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Summary
Part I: Peacehaven, October 1999
Section 2, from Something strange is happening as I write through …Tom and I joined you, ecstatic in our appreciation.
In 1999, Pamela, Patrick’s visiting nurse, comes to the house daily to provide a respite for Marion, who uses the time to write. Marion notes that she finds the process of writing satisfying in itself. She has planned to read the finished product to Patrick but wonders if she will find the courage to do so. Patrick is agitated, and at breakfast, his unsteady hand knocks his bowl of cereal over, onto his lap and Tom’s shoes. Marion writes that he has had a stroke and that she’s been told that, although he cannot speak, he can hear. The doctors offer no certain answers about when or whether he will recover any of his lost abilities.
In September 1957, Marion arrives at St. Luke’s to find Tom by the front gates. Tom says he was just going for a walk in the neighborhood, but Marion wonders if he really came by the school to see her. Marion reminds him of his offer to teach her to swim, and he agrees to meet her for a lesson. On the day of the lesson, they meet at the beach, and she is struck by his professionalism and his ability to take control. While cold, Marion is excited to be with Tom and feel him touch her body. At one point, she is swamped by a wave and panics, but Tom pulls her above the water. They continue to meet for weekly lessons, during which they get to know each other better. Tom tells Marion that he likes to go to the art museum, and she imagines that their first date will take place there.
Tom’s sister Sylvie marries Roy at the church, with a speed that makes Marion wonder if Sylvie is pregnant. She wonders if she and Tom will be next. At the reception at Sylvie’s house, Roy gets into an argument with Sylvie’s father, upsetting Sylvie. Marion follows her to her bedroom, where Sylvie confesses that she lied to Roy about being pregnant to push him to marry her. Later that afternoon, in the Burgesses’ garden, Tom puts his hand on Marion’s hip, leading her to think he will kiss her. Instead, he says he has someone he wants her to meet. Marion is initially disappointed, imaging he means a woman he is romantically involved with, then relieved when Tom uses the pronoun “he” about his friend who works at the art museum.
In 1999, Marion describes bathing Patrick on the days that Pamela does not come. Patrick looks away when Marion removes his pajamas, but Marion is comforted by her ability to care for him in a kindly but matter-of-fact way, without becoming upset. On this particular day, Patrick speaks for the first time since his stroke, asking repeatedly until Marion understands him, “Where’s Tom?” Though Marion doesn’t answer him, she praises him for his efforts and tells him Tom will be proud.
In December 1957, Tom brings Marion to the museum to meet Patrick. She has never been to an art museum and feels out of place. Marion notices changes in Tom’s body language in Patrick’s presence—he ducks his head down and shakes hands too long, then looks away. They all go to lunch at the Clock Tower Café, a choice that surprises Marion, who assumed that Patrick would choose somewhere fancier. Marion finds that she likes Patrick. The three of them begin going to plays and concerts together. Patrick treats them to tickets to the opera Carmen. Tom wants to pay, but the tickets are too expensive for his salary. Tom is upset by their exchange, and Patrick worries that he has ruined the evening. At the theatre, Patrick has Marion sit between them. She is moved by Carmen’s aria, and Tom grasps her hand.
Analysis
Marion’s first swimming lesson with Tom is a pivotal moment in the novel and in the development of their relationship. Marion looks forward to the lesson as the fulfillment of years of dreaming about intimate time alone with Tom. While she waits for him, she imagines him rising from the waters like the god Neptune, suggesting that Marion, on some level, worships Tom. However, when Tom appears, he is not divine but rather irritated and impatient. The reality of the lesson is less magical than Marion had hoped, foreshadowing the ways in which their marriage will disappoint her. The water that Tom takes to so naturally is cold, rough, and unwelcoming to Marion, which also seems to speak to the cold, difficult, and alienating nature of their future marriage. To remain connected to Tom, she forces herself to focus on his touch and on the triumph that physical contact represents for her. She also focuses on the beauty of his body in the water, taking pleasure at how it shines in the light. While their courtship is far from easy, she finds comfort in their physical contact and in Tom’s beauty. She also finds a sense of safety, trusting him to pull her to safety when the waves consume her. Tom, in taking care of Marion in the water, shows his essential sense of duty toward Marion.
Sylvie’s wedding provides a setting for one of the novel’s recurring themes: secrecy’s ability to both protect and estrange. The speed of the wedding leads the guests to suspect that Sylvie is keeping secret an early pregnancy, as indicated by the text’s use of the phrase “shotgun wedding”. However, Sylvie’s real secret is that she is not pregnant, only pretending to be. This secret protects her in the sense that it pushes Roy to marry her, an outcome she wants but fears will not happen. However, the secret also estranges her from Roy, as lying to him creates distance between them. In addition, her father is angry that she has gotten pregnant before marriage, as indicated by his calling her “a trollop” in his argument with Roy. While Sylvie dismisses her father’s behavior as normal, his reference to her supposed sexual promiscuity illustrates that the secret is driving a wedge between Sylvie and her father as well. The secret also causes Sylvie internal distress, suggesting that though she got the marriage she wanted, it’s at the cost of her own contentment.
Marion’s first impression of the art museum and of Patrick is marked by feeling out of place in terms of both class and gender. Thinking that a museum visit is a special occasion, she has dressed in a festive dress and high heels, only to find that the other visitors are wearing somber clothes and that her shoes make too much noise in the quiet setting of the museum. Her traditionally feminine attire, then, makes her stand out as a disturbance in the male-dominated art world and marks her as unacclimated to the bourgeois customs of the museum. Marion compares the tiled walls of the museum’s entrance to a butcher shop, noting that, like a butcher shop, the museum is a world that belongs to men. Women can visit but will never truly belong. She expects Patrick to take them to a fancy lunch and is confused by his choice of the Clock Tower Café, a loud, working-class diner with greasy food. There, too, she is out of place as a woman, as the only other women present are employees. These surprises lead her to feel that she does not belong, a frequent experience for her throughout the novel.
