuckoo in her nest. " It was Auntie who set out to create an "Oasis of Gaiety" for her children and friends. They're playing roulette and drinking champagne.
Thomas is in the army and meets a friend at the station bar for a drink. Here there are "glas domes over the museum pieces of pork pie." 11 Pages.
From "The Blush"
THE BLUSH
Two ladies. Mrs. Lacy does the housework for the childless Mrs. Allen. But the former spends most evenings at the pub to the detriment of her family. We find out how she gets away with it. 9 Pages.
THE LETTER WRITERS
A first encounter after years of corresponding does not go to plan. "The virtues of convululous". 15 Pages.
SUMMER SCHOOLS
Melanie and Ursula are sisters and teachers. In the summer holidays they each go separately elsewhere. Ursula goes to stay with Pamela, where a description of the house includes "lamps were made out of Chianti bottles". (They were in those days). Melanie goes to lectures. But each has an encounter that unsettles their future. 26 Pages.
PERHAPS A FAMILY FAILING
Beryl and Geoff are getting married. On their way to a hotel after the reception, Geoff insists they stop at a pub. "Only his obsession with public houses worried her". She thinks she can break his habit. Good luck with that. 11 Pages.
From "A Dedicated Man"
GIRL READING
Schoolgirl Etta goes to stay with her friend Sarah, whose family is much wealthier than hers. Although "her own mother was so warm and worldly." She studies Sarah's brother David and his girlfriend Nora, puzzled by their courtship. She sets herself to study love. But the two friends are so different; Etta always has her nose stuck in a book, while Sarah does not. Their mothers are different too but get on well. On their way home in the car, Etta's mother thought, "I might buy her a new dress, though it does seem a criminal waste when she has all her good school clothes to wear out." Back home, a letter for Etta and "the most extraordinary happening of her life." 22 Pages.
THE PREROGATIVE OF LOVE
Two couples meet for dinner at Lillah's house. Arrabella is Lillah's niece and is an unexpected guest. But with the friend she meets, they make the most of the evening. 14 Pages.
THE BENEFACTRESS
Next to the church are four almshouses where four widows separately reside. But the landlady of The Plough Inn, Mrs. Phyliss Butcher, is too late to reach the bedside of her elderly mother. She hates the funeral almost as much as she dislikes her horrible husband. Although she has an admirer at the pub, a customer with whom she gets on well. But Phyliss is a bit of a mystery. 16 Pages.
A DEDICATED MAN
Silcox and Edith are not married even though he refers to her as his wife. They are now working together at the Royal George Hotel next to the Thames. "He was stately, eyes like a statue, mouth like a carp's. " As for Edith, she was "one of those where the attraction of men is not part of her equipment." A strange relationship, a convenience for them both. 19 Pages.
From "The Devastating Boys"
THE DEVASTATING BOYS
Not a nice story (and a hard read) about two young and difficult London boys who are to spend two weeks in the countryside home of Laura and her (mainly absent) husband. Laura's own children are grown and gone, and her husband thought this was a good idea. But that last day, and the boys (not even friends) leaving by train, is brilliantly described. 21 Pages.
FLESH
A strange story about two single people, a man and a woman, on a singles holiday abroad. They get together through their drinking at the bar. A developing relationship that has nowehere to go. A strange poignant story that I will read again. 19 Pages.
SISTERS
In a typically brilliant opening, Mrs Mason (now on her own) has just returned from shopping and there is a young man waiting for her. He wants to talk to her about Marion, her famous sister. For a book he is writing about her? But she is not interested and should have shown him out. But there is not much that Mrs Mason can add as her sister's story is so well known. Marion moved to France with a set of "raffish" people, swapping partners, you name it. Their father would have nothing to do with them. "I think she killed my father", who had put that first book "in the incinerator". Mrs Mason then is so upset she has let these two things out. As we are. 10 brutal pages.
HOTEL DU COMMERCE
Melanie and Leonard are newly married and arrive at this very uncomfortable hotel in France. They are disturbed at night, and already both these things result in some early unfriendliness. 11 Pages
MISS A. AND MISS M.
This is the very first story to be written in the first person. A new motorway is "leaving houses perched on islands of confusion." So much has gone, including Miss Alluiot's and Miss Martin's weekend cottage. We are in the 1920s, as our author tells us about going on holiday to this particular guest house with their mother at all times of the year. This is run by two elderly ladies, and there are two long-standing guests from London, Miss Louie and Miss Martin. (All these ladies are in two's). The author (looking back to these teenage years, which she believes seem far better than the present day) does not sound like a very pleasant person, as she admits, "Miss Martin was my friend, kind and sincere (but) I simply used her as a stepping stone to Miss Alliot. " Back at school, "I was moved up to a higher form". Not a nice story, not a nice narrator, and a sad ending. 18 Pages.
Fr0m "Uncollected Stories"
HUSBANDS AND WIVES
Alison is awaiting the return from the war of her husband Eric. They live in an isolated location, and Alison is disturbed one night by ... what or who? Or is it a dream? All a bit nightmarish. 9 Pages.
THE BLOSSOMING
Mrs. Partidge has just lost her husband and is horribly alone in a crumbling house. But she has the money now and is persuaded to do a revamp. But she insists on staying away while the builders are there. She gets bored and returns home, only to find the men are quite pleasant. It's all very nice. 18 wonderful Pages
THE WRONG ORDER
Three people: elderly Hilda and Hector together with their gardener and general helper, who lives in the studio in the garden. He is an artist, and could his paintings be on the threshold of greatness? All Hilda thinks about is her demise, but just look at the title. 15 Pages.
Unpublished Stories
A RESPONSIBILITY
Jessie is scared to death after accepting being a godmother to her friend Gwen's baby. Gwen "was not yet twenty but looked already like a downtrodden housewife. " Inside the church, "two groups huddled, ostensibly opposed. "Jessie's big problem is that the godfather, Frederick, used to be her boyfriend. So they all were very relieved when it was all over. 8 Pages.
VIOLET HOUR AT THE FLEECE
A man and woman enter a pub on a significant date, meeting there at the very end of the war and not having been there for years. But they are not related; we know she has children. He is just back from active service. They are so much at ease with one another. That is until her husband arrives. 5 Pages.
These stories were written between 1945 and 1973.
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