Bluestalking

Penguin Special: At the Hairdresser's by Anita Brookner

 

 At the Hairdresser's by Anita Brookner. Penguin Special, 2011.

[Kindle purchase]

 

"Penguin Shorts and Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. They are short, they are original and affordable, and they are written by some of today's best and most exciting writers. And they are available only in digital form."

 

I loves me some Penguin Shorts and I'm not talking about clothing. One complaint: there aren't enough of them available yet, though there are many more options than the last time I complained.

They've added more in the series but lots of them are of little interest to this lover of fiction and nonfiction within my purview of interests. Too many are about obscure historical battles of the "who really cares?" variety. There's one called How to Set Up a Free School. Wot? Think that's of general interest, do you?

You see my dilemma.

But I did enjoy Helen Dunmore's Protection, reviewed here. It wasn't a phenomenal read but was certainly a great choice for a mild bout of insomnia. Nights like last night, when I was up 'til after 3:00 (due to my questionable decision to spend all evening sucking down DietPepsi like a lapsed Mormon on a binge), I had to resort to my ultimate soporific: Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, a novel with so many characters I need to take a course in English history to have half a chance understanding who's who and what's what.

 

Brookner's At the Hairdresser's, however, was a lovely short piece, if a bit of a heart-ripper. The story centers on 80-something divorcee Elizabeth Warner, who's jaded and world-weary, tired of living alone and having to care for herself. Even short errands for groceries, having her hair done or visiting the bank have become tasks she dreads, partly because she's tired of getting through it all alone and partly because she'd just rather be at home.

 

''My brief marriage taught me one invaluable but unwelcome lesson: that we are all alone, that no reciprocity is to be sought between people formed by different outlooks, and not only outlooks but different environments, both mental and physical. My disappointment persists to this day, the only difference being that I no longer search for the impossible.'



She has no friends, no close acquaintances, having not kept up with the two "friends" she'd had as a young woman (both of whom married and stayed so, while she was the only one to divorce), so is left rather bereft until one day, leaving the hairdresser's, a car service takes her home, since it's raining and she's forgotten her umbrella. The young man who chauffeurs her is very handsome, and, better yet, deferential, giving every appearance of truly caring about her and her safety.

 

"I knew perfectly well that I was paying for his company, as I had never in my life done before, but there was more to it than that. He was some sort of safeguard, one that might become necessary. I did not put any words to this. I had no need to. It is always later than you think."

 

She begins using the service more often, despite the fact it's a luxury, because it gives her such a good, warm feeling she feels she deserves at her age, after so long spent living alone. Chris, the young driver, feels like the son she never had - or grandson, perhaps. The turning point comes when one of the friends she'd lost track of comes to visit while the young man is in her home, sitting down for a cup of coffee. And, as it's a short, you'll have to read it yourself to learn the resolution, which I found surprisingly uplifting for so melancholy a tale.

Truly a lovely little read.

 

 

 

 

Penguin Shorts: 'Protection' by Helen Dunmore

 

 

Apparently I'm getting over my hesitation to read shorter works, because I'm doing an increasing amount of it lately.

I discovered these "Penguin Shorts," brief Kindle edition pieces by major authors (Helen Dunmore, in today's case) designed to be read by commuters, or people like me: book whores who can't let a morning pass without reading something. And, while reading a few pages of a book is all well and good, there's something satisfying about saying "I read an entire book this morning!" that trumps it.

My first experience with a Penguin short was a bit mixed. Helen Dunmore's a fabulous writer but "Protection" left me befuddled and wanting. It's akin to the annoying habit some have [READ: Me] of starting sentences, then trailing off once the point seems to be understood, not bothering to proceed to the necessity of punctuation.

Example:

"Today I went to the ... (holds up grocery store bag)"

The result is both informational and irritating, all at the same time. And such is a loose comparison with Dunmore's piece. It ends when the virtual magician pulls the tablecloth out from under the dishes, but doesn't mention if the dishes were left intact. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The story's about a woman, Florence, and her two almost-teenaged twin daughters, Clare and Marian, who live in a rural area outside London. Florence's husband, Jack, works in London, commuting back and forth, leaving the ladies alone in their remote home three nights every week.

Being in the middle of nowhere - on a isolated, forested piece of  land - is unnerving when Jack's away. When she wakes one night, uncertain what disturbed her sleep, Florence's adrenaline rushes:

 

"The house is still. It creaks and stirs but she's used to that. A house this age is a living thing. It was nothing, she tells herself, but her body knows better. Her skin prickles. Don't pretend. You won't get out of it that way. She leans over the side of the bed, scrabbles for the sheet and wraps it around her."

 

Grabbing a length of pipe she only brings out when Jack's away, Florence explores the house, then realizes the noise is coming from outside. A flashlight beam flickers across her bedroom window. She freezes, unable to approach the window directly because she leaves her curtains open at night - to see the stars. If she walks up to it she'll be seen, so she peeps carefully through the bottom of the window. Outside there are four men, walking along a country path into the woods. What they're doing, she has no idea. And no, I won't tell you. This is a short, people! Nice try.

Isolation and loneliness are the two major themes of the piece. Florence, left alone when Jack is in the city, feels no less so when he's home with her. An editor working hard to get a literary journal off the ground, he's obsessed with obtaining funding and landing talent. Mentally he's checked out, his head still in London. Two or three times a day he walks to the nearby town to use the phone - the house lacks one -  to make business calls. And all his conversations with Florence involve work.

Then, the twins. The adage twins share an inseparable, selfish bond proves true in the case of her daughters:

 

"The only trouble is that every time you come into their bedroom you feel as if you're interrupting something. It's like living with a newly married couple, who are perfectly polite but have no real interest in anyone but themselves. But with her girls the honeymoon has gone on for years; fierce, secretive and so intimate that it seems to suck all the air of the room into itself."

 

Not that Florence's own work is any more social. She's a sculptor, working in solitude, one reason she agreed to move to the country in the first place:

 

"She was hungry for time - had been ravenous for it for years, since the girls had been born. (...) Jack saw the space, but it was time she craved: acres of it."

 

So it isn't as if Florence hasn't grown used to the fact of her isolation; it's that she's grown weary of it. She's lonely, with no one to turn to and now they're living far enough outside London she can't hop on the Tube and be with people, even in the midst of people if not visiting one person in particular. Her house is lonely, her children are insular, her work is solitary and her husband's mind is otherwise occupied. That leaves nothing for her, no one who puts her at the center, who relies on and craves her attention.

Between the isolation that brings fear and that which brings loneliness Florence decides one day, after a suggestion made by the milkman, what she's lacking is a dog - a big, protective dog. Her reaction at first is no, she doesn't care for dogs. But then, she imagines having a warm, furry body curled up next to her in bed; a protective, massive dog to keep them all safe.

Enter Richard:

 

"The dog snuffles the back of Florence's hand and then she turns it over and he tastes the salt of her palm. The touch of him is strange at first. He nuzzles her then, and she feels herself dissolve with tenderness for him, because he has not rejected her."

 

What a telling way to phrase it: "... because he has not rejected her."

You know how sometimes a book seems unsatisfactory once you've read the last paragraph, then you think more about it and can appreciate it more? That's just happened to me with this novella/short story. I can see it now, can understand more its seemingly abrupt ending, not that I wouldn't love to see this bit turned into part of a much longer work. It has elements that draw me in and definitely kept my interest. Though, yes, it was short. But still, it kept me, if not turning pages, then sliding them on my iPhone.

I would recommend 'Protection' after all, with the caveat it does have an ending that may have you tilting your head, perplexed. Still, it's a beautiful, short piece of writing.

 

Helen Dunmore's new novel:

The Greatcoat: A Ghost Story

Atlantic Monthly Press. September 2012.

“A perfect ghost story”—The Independent

“Conveys a shivery menace . . . This is the most elegant flesh-creeper since Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black.”—The Times (UK)

“Dunmore has a sharp eye, and a fine pen, for the hairline cracks in a new marriage, for what is not said as passion begins to dwindle.”—The Guardian

 

 

Helen Dunmore

 

I was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories  hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast  from many viewpoints. read more...