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Summary
Part I: Peacehaven, October 1999
Section 1, from I consider starting with these words: I no longer want to kill you… through Even now I wish I hadn’t let Alice Rumbold get away with it on that first day.
The novel opens in 1999, as Marion, a former schoolteacher, is writing an account of her life with her husband Tom and with Tom’s lover Patrick. She writes directly to Patrick, addressing him as “you,” and notes that he’s currently unable to talk. She and Tom moved to Peacehaven for their retirement, and they had brought Patrick into their home the previous week following his release from the hospital after suffering a stroke. Marion takes charge of getting Patrick settled in the house, while Tom immediately leaves to walk the dog. Marion notes that she no longer wants to kill Patrick and that she has given him the only room in the bungalow with a view of the ocean. She remembers that his apartment always had a view of the sea, while the house she shared with Tom looked out onto the neighbors’ windows.
Marion’s narrative then shifts 48 years into the past as she remembers first meeting Tom. At grammar school, Marion becomes friends with Tom’s sister Sylvie, and she begins spending time at Sylvie’s house where she meets Tom. From the first time she sees him, she is struck by his beauty and continues her friendship with Sylvie in part for the opportunity to see Tom. When the girls are 17, they are sunbathing at the pool when Tom arrives, wet from swimming and dripping on them, and he asks Sylvie to lend him money. He teases them for not swimming, and Marion says she has never learned to swim. Sylvie suggests that Tom teach her. Marion cannot look away from his body and gives him all the money she has. Later, Tom volunteers for National Service. His father is initially proud, then angry that he has signed up with the Catering Corps. Marion defends him, and Tom says he will teach her to swim. While Tom is gone, Marion’s longing for him increases. When she finishes grammar school, she decides to go to teacher training college despite the fact that her own teacher, Miss Monkton, doubts that she has the character for teaching.
In the spring of 1957, Tom is training to be a policeman, and Marion is in teaching school. She is still friends with Sylvie, who gets engaged to her boyfriend Roy. As Sylvie tells Marion about her sexual explorations with Roy, she remarks of Tom that he is “not like that,” a comment Marion cannot make sense of. Marion finishes teacher training college and begins teaching at St. Luke’s while continuing to live with her parents. There, she meets a fellow teacher, Julia, who helps Marion find her classroom. She thinks of Tom constantly, fantasizing that he will be proud when he hears of her career choice. When she enters the classroom on her first day, she considers writing his name on the board instead of her own.
Analysis
The opening of the novel, written in Marion’s narrative voice, establishes immediately that Marion and Patrick have a history of an unequal power dynamic. In the first pages, Marion addresses Patrick directly as the “you” in her writing, making it clear that he is the intended audience for the manuscript, which she refers to as a confession. She plans to read this confession to Patrick because he can no longer reply to her. That she is willing to confess only now that Patrick cannot reply illustrates that she now has control over the situation. She remarks that it is odd for her to be the one writing and Patrick the one observing, implying that their roles were once reversed. Nevertheless, Marion shows care for Patrick, stating that she does not want to upset him and allowing him to express his needs using flashcards so that he can maintain a sense of independence. This suggests that, while Marion has taken advantage of her increased power in their relationship in order to express what was previously inexpressible, she doesn’t abuse this power and treats Patrick with compassion.
Early in the novel, Marion writes about the effect of denial on desire, an important theme throughout the novel. While Tom is away completing his service, his absence only causes Marion’s desire for him to increase. With the benefit of hindsight, she wonders whether her failing to see him when he came home on breaks was an unconscious effort to build her longing, avoiding contact with the real Tom, who might fail to live up to her memories and fantasies of him. She sees that Patrick has shared this experience, suggesting early on that the story of Patrick and Tom is also one of delayed gratification. She wonders if, for Patrick, being in Tom’s house is the realization of a long-delayed dream, disappointing as the reality of it may be. This insight echoes Marion’s earlier experience with Tom and suggests that Patrick’s love for Tom might have been fueled for decades by Tom’s absence.
This early section of the novel also explores the chilling effects of widespread social limitations on women’s behavior. For example, before she seeks her career as a teacher, Marion has already received more schooling than her parents expected for her. Marion’s mother, in fact, complains about her studying and believes that going to grammar school will make her different from her family, implying that they did not receive a similar level of education. However, Marion is aware that the options for women are very limited upon finishing school, despite that the school encourages her to make plans for the future. When Marion meets with the deputy head of her grammar school, Miss Monkton, she declares that she would like to become a teacher with the full understanding that her career options are severely limited. While she pursues a socially acceptable path, she is still discouraged by Miss Monkton from her career choice. Thus, her dreams are frowned upon even when trying to adhere to her predetermined role in society.
