This book was highly recommended to me by a friend, so I am looking forward to reading it. The reviews for this book mention the wonderful writing and the author’s turn of phrase and ability to accurately read the human character, and my friend tells me it is a book that will stay in my mind long after I have finished reading it, which all sound wonderful though I’ve never read any of this author’s books before.
This book was highly recommended to me by a friend, so I am looking forward to reading it. The reviews for this book mention the wonderful writing and the author’s turn of phrase and ability to accurately read the human character, and my friend tells me it is a book that will stay in my mind long after I have finished reading it, which all sound wonderful though I’ve never read any of this author’s books before.
The first chapter is called Pharmacy. Henry Kitteridge, a retired pharmacist, is remembering his many years of early morning drives to work, and how the routine of preparing his pharmacy for the day’s work made him feel settled, as well as his caring interest in his assistant’s happy marriage and her friendliness towards him, which compares starkly to his own marriage with his wife Olive who often snaps and shouts at him and makes him feel unsettled, and often accuses him of not doing enough and of not appreciating how hard she works and how tired she is. Awww, I like the description of Henry Kitteridge’s early morning drive to work ‘as though the world was his secret’ with him observing the changes of nature such as when ‘the wild raspberries shot their new growth in brambles’, it sounds a lovely area where he lives with the bay nearby and all the pine trees. And I’m intrigued already with how Henry seems to often feel unsettled by his wife’s behaviour, that ‘she had a darkness that seemed to stand beside her like an acquaintance that would not go away’, which sounds hard for him but also hard for her as she doesn’t sound happy. And, bless him, it sounds like Henry struggled in childhood too as he remembers that his mother had two nervous breakdowns, which also makes me wonder if he chose a similar person as his mother to be his wife (as people often seem to do) and he then feels the same anxiety to pacify and calm and the same watchfulness for signs that a situation may be escalating with his wife as he felt with his mother, which must be stressful for him. I can sense his puzzlement with how to ease the complicated difficulties in his home life, and how work was therefore a safe and simple place by comparison as ‘the small pleasures of his work…seemed in their simplicities to fill him to the brim’. He seems to have a heightened sense of responsibility too, with him feeling guilty for not noticing that his first assistant was unwell (after she later suddenly died in her sleep) and I wonder if that feeling of responsibility is due to him trying to maintain the happiness (or rather trying to minimise the unhappiness) of his mother and his wife. He sounds like such a kind and caring man to his customers too, bless him, I really like him but feel very sorry for him. And I’m also aware that it would be very easy to dislike Olive, when she snaps at Henry and makes him look small infront of other people, and when her moods dominate the house. Henry seems to just exist alongside her and her moods, sometimes he feels annoyed but mostly he doesn’t react at all and just keeps all his frustrations inside, and I’m also aware that it would be very easy to judge Henry as well and think that if he’d have stood up to Olive more then she might have treated him better. And I wonder if I’m being led into these assumptions by the author and the reality is actually very different, I am definitely very intrigued by these characters already! And it’s interesting that the reader (at the moment, at least) only has Henry’s point of view, I keep expecting to hear from Olive but we don’t, and I’m puzzled already why it is written in this way, our first impression of Olive (the person who the book is named after!) seems so crucial and yet this first impression of her is being created and formed by someone else, the author has chosen to have us try to understand Olive only through her husband’s view of her and this kind of feels a bit unfair to Olive. It could be that Olive is dreadfully ill or depressed or unhappy most of the time and that she makes a huge huge valiant effort to try and conceal this so as not to upset Henry and occasionally everything overwhelms her and she snaps, so it could be that her behaviour is actually good overall, considering what she is struggling to deal with, whereas Henry (and therefore the reader) judges her behaviour as unreasonable and selfish. And of course it could also be that Henry is a very demanding and unreasonable person, that he’s a contributing factor to why Olive is unwell and struggling, but he’s not showing this to the reader. Ooooh, the book is fascinating me already, I feel like I’m being encouraged to make judgements about Olive and Henry but this also makes me feel a bit uncomfortable doing so, like I’m being asked to witness private scenes, private humiliating disagreements which I shouldn’t be seeing and judging, or that I’m almost listening to tales about Olive behind her back and am then being made to be complicit in this critical view of her although I’m not being allowed to see all the facts and make up my own mind. It seems such an unusual way to write a book, and I’m really fascinated by the author’s reasons for doing it this way, as well as being full of admiration for how cleverly she has written it. And I also wonder why Henry is looking back at this time at the pharmacy now, what is happening (or has just happened) in Henry’s life to make him so reflective?
Henry remembers that he gradually grew closer to his new assistant Denise and her husband Henry, and his conversations with them and the snapshots he got of their life together became the happy focus of his day, ‘he can still remember how he could make her smile’, and he felt valued by the couple. Hmmm, I’m feeling a little apprehensive of how important Denise became to Henry and if something might happen to take her away from him, she and her husband seem to be the only happy things in his life and I worry how he would cope if they were no longer there for some reason. And I was getting a bit concerned if Henry was beginning to view Denise as more than a friend, but he has very carefully stated to himself that he was not in love with her, and he seemed to care for her happiness as a father would care for his daughter. I did smile at Henry’s observation ‘you get used to things’ and the author then adding ‘without getting used to things’ when Henry is trying to be positive about the progress of the world and the changes he sees in the town now and telling himself he has accepted this but in reality he is not accepting of these things at all, I like the irony of this and how true it often is for all of us.
Henry then remembers when Denise’s husband was accidentally shot and killed in a hunting accident, and he was concerned at how helpless Denise was and at how little she knew of the world. He taught her to drive and helped her to buy a car and get a bank account and then an apartment, even getting her a little kitten. She struggled a lot as this was the first time she had lived alone in her life, and she also began to view the pharmacy as a haven. Omg, omg, omg, I didn‘t anticipate Denise’s husband being killed, I am so shocked! I was expecting there to be some kind of change to Henry’s comfortable routine at the pharmacy, but not that! And as well as feeling sorry for poor Denise, who always seems so childlike and vulnerable (or at least, that is how Henry portrays her in his mind), I feel sorry for Henry too as Denise’s marriage and their happy life together seemed to be the crutch of his life and now that’s gone, plus we already know how empathetic he can be to people and how he feels responsible for them, so I imagine this would have shattered him as he would feel deeply how Denise was suffering. And it is clear that his heightened empathy and feelings of responsibility did wear on him and bring him down, ‘a sadness shuddered through him that he could not shake…he found his own life felt unbearable in a way he would never have expected…he felt trepidation, as though he were carrying something that could not be set down’, and most significantly I feel, ‘He pictured everything through Denise’s eyes’. And interesting that Denise was viewing the pharmacy and her life and interactions there like a lifeline too, just as Henry obviously also viewed it. And I worry at just how dependent Denise is becoming on Henry. And, amongst this, I found it very interesting that Olive doesn’t think Henry married a woman like his mother (when she was commenting on Denise’s husband choosing Denise because she was so similar to his mother), as I had wondered too if Henry had chosen Olive because she was like his mother, although I suspected this was the case but Olive is stating that it isn’t! Is Olive just not seeing the similarities, or are the two women (Olive and Henry’s mother) actually very different but Henry has (perhaps unintentionally) twisted things in his mind to see the similarities with their moods and how this affects their behaviour? Ooooh, I love how this book is so deep, I read just a few paragraphs and am then trying to analyse what is implied between the lines, it really is a remarkable book and I am finding it fascinating to read, wondering what the author will do with these characters and also how much the reader isn’t being told about them. But it’s kind of taking over my mind (and my life!) as I feel I can’t just skim over the story but have to concentrate deeply on it and go back and re-read it. I will see what the other stories are like, but I already feel like I need to work at this book, that it’s not a light read.
Henry remembers that Denise accidentally drove over the kitten and phoned Henry, feeling completely distraught. When her phone call came through, Olive resignedly told Henry to go to Denise, goading him by calling her his girlfriend which caused Henry to snap at Olive. He went to Denise’s apartment to try and comfort her, though felt helpless with the enormity of her grief. She told him “I talk to you in my head all the time”. On the drive home from Denise’s apartment, Henry thought about ‘moving far upstate, living in a small house with Denise…she could have a child, a little girl who would adore him; girls adored their fathers’. Omg, I had my hand over my mouth when Denise ran over the kitten, oh god, that’s so awful and tragic! And I am apprehensive at where this is going to end up between them, I know I should feel pleased at Henry standing up to Olive when she goaded him but I’m nervous about the fact that it was the link to Denise which drove him to finally do this and therefore what this might mean for how much he felt for Denise and the contrast in his mind between Denise who is gentle and fragile and depended on him, compared to Olive who scorns him and doesn’t seem to need him or rate his abilities at all. And Henry’s thoughts about having a little girl with Denise, oh god, those lines almost made me weep, they’re just such tragic words that speak so much of his desperate need to be valued and loved, by a wife and a daughter, bless him, and his selflessness of wanting to help someone else to be happy and to have the satisfaction of knowing that you have made them happy. I’m beginning to almost hope that Henry did go off with Denise and that she cherished him and made him feel valued and loved and special (although it doesn’t seem to be the case from the start of the story).
The following day at work, Henry murmured to Denise that he would take care of her, but he then became absorbed with thoughts of how impossible it would be for him to leave Olive, and that even if he did leave her then Denise’s strong Catholic beliefs would not allow her to be with Henry as he would be a divorced Protestant. As the weeks went by, he sensed that Denise was gradually becoming distant towards him and that she was spending time with Tony (her husband’s friend), and the subsequent feelings of anger and hurt affected Henry so much that he began needing a sleeping tablet to sleep, ‘the pain was sharp, exquisite, unbearable’. Hmmm, again, we’re only getting Henry’s view of all this, not Denise’s view. I’m intrigued why she pulled away from Henry in the first place, whether she had actually considered a life with him and then felt disappointed in him for not making this happen, or whether she didn’t feel as Henry thought she did and she sensed that Henry was hoping for more from their relationship so pulled away for that reason. But she obviously trusted Henry and allowed herself to be at her most vulnerable with him, so that makes me wonder again what she was hoping for from him. But poor Henry hurting so much, sob, and his feeling that he was ‘drowning in cobwebs whose sticky maze was spinning about him’ just depicts it so powerfully and so tragically, this author has such an amazing way with words!
Henry remembers that Denise married Jerry, who delivered supplies to the pharmacy and who Denise had encouraged to attend night school and get qualifications, and they moved away and began a family, with Jerry getting a job with a very good wage. They would drop in on Henry and Olive when they were in town visiting Jerry’s parents, and Henry was saddened to see Jerry ‘speaking to his wife in a way Olive had sometimes spoken to Henry’. In considering how he felt he had been disloyal to Olive with his feelings for Denise, he also remembers gradually understanding that Olive had been in love with a fellow teacher, Jim O’Casey, and that she was distraught when Jim died and that she had to grieve secretly, though he and Olive have never spoken to each other about Denise or Jim. Arrgh, the shocks just keep coming! Firstly I didn’t have any inkling that Denise would end up with Jerry! Where did that come from, the author kept that so cleverly concealed, I hadn’t really registered Jerry in the story at all! But again, we only have Henry’s view of things so I wonder if it was that Henry hadn’t much registered Jerry’s presence and that perhaps the relationship between Denise and Jerry was plain to see if Henry had the eyes to see it? But I’m so shocked and surprised at Denise’s choice of Jerry, I could have understood her choice of Tony as he was her husband’s friend so provided a link with her husband, but I can’t imagine what she would have seen in Jerry, although as I say if Henry didn’t see it then the reader also isn’t able to see it as this story is being told from Henry’s point of view. And I’m saddened too by how Jerry seemed to mock and scorn Denise, ‘there was a look of the gravity of life weighing her down’, sigh, this seems quite cruel of the author, why couldn’t she have let Denise be happy, even though Henry wasn’t happy? Or is this similarity between Henry’s marriage and Denise’s marriage meant to show Henry that other marriages are like his, particularly if Denise chose Jerry because she wanted to help him (she had helped him educate himself) as Henry perhaps chose Olive because he wanted to help her (like he had tried to help his mother)? Poor poor Henry, I feel so sorry for him having lost the chance of happiness and of feeling loved and valued by Denise (and potentially adored by a daughter too, as he’d whimsically hoped), I almost feel now that it’d have been better for him never to have had that glimpse of happiness and contentment as his confusion and hurt now is just so awful to think about. And secondly, I was stunned that Olive was in love with Jim, wow, this author is good at concealing things! Again, like I hadn’t really registered the mentions of Jerry, I also hadn’t really registered the mentions of Jim either so I feel quite blown away by this revelation! And I wonder if this partly explains Olive’s frustration with her life and with Henry? But how indicative of Henry’s kind and empathetic nature too that he viewed Olive’s feelings of loss for Jim with sympathy, rather than with anger at her feelings for another man or glee that his potential rival was dead, although Olive’s feelings for another man surely must have hurt him. And I was wondering why Henry was choosing this moment to look back on these things, but it seems to be because he has now reached the point where he can let go of the hope that he and Denise could still end up together at some point in the future, because in her most recent note to him on his birthday she said her recent ill-health had made her appreciate family and focus on her family more, and then there is something about Henry finally letting go of the long-held idea that he and Denise could still end up together, so this must be the change that caused him to look back and reminisce. But again, because I’m not sure of Henry’s correct interpretation of things, I then wonder if he had also misinterpreted Denise and Jerry’s relationship, had perhaps told himself that Denise was unhappy with Jerry and so there was still a chance that he and Denise could end up together. There is so much subtly packed into this chapter that I suspect I have probably missed or misinterpreted lots of things. And that makes me wonder if the author is being deliberately ambiguous, wanting the reader to interpret things in the way it suits them? But what an achievement it is to write a short story and pack in so much in such a short space, or rather not pack it in and more hint at things and leave the reader to interpret which is why it has taken over my life as I must have re-read this first chapter about four times (!), mostly because the reveals were such a surprise that I went back looking for the clues I’d missed. But again, I’m not sure if there are actually real hints or clues as such, as perhaps it’s just Henry (as he’s telling us the tale) who missed the hints and clues, or that Henry misinterpreted the situations. This first chapter seems overall to be one of unhappiness though, for all the characters in it, there’s no hint at all of any kind of happy ending, it’s all just so sad, and I feel a bit apprehensive about the rest of the book, keen though I am to find out more about Olive and Henry. I wonder if this is going to be a book about difficult challenging relationships (as I’d first thought) or if it is actually more about how people alter things in their mind to suit their own ideals of the world and the people in it (with my realisation that we have only had Henry’s view of everything and he could have naively misinterpreted all these situations and people). And I also wonder if the other chapters have Olive’s voice and view, or if the whole book is going to be other people’s view of Olive and the reader never actually hears from her. It would certainly be a very interesting and unusual concept to potentially never hear from the main character!
The second chapter is called Incoming Tide. Kevin is sitting in his car beside the marina, he used to live in this town but moved away with his family when he was an early teen. Patty Howe is working in the nearby cafe and has noticed the man sat there in his car for over an hour, and suddenly realises that she knows him and remembers being scared of him as a child. Kevin watches a man and his son, and he is relieved that he didn’t experience too much emotion at seeing them. Ooooh, I like the description of the noise of the water and stones with ‘the smaller rocks could be heard moving as the water shifted them’, I always find that such a peaceful sound myself. And again I’m full of admiration with how cleverly the author just subtly hints at things, rather than stating them, such as the hint of Patty’s desperate and unfulfilled wish for a child by just the comment that the smell of muffins doesn’t make her feel nauseous at the moment. And I’m curious why we’ve been given Patty’s surname but not Kevin’s surname, is this to increase the mysteriousness of Kevin (as he does feel a little mysterious with him just waiting and watching and with Patty remembering that she used to be scared of him), to emphasise that he is a stranger in town or at least hasn’t lived there for many years (whereas Patty obviously lives and works in the town), or is the story going to be more about Patty rather than Kevin? And where are Olive or Henry, are they coming later in the story, is this story set in the same town that they live in or a different town? And there is a hint that when Kevin left the town it was with his father and brother, so where was his mother when they left? And who are the man and boy, are they Kevin’s relatives, I took it to be that he was waiting there in order to see them or am I wrong with this? And on a side note (!) there was mention of corn muffins in Patty’s cafe and I’m intrigued what they are, I will have to google!
Kevin thinks back to earlier that day when he drove to his childhood home. He was relieved to see there was no evidence of a child living at the house, and he then had a memory of finding his mother in the kitchen. He then looked at the rifle that he had in the back of his car. Omg, is Kevin going to commit suicide with the rifle in his car and do it near his childhood home?! And did he discover his mother dead in the kitchen having killed herself, is this what her ‘remnants of corporeality across the kitchen cupboards’ means, I’m not sure but I can’t really think what else it could mean! Omg, this is getting very dark and morbid very quickly! I feel quite apprehensive already with how this story might progress.
While Kevin is parked beside the marina, Olive knocks on his car window. He remembers her as his teacher, Mrs Kitteridge, and she calls him Kevin Coulson. She sits in the car and asks what he is doing there, but he doesn’t answer. She asks more questions about his life in New York, and he says he is training to be a psychiatrist. She shares information about the town and also about Patty, saying she keeps having miscarriages. Ok, so we have Olive now then, and she seems to be being kind to Kevin here, which we didn’t see any sign of in the first story. But why has she sat in the car with him? Presumably she knows what happened to him when he lived there, so I wonder if she suspects what he has come there to do (if I’m right in my guess of him intending to commit suicide) and if she is aiming to prevent him from doing this by distracting him with talk, as she seems to be talking a lot which somehow I don’t imagine her doing normally, she strikes me as someone who just says what is necessary and doesn’t engage in lots of small talk and chatter. And I’m thinking again about the title Incoming Tide and wondering if the fact that a tide can’t be stopped is significant, so if Olive won’t be able to stop Kevin from acting on his suicide plan just like she wouldn’t be able to stop the tide. I was interested to note that Kevin seemed to expect Olive to react to his mention of training to be a psychiatrist, so I wonder if this is because it relates to his past, some mental health issue with him or his family? And there is a hint that Kevin self-harms (or perhaps this could be described as a habit that comforts him but that causes mild damage to him, if I’m identifying correctly his urge to suck his knuckles). And I think it sounds like he did a version of this when he was a child too and this unnerved Patty, so I wonder if this was why she used to be scared of him. And we have a surname for him now, as well as confirmation of Patty’s history of miscarriages. I kind of feel like I am hunting for clues in this story, it all feels very much like subtle hints, but I think I am very eager to find clues as I am worried about what will happen so I am trying to reduce the possible surprise/shock!
In a gap in the conversation with Olive, Kevin reflects to himself that he had originally wanted to be a paediatrician, like his mother, but that he decided to become a psychiatrist as he wanted to learn more about bipolar, which his mother had had, and then decided he wanted to specialise in the psychiatric treatment of torture victims. Omg, specialising in helping torture victims, phew, that sounds brutal and soul-destroying, although I guess someone has to do it and obviously it is self-sacrificingly admirable that they do but I can’t imagine how hard that must be, and I am relieved that Kevin was talked out of this career as he seems a bit too scarred himself to be able to sufficiently distance himself from the trauma of others. It makes me nervous again though why he wanted to be involved with torture victims, I really hope he wasn’t tortured himself as a child. So we now know a bit more about his mother, that she was a paediatrician but more significantly that she had bipolar. And it’s interesting that when Kevin mentions paediatricians, Olive states that they are tyrants and then adds that Kevin’s mother may not have been able to help it, so from this I presume that Olive viewed Kevin’s mother as a tyrant and that she does know a lot about what happened in Kevin’s family. I’m getting such a sense of foreboding with this story, I’m almost reluctant to continue and I’m aware I am almost delaying continuing with it by stopping after only a few paragraphs to reflect on what information we’ve been given, tee hee! And (I’m probably delaying again here…!) I wonder about the order that the chapters have been put in, as I am feeling this chapter will probably show Olive in a far more kinder light than the first chapter did (as just so far in this chapter she has been kind by spending time talking to Kevin, and even seeming to show empathy by sharing that her father was depressed and rarely talked and that her son is depressed) so why did the author choose to have us first see Olive as unkind in the beginning chapter, was it in order to surprise us later with her kindness? Or perhaps there is some chronological order to the chapters which hasn’t become apparent yet.
Olive tells Kevin that she has thought of him. She adds that she liked his mother, and Kevin responds that his mother liked her. Olive tells Kevin that her father committed suicide by shooting himself in the kitchen and didn’t leave a note and that the lack of a note particularly upset her mother. Kevin tries to distract Olive by talking about the boats in the marina, although in his mind he is picturing his mother shooting herself in their kitchen. Olive then remarks that it’s unusual for a woman to use a gun to kill herself. Omg, there has obviously been lots of sadness in Olive’s life with her father committing suicide as well as no doubt an effect on her childhood with him being depressed and not talking, so suddenly the ‘darkness that seemed to stand beside her’ which Henry commented on in the first chapter seems to make more sense now as well as being even sadder words than they originally sounded, and I feel this family history and loss perhaps helps to explain why Olive is the way she is. Hmmm, but then I’m wondering if Olive has made up this story of her father because she suspects what Kevin is intending to do and wants a way to talk to him and advise him (especially with her saying that her father shot himself in the kitchen and it seeming to be that it was the kitchen where Kevin’s mother shot herself), presumably realising that if she was to speak directly about Kevin’s possible intentions or his mental state then it could push him away so instead she speaks about her own family’s mental states and actions. If this is the case, then Olive’s abrupt manner doing this does make me wince slightly, particularly when she said how unusual it is for women to kill themselves by shooting, it initially seemed just too personal and uncomfortable a thing to say to Kevin with his history, but perhaps she is trying to push him/shock him into a reaction that then brings forward an admission of his intention to kill himself so Olive can then tackle that? Amongst this heavy stuff (!), I liked the line ‘The moored sailboats now were heaving their bows high, then swooping back down as though pulled by an angry underwater creature’, I can just see that motion of the boats and the power of the water in my mind’s eye. And I did chuckle at Olive saying that Kevin’s mother was a smart woman after he had said that she liked Olive, so linking her being smart to the fact she liked Olive! And I’d say I’m not a short story fan as I usually feel that there isn’t the opportunity for the development of the characters and for lots of lovely descriptions that you get from a full-length novel, but I think I am revising my view with this book as I am full of admiration of how the author has hinted at so much about the characters and stories in such a small space, which then gives the reader space to interpret things (or possibly misinterpret things…!).
Kevin tries to end the conversation with Olive and to get her to step out of his car by politely saying that it was nice to see her, but Olive seems not to get the hint and speaks again about her son and her sadness that she has passed the depression gene onto him, though she adds that Henry’s mother ‘was a complete nut’. Olive asks about Kevin’s brother, and Kevin says he is a drug addict living on the streets, he also adds that his father died of cancer last year. Kevin remembers inwardly a university president had said at a ceremony that the most important thing in life is to love and be loved, and how this reinforced to Kevin how alone he was and that he had no family or love in his life, and that even though he moved from place to place and city to city he had still found no-one to love or who loved him, and this had gradually made him yearn to see his childhood home again, even though he knew he had never felt happiness whilst living there but he felt that he missed the house and that he missed his mother. He also inwardly reflects that ‘hope was a cancer inside him…he could not bear these shoots of tender green hope springing up within him any longer’. Oh, I do feel for Kevin, he does sound so desperately desperately unhappy. It makes me sad when he speaks about hope, I’d have thought having hope was a positive thing but I guess he perhaps can’t bear when the hope is dashed yet again, and I’m wondering if this is why he wants to end it all, to stop the hope burgeoning up and then being dashed. But the fact he has hope, gives me hope (!) that he is open to happiness if he could just be brave enough to take it, so he’s not so closed off to everything which makes me think if he could just give life a chance then maybe he could find happiness and love, though I can understand that he is scared of risking being hurt again. Oh dear, bless him. And I am imagining that Olive is wanting to engage Kevin further by encouraging him to talk about psychiatry with her by mentioning her son’s depression, although clearly her distracting him is working as he had been ‘about to start with his wrist again’ (I presume again a kind of self-harm/comforting habit that causes damage) but Olive’s words about Henry’s mother stopped him. Again I wonder if her son really is depressed or if this is just a clever thing she has employed in order to engage Kevin’s attention and distract him from his plan. But it’s interesting what she said about Henry’s mother being mentally unwell, as Henry had referred to this in the first chapter, although Olive goes into more detail (again, if this is true or if it’s just to distract Kevin) saying that Henry’s mother had three breakdowns and had shock therapy, poor Henry, that’s a lot for a boy to witness and perhaps feel a responsibility to try and fix. And what does Kevin mean when he says he felt responsibility for his therapist, Dr Goldstein? Responsibility for the distress he would cause Dr Goldstein by killing himself? Or had he hurt/killed Dr Goldstein before he came here (omg, my imagination is going wild with this story as it seems that potentially there is very little off limits with the shocking revelations that have been introduced so far!)?! And with Kevin mentioning his brother who lives on the street and his father being dead, this makes me wonder again who the man and boy were that he was watching (and seemed to be waiting for), I had presumed they were relatives of his, perhaps his brother and nephew or his father and a young step-brother of Kevin’s, but perhaps he doesn’t know them at all and it was their father/son relationship that he was watching and comparing with his own experience? And Olive mentions that Henry is thinking about retiring early, so that makes me wonder again about the order of these chapters, as (I’ve gone back and checked!) the first chapter mentions that Henry has already retired which implies that this current chapter with Kevin happened before Henry’s chapter of remembering back to the days of the pharmacy, but then (again) why isn’t this Kevin chapter earlier in the book?
Olive suddenly sees that Patty is in the water, having fallen from the steep cliff around the side of the cafe where she was picking flowers, and she runs over and shouts for Kevin to help. Kevin slides down the cliff and into the water and grabs Patty, determined to not let Patty go as Olive summons more help. Phew, well, that was another surprise ending! I was gearing myself up for Kevin potentially committing suicide, and then this happens! And I’m wondering if this persuades Kevin not to commit suicide, whether seeing someone almost die and knowing that his actions (hopefully) saved her will be enough to convince him that life is precious, his life as well as hers? And I’m wondering too if Patty actually jumped rather than fell, as it isn’t stated how she got into the water, just that Olive suddenly spotted her in the water, and we know about her struggles and despair with trying to become pregnant so was this all too overwhelming for her and she decided to end her struggles? It is just left ambiguously for the reader to make up their own mind, and I do kind of admire the author not feeling obliged to fill in all the blanks but grrr, I do like answers, and this whole chapter just seems to leave me with no answers! And in this chapter we have seen a kindness to Olive, and seen her ability to judge that someone is feeling desperately unhappy, and her wise perception of how best to help (if I’ve correctly attributed Olive’s intentions here?).
The third chapter is called The Piano Player. Angie O’Meara plays the piano in a bar. She is in her 50s and is familiar to most people in the town as she has played at the bar for many years, but she keeps herself to herself and no-one knows her very well. She has also been having an affair with a married man, Malcolm, for 22 years. Joe, the bartender, has realised for a while that Angie suffers from stage fright and always drinks before she arrives to play as he can smell the alcohol on her breath even though she tries to hide this by sucking mints, but he has never spoken to her about this and she has never mentioned it to him. Hmmm, I note that there is a lot of description in the first few pages of this chapter, description of how Angie looks, how she is dressed, how the bar is decorated with xmas decorations and what these look like, so I wonder if this description about objects has been given because we’re not getting much of Angie’s thoughts and feelings, so the lack of description and insight into Angie is instead provided by lots of descriptions of other things. The reader is told that no-one in the bar really knows much about Angie, so I wonder if the reader is also not going to know much about Angie as well, apart from how she feels happy when playing the piano and that she began playing when she was aged only four. And I liked the lines about the music, particularly the piano being not so much background music but more ‘a character in the room’, and of Angie’s feeling that when she plays the first notes of the night she is ‘changing the atmosphere of the room’, and that she ‘had slipped inside the music’.
Olive and Henry enter the bar, and they are there frequently enough for Angie to know what Henry’s favourite song is. Angie inwardly reflects that Malcolm is often scornful of people in the bar, which makes her feel uncomfortable, and she also remembers that he rarely says kind things to her such as that he loves her, whereas he used to say this often at the beginning of their relationship. She also thinks about visiting her mother in the nursing home that day and that there were bruises on her mother’s arms and that she may mention this to Joe at the end of the night. A man enters the bar and requests that Angie plays Bridge Over Troubled Water, and she is now uncomfortable and troubled and struggles to focus on the music. She doesn’t play the request, continuing to play other songs, but she can feel the man looking at her and she feels a terror growing inside her. She takes a break, which is unusual for her, and goes to the payphone, calling Malcolm and telling him that she can’t see him any more. Hmmm, this is getting very odd! Who is this man in the bar and how does he know Angie and why is she so uncomfortable, even terrified, at him being there? And is it his presence that makes her decide to end things with Malcolm? Or alternatively was it seeing Henry and her reflecting on what a kind man Henry is that made her realise that Malcolm isn’t kind? And awww, Henry is lovely in this story too, with him always making a point of calling out hello to Angie, and Angie seems to particularly value Henry as ‘whenever she saw him, it was like moving into a warm pocket of air’, bless him, he genuinely does seem to be regarded as a nice kind man. But I feel obliged to note that Olive is clearly friendly too here, as it is stated that she always waves to Angie (I’m not sure why I am feeling defensive towards Olive and wanting to note the instances where she is kind, I guess because I still feel she was dealt with quite harshly in the first chapter and unable to defend herself as she wasn’t given a voice, and in the second chapter when she was given a voice she showed many good qualities. But it’s bizarre that I kind of feel like I need to protect Olive from the author’s potential harsh treatment, tee hee!).
Angie returns to her seat at the piano and then plays the man’s request, she looks over at him and smiles but he doesn’t smile back. His name is Simon and he used to be a piano player, and Angie remembers that she went to lunch with him and her mother and he praised her looks and character, and that he and she had sailed alone to Puckerbrush Island, with her mother waving them off, and that ‘later he sent her one white rose’. She remembers that they were in a relationship for two years and that when he broke it off he told her that she was neurotic and wounded. She also remembers that he was the only person she had told that her mother was a prostitute. Eeek, her mother was a prostitute, that was a shock! And I’m feeling uncertain of quite how Simon fitted into Angie and her mother’s lives, was he dating her mother (or paying for her services) and then started dating Angie? And how old was Angie during this relationship with Simon, she says she went into a bar with her friends to watch him play piano so presumably she was a teenager to be able to go into a bar (I’m trying to reassure myself that she was of a suitable age to be in a relationship with him, or is it being hinted that she was underage and was being taken advantage of by him?)? And those words ‘neurotic’ and ‘wounded’ seem very harsh for him to use to Angie, or was this the case and this suffering was due to her mother? And hmmm, is the title The Piano Player relating to Angie or to Simon?
Angie remembers that she had decided she wouldn’t see Simon again because she’d noticed that he was envious of her piano playing, recognising it as better than his. Angie also remembers that she was offered a place at a music school after her talent had been spotted when she played piano at a wedding but that her mother had refused to let her attend, and Angie had dreamt for years afterwards of this school and the opportunities it could have given her and how it would have allowed her to escape her life with her mother. She wonders why Simon is there at the bar, if he has come to see her and had known she was working there. Simon comes over to talk to her and she ‘felt the ping of danger, his eyes were not warm’, but she manages to speak to him, asking him about his job and life, and responds to his questions, while she continues to play. He asks what time she finishes and she tells him but says that she has to leave immediately, adding the words ‘sorry to say’. He says goodbye and adds that it was nice to see her, and walks away. Hmmm, I thought first of all that Angie had decided to break it off with Simon (after she noticed his envy of her superior piano playing and realised that this would cause problems in their relationship) but I wonder if actually she meant she had realised that he would break it off with her because he was envious of her. I’m very uncertain about the level of Simon’s power in this relationship, which makes me nervous, there is definitely an undercurrent of threat here I feel, but I’m not quite sure exactly where it comes from, apart from that Angie seems able to use signs to identify his mood (such as his eyes not being warm) which makes me wonder if she used to be taken by surprise at his sudden changes of mood (and if this could result in his hurtful cruel treatment towards her) so trained herself to look for these signs? But Angie reflects that ‘you couldn’t make yourself stop feeling a certain way, no matter what the other person did’, so does that seem to imply that she was in love with him and that it was her choice to be with him regardless of how unsuitable he may seem to be for her (so it was a fairly equal relationship), or does the ‘no matter what he did’ part of that sentence imply that he was cruel to her but she loved him so couldn’t find the strength to leave (so it was an unequal relationship and he hurt her)? Arrrgh, again I have so many questions in this chapter and am looking so deeply into every word of the text for clues! And I also wonder if the repeated focus on how the room is decorated and how Angie is dressed is also included to remind us that these things can be used as a front in order to conceal what is behind, and therefore is this what Angie has always done, using the piano as a kind of defensive barrier/front with the way she continues to play whilst speaking with Simon? And the insight into Angie’s childhood seems very tragic too, with the clearly miserable life she had with her mother and the things she no doubt witnessed with her mother being a prostitute, and she clearly (and probably rightly) has held onto feelings of resentment that her mother prevented her escape from this by stopping her from attending the music school. And why did her mother stop her doing this, I wonder, part of me thinks that her mother would take the chance to get rid of Angie, would see a child as being in her way, or (and I hate to think this) did she involve Angie in that prostitution life so wanted to keep her around?
Simon then returns to Angie’s side, and tells her that her mother came to see him in Boston after he had left and that she undressed infront of him. He adds that he has always felt sorry for Angie. She says ‘good night’ firmly to him, and then wonders if his envy for her piano playing and his lack of this ability had perhaps driven him to try and upset her like this, and if he would now feel satisfaction at having upset her. Oh wow, what was that, why did Simon say that to her? It felt like he was dominating her, that he knew that this information would make her feel distressed and deliberately told her because he wanted to distress her. And what does this mean regarding the relationship between Simon and Angie, and between Simon and Angie’s mother? Was Simon originally in a relationship with Angie’s mother and then dropped her in order to be with Angie and her mother was jealous so was determined to try and get him back which was why she went to Boston to see him? Or was there no relationship between Simon and Angie’s mother but her mother had always hoped there would be so tried to engineer this by going to Boston to see him? Or was Angie’s mother ‘selling’ Angie to Simon? I am just so uncertain about Angie and Simon’s relationship and whether she was a willing participant or not and how old she was. But I admire Angie for her firm ‘good night’ to Simon, and for her being able to clearly judge his motives for why he had said what he did and that this was probably due to him feeling inadequate as a piano player.
Walking home, she finds Malcolm waiting for her, he calls her a drunk and tells her off for phoning him at home and then mocks her by saying that he knows she will call him again and she doesn’t actually want to end their relationship. She tells herself that she will not call him. She thinks about the kind people in her life, such as Joe the bartender and Henry Kitteridge. And she thinks again that she will tell Joe about the bruises on her mother’s arm and how it seems that someone must be pinching her arm and causing these bruises when mother is paralysed so can’t defend herself. She then imagines how it felt to squeeze her mother’s thin arm. What, what, what?!! Was it Angie hurting her mother then, is that what she means by this? I’m so shocked! Or have I misinterpreted this and that wasn’t what she meant (but the two previous chapters had shock endings, so this pattern seems to fit)? But why would Angie do this? Because she is angry that her mother was a prostitute and how this made her life awful when she was growing up, because her mother stopped her from going to music school, because her mother tried to get Simon for herself…or because her mother ‘sold’ Angie to Simon? And then I’m back again wondering what the relationship was between Angie and Simon, aarrgggh! But if Angie was hurting her mother, then why would she draw attention to this by telling Joe? Or was it to try and increase Joe’s kindness towards her and his attention towards her? But it seems a bit risky that she would get found out. Omg, I feel sorry for Angie with her tough childhood and her reliance on alcohol and I admire her for how she dealt with Malcolm and Simon, I really don’t want to think of her as hurting her mother! And I’m still confused why she decided to end things with Malcolm that evening and if this potentially gives us clues about her relationship with Simon, ie, was Simon belittling and cruel and controlling to her so seeing him again suddenly made her realise that Malcolm is similar to this so she decides she won’t go through this again, or was it a very happy relationship with Simon which then made her recognise that she doesn’t have this happiness with Malcolm? Or (as I wondered before) was it Henry’s kindness that made her realise that Malcolm wasn’t kind and so the Malcolm bit was nothing to do with Simon? Arrrgggh, it does drive me a bit crazy that there are no answers! And in amongst all this, I also note that Olive and Henry didn’t play a very big part in this chapter (apart from perhaps Henry’s kindness giving Angie the strength to make changes to her life) which surprised me with the book having Olive’s name. But on my mission to try and think good of Olive (!), I am taking heart from the fact that Olive and Henry go fairly frequently to this bar together which makes me hope that they are happy spending time together so perhaps Olive isn’t actually as difficult to live with as it first seemed.
The next chapter is called A Little Burst. It’s the day of Christopher Kitteridge’s wedding to Suzanne. Olive is struggling with the day and the feeling of being replaced in her son’s life by another woman and of now having to make small-talk with the guests at Christopher’s house, and so goes into Christopher’s bedroom for a break and lays down on his bed. Olive admires again the colourful dress she made for herself, green with red flowers on it, but also reflects on how large she is now she is older. She remembers how she and Henry designed this house for Christopher, as they had designed their own house a short distance away, and of how the three of them have since taken care of this house together and improved it. Awww, bless her, I did feel for Olive when she was thinking critically of her figure, her puffy ankles, etc, and it’s interesting that she can be as critical of herself as she is critical of others, that shows an honesty and self-awareness and helps explain why she can perhaps justify to herself her criticism of others as she is also as critical of herself. And I admire her making her own dress, and I like that she has the self-confidence (despite her minding about her size) to make a colourful dress which stands out.
Olive thinks about her new daughter-in-law Suzanne, acknowledging that she will inevitably alter things in this house and also praising Suzanne in her mind for the patience and gentleness she displayed with one of the young bridesmaids at the wedding who was being difficult, and Olive admires (and slightly envies) Suzanne’s self-confidence and her ability to know just how to correctly act in a situation, though also reflecting on how successful Suzanne is in her career (being a doctor) and how well off she is. She also thinks about her son and how sensitive he is, as well as being a ‘complicated, interesting man’. Henry finds her in the bedroom and they discuss how well the day went and what a nice woman Suzanne is, Olive calling her a positive person and Henry saying that she is good for Christopher. Olive admits that she is keen to go home now and urges Henry to say his goodbyes, saying that she will come out in a few moments to say her goodbyes too. Olive continues resting on the bed after Henry leaves the room, she thinks about how Suzanne would doubtless say that she knows Christopher very well, even though they only met six weeks ago, but that as his mother she knows him far better than Suzanne ever could, and how similar she (Olive) is to Christopher in that neither of them have many friends and find it hard to trust people, whereas she sees Henry as ‘naive’ with him viewing life as pleasant and that most people are nice. Hmmm, I admire how Olive can find things to praise in Suzanne, as it must be very hard for her (as doubtless for most mothers) to ‘hand over’ her boy to another woman. And I was shocked to read in this chapter that Olive has had a heart attack in the past! I wonder when that was in relation to these chapters, and it also makes me view her as more vulnerable than she has previously appeared. I also noticed Olive calling Suzanne a positive person and Henry then saying that Suzanne is good for Christopher which I take to mean that Christopher is not a positive person, and I remember Olive mentioned this in the earlier chapter with Kevin (saying to Kevin that her son was depressed), at the time I’d wondered if this was a white lie of Olive’s in order to help Kevin but this comment makes me wonder if it is true, which then also makes me wonder if her other story to Kevin about her father being depressed and committing suicide was also true. And awww, I did like Olive and Henry speaking together about the day and about Suzanne, and I very much liked her suggesting they go to Dunkin Donuts when they leave, this shows a more fun and carefree side to her character than we have previously been shown and I also liked the reference that they go to Dunkin Donuts so frequently that the waitress knows them and they have a favourite booth that they sit in, again (as in the previous chapter when they regularly visit the bar where Angie plays piano) I am tempted then to hope that they actually have a good relationship as they want to go out together and spend time together. But I’m also intrigued with the insight again into Olive’s character (and I feel a bit like a detective, searching for clues to unravel her personality!) in that she doesn’t have many friends and struggles to trust people, I wonder if her curtness and insensitiveness to people is actually just defensiveness, not wanting them to get too close so they could hurt her.
Olive hears Suzanne and a friend talking beside the bedroom window outside and they begin speaking about Olive and Henry, Suzanne praising Henry but criticising Olive’s dress and then remarking on the ‘hard time’ that Christopher had as a child. Olive is stunned and immediately wonders just what Christopher had told Suzanne about his childhood, and she groans with the hurt this causes her. She remembers how Christopher had told her last Christmas that he sometimes thinks about killing himself and she had taken him to the doctor who prescribed medication for him, and how this reminded her of when her father also told her that he sometimes thought about killing himself and how she had dismissed this, telling her father that everyone feels down at times. She also looks back on times she was short with Christopher and angry and impatient with him, and how she at times feels a blackness inside her and that she doesn’t want to be that way, but that she has always loved Christopher. Omg, omg, omg, poor poor Olive! I feel for her so much hearing those words from Suzanne, the criticism of the dress she had lovingly made and that she felt so proud and confident in, and then to have the horrible question and doubt of what Christopher felt he had suffered with in his childhood, when she obviously felt that she had protected him from harm and cherished him and loved him, how quickly Olive’s proud feelings of a mother were so quickly destroyed by Suzanne’s words and Olive then feels less confident about her parenting and begins to search for examples (and inevitably finds examples, as that’s natural!) of where she could have done better in her interactions with him as a child. And omg, so it obviously was true about her dad killing himself, and omg omg omg, that he had told Olive this and she didn’t realise he was serious and then he killed himself, how she must have tortured herself afterwards, bless her, that’s just so awful, although not her fault at all as it was her father’s decision to do what he did but I can see why this haunts her and why she may act the way she does as she is probably full of hurt and self-doubt. And also she is aware that she has ‘a thing inside me and sometimes it…shoots blackness through me’, bless her, this sounds like she suffers from depression too (and this fits with Henry’s description in the first chapter of her having ‘a darkness that seemed to stand beside her’), I really feel for her so much and I think I am right to be patient with her and not judge her solely by her (admittedly curt) actions to others but to realise that there are reasons for her to act like this. But I think (no matter what Christopher may have told Suzanne, or how Suzanne has interpreted what was told to her, perhaps mistakenly) that Christopher must have trusted his mother as he shared with her how low he felt, and credit to Olive too that she ensured that Christopher got help for this.
Olive then feels anger at Suzanne. She opens the drawers and wardrobe in Christopher’s room and sees Suzanne’s things in there, and enjoys criticising Suzanne’s choices of clothes and colours. She takes a piece of Suzanne’s underwear and one of her shoes, anticipating that this will cause Suzanne great puzzlement trying to work out where these things have gone, and she draws a line with permanent marker down the sleeve of one of Suzanne’s jumpers, also telling herself that as she lives so close she can continue to do this every so often and watch Suzanne begin to doubt herself and wonder if she is going crazy. Wow, that wasn’t what I expected Olive to do! And it does seem quite cruel, trying to make Suzanne doubt herself, though I guess Suzanne made Olive doubt herself. Oh dear, it does make me quite uncomfortable though, it seems vindictive and I was beginning to think better of Olive so I guess it disappoints me a little that she has done such a cruel thing, though I am also sad and angry at how Olive was hurt. Well, that felt quite a defining chapter of the book as I feel I have finally learnt much more about Olive. And I was interested in Olive thinking about the ‘little bursts’ of life and her identifying these as things such as a friendly waitress who remembers you and your favourite order, as firstly I like the insight that this gives to her character as I think that these little things being important to her contrasts from the brash and don’t care attitude about niceties or people’s feelings which Henry implied she had in the first chapter, and secondly I can now see the significance of the chapter title ‘A Little Burst’. But I also wonder if the chapter title could be relevant to other little bursts in this story too, such as the little burst of colour with Olive’s bright cheerful dress in amongst the other more sober dresses of the other guests, and Olive’s little burst of kleptomania (!) with stealing Suzanne’s belongings, and the little burst of envy from Olive towards Suzanne seeing her as taking Christopher away and of her being successful in her career and being young and well-off, and also the little burst of nastiness from Suzanne with her criticising Olive behind her back. I’m also wondering if the author created Olive’s character and then almost worked backwards in order to conceal it from the reader? I probably haven’t explained that very well, but I wonder if we will be able to view Olive as a complete person by the end of the book (with good qualities as well as questionable/bad qualities) because each chapter will have gradually stripped away more of the concealed Olive (concealed by Olive, but also concealed by the author), and I wonder if I was to re-read the final chapter (when I’ve finished the book) and then work through the chapters backwards if I would see Olive’s nature and character becoming more and more misrepresented and concealed until I reached the first chapter when she is shown as being not very nice at all due to Henry’s depiction of her. I am also reminded reading this book (and I know this will sound strange and rather insulting to poor Olive, (sorry, Olive!) but I don’t mean it as an insult!) of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein book, in that I gradually felt more and more sympathy with the monster as the book went on, just like I’m feeling more and more sympathy with Olive as the book goes on. Oh dear, I’m a bit apprehensive about the next chapter with its title Starving, I wonder if this is going to be about an eating disorder?
Harmon is casually interested in the young couple he is sitting next to at the busy marina cafe as he is able to overhear their conversation about smoking pot, and he becomes fascinated with their youth and confidence and their behaviour together. He wonders if his four sons had smoked pot when they were young, thinking that Kevin probably did, and then considers Kevin now he is older and married and also how they rarely see their sons now they have grown up and moved away. He also thinks about how his wife, Bonnie, would disapprove of this young couple, with the thin girl sitting on the boy’s lap. Meanwhile Daisy Foster is sitting in her cottage smoking, thinking about her husband who died three years ago and who seemed to come to her in a dream last night. Harmon arrives at her cottage, having brought a doughnut from the cafe for her. They chat about the young couple he saw in the cafe, and Daisy had seen them drive past her cottage a short while ago, and remark on the goodness and hopefulness of youth, before going upstairs to the bedroom. Hmmm, so who are these characters Harmon and Daisy, they seem to come out of the blue, and where are Olive and Henry? But I wondered if we already knew some of these people as I was sure I recognised the name Daisy Foster and when I’ve gone back to the first chapter it was Daisy Foster who Henry spoke to in the church carpark and at that point her husband had died two years before and Henry was wondering what would become of Daisy, so this chapter has her husband as being dead for three years so perhaps the chapters are going in chronological order. And I’d wondered if Harmon’s son Kevin was the Kevin from the earlier chapter too (the one where it seemed like he would kill himself) and we’d gone back in time to when his father and mother were still alive, but I see there is a mention in this chapter of Kevin’s three brothers whereas Olive only asked about Kevin’s one brother in that earlier chapter so I’m thinking now it’s not the same Kevin. But I wonder if the cafe is the same one that Patty worked in from that earlier chapter. And are Harmon and Daisy having an affair? That seems to be what is hinted at, and this surprised me with Harmon thinking of his wife in the cafe, although admittedly he was thinking of her in quite a critical way (which reminded me of Henry thinking of Olive in the first chapter) and I wonder if it was significant that his wife Bonnie wasn’t at the cafe with him, had she chosen not to go and do they often not go to places together? And this chapter seems to have a wistfulness of youth and a regret of times past, so far at least, which is similar to Henry’s experience in the first chapter.
Harmon returns home and Bonnie asks him if he has brought her a doughnut. He immediately apologises admitting that he had forgotten this and offers to go back to the cafe and get one for her, which she says isn’t necessary but then refers back to the forgotten doughnut again and again. Harmon remembers how chaotic their life had been with their four young boys and their continual worries and concerns for them, and how he now misses that, and reflects on his concern at the time that Bonnie would struggle when the boys all left home but that she seems content with lots of other interests, such as her selling the rugs that she makes and writing a cookbook with a friend. He thinks about his affair with Daisy but how Bonnie is still the ‘central heating of his life’. A few days later he phones Daisy, and she reassures him that he’s not to worry and he can just come over and talk. Hmmm, so what did Harmon say to Daisy, that their affair is over? And the way Harmon and Daisy talked together seemed to show how lonely both of them are. But the fact that Harmon forgot to get Bonnie’s doughnut and yet remembered to get a doughnut for Daisy, indicates the significance of his priorities with the two women, I feel! And Bonnie does seem similar to Olive (or with Henry’s interpretation of Olive in the first chapter anyway) with the way she snipes at Harmon, turning his forgetting of her doughnut into something personal and yet refusing to allow him to put the situation right, just continuing to remind him of his mistake in order to make him feel guilty, it seems like a subtle power there that she is using. But I’m impressed at Bonnie’s writing a cookbook, wow, and at her crafting ability too, making rugs and wreaths and clothes (and again, another link with Olive and her dress-making ability, and I half wonder if we are going to see that Olive and Bonnie are related perhaps?)!
Harmon reads in the paper some time later that the young couple have been arrested after police broke up a party at their house and found marijuana, and that the girl had then also assaulted a police officer. The paper reports their names as Timothy Burnham and Nina White. He is surprised to think of the girl doing this, although he remembers that when they came into his hardware store a while ago he felt that they possibly shoplifted from him. Bonnie mentions the couple to him, as their arrest had been talked about at her bookclub, and she says that Nina is anorexic, which distresses Harmon. He and Daisy are continuing to talk together regularly and these chats come to mean a great deal to Harmon and he looks forward to them far more than he used to look forward to their affair, whilst Bonnie nags Harmon about the undone jobs around the house. Harmon feels sad that none of their sons are keen to take over the hardware store from him, as this would have ensured that one son at least would stay in the area. Hmmm, Harmon’s interest in Timothy and Nina is intriguing, he seems unusually distressed at hearing of their arrest and difficulties and I wonder if he is almost wistfully seeing in them his own kids with his sadness at how they have grown up and left home, he really does seem to be struggling with the boys leaving, bless him, and it’s interesting that it’s the dad struggling rather than the mother, as it is usually presumed to be the other way around.
Daisy tells Harmon that Nina came by her house begging for a place to stay as she had broken up with Timothy after he had got together with her friend, and that Daisy had agreed that Nina could stay with her. When Nina comes downstairs, Harmon is upset to see how ill and exhausted she looks, like ‘a skeleton’. They try to encourage her to eat, and she mentions her previous stay in hospital due to her eating disorder and how she ran away from there and how her parents had threatened to have her committed. Olive arrives at Daisy’s house collecting money for the Red Cross and she sits at the table while Daisy gets some money, Harmon asking Olive about her husband and son and her son’s new wife. Olive looks at Nina and bluntly observes that she is starving and Olive then bursts into tears, telling Nina that her heart is breaking for her. She gets up to leave and gently touches Nina’s head, and when Nina begins to cry Olive promises that they will help her. Nina rests her head in Olive’s lap, and Olive asks about Nina’s mother and ends up phoning Nina’s mother and having her come and collect Nina, after promising that she won’t have to go to hospital again. Harmon remembers the scene as being ‘something astonishing and unworldly’ and felt that ‘something in his life had changed’. He does not tell Bonnie about it. Oh wow, how gentle and caring and empathetic and reassuring Olive was here, her tears were a surprise and again I was unsure if the tears were made-up in order to engage with Nina (as I had imagined she had made-up the story of her father and her son in order to engage with Kevin in the earlier chapter) or if the tears were genuine. But omg, it is amazing how she took charge and made things happen, whilst all the time reassuring Nina! And also amazing how pleased I was to have Olive appear in this chapter, I think I am almost beginning to rely on Olive and have confidence in her abilities and decisions, which is very opposite to my first feelings about her at the start of the book.
Harmon gradually begins to feel more and more distanced from Bonnie, noting to himself the times when she ignores him and often testing her about his likes and dislikes and storing up the fact that she gets these wrong. He frequently talks with Daisy about Nina, as Daisy has kept in touch with Nina throughout her recovery and they almost feel like Nina is their child. Harmon is also disappointed at Christmas with how little they see of their sons and how distant the boys seemed. Daisy then phones Harmon and asks him to come over, and when he arrives Olive is there and Daisy tells them both that Nina has died. Oh noooo, I am so sad that Nina died, I had really hoped she would be able to turn a corner with her illness. And I worry about how Harmon will be after this news, as he seemed to be almost consoling himself for the loss of his sons and the loss of Bonnie’s affection, with Daisy and Nina. And I’m wondering if the title of this chapter has more than one meaning (as I’ve often thought with some of the other chapter headings), as I wonder if not only does it mean Nina starving herself but also Harmon feeling starved of affection.
Harmon feels that ‘some skin that had stood between himself and the world seemed to have been ripped away’. His son, Kevin, phones him enquiring if he is ok as he thought that Harmon seemed low. Harmon tells Daisy that he has fallen in love with her, and is surprised when she responds in the same way. He is concerned he is going to have a heart attack and visits his doctor who does various tests on him and says that Harmon’s heart is fine. He feels like he is waiting either to leave Bonnie or for Bonnie to tell him to leave. Phew, that was quite an ending again, the author certainly springs surprises on the reader! And I guess I should be happy that Harmon has found happiness with Daisy, but I wonder at the reasons for him reaching this decision and whether it was just his fear of being lonely and his grief at the loss of Nina and perhaps the shock of her death making him re-evaluate his life, rather than him actually being in love with Daisy. It felt a bit of a strange chapter as it didn’t really involve Olive much (like the Piano Player chapter), and the form of this book is so interesting with having Olive featured in every chapter but also having some of these chapters focus much more on other characters.
The next chapter is called A Different Road and begins ‘an awful thing happened to the Kitteridges’. Olive is consoled (which she is uncomfortable with and dismissive of) in the grocery store by a neighbour who also recommends that she and Henry consider crisis counselling after what happened last year, and the other residents in the town often talk between themselves that Olive and Henry seem different now compared to how they were before the event. It is also mentioned that their son, Christopher, has moved away with his new wife. Omg, I’m really quite alarmed with the beginning of this chapter seeming to hint that something momentous happened to Olive and Henry which changed them, I feel protective towards them both! I can also really feel for how awkward and also possibly defensive and offended Olive would be when her neighbour approached her, trying to give Olive advice and implying that she was struggling to cope and also implying that their lives are a subject for local gossip and speculation, Olive would definitely hate that, to be seen as weak by others and of needing help, no matter how well-intentioned the woman’s comments might have been! And Christopher and Suzanne have moved away, oh no, that must have been so hard too for Olive and Henry (although that clearly isn’t the dramatic incident being referred to), and I wonder if this shared sadness has brought them closer together or driven them further apart? And I really feel for how this has clearly affected Olive, with her now driving home from the shops by a different route so she isn’t upset by seeing Christopher’s old house, bless her (and I guess this is, at least on the surface, the reason for the chapter title). And it seems slightly ironic that Christopher’s moving away is mentioned in the very next chapter after Harmon was suffering from his sons moving away in the previous chapter. And I also like the descriptions of the June weather and the trees, with the ‘dappled sunlight falling through the birch trees’ and the willow trees with their ‘swooping airy boughs’ and ‘the leaves of poplars fluttered, showing the paler green of their undersides’ (poplars are one of my favourite trees). But really I am completely absorbed in what on earth happened to Olive and Henry??!! And knowing how the author has delivered several shocks at the end of previous chapters, I am expecting something potentially big, especially with the incident being referred to right at the start of the chapter.
Olive reflects about the incident. Her and Henry had gone out for a meal with some friends in the next town, and on their drive home Olive was desperate for the toilet so ordered Henry to pull up at the hospital emergency department so she could use their toilet. However, the nurse there suggested that Olive got checked out, suggesting that her urgency to use the toilet could be an allergic reaction to something she had eaten, and Olive agreed even though she felt this was extremely unlikely. A doctor examined Olive, and then asked her to wait as he went to get an instrument. Then two masked gunmen searching for drugs burst into the room that Olive was in, and took her to the toilet where Henry and the nurse and the doctor were tied up, and they also tied up Olive and threatened to kill them all. Oh wow, I was feeling a huge foreboding at Olive being examined in the hospital, I was thinking that the life-changing event was the doctor finding something seriously wrong with her, and my feelings on this also demonstrated to me how much I have gradually come to care for Olive, and a sign again of how cleverly the author has introduced us to Olive’s character and slowly encouraged us to like her, even though there are still aspects of her behaviour along the way that disappoint me or make me disapprove of her actions, but overall I am liking Olive far more than I ever thought possible. But omg, omg, omg, there were gunmen at the hospital and Olive and Henry were being held hostage and being threatened with their lives! Wow, the author really teased me there making me think that Olive was ill, I can’t help thinking that was a bit mean, as well as being very clever with how she racked up the tension and delivered a shocking surprise! But as an aside, I am heartened by how Olive and Henry earlier seemed united in their judgement on how their friends were struggling with their daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren, this seemed to show that Christopher’s leaving has brought them closer rather than driven them apart. And also as another aside, I am a little surprised that the doctor was available to see someone without an appointment, even if it sounded like a quiet hospital and a quiet time of the week, I don’t think that would happen at my local hospital! But back to the gunman, eeek, what will happen (although obviously both Olive and Henry survived, so that’s a relief)?!
Olive remembers that she was convinced they would die but she is also surprised at how the order of images in her head get jumbled up when she recalls the incident, with some of the images more pronounced than others. She remembers that a couple of times Henry asked the gunman guarding them for a blanket for Olive’s comfort, although Olive told Henry to be quiet when his requests were greeted by abusive words from the gunman. Olive could tell that the gunman was very scared and very young, and when he took his mask off (even though this scared Olive as she believed then that they would definitely be killed now they had seen his face) and showed some kindness to Olive by making her more comfortable, she could see that he was just a boy with spots on his face and bloodshot eyes and bitten fingernails. Later the other gunman angrily hit this young gunman across the face, to punish him for taking off his mask. Under the incredible pressure they endured, she and Henry began to snap at each other and Olive criticised Henry’s mother and Henry said that Christopher moving away was due to Olive trying to take over his life. Eventually help arrived, as (they discover later) the pharmacist had managed to signal to a janitor to call the police, and they are rescued, but as the sounds of this rescue reached them Olive felt certain that the young gunman was about to kill himself as he had begun to cry and to make a gesture with his arm and Olive whispered under her breath for him not to do it, but the police broke down the door before he could act. Phew, I don’t think I breathed through most of that, I was so concerned about them! But I think Olive’s confusion of what happened when, and that some parts of the incident are easier for her to recall and some parts take on a larger significance than seems to be justified, is a very realistic interpretation of how we remember things. It’s interesting too that Olive regularly goes back to the hospital to sit outside and remember the incident, as part of me thinks it would be understandable to completely avoid the place but I’m sure facing this fear and familiarising herself with the place prevents the fear becoming overpowering and this seems a very mindful thing to do, which I guess also surprises me as I wouldn’t have thought Olive would be into mindfulness (although perhaps she hasn’t identified it as this). And I’m also interested in the fact that she can’t do this with Christopher’s house as she deliberately avoids seeing that by taking a different route, so does this perhaps demonstrate that she is more scared of feeling the emotions of sadness (from seeing Christopher’s house) than the feelings of fear (from seeing the hospital)?
As Olive is sitting now outside the hospital remembering the incident, she is struck again with something that had always bothered her, namely why Henry sided with the nurse when Olive had told the nurse to shut up and stop saying Hail Marys, as she had just been hoping to ease the pressured situation by trying to get the nurse to stop annoying the gunman. She also reminds herself that she only criticised Henry’s mother because she wanted to save his life by preventing the gunman from getting angry at him. When she arrives home, she asks Henry why he defended the nurse against her. Henry takes a long time to answer and then says that in all the years they have been married Olive has never apologised for anything. He then places his hand on her knee and says that they were both scared then and said things they didn’t mean and which they will get over in time, but Olive thinks ‘he knew what he said wasn’t true…they had said things that altered how they saw each other’. She begins working on a garden smock for the young gunman to wear in the prison garden. Oh wow, that was a very powerful ending and I feel so sad that their relationship is perhaps permanently damaged by this, not by the incident itself but by the hurt that they caused one another during the incident. The title of A Different Road also seems now to reflect that their marriage has taken a different track (or road) because of the hurt they both feel and are unable to forgive the other for. I presumed that the way Olive and Henry snapped at each other (though it made me sad that they did this) is probably typical of how pressure can affect people, and that it could also have been an unconscious attempt to link back to some kind of familiarity (ie, the familiarity of bickering at each other) in amongst the terror they were feeling and also a desperate attempt to find some control (ie, the control of knowing just how to hurt someone) within a situation that they had no control over, but it seems that I am being far more generous towards them than they are being toward each other (and perhaps themselves). And Olive’s feelings towards Henry’s actions and her own actions during the incident are interesting, and I can see how each of their actions reflected their personality, both were trying to protect (when Henry sticks up for the nurse, and when Olive criticises Henry’s mother in order to save Henry from being hurt by the gunman) but both go about this method of protecting in very different ways, and both are then hurt by the way the other chose to act, and I guess their actions and their reactions demonstrate how very different they are from each other, and I like the very effective way that the author shows this. Although later in the incident, their comments towards each other seem far more personal and designed to hurt and seem to reflect how much stored-up hurt they both feel, as Olive was clearly hurt by Henry’s mother saying that her father had sinned against God by committing suicide but she directed this pain at Henry and attacked him rather than his mother, and Henry was clearly hurt by Christopher leaving but he directed this pain at Olive and attacked her rather than Christopher. And it’s interesting (as well as tragic) why they do this when they are fairly certain they are about to die, why would you want your final words to your spouse to be angry hurtful words? But perhaps there is just no logic in how people act in desperate life-threatening situations, perhaps all of us would act similarly in the same terrifying situation (though I’d like to think not!), and people are complicated and also complicated in the way they act when they are hurt, often hurting others they don’t intend to hurt. But wow, that long long long long pause before Henry answered Olive’s question about why he had defended the nurse was so beautifully done, with the author describing the sun and the temperature and the water and the boats and the bird calling and the smell from the berries, that was far far far more than the traditional ‘beat’ of a pause, that was a long time, and I could feel my heart pausing as I waited for Henry’s response, and it was amazing the way that the author took us away from them whilst we waited for his response, taking us out over the scenery, oooh, it felt tense while we waited, very very cleverly done! And then his response really hits Olive, and the sign it has hit her (I feel) is the way she immediately retaliates in a defensive way, which is how she often acts when she is hurt or attacked. But Olive’s kindness in making an outfit for the young gunman in prison is surprising and intriguing, as is her feeling so strongly about doing this that she had spoken about it with a prison liaison officer, but I guess she recognised that he was a scared boy who had made a mistake and was in over his head and involved in something he was now regretting, and perhaps she saw a bit of Christopher in that which then brought up the feelings of wanting to care and protect him. But Olive’s demonstrations of kindness are almost always surprising and intriguing, which is what makes this such a wonderful and unusual book!
The next chapter is called Winter Concert. Jane and Bob Houlton are enjoying seeing the Christmas lights as they travel to an orchestral concert they are attending. Bob sometimes has a sense of foreboding come over him however, and he’d had one about the roof caving in on them this evening at the concert and them dying together there. Jane thinks that life is a gift and that Christmas is a time to celebrate life. They are very happy in their marriage and with each other, though both are elderly now (Jane is 72 and Bob is 75) and both had mild heart attacks last year. Awww, already I like Jane and Bob and their relationship, shopping together for a coat for her and treating themselves to sundaes and coffees after the shopping trip and joking together about how young the waitress is and how one day she will be old like them and remarking together on the telltale signs of age. And it was lovely when Bob touched Jane’s hand when she said something that he knew she was going to say because he knows her so well, bless them. How lovely it is to see them happy together and just chatting comfortably about shared memories and reassuring each other, often just by a touch, it feels so precious and strong and safe and lovely, and also inspiring.
They see Olive and Henry at the concert. Bob wonders how Henry puts up with Olive, and Jane remembers often seeing Olive at the school where they were both teachers but that she had always kept her distance from her as Olive ‘had a way about her’. Bob falls asleep during the concert, and Jane looks tenderly at him, thinking to herself what a gift it is to know someone for all those years. After the concert, they chat to their old friends, the Grangers, swapping stories about grown-up children and grandchildren, although Jane inwardly feels bad for the fact that she inevitably knows things about the Grangers’ daughters from their time at the school where she worked which the parents have no idea about. Jane also notices a tension between the Grangers and senses that they don’t enjoy spending time together, like she and Bob do. Mrs Granger briefly mentions how odd it was seeing Bob at Miami airport a couple of years ago. When they file back into the concert hall, Jane asks Bob when he was in Miami, and he says Mrs Granger was mistaken and meant Orlando when he was there for business. Yay, Olive and Henry have appeared! I do love the way that they are part of every story, even if it’s only a minor part, it reminds me a little of those Where’s Wally books where you know Wally will be on every page, you just need to wait patiently until he appears! And I love Jane and Bob’s relationship, taking a walk together each morning and then making coffee and eating their breakfast together and reading the paper to each other, and planning their day together. It just sounds so idyllic and special, they are so lucky to have that, to be so content together. I wonder if this story is included in order to highlight the difference between their relationship and Olive and Henry’s relationship?
On the drive home, Jane mentions Miami airport again and suddenly remembers the way that Mrs Granger had looked at her when she had said those words. She then asks Bob to tell her the truth, and she felt a ‘familiar pain…that…rolled over everything, extinguishing Christmas lights…the loveliness of all things…all gone’. He says that ‘she’ had contacted him at the office before he retired to say she had cancer, so when he went to Orlando for business he went to see her in Miami and flew back from Miami airport the next day, which was when he bumped into the Grangers. He says it was ‘stupid and awful and miserable’, that it was four years ago and that she doesn’t matter to him, he just saw her because she wanted him to because she was ill and scared. He says he thinks and cares only for Jane, and is so sorry that he’s made her so sad. Jane says she never wants to talk about her again. They sit in silence together in the house. Bob falls asleep and then suddenly starts half-awake, saying he had a dream that the concert roof fell in, and Jane comforts him saying she is right there. Omg, I had my hands half over my eyes reading that, oh noooo, it’s just so sad, their idyllic relationship and yet underneath it was lies, and it’s so tragic the unhappiness and damage it has caused. I am guessing Bob had an affair with this unnamed woman many years before, as Jane seemed to know instantly who he meant, and why would this woman ask him to see her if there hadn’t been something between them once? It makes me so sad that Bob had cheated on Jane, I feel cheated myself as I was looking on their relationship as so perfect and now the author has shocked and upset me and pulled the rug out from under me! I almost wish I hadn’t read this chapter, I am more upset by this than by almost any other chapter in the book, I think, it just really hurts. But I guess I will take heart from the fact that they stayed together after his original affair and trust and happiness grew between them again, so hopefully their strength together will enable them to weather this too and they can go back to their morning walks and making coffee and reading the paper and eating their breakfasts together…oh, I really really do hope so! And what powerful imagery, how the pain that Jane felt seemed to extinguish the Christmas lights and take away all the loveliness, I guess this works so well because Christmas lights hark back to our childhood when there was innocence and trust and safety and magic, all the things that have now been shot to pieces for Jane! And also the imagery of Bob’s dream with the concert hall roof falling in, just like the solidness of their relationship has now caved in, sigh. I really felt like this was a happy story, as the book has been a bit sparse of those, so I feel gutted that that happiness has been whisked away. And of course I wonder why Mrs Granger said what she did about Miami Airport, I wonder if she had always suspected that Bob was there secretly but then felt envious of Jane and Bob’s happiness together at the concert compared to her and her husband’s lack of happiness together so wanted to damage their happiness due to her envy?
The next chapter is called Tulips. The neighbours frequently speculate about the Larkin couple as they are rarely seen ‘after what happened’ seven years ago, and the blinds of their house are closed day and night and they get their groceries delivered rather than going to the local shops themselves. Meanwhile Olive remembers how she felt when Christopher and Suzanne moved away, ‘as though splinters of wood were shoved into her heart’ and that she often sobbed uncontrollably, but that in order to fill their time she and Henry joined some societies and attended lectures together, and she worked in the garden and he took up wood-working classes. And then a year after Christopher’s marriage, he phoned to tell them that he and Suzanne were getting divorced. Olive and Henry immediately presumed that Christopher would then return to his home town, but he said he intended to stay where he was as he liked it there and his work was going well, Olive and Henry were shocked and hurt at this, and when they suggest visiting him he always says that now isn’t the right time. Olive feels ‘a persistent ache’ and loses interest in things and pulls away from Henry, even though he still tries to be affectionate towards her and buys her flowers. She often remembers Christopher’s childhood and how she loved him and felt sure that he knew she loved him even though she frequently corrected him. Oh, I’m so sad how much Olive and Henry are hurting by Christopher not coming home and not allowing them to visit! I understand he’s got his own life and that’s natural, but does he not realise the pain he is causing them? And I was liking that Olive and Henry had shared interests with the Civil War Society and the genealogy society and attended lectures together and researched together in the library, that all seemed really quite positive for their relationship (not quite Jane and Bob Houlton’s relationship, but good progress for Olive and Henry!), and I’m sad all over again that Olive’s pain over Christopher causes her to pull away from Henry. And oooh, I’m very intrigued with what could have happened to the Larkin family, with reporters also having been outside the house seven years ago. And is their son in prison? Omg, what on earth happened?!
A week later, Henry has a stroke! He is then in a nursing home, in a wheelchair and unable to hear and understand or speak or see. Omg, omg, omg, I am so very upset at this! I didn’t see this coming at all. And to have him not recover, to just be in a nursing home not able to see or hear or speak, oh god, it’s just so awfully awfully tragic! For this to happen to Henry, of all people, lovely lovely Henry. I really feel quite emotional about it. And I wonder how Olive will cope, she has shown herself to be very resistant to people offering help and support (after they were held at gunpoint at the hospital), but she will surely need help and support now. And surely Christopher will come home now to help her.
Olive looks out over the beautiful tulips she planted before Henry’s stroke and which have now bloomed in a riot of colour. She sleeps in a different bedroom to the one she used to share with Henry and she often has to listen to the radio to get to sleep but she still wakes very early and takes the dog out at sunrise for a walk, she doesn’t like to be alone but also doesn’t like to be with people. Christopher comes to visit Henry shortly after the stroke, but only stays a few days and then goes back to California, still refusing Olive’s suggestions that she come out there to visit him. Olive picks fault with the advice of the support group she attends, and writes back curtly to people who send cards. She thinks about moving house as she finds it hard to stay living in the family home without Henry or Christopher. Oh, poor poor Olive, my heart just bleeds for her. And grrr, I feel so angry towards Christopher! And how typical of Olive to scornfully dismiss the advice of the support group which she attends, and how tragic too as I’m sure if she had tried to engage with the group then it could perhaps have helped her, and oh dear how typical and tragic of Olive (again!) to reply to people’s well-meaning cards in that way, she is obviously angry at the world and everyone in it, whilst clearly suffering inside. I like that she still sees Daisy Foster though (from the Starving chapter), although there is no hint if Daisy is living with Harmon now. And it seemed almost quite shocking to read the description of the beautiful vibrant colours of the tulips right after the paragraph describing the occurrence of Henry’s stroke, it felt like quite a jolting contrast but no doubt a very deliberate and cleverly planned one from this incredible author.
Louise Larkin sends Olive a card saying what a nice man Henry is, so Olive goes to the Larkin home. She notes that Louise is still beautiful, though is very thin and seems old in the way she moves and Olive suspects that she is on a lot of medication, and the house looks unmaintained. Olive remarks that she is surprised that Louise can still live in this house, but Louise says it would take too much effort to pack and move away, and she adds that she and her husband Roger effectively live separate lives with him living upstairs and her living downstairs, saying that he is a cold man and an adulterer but that everyone always blames the mother. Louise says that her son Doyle was a sensitive boy, like Christopher was a sensitive boy. Olive looks around the room, remembering that the reporters said ‘twenty-nine times’. Louise says that Olive has presumably thought of killing herself, as she has thought this herself but that she hasn’t done this because Doyle depends on her and she writes to him every day and visits as often as she can. Olive feels very uncomfortable and wishes she had never gone to the house. Louise begins to taunt Olive with how infrequently Christopher visits, chanting ‘Liar, liar, Olive, pants on fire, Olive’. Olive then says she must go and thanks Louise for her card. As Olive leaves, Louise says that ‘she’ deserved what she got, that she was a monster and drove Doyle crazy. After she arrives home, Olive desperately feels that she needs to speak with someone about what she just went through at the Larkin house, and feels again the loss of Henry. She phones Christopher and tells him about the visit to Louise Larkin, but he’s not interested and just says he doesn’t understand why she visited her in the first place. Eeeek, what, what, what was 29 times, this is driving me crazy! And wow, how odd Louise seems, I can understand Olive’s desire to get out of there! And I kind of feel disloyal to Henry by paying attention to this other story of the Larkin family and speculating on what happened, although it is a relief to think about something else rather than imagining Henry deaf and mute and blind and paralysed, that’s just such an awful awful image, I wonder if this is why the author mixed these two stories together, to give the reader grieving for Henry a bit of a break? Or maybe there will be some similarities in Olive and Louise’s stories? But it seems like this Larkin story could just be a dramatic story all on its own, like the dramatic gunmen story.
Olive goes to the nursing home and helps wash and feed Henry, feeling anger again at the half-dead state of his life and how he would hate this. She whispers in his ear that he can die, and that she is fine. She half expects to get a phone call from the nursing home later that day saying that Henry has died but no phone call comes, so she continues to visit him every day, feeding and washing him. Omg, how tragically sad with Olive giving Henry permission to die, feeling for him hating this state so much and trying to reassure him that she will be fine and that it’s ok for him to go, that really makes me fill up, but I like how it shows how self-sacrificing she is able to be. And again, I’m so sad about Henry’s stroke, I really feel upset by it, and part of me is a bit annoyed at the author for writing this as happening to Henry rather than to one of the other minor characters in the other chapters, it still would have been a tragic storyline then but less upsetting than with it happening to Henry, although I guess it has been written in this way so the reader can see the impact it has on Olive and how she tries to cope and adapt, and she is after all the main character in the book so I guess she is the one (and consequently then poor Henry is the one) that has to go through this.
Olive looks at old photos of Henry, remembering how she and he used to hold hands and then wondering if they appreciated at the time the quiet joy of that. She also looks at photos of Christopher, thinking that Christopher has broken her heart but at least he didn’t stab a woman 29 times. Omg, so Doyle stabbed his girlfriend/wife 29 times, and in the Larkin family home too, I presume?!! Wow, wow, wow, that’s huge! I am finding this book quite draining to read, but this chapter is definitely the most draining with the shocks of Henry’s stroke and pity for his current state, and the shock of what Doyle Larkin did and how his family are trying to live/exist with the aftermath, phew!
The next chapter is called Basket of Trips. It is the funeral of Marlene Bonney’s husband, who ran the local grocery store. Marlene is supported at the funeral by her children and her cousin, Kerry Monroe, who lives at the family home. Olive is going back to Marlene’s house rather than going to the cemetery, in order to help prepare the food for the wake, along with Molly Collins. Olive attended the funeral because she knows that Henry would be there if he could. Unfortunately the route to Marlene’s house takes her past Christopher’s old house, and although she tries to avert her eyes she can’t help but glance at the untidy front garden which used to look so beautiful with flowers. Molly directs Olive to several useful tasks when they reach Marlene’s house, all of which Olive does whilst trying to steer Molly from inevitable questions about Christopher and Henry, Olive having not told anyone that Christopher is now divorced. Well, I think this is very kind of Olive to be involved like this, particularly as we know she struggles a little now in crowds of people and could understandably be nervous that people would speak to her about Henry, and it is nice that she is at the funeral because Henry would have wanted to be there, that shows Olive’s respect for both for Henry and for the local people, I feel.
Olive admires Marlene’s children and how supportive they are of her, but she disapproves of Marlene’s cousin Kerry drinking alcohol rather than coffee and soon becoming drunk. Olive also feels a kind of envy of Marlene surrounded by her children and friends all supporting her, and feels sadness thinking of how Henry is now and she tries to remember his last words to her in the car before his stroke, and how she can imagine what he would say (if he could speak) to her jokes about it probably being better that he is blind so he then can’t see how she has gained weight. She knows she is a ‘scared old woman’, and she wonders if Christopher would help her if Henry died, though she imagines he wouldn’t have her live with him. Olive also disapproves of a woman smoking in Marlene’s house and complaining that there are no ashtrays and later sticking her cigarette into a potted plant, and Olive then realises that this is the woman now living in Christopher’s house. Oh, poor Olive, somehow I can just imagine her saying those jokes to Henry about her gaining weight and it being a blessing that Henry is blind and can’t see her now, I can imagine her always with a criticism (of herself and others) even in jest, with a dark humour always a bit close to the bone rather than gentle kind humour (or being gentle and kind to herself too), and sad how she can so accurately hear the responses he would have said to her, and the fact she thinks about things that she will tell him the following day at the nursing home, even though he doesn’t appear to register what she says, it’s so sad, I feel for her so much. And I feel for her with her sadness about Christopher too and her realisation that he doesn’t seem to care for her or want to support her, like Marlene’s children do for her, and her sadness at how the house that she and Henry lovingly built and maintained for Christopher is now being lived in by someone else who doesn’t care for it. I guess Olive is seeing everything that she loved now changed, Henry and Christopher and Christopher’s house, poor thing.
Olive goes looking for Marlene and finds her sitting with a sleeping Kerry, as Marlene had put Kerry to bed after she had been sick. Marlene tells Olive that sometimes she wants to kill Kerry and then shows Olive a small knife she has in her lap, she holds it against Kerry’s neck, adding that Kerry has told her today that she and Marlene’s husband had slept together years ago, and that Kerry had said this to Marlene’s son too. Marlene then gives Olive the knife, and Olive jokes that smothering Kerry with a pillow would be better, which makes Marlene laugh. Marlene asks Olive to retrieve a basket of pamphlets from the wardrobe in their bedroom and take it away out of the house, she says it was her husband’s collection of trips they would take and it is hard for her to see it now knowing they will never take the trips, she says she knew really that they’d never take the trips as he was so ill but she pretended with him that they would and she could see it gave him pleasure to look in the basket at the pamphlets. Olive thinks that everyone has their basket of trips, and that for her and Henry this was plans of happy Christmases with their grandchildren and them both pretending to the other that they liked Christopher’s wife Suzanne in their efforts to hope that everything would work out well. Oh, another sad poignant story! And bless her, Olive’s dark humour being the best way to deal with a difficult situation is demonstrated again with her telling Marlene that smothering Kerry with a pillow would be better than stabbing her, which results in making Marlene laugh and possibly prevents her from doing what she had threatened to do, so potentially yet another life saved through Olive’s intervention! And I’m full of admiration of the outward calmness and yet inward alertness and quick-thinking that Olive needed in that situation. And I know Marlene may have shared that confidence of her husband sleeping with Kerry with whoever had happened to come into the bedroom at that moment, but I’m going to choose to believe that she trusts and relies on Olive and this is why she shared it with her. And that Kerry is horrible, to destroy Marlene’s faith in her husband and her son’s faith in his father, by telling them that she and he slept together, that’s just evil of her to do that, there was no reason to tell them at all, never mind on the day of his funeral, what possessed her to do that, I wonder, what has she gained from that? And it reminds me that no matter how difficult Olive may seem, there are people in this book far worse than her!
The next story is Ship in a Bottle. Julie Harwood had been jilted by her fiance Bruce on the day of their wedding, and a few days later her mum Anita is urging her to occupy her time and have plans for each day rather than moping. Julie’s little sister, Winnie, is listening to this conversation, observing how Julie is resistant to their mum’s advice and frequently cries, and how their mum then gets impatient and states how aggravated and drained she feels by Julie’s mood. Anita’s husband (and father of Winnie), Jim, comes home midday to check on how they are doing. He is a recovered alcoholic and still attends AA meetings three times a week. Mum has been giving Julie tranquiliser pills (obtained by Julie’s Uncle Kyle) to help her cope. Hmmm, an interesting family! Anita kind of feels like another type of Olive, in that she views things in the way that they affect her, frequently saying she will hit the roof or kill someone, although she does initially sound kind with her advice (which Olive rarely does!) but she can also switch quickly from being kind to being impatient. And I wonder how much of Jim’s concern is with how Julie is coping or whether it is more about how mum is coping, is he perhaps more fearful of mum struggling and the consequences of that? And Winnie seems to be similar to Jim, in that she often tries to calm the situation, eg mum suggests that Julie make pancakes for dinner and Julie refuses so Winnie offers to make them, Julie asks Jim to turn off the radio so Winnie turns it off. And I’m a bit worried about these tranquiliser pills that seem readily available!
Winnie remembers Julie telling her that their mum misses their grandfather (mum’s father) and misses her first husband (Ted, Julie’s father) and that their grandfather dying and Ted leaving all happened within a couple of years. Julie had also advised Winnie that it is always better to lie to their mum rather than tell her the truth. Winnie remembers the day of the wedding when Bruce came to the house and spoke to Julie in the garden, with Julie in her wedding dress, explaining that he was too scared to get married but wanted them to live together instead. Uncle Kyle had later turned up with some pills, and Jim had gone to the church to tell the guests that the wedding was off. Winnie also remembers that their mum wrote a letter to Bruce telling him that she would shoot him if she ever saw him again or if he ever spoke to Julie again. Winnie is also aware, as she grows older, how people in the town speak about their mum as if she is crazy, and that their mum has no close friends as other mums do. Jim often works on the boat he is constructing in the cellar, although Winnie doubts that he will manage to get the boat out of the cellar when it is finished as the boat is now very large, Winnie thinks it is like a ship in a bottle. The family live in a very basic house down a dirt track, with no proper bathroom, just a chemical toilet behind a curtain and a shower stall off the hallway. Hmmm, it strikes me that mum shared lots with Julie before she met Jim (particularly about her own father and about Julie’s father), perhaps in her loneliness treating Julie as an adult when she was still really a child, and I wonder if this made Julie feel that she needed to take care of mum and which has now influenced Winnie into feeling that she needs to take care of mum too, as I sense Winnie is quite a reflective person often trying to read people and look for clues as to what they are meaning and why they have acted as they have. And mum seems very keen on there being plans and a structure, which is sensible and I can fully understand but I’m beginning to wonder if we are being shown by the author that it is perhaps slightly obsessive and controlling of her, rather than her just helpfully organising a family. And I do like Jim, he seems a kind caring man, I love the way he calls Winnie ‘Winniedoodle’ and how he tries to make a pancake in the shape of the letter J for Julie.
The phone rings and Winnie picks it up, it is Bruce asking to speak to Julie, but their mum walks into the room so Winnie quickly hangs up the phone. Winnie remembers that in the background of the call she heard the bell from the local shop so therefore Bruce is back in the area. As she is telling Julie this, they hear a gun being fired. Bruce had driven up to the house and mum had taken the rifle from the cellar and shot at him. Uncle Kyle comes over and gives pills to mum. Julie asks Jim if she can call Bruce later to check he is alright and that he isn’t going to press charges against their mum, and Jim agrees to this. Julie later tells Winnie that not everyone lives like they do, in their basic house and with a mum who shoots at people, adding that their mum refuses to move away from this house because her father bought it for her and Ted. Winnie wonders if she will turn out like their mum, after Julie called her ‘Mommy’s little girl’. Julie repeats some advice that Mrs Kitteridge told them at school to not be scared of their hunger. Yay, Olive has a mention, I was wondering if she was going to appear! I do feel a little sorry for mum and I am wondering if her control issues and her resistance to change (such as not moving away from the house as her father bought it for her) perhaps come from her understandable grief from losing her father and her first husband, however (like Olive) her difficulties and sadness have an effect on other people and make them unhappy which then makes it harder to feel sorry for mum (and Olive) when I can see the damage their unresolved feelings have on those around them.
Winnie comes back from church with her parents to find a note stuck to her pillow from Julie begging her to tell their parents that she has gone for a walk but really she has gone to catch a bus to Boston to be with Bruce, saying ‘my life depends on this’. Winnie knows that the bus won’t have arrived in the town yet so if she was to tell their parents now there would be time to collect Julie before she left, but she instead tells her mum that Julie has gone for a walk. However, Uncle Kyle phones saying he saw Julie sat on the bus whilst he drove past, and mum then finds the note Julie left for Winnie so is angry at Winnie for keeping Julie’s secret. Jim and Winnie sit quietly together, then Winnie asks him where he will go when his boat is completed, and he offers to make them pancakes which Winnie accepts even though she doesn’t really want pancakes. Hmmm, it seems an odd tale this one, I was surprised it ended right there without any resolution about Julie, and I keep wondering what happened to each member of the family afterwards. I was also thinking that the title Ship in a Bottle could also refer to Julie feeling trapped in that family and that house and there being no way out, so she felt like a ship in a bottle?
The next story is called Security. Olive is going to Brooklyn to visit Christopher and his new wife Ann, at Christopher’s invitation. Olive takes this invitation as a hidden request for help, as Ann is pregnant with Christopher’s child whilst they are also raising Ann’s two young children from an earlier relationship. He invites her to stay there for two weeks and she tells him she will only stay for three days, but he gets her to agree that she will stay for a week. She tells Henry she is going away, though he is unable to respond or register the information at all. Olive is daunted by the airport and being on a plane by herself, but she copes and is then amazed by the beauty of all she can see from the plane of the land and sea below and feels a surge of hope flood through her. Awww, I’m so delighted for Olive that she feels she can be useful to Christopher and that he has requested her help, I can imagine how much that means to her. Although I’m sad all over again to consider Henry in the state he is now in, sob.
When she arrives Olive is surprised at how much Christopher speaks now, as she remembers him as never speaking very much, but she is sad to see the small dark untidy home he lives in with Ann and the children compared to the beautiful house which she and Henry built for him, and also the chaotic life that he and Ann lead with the two demanding young children. Olive also struggles to assess Ann’s character and judge if she is foolish or insecure or neither of these things. However, Ann treats her very affectionately, hugging her and calling her ‘mom’, although this show of affection makes Olive uncomfortable as it isn’t something she usually engages in. Later, alone in her bedroom thinking about the day, Olive feels a bit overwhelmed and like she wants to cry, but she phones the nursing home and asks to speak to Henry and tries to relay positive information to him, saying that he would like Ann. She then sits with Ann and Christopher and wishes she could find the words to tell Christopher how good it is to see him. Oh, poor Olive, I can empathise with how she is struggling to deal with all this, particularly how different Christopher seems and I am guessing she is almost grieving for times past when Christopher was younger as well as grieving for his previous house that she clearly adored and the shared family memories it held especially now that her family situation has changed so drastically. But I admire how she is trying to be positive and friendly to Ann and her children, often biting her tongue, and also how she pointed out positive things to Henry over the phone rather than a list of complaints, she does seem to be a slightly different Olive from earlier in the book, bless her. And I did melt when she felt she would happily sit ‘on a patch of cement anywhere’ if it meant she was sat next to Christopher, though I really really wish she could tell him how much she cares for him and how she has missed him, though I guess she wouldn’t then be Olive! I do like that Christopher says ‘oh, godfrey’ (instead of ‘oh god’) as Henry used to do, that seems a nice mark of remembrance and love for his father. And I like that Olive phones to speak to Henry, even though she knows he can’t understand her, though I guess it is perhaps also for her benefit, perhaps trying to ground herself with her familiar life within all this new strangeness and looking for something predictable that she can hold onto, bless her.
Olive remembers her relationship with her school colleague, Jim O’Casey, and that when she met Jim for the first time (with Henry) at a town meeting she felt like ‘she had been seen, and she had not even known she’d felt invisible’. Jim had a wife and six children, and used to give her and Christopher a lift to and from school, they never took the relationship any further than just looking at each other and knowing how the other one felt, but after about nine months Jim suddenly asked her if she would leave with him if he asked her to, and she said ‘yes’ immediately. At that time, she often felt huge waves of happiness just thinking about him, and then she got the news that he had crashed his car and was dead and she had to conceal her huge overwhelming grief for this man she secretly loved, often going alone to the woods or the river and crying by herself, and then going home and trying to appear normal and make dinner for Henry and Christopher. Ooooh, I was very excited to finally get details of Olive and Jim! And wow, it seems like a very powerful relationship, like they were meant to be together almost, that they were each other’s ‘one’ person, which seems a surprisingly romantic thing to happen to someone like Olive. And I’m surprised she thought that Jim seemed quite shy, as I’d have imagined shyness wouldn’t have appealed to her, as this is so unlike her, although she also says she sensed in him ‘a wariness, a quiet anger…we’re both cut from the same piece of bad cloth’, so I can see the similarity there. Or perhaps Olive is shy underneath and the anger is a mechanism to hide this? And that line about her feeling like she had been seen, makes me sad regarding Henry as it kind of feels like a criticism of him, that he didn’t make her feel seen and special, and although I’m happy that she felt happy, it also makes me feel sad that this happiness was brought about by Jim and not Henry. But I guess if Jim was her ‘one’, her fated match, then no matter what Henry did or said he was never going to be as Jim was to her, so perhaps I can console myself that this isn’t anything lacking in Henry or any fault of his. Oh dear, how defensive I am of Henry, tee hee, not just because he is now so ill and reduced (and Olive mentions it’s now four years since his stroke, wow!) but also I think because the first chapter was all about him so I’ve always felt I know him so well as he shared all his feelings and secrets with the reader and also gave the reader the first insight into Olive (even though I was in two minds if he was being harsh about her overall), so I kind of feel bonded with him. And I wonder again at the order of these chapters, as it occurs to me how differently the reader would have viewed Olive if this had been the first chapter of the book, not only being able to see her good qualities with her love for Christopher and her vulnerability with how flattered she is that Christopher has shown he needs her by asking her to come there, as well as her effort to think positively and to bite her tongue on scornful thoughts, and how strong and loyal and resilient she is dealing with Henry being ill, but we would then have also known how torn she felt in her earlier life with her marriage to Henry whilst she loved Jim and her suppression of that love and the strain which must have accompanied that and then the suppression of her deep grief after he died, I feel the reader would have had more sympathy with her than in the later chapters when her often difficult and challenging behaviour was revealed, as we’d have understood what she had had to go through privately.
Olive sleeps well at their house, feeling the same hopefulness that she had felt on the flight, purely because of her certainty that Christopher needs her and misses her and their relationship can be repaired, and this is like ‘a pillow of soft joy’. She doesn’t feel any particular attachment to Ann’s two children but she makes an effort with them, reading bedtime stories to the boy and chatting to him in the morning before he leaves for school and babysitting the little girl, as well as walking the family dog. She doesn’t feel that this life in Brooklyn suits Christopher, and she doesn’t understand Ann, but she is aware that Christopher seems happy. She continues to think about Jim but now feels relieved that she hadn’t left Henry for Jim, because of Christopher and how it would have affected him. Ann suddenly announces that this day is their wedding anniversary and it is on the tip of Olive’s tongue to retort that it would have been nice to have been told they were getting married in the first place but she resists saying this, eager not to cause any friction. Ann also speaks about how she and Christopher attend therapy and find it extremely useful, which is very different to Olive’s experience of the therapy she once attended after Henry’s stroke when she felt frustrated and angry at the other attendees and at the leader, but she doesn’t say anything again. Awww, I’m so delighted for Olive that she is feeling so happy with her relationship with Christopher, and how significantly she is altering her own instinctive behaviour in order to maintain this. And awww, I melted a bit when she reflected that she’d never had a friend ‘as loyal, as kind, as her husband’, which I guess is different to her being passionately in love with him as she obviously was with Jim but there is security there which is important plus they were together giving security to Christopher, and I am wondering if this is also what the title of the chapter refers to (as well as presumably airport security), even though it also made me sad when she remembered how lonely she often felt in the marriage.
She walks to an icecream shop with Christopher and Ann and the children. But when they return to the house and Olive goes to her room, she notices that she had spilt icecream down her blouse and then gets distressed that Christopher and Ann must have seen this but had not told her, and she feels this means that they view her as an old lady who they have to look after. The following morning she announces to them that she is going home, although doesn’t say anything about the icecream incident and how this had upset her. Christopher immediately seems to recognise Olive’s manner and asks her to stop it and says he knew that something would trigger things off. She immediately lashes out and calls him a liar, feeling a ‘fury’ at what she sees as their ‘sense of conspiracy’, and he accuses her of having moods of ‘extreme capriciousness’, urging her to explain what has upset her so they can talk about it together. She reacts angrily, and he tells her that she is ‘paranoid’ and never takes any responsibility for her behaviour and she makes people feel terrible (including his father) and that he used to fear her when he was growing up. Ann tries to diffuse the situation by saying that Christopher was just trying to explain how Olive’s moods change quickly and how hard that was for him when he was growing up, which further convinces Olive that they have spoken together about her. She responds with more and more fury, insulting Ann and accusing Christopher of torturing her after she’d loved him all of his life, but Christopher refuses to raise his voice and agrees that she can leave but says that she will have to go to the airport by herself and deal with the alteration of her plane ticket as he and Ann have busy days. Olive arrives at the airport, and feels confused and uncertain as she moves through security and the staff are impatient with her and she reacts in anger to the staff which results in her being pulled aside. She thinks about calling Christopher from the airport and explaining that things had just gone terribly wrong but she then tells herself that he and Ann are cruel. Omg, omg, omg, how could it all go so wrong so quickly, and it’s all on Olive, her misconceptions and presumptions, thinking Christopher and Ann were laughing at her and that they saw her as an old lady for spilling icecream on her blouse and them not pointing it out. I guess this then made her think she was mistaken in how she had viewed the invitation as she thought she was there to help Christopher whereas now she felt they thought they needed to look after her, so I guess her confidence boost by thinking Christopher needed her was then destroyed, as well as her being hurt to think that they viewed her as an elderly burden rather than as an equal and that they were laughing at her. But this presumption of their feelings about her was just in her head, they’d not said that and they could have actually been feeling completely differently to this, plus she refused to say anything about the situation or her feelings so they then had no opportunity to assure her she was wrong (although I imagine there would have been no assuring her at that point as she had stewed on things all night and was completely fixed in her assumption). But she built that up into some huge slight against her and then decided to leave which then caused an awful awful huge disagreement and horrible things were said. It was just breaking my heart as it was happening, I almost had my hands over my eyes when it was all falling apart, I just couldn’t believe how she destroyed everything, omg all the horrible things they said that will be so hard to repair, and particularly after Olive was so pleased that her and Christopher’s relationship seemed to have been repaired, why oh why oh why couldn’t she stop herself from saying those things?! I really am trying to understand why she acted as she did, I guess she had let herself be vulnerable by allowing hope into her life (the hope that Christopher needed her) and then realised that this hope had brought her pain so quickly tried to destroy that hope (and therefore avoid more pain), which reminds me of Kevin’s words in the earlier chapter (Incoming Tide) about hope, that ‘he could not bear these shoots of tender green hope springing up within him any longer’. But she then just caused pain to Christopher and Ann, and consequently to herself in the long-run with the damage it has done to their relationship. I wonder if Henry would have managed to talk her down from this if he’d been with her, that’s an interesting thought, although given what Christopher describes of his childhood it doesn’t sound like Henry was able to diffuse tense situations or prevent Olive from acting on her feelings. Omg, it’s so hard, almost impossible really, to try and be sympathetic or try to understand Olive acting in this way. She’s her own worst enemy, what a strange complicated person she is and just as I think I am beginning to understand her and like her, she does something that turns all that upside down. And I was shocked at the dreadful things that Christopher said about her parenting, her being paranoid and never taking responsibility for her behaviour and that she makes people feel terrible, omg I had kind of (conveniently) presumed that Henry had exaggerated that or had misunderstood Olive, but this seems to dispel that hope I had, and really I guess I can see all those things in her and easily think of examples in these chapters when she has displayed those characteristics, and particularly again at the end of this chapter when she debates about calling Christopher from the airport and trying to fix things but then convinces herself that he and Ann are cruel so I guess she is then not taking any responsibility herself and just telling herself that they caused this and it is all their fault, sigh. In fact, I realise I feel now like Olive probably feels regarding her hope being dashed, as I feel that my hope and belief in Olive has been dashed, I can’t help being disappointed in her and am shocked by actually seeing ‘first-hand’ how she can behave, I feel like it will be hard to forgive her for this as I was so sure before this point that she was a good person and was just maligned or misunderstood by others who were painting a bad picture of her to the reader or that there were understandable reasons why she acted the way she did, eg her father committing suicide and the love of her life being killed and her having to suppress her grief. I guess those understandable reasons still stand and are still valid, but to have my belief in her destroyed infront of my eyes is hard to come back from. Oh god…! I honestly feel quite traumatised and drained by this chapter, the Jane and Bob Houlton chapter really shook me as did the chapter stating Henry’s stroke, but this chapter has really really affected me, I am even debating if I can take any more, though I am trying to hope that with this traumatic chapter not being the final chapter of the book then there may be a chance for things to improve with Olive and Christopher, or for Olive to begin to take responsibility for her behaviour and to try and change, I feel I really really need that now but I’m unsure if this is what the author would do. I have already decided that after I finish this book and recover from all the feelings that this wonderful writer has generated in me, I will pick up something comforting like The Wind in the Willows!
The next chapter is called Criminal. Rebecca Brown steals a magazine from the doctor’s waiting room as she wants to finish the story in it, which is something unusual for her as she always follows rules and never takes anything she shouldn’t take, and she later hears her father’s voice in her head saying he hates people who steal. At home, she finishes the story about the husband and wife but is disappointed in the ending as the wife leaves the husband, so she rips out the first page of the story which details the couple’s lives when they were happy and burns this page. She then sees an advert in the magazine for a man’s shirt which can be ordered online so she decides to order this for her boyfriend, David. Rebecca immediately warms to the sales lady on the phone when she orders the t-shirt, and she talks a lot to her, far more than what would be required to just order the t-shirt, sharing information about her life and relationship, though she admits to the sales lady that David always tells her she talks too much. Hmmm, is it really stealing, taking the magazine from the waiting room just in order to finish the story she was reading, isn’t it just borrowing really, particularly as she could just take it back again when she’s finished with it? I’m kind of feeling like Rebecca is being a bit hard on herself, or that her father was hard on her when she was younger. And this doesn’t really seem like a crime worthy of the title ‘Criminal’, although perhaps there is more that she (or someone else) does. And I’m intrigued by Rebecca and her need to find hope in her life (as she felt she had found hope in the story in the magazine), so does she usually struggle to find hope and positivity in her life? And is it also significant that it was just a story/image of ordinary routine family life which provided her with this feeling of hope, nothing dramatic or life-changing or unusual, so does this mean that she didn’t have that ordinary routine family life, I wonder, so this is what she craves? Or does the magazine story instead signify how easily influenced Rebecca is, with her ordering the t-shirt online just because she saw the advert for it in the magazine? I also wonder if she is a bit of a hypochondriac, as the story starts with her at a doctor’s surgery and then in the short time she has been home she has had a stomach-ache and then a headache? Hmmm, I feel I am yearning to know more about Rebecca!
Rebecca’s father was a priest, and her mother had left the family home when Rebecca was young in order to be an actress and then joined the church of Scientology, so Rebecca was brought up by her father. Rebecca has written many letters to the address she had for her mother but she has never had a reply, she also tried phoning directory enquiries to track down her mother but had no luck with that. She also used to read about Scientology in an effort to understand her mother’s new life, but then began to worry that dead people could read her thoughts (as she understood this to be what Scientologists believed). Rebecca moved away to study at university and was very happy to leave home, although she did miss her father on occasions. When she was 19 years old, her father died. Oh dear, poor Rebecca being left by her mother when so young and then her father dies as well. But I’m intrigued by Rebecca’s mother, with her own father being a priest and then her marrying a priest and then running away to be an actress and joining the church of Scientology, I imagine her life would be a very fascinating story! And I wonder if Rebecca had quite a repressed insular life with her father, with her concealing from him that she had tried to contact her mother and from her eagerness to escape to university.
Rebecca is considering applying for a job as a dental assistant, David advises her that it is important that she appears confident and reminds her not to talk too much. Rebecca wakes in the night and looks at the bar across the street, listening to the noise and watching the people. She sees a police car arrive and arrest some men who have been fighting, and she feels joy watching this and imagining what it would feel like to hit someone herself. She remembers that her father disapproved of her looking in the mirror as he said that vanity was a sin, and that he had a rule that there was no talking at the table which used to make her feel incredibly awkward with the two of them sat there together in silence, she also remembers that she had sometimes felt enormous love for her father and at other times had wished he would die, and that her habit of talking too much had come on after he had died. She also remembers that her Aunt Katherine had invited her to live with them but Rebecca had declined because her aunt made her feel anxious, much as her teacher Mrs Kitteridge had made her anxious when she had said quietly to Rebecca that she was welcome to talk to her about anything. Rebecca phones the sales lady again, thinking that the size of the t-shirt she ordered for David was too large, and whilst she is on hold she burns two more pages of the magazine from the doctor’s surgery. She again talks about her personal life with the sales lady, but is thrilled when the lady remembers something Rebecca had said previously. Rebecca remembers an earlier boyfriend, Jace, who she had been with while she was at university and who had taken her to a bar to listen to Angie O’Meara play piano, and Rebecca had told him that Angie plays on the piano at her father’s church. Then within a few days, Jace told her he had met someone else and Rebecca’s father told her there was something wrong with his heart and there was nothing the doctors could do. Oh dear, poor Rebecca with Jace cheating on her and then learning that her father was going to die, that must have been very difficult for her to deal with. And it seems like her current boyfriend, David, treats Rebecca a little like a child, is this because she acts very childishly or was she drawn to a man who would guide her as her father guided her, possibly searching for another father-figure with her father dying when she was still a young adult? And she seems so lonely with her phoning the sales lady again, I fear she is looking on this lady as her friend when the lady is only being polite in order to make the sale. I’m also a bit puzzled at her feeling of joy at the thought of her hitting someone, where are we going with that?! And there’s also this burning of the pages of the magazine, has she got an obsession with fire perhaps, or does she feel she’s destroying something in her life or her character by burning these pages? I do feel quite puzzled by Rebecca, more so than any other character so far in the book, I think. I was very pleased at the mention of Olive though (as Rebecca’s teacher), although again I’m puzzled what Olive (and Aunt Katherine too) perhaps saw in Rebecca’s life in order to offer her help, I guess it could just be the very understandable trauma of her effectively losing her mother, but did they also have some concern about the way her father was raising her or about her father’s character or behaviour, or was it something in Rebecca’s character or behaviour that concerned them (and again, I’m back to puzzling about her urge to burn things and to hit people)? And there’s also a mention of Angie from the earlier chapter, I do like these little links to previous characters but it also makes me wonder how many I’ve missed spotting!
Rebecca doesn’t get the dental assistant job and tells David she thinks it might be because she talked too much at the interview. But she then gets a job typing up traffic reports, though she dislikes the boss and finds the work boring and she thinks after a few weeks that she will probably quit. The t-shirt arrives but Rebecca realises when she looks at it that it wouldn’t suit David and that it would actually have suited Jace. She phones the sales lady again and is told she can send the t-shirt back and have a refund. Rebecca is back at the doctor’s surgery as she still has the stomach-aches and her hands have been shaking, but the doctor seems impatient with her saying they have done multiple tests and can’t find any reason for the stomach-ache so she probably just has a sensitive stomach. She steals a vase from the surgery waiting room and for a moment her stomach and head don’t ache. She later talks to David about never having shoplifted when she was a child as she was scared of getting caught, and he says that he often shoplifted. Rebecca then says perhaps most children do shoplift but adds that she wouldn’t have known that as she never went to other children’s houses and they never came to her house. She also mentions that she had to cook for her father and she deliberately put lots of butter into his meals, and then says she wonders if this makes her a criminal. Hmmm, I think Rebecca seems to live in her head a lot (which can be a dangerous place to be!), particularly thinking about criminal activities, as does she perhaps think she killed her father by deliberately putting lots of butter into his meals? Perhaps this living in her head is because she doesn’t seem to have any friends to talk to (and how tragic it was when she said that she never went to other children’s houses when she was a child, poor thing, no wonder she doesn’t seem to have very adept social skills). I am wondering now if she’s not so much a hypochondriac as just going to the doctor’s because she is lonely and yearns for someone to be sympathetic and listen to her. But what is her relationship with David actually like, does she not talk to him, does he not relieve her loneliness? She was talking to him about stealing, but I’m not sure if she told him she had actually stolen the magazine and the vase. I feel like we don’t get to know him at all, Rebecca doesn’t seem to give anything away to the reader about him and we don’t get his thoughts about Rebecca, it feels a bit like the first chapter again when we only had Henry and never heard from Olive but at least then we heard Henry’s views of Olive so were able to build up some kind of picture of her, but I can’t build up any kind of picture of David. I’m not sure if he’s a cruel man who is manipulating her and controlling her and keeping her in a child-like simple state, or if he is kind and gentle to her and does the best he can to encourage her to be a confident adult as he knows she had a tough childhood and was often neglected. He doesn’t seem to do anything cruel to her that I can see, he seems to speak to her kindly and is affectionate towards her and calls her by affectionate names (but now I wonder if these names seem a little childish so is he reinforcing her view of herself as a child?), although he often seems easily distracted by the tv so he’s perhaps not giving her his full attention, but he talks about how they will bring up their kids so he seems to view the relationship as lasting. He doesn’t seem to be pushing her to get a job either so he is presumably content to earn money for both of them (but now I wonder if this is him keeping her isolated from others and controlling her and keeping her in a low-confidence and self-doubting frame of mind?). Her father seemed to keep her isolated from others and it seemed like he controlled her, but then I wonder if this was out of love and a desire to keep her safe, or fear that she would leave him like his wife left him (although obviously she left to go to university), or because he had a wish to control everything because he hadn’t been able to control his wife leaving him, or for a wish to be cruel to her? Arrgh, so many questions, and I suspect I won’t get answers!
In the early hours of the morning, Rebecca watches the police arrest three men from the bar and hears them read the men their rights, thinking to herself that the words almost sound like poetry or like words from the bible. She thinks about how long it will take her to walk to the doctor’s surgery. She takes the bbq starter kit from under the sink and two cigarette lighters, as well as the shirt she had bought for David and the rest of the magazine from the doctor’s surgery and some postcards she had received from her mother and she rips these up and puts them in her bag with the other items. She hears in her head the words the police officer said when he was reading the rights to the men at the bar, and she thinks it would be worth being arrested to hear those words. What, what, what?!! Is she going to set fire to the doctor’s surgery, and if so then is this as an act of revenge against the doctor for dismissing her concerns about her stomach-ache, or is it just for a wish to be arrested for the attention or the novelty of it or for the desire to be labelled as a criminal for some reason? Or is she going to hurt David, or hurt herself, or hurt someone else? And is all of it because she has an obsession with crime, does she feel that being a criminal is in some way rebelling against her father and his strict rules? Does the chapter heading mean that Rebecca is going to become a criminal, or is it referring to some criminal behaviour that someone did against Rebecca (her father, David?), or does it even mean that Rebecca did engineer her father’s death by feeding him lots of unhealthy food so she views herself as a criminal and feels she deserves punishment for this? I’m completely puzzled by this chapter, it just seemed to end so abruptly and I’ve had none of my questions answered and now just have more questions! I kind of feel like I am missing something. I am even wondering if Rebecca and/or David might have turned up earlier in the book so I’m supposed to know more about them, but I don’t remember them popping up. Or am I looking too deeply into this story perhaps, searching for things that aren’t there, subtle messages and hidden themes? Hmmm, I will have to re-read this chapter, I think.
The final story is called River. Olive reflects that Henry has been dead for one and a half years now, and that he died before his grandchild was born. On her usual early morning walk along the river with the dog, she is shocked to see Jack Kennison laying on the ground beside a bench. She vaguely knows Jack, who moved to the town a few years ago, but she and Henry didn’t like him, Olive viewed him as arrogant and Henry viewed him as a show-off as he used to boast about his earlier life, and they also treated him with the usual suspicion of people born in the town towards people who retire there. Olive prompts Jack to try gradually moving and asks him if it was his heart and what exactly happened but he doesn’t seem to know apart from remembering he felt tired and dizzy. She says she will go back to her car and contact a doctor for him, as she doesn’t have a mobile phone, but Jack begs her not to leave him alone, adding that he doesn’t care if he dies but he just doesn’t want to die alone. Olive sits on the bench and says they will just wait for someone else to come along with a phone, adding that she doesn’t care if she dies either and in fact she’d like to die as long as it was quick. Jack begins to cry and then says that his wife has recently died. Arrgggh, Henry is dead, sob, though maybe that was the kindest thing if he wasn’t ever going to recover, though I’m a bit surprised that we didn’t see Olive go through that as it happened. And tee hee, I did chuckle at the typically abrupt way that Olive dealt with Jack when he was laying on the ground, asking him if he was dead, and her matter–of-fact way of speaking about his grief, saying he’s obviously in hell.
Olive waits in the doctor’s waiting room while Jack is being examined, although he has urged her to go. Jane Houlton walks in and she and Olive exchange a few words. After he has been checked out by the doctor, Olive drives Jack back to the carpark at the river so he can collect his car and she then follows him home to make sure he arrives there safely. He invites her in for lunch but she declines saying he should rest, though after she leaves his house she ‘felt bereft’. She phones her friend Bunny and tells her the tale of finding Jack. Later that evening she phones Jack asking him if he’s all right and if he has called his daughter to let her know what happened, which he says he hasn’t as he doesn’t want to bother her. After this short conversation, Olive hangs up and looks around at the house’s ‘emptiness and silence’. Hmmm, I wonder if Olive is going to enter into a relationship with Jack? I’m not quite sure how I feel about that (not that it’s anything to do with me, tee hee!) as I kind of think she should be loyal to Henry, but then she wasn’t particularly nice to Henry when he was alive anyway and she is obviously lonely and doesn’t have much in her life at all (I am presuming she hasn’t patched things up with Christopher, as that would seem tough to do after what she said to him, sigh!) and perhaps it would be nice to see a happy Olive for this final chapter. And eeek, Jane Houlton, I remember her from one of my favourite chapters in this book (well, one of my favourite chapters until it got so tragically sad at the end, sigh!), I felt a warm glow having her appear although it makes me wonder again how many times other characters have popped up in other stories and I’ve missed them! And I liked that Olive spoke nicely to Jane, admiring her skirt, that seems an un-Olive thing to do really so I wonder if this change is due to Henry dying and her feeling more lonely and more tempted to reach out to people who she would have shunned or mocked earlier in the book (with her also reaching out to Bunny when she phoned her to tell her the tale of finding Jack), or if the change is due to her odd morning with finding Jack (in which case, her spending more time with him would be of benefit to her, and also to the other residents in the town!). And I felt so sad that Olive thinks Bunny doesn’t really want to be around her much now she is a widow, her suspecting that Bunny feels almost like widowhood is contagious, that seems so tragic when a widow is already lonely and struggling to adjust to the huge change in their life from losing their spouse.
As she next walks along the river with the dog, Olive feels that the time spent with Jack beside the river and in the doctor’s waiting room had ‘for one brief moment, put her back into life’. She remembers the activities she had taken up (and subsequently dropped again) since Henry’s death, and also realises that she doesn’t now feel the happiness she used to feel when she spots the first few signs of spring. She then sees Jack sitting on the same bench where he had fallen before. He says all the tests done on him have come back as negative so he is trying to get out and about again, and invites her to sit with him but she declines and continues on her walk. However, when she reaches home she phones him and invites him out for a meal, although she is very annoyed when Bunny later describes this as a date. She phones Christopher and is inwardly upset to learn that her grandchild has taken his first steps but that Christopher hadn’t shared this with her at the time. She invites Christopher to stay with her in the summer and he says they’d like to but are busy at the moment so will see how things are closer to the time. She tells him about the forthcoming meal with Jack, and about Bunny calling it a date and how ‘stupid’ this was of Bunny. Awww, poor Olive, my heart bleeds for her really with her realisation that she briefly felt she was back in life and how hard it must have been for her to not feel like that all that time, and I do admire her for having the courage to try new activities too, even though they didn’t work out. And bless her, her feelings about spending time with Jack are so interesting too as they are revealed, how sensitive and cautious she is about it being misconstrued as something more than she is probably ready for it to be.
At the meal with Jack, she is at first extremely uncomfortable, feeling that Jack is sitting too close to her and reminding herself of how little she knows about him and of how she had never liked him. But she then relaxes as they both speak about Henry and about Jack’s wife. They meet the following week for lunch, and as Olive tells him about her house that she and Henry built and he expresses an interest to see it she invites him back to her house and shows him around, although she is a little uncomfortable when he touches objects in the house. They then see each other regularly, going for more meals and going to a concert where he kisses her, though she doesn’t share this with anyone and in her head she criticises him and is suspicious of if he’s just looking for a mother-figure from her. Oh, how typical it is of Olive (and probably most of us!) that we start to pull apart in our minds anything happy, to look for possible faults and reasons why it won’t succeed (although I’m still not quite sure if I want this relationship with Jack to succeed, although I do want Olive to be happy). And I thought her inviting him to her house, the house that she and Henry built and lived their lives in together and which presumably still has so many things of Henry’s and memories of Henry in it, was a really huge step, and I wondered if it was almost like her introducing him to Henry. Though I was interested by her feeling that it was an intrusion of Jack’s to look at the books on the bookcase ‘as though he were reading her diary’, and it made me wonder how I feel if someone looks at my books (and also of course how other people may feel when I look at their books, as I often do!), I don’t think I see it as an intrusion, I definitely feel that people’s books say a lot about their characters and I find it interesting to get a glimpse of their characters from the books they own (so I guess I can see how this could be viewed therefore as a possible intrusion) and I often find remarking on their books is a way to enter into another conversation (and if I’m honest (!) this is probably a conversation which I’m more settled and confident with, as it’s about books!), and I think I’d be flattered if someone showed interest in my taste in books and asked me my opinion of them after seeing my book collection.
Olive and Jack don’t meet for five days due to bad weather. When the weather improves and Jack phones Olive and invites her for a walk, she feels that his phonecall is ‘like a rainbow’. She notices his new coat which matches his blue eyes, and she tells him about Christopher living so far away, and Jack shares with her how hard he finds it that his daughter is gay, and they then talk about politics and fall out, resulting in Olive storming off. Two weeks pass with no contact from Jack, and Olive deliberately goes to the river earlier in the morning when she doesn’t expect to see him. In the meantime, Olive phones Christopher and falls out with him. Then Olive doesn’t bother walking along the river at all and just stays in bed for a few days. Oh god, Olive!! It’s all falling apart with them bickering about politics and Olive storming off, him then not contacting her and she avoiding him, they are both so similarly stubborn, both (I suspect) destroying this before they care too much and then get hurt. But I’d melted a bit when she viewed Jack’s phone call as like a rainbow and noticed the colour of his eyes, she really was seeming like she was beginning to care for him and I guess those few days apart (before the argument) had made this more apparent to her.
Eventually, at midnight when she can’t sleep, she makes contact with Jack and gradually over the next few days they hesitantly message each other, and Olive admits to Jack that she knows the falling out with Christopher was her fault. He then invites her over to his house and she finds him low in spirits laid on his bed. He admits to her that he has hurt his daughter emotionally. As she stands looking at him, he says how scared he is. Her first thought is to say that she hates scared people, knowing this would have been her response to Henry if he had said he was scared, but she stops and reflects that this is because she hates the scared part of herself. She remembers that Jack had needed her at the doctor’s surgery and had ‘given her a place in the world’. She puts her hand on his heart and lays down next to him on the bed, and thinks that even though the world ‘baffled her…she did not want to leave it yet’. Wow, I am impressed that it was Olive who made the first contact again with Jack (even though it was a typically abrupt Olive type of contact, tee hee, with her typing ‘Does your daughter hate you?’!), and I felt this really demonstrated just how she has changed over time, and although I’m pleased to see she has changed I’m also sad to consider that the change is probably due to her being lonely and sad and having lost people (both with Henry dying and with her falling out with Christopher). And wow, her admitting that the falling out with Christopher was her fault seemed a huge step forward too, although she did add that she doesn’t understand how it was her fault and I can sympathise with her here as (even though it is obvious to me what she did wrong) Olive is still Olive and I think her mind works in a different way to other people. But then I wonder if many of us are like this regarding judging our own actions clearly, as it always seems far easier to judge someone else’s actions (as I am judging Olive’s!) than our own! I wonder also if Olive even remembers the situation in a different way to Christopher (and again, perhaps many of us do this) as she was so firm in her head of Christopher and Ann’s cruel motives and actions, even though there was no proof of this. Perhaps if Olive delved deeper then she’d see it, but then (as I said) Olive is Olive and she’s also perhaps been shaped by the circumstances in her life. But perhaps now she’s taken these huge steps forward since losing Henry and knowing Jack, she will continue to take more steps forward and she may then delve deeper into things. And again, I’m impressed that she stopped herself from responding sharply and defensively to Jack’s brave admission that he feels scared as it seems another huge step that she paused and considered the effect that her words would have, plus another huge step that she admitted to herself that she has felt scared and also analysed her reaction to these scared feelings (that she hated them). I really feel that this final chapter is quite a positive one in demonstrating how Olive has grown, bless her. And I’m impressed too that Jack can admit that he’s made mistakes with his daughter and that he feels scared, and I sense he has perhaps never admitted this before (as Olive hasn’t). Again, they are both so similarly strong and stubborn but how wonderful that they obviously feel safe enough with each other to even think about displaying vulnerability, and perhaps they are only able to display this vulnerability with another similarly strong and stubborn person, perhaps they wouldn’t be able to display this to someone they perceived as a weaker person (and Olive seemed to view Henry, and indeed most of the people in her life, as weaker than her!). And I guess this new showing of vulnerability is also due to them both being widowed and how that has changed them, and also changed everything in their lives and everything they depended on so they are kind of having to start afresh in a new kind of life, and even though it is sad that they are widowed and have felt that pain and loss (and are still feeling it now), I also suspect they may not have changed as they had done if their spouse was still with them, they would just have stayed in the same patterns and the same responses, so that’s quite a strange thought that there could be a potential positive too in their devastation of widowhood. And also how brave of them to potentially enter into a relationship and care for someone else again after they have suffered this devastation of widowhood, as I imagine the fear of suffering that loss again could make them scared to ever love again. And some of the lines in this last section were wonderful, I particularly loved the ‘quietness of afternoon sunlight’ and how it ‘fell through the window…hit broadside the wallpaper’, and I wondered if this was also a symbol of them letting light into their dark lives by allowing each other in, and I loved the analogy of Olive thinking that she and Jack were like ‘two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union, what pieces life took out of you’, wow, that is really beautifully written and very powerful, those words will definitely stay with me. And it did feel fitting that the final chapter was all about Olive, after she’d often just been a quick mention in some of the other chapters.
Wow, wow, wow, what an incredible book! I feel (as dramatic as this sounds) like I’m not quite the same person that I was before I read it! It has definitely drained me with how emotionally tough it was at times and I have to say honestly that I didn’t enjoy every minute of reading it because there were often tough and dark and disturbing things to read and process which often made me feel uncomfortable and unsettled, yet I also feel it was very important to read and that I have gained so much from it, almost like struggling to learn a lesson, it is worth it but it is a struggle. And regarding the darkness of the book, I’m reminded again of how clever the author is, as this darkness seemed to sneak up on me, I often didn’t register it when I was actually reading a particular chapter but when I stepped away from the book and inevitably mulled over the storyline in the chapter I often then realised how it had unsettled me, so when I was reading it it seemed more gentle but then the claws of the story seemed to get into me afterwards! How does the author achieve that? But then there were bits in the book which I thoroughly enjoyed and which warmed my heart and which made me laugh, and these contrasting feelings I had again makes me think how unusual and intriguing this book is, I really am full of admiration (and gratitude) for this author’s skill with writing and I’m just astonished (and envious) at how someone can have the incredible ability to write like this, what an amazing talent, it really is a remarkable book and she is a remarkable writer! I’m aware that the book took me ages to finish though because I ended up re-reading each chapter just noticing all the little bits that I didn’t first notice and trying to guess what the author was trying to imply with something she’d written or the way she’d written it and then being impressed all over again by her writing when the penny dropped and I saw what she was implying (or at least I thought I saw what she was implying but I’m still not really sure!). But I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that is quite so ambiguous in each chapter, and I did feel frustrated at not knowing for sure why someone acted as they did or of how they ended up after the chapter ended, but then I also enjoyed almost playing detective and looking for clues about the characters and their possible future paths and how the book made me think so deeply. Which all ensures that these characters aren’t leaving my head just because I’ve closed the final page of the book on them, as I keep wondering about them!
And I amused myself throughout the book with trying to analyse the possible meaning of each chapter heading, often finding multiple interpretations for them which related to the story within the chapter, and I loved the cleverness of this and the feeling of almost the ‘reward’ which I felt when I managed to see another interpretation of the chapter heading. And (as I’ve mentioned throughout my review) I am intrigued by the order of the chapters and how this affected my view of Olive, and I still do feel slightly bothered by the fact that I feel she is portrayed in a negative light from the order of the chapters. And I’m also intrigued by the author’s own personal view of Olive, does she actually like her (surely it would be difficult to spend so much time with a character when writing about them if you didn’t like them?) or does she not like her, or perhaps (as in life’s real characters that we meet, and also very aptly demonstrated with Olive herself) it’s not as black and white as that.
And obviously I have to consider my view of Olive, which is a difficult question to answer. I have felt defensive on behalf of Olive and wanted to like her many times throughout this book (and I’ve often been stubbornly determined to like her, just like Olive is often stubborn herself!), and found myself putting a mental tick in her positive column when she did something worthy or caring, and I’ve been kind of cheering Olive on, willing her to do something nice and to show me that she is a good person at heart. It’s also interesting that somehow any worthy and caring gesture from her seems to mean far more coming from her than they would do if coming from someone else! But then I have had to face many of her unpleasant characteristics too, sigh. She’s so complex and doesn’t have black and white positive and negative characteristics as it kind of depends on how she chooses to use them (eg, she is abrupt and matter-of-fact which can cause hurt, but also her abruptness is often the most suitable action when she is dealing with a troubled person) and also she shows both negative and positive characteristics throughout the book (eg she is often insensitive but then there are examples of her being sensitive). Arrrgh, it’s so hard, and then this makes me admire all over again the author’s writing and her perception of the human character. I think I would have to conclude that Olive intrigues me (which I admit looks like me shying away from saying whether I either like or dislike her, tee hee!), I think I would be cautious to spend time with her but I would admire her (from a distance!) and pity her (but would never admit this to her) and I’d find her amusing, and I’d probably be ridiculously flattered if she seemed to like me and then would go out of my way to do the smallest thing to try and please her! One review I read for this book pointed out that Olive has an impact on everyone she meets and that this is a reminder to the reader that we too have an impact on everyone we meet, and this point really made me think deeply and I appreciated the reminder that we are all of significance and we have an impact on people in our lives even if we may not realise it at the time. And I also wondered then if Olive was aware of her impact (both positive and negative).
Well, I can’t leave Olive behind so I will have to read the next book in this series, Olive Again. I do hope some of the other characters turn up in it as well, so I can perhaps find out what happened to them. And her Lucy Barton series looks interesting too, beginning with My Name is Lucy Barton. But first, as I had promised myself, I will read the lovely and gentle The Wind in the Willows. And perhaps I’ll pick up my Where’s Wally book to remind me of my impatient seeking of Olive in each chapter!
