How long did they have to go on, letting the war spoil everything? They had been patient, all this time. They’d lived in darkness. They’d lived without salt, without scent. They’d fed themselves little scraps of pleasure, like parings of cheese. Now she became aware of the minutes as they passed: she felt them, suddenly, for what they were, as fragments of her life, her youth, that were rushing away like so many drops of water, never to return. [loc. 5289]
London, 1947: Kay lives in a half-derelict house owned by a Christian Scientist, mourning a great loss. Helen lives with popular author Julia, but is jealous of Julia's other friends. Duncan works in a candle factory, and lives with an older gentleman he calls 'Uncle Horace'. Duncan's sister Viv lives with her father, works with Helen and is in a relationship with Reggie, who is married. All of them are lonely, miserable and greatly changed by their wartime experiences.
Then Waters takes us back to 1944 and shows us how they got to where they are: the mystery about Duncan's time in prison, Kay being her best self as an ambulance driver during the bombing of London, Helen's infidelity, Viv's catastrophe. And further back, to 1941, as a kind of epilogue: how Kay met Helen, how Viv met Reggie, the evening that Duncan's life changed.
This is a book that demands to be reread: at least, I had to immediately turn back to the first chapters to reread in light of what was only revealed later in the novel. Waters never lapses into explanation: every 1947 scene, every emotion, has its roots in chronologically-earlier events, showing us (rather than telling us) how wartime exigencies shaped and changed each protagonist's life. The prose is lucid and informal, each chapter with the subtly distinct voice of its focal character. (Viv: 'she couldn’t bear it when they started talking so airily about prison, all of that'; Kay: 'with absolutely nothing wrong with her, living like a cripple, like a rat'; Helen: 'as if herds of great, complaining creatures were hurling themselves through the city sewers'; Duncan: 'Never being able to say the thing that people expected'.)
These are ordinary people. Nothing exceptional happens to them. They bear witness to the war, and to its little horrors: a child's jawbone full of milk teeth, a pigeon with its wings ablaze, a botched backstreet abortion. They learn to take each day as it comes. They find moments of joy amid the chaos. And then the war ends, and they are all, in different ways, suddenly lost.
I'm still thinking a lot about this novel (which I have owned for years, but only recently felt ready to read). I think it will haunt me for a while.
Fulfils the ‘Nominated for The Booker Prize’ (it was shortlisted in 2006) rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.
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