Tag: Ageing.

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Night in Question by Susan Fletcher

Posted on by thelotusreaders

“Florrie learned, long ago, that society forgets an old person was ever young.”

When I was nineteen I started a summer job in a nursing home and went back to the work on and off for several years, both as a carer and an activities organiser. I was so fond of the first set of ladies I looked after, in fact I still have photos of them all and remember their quirks and their stories. I was deeply fond of Mary, an eighty year old lady with hair she could sit on. Other carers didn’t want to be bothered washing and drying her hair, but I loved it and would plait it for her and arrange it into the topknot she liked that left her looking like Little My from the Moomin books! She was convinced I was a boy, despite the dress that was our uniform. This was the nineties and I think she was confused by the crop I’d had, inspired by Demi Moore in Ghost. Having listened to a lot of stories from all my ladies, when I became an activities organiser I was determined to show carers that the people they looked after had once been young and full of dreams too. So many times I’d watched carers get someone out of bed and talk over them to each other instead of including them in their conversation. I worked with each resident on collecting photos and telling stories about their lives for a display that would hang outside the door on their room. It would give carers and visitors subjects to ask about but also help them see people instead of bodies. This lovely, gentle novel from Susan Fletcher reminded me of these times and some of the stories I uncovered from the residents I worked with – amazing, heart-breaking and life changing stories. Florrie Butterfield is one such resident. At the age of 87 and after losing her leg, she has decided to take charge of her future and move into a rather smart residential home called Babbington Hall, set within the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside with a church nearby. She’s now a wheelchair user, but still wants to keep some independence so chooses a place where she can have a ‘suite’ allowing her to manage for herself as much as possible. Florrie has just settled in to her new home in a converted apple store when one of her new friends, Arthur, is found dead in the gardens.

Suffering a bout of insomnia later that night, Florrie decides to take a look at an advancing thunder storm and makes her way over to the window. As she throws open the window she hears a scream and something falls heavily from the third floor of the hall. When Florrie looks down she realises with horror that it is Renata Green, the home’s young manager. Surely she can’t have survived such a fall? In the ensuing moments Florrie is helped back to bed, with many entreaties from the staff not to stand and wander around. Inside she is cursing her disability, she wants to race up the stairs to Renata’s room immediately and find whoever pushed this lovely young woman to what must surely be her death. As the day goes on, she is interviewed by the police and is confused by their questioning, they seem to be suggesting that Renata was depressed and had nothing to live for in the lead up to her fall. However, Florrie knows different, because that very day Renata had approached for for a discussion about matters of the heart. Renata was in love with someone and had singled out Florrie as a woman who might understand. Their exchange had made Florrie feel hopeful that she might make a friend, that she might be of some use. Renata chose her confidante well because Florrie does indeed have hidden depths. In her room is a box of keepsakes that remind her of the love affairs she’s had with some very different men. Florrie is pleased to be asked, charmed that Renata could see underneath her age and disability to the woman inside. The reader is taken on the journey into Florrie’s past lives and loves, while in the present she works alongside fellow resident Stanhope Jones to uncover the truth about what happened to Renata, treating it as attempted murder. She also hints at an incident in her past that she’s spent a lifetime trying to keep covered up, one night that looms so large in her life it splits it into before and after. Will we find out what happened on the night in question?

Florrie is a fascinating character and I loved that an elderly lady, who are often completely invisible to those younger than themselves, becomes our guide through this journey. She has a kindness and approachability about her that seems to set people at ease, but we shouldn’t let her sunny nature disarm us, because inside is a razor sharp mind. As she investigates the mystery I could see how good it was for her to have such a responsibility in her life again. Alongside the present mystery, we also get to know how Florrie reached this point in her life and I loved reading about her childhood, wondering which events shaped her into the woman she is today. There’s a depth and strength to her character that’s built up of so many layers and for me it was like working with a counselling client – while keeping the presenting issue in mind I delve deeply into the past, drawing out those events that have had the biggest impact and contribute to the client’s current problems. It’s rare to find book characters that are so reflective and self aware. The author also fills the rest of Babbington Hall with some interesting characters, each one detailed and with their own role in the community. While Florrie lives in her own apartment converted from an old apple store, residents with more complex needs are based within the main hall. There are those who are more introverted and keep to their own rooms, while others are the life and soul of the place. The so-called ‘Elwood twins’ keep the gossip mill in action, while simultaneously claiming that they never stick their nose where it isn’t wanted. Stanhope is also one of the more ambulant residents and is a great foil for Florrie, able to investigate parts of the home that Florrie can’t reach. She immediately dispatches him to Renata’s third floor room where she wants him to note the details of the crime scene and any clues to Renata’s last moments before the fall. He is equally unconvinced and confused as to why the police are willing to write the incident off as a fall. Florrie knows that any clues or evidence might be ruined if the staff get to Renata’s room first and start cleaning. However the only clue seems to be a single magenta envelope. It feels like Florrie has sensed a kindred spirit in this quietly spoken, kind woman who has found love in her forties. She wonders if Renata also has keepsakes that might hint at the person beyond her working role. Is she another woman who has lived an interesting life, grabbing hold of chances at love and adventure that might seem unexpected for someone so unassuming.

The pace and structure of the novel are perfectly crafted; the author reveals a little at a time, just enough to move the story along but keeping us waiting for the next clue. Florrie reveals her own story through the six loves of her life, from her diplomat husband of thirty years Victor Plumley, all the way back to her first love Teddy Silversmith. Of course Teddy was involved with ‘the night in question’, the happenings in Hackney that anchor this story and provide it’s title. Only when we know what happened that night and the cause of the scars on Florrie’s knuckles that have silvered with time, can we truly understand her life since. It was interesting to see that her childhood was governed by two very individual women, her mother Prudence who is probably best described as an eccentric and her Aunt Pip. Her father was a policeman, killed on duty when Florrie was very young and Aunt Pip moved in to help look after her and her older brother Bobs who was injured during WW2. It is lovely to read about Florrie’s relationship with her brother and how it changed after his return from war. We also find out that Aunt Pip left an abusive marriage to come live with them, showing a great strength and willingness to forge her own path that possibly brushed off on her niece. In all Florrie can count six loves in her unconventional life, all of whom are very different: the charming Gaston Duplantier who she meets in Paris: Jack Luckett, a very physical, good looking man in Africa; the mysterious sounding Hassan abu Zahra and Dougal Henderson. Through each love we learn about Florrie’s globe trotting life and her freedom of spirit, culminating in a wealth of experience and wisdom that might seem unexpected in the octogenarian lady she is now. It is these very experiences, that would probably go ignored by most younger people, that help Florrie and Stanhope solve the mystery of Renata’s ‘fall’. The author judges perfectly where to reveal the Hackney business, when it has most impact and brings a lump to the throat. It is a gift to be able to bring such depth and feeling to what could have been just another cozy crime novel about charming elderly residents playing detective. This book is so much more than that, revealing a rich and eventful life that could teach us so much about taking chances and not missing out on our potential. It also explores the corrosive nature of secrets, especially for the person holding on to them. I left Florrie the same way I used to feel after looking into the past with a resident – that I’d uncovered a treasure trove of experiences and met their young selves. I felt like I’d met a friend.

Meet the Author

Susan Fletcher was born in Birmingham and studied English Literature at the University of York. 

Whilst taking the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, she began her first novel, Eve Green, which won the Whitbread First Novel Award (2004) and Betty Trask Prize (2005). Since then, Susan has written seven novels – whilst also supplementing her writing through various roles, including as a barperson, a cheesemonger and a warden for an archaeological excavation site near Hadrian’s Wall. Most recently, she has been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Worcester.

She lives in Warwickshire. 

Thank you to Transworld Publishing, Alison Barrow, Susan Fletcher and Random Things Tours for inviting me to join the blog tour.

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Black Dress by Deborah Moggach.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I truly enjoyed Deborah Moggach’s last novel The Carer thanks to it’s depiction of family dynamics. She showed the problems common to ‘the middle’ where both children and parents need us in equal measure, but mostly that difficult decision about ‘caring’ for an elderly relative and the compromises we have to make. This novel concentrates more on growing older in the 21st Century with all it’s difficulties and choices to face. More people over 50 are facing huge life changes and are emerging from broken relationships into a world that’s moved on several decades. They face the daunting prospect of internet dating, cat-fishing, swiping right and learning to navigate through it all. I think we all imagine there’s an age where we grow up and become adults. We expect wisdom to set in, the risks and mistakes to be less and for us to be settled in who and where we are. Of course I’ve reached middle age and don’t feel any where near being a real adult. I’ve realised I’m still the same heart on sleeve, leap of faith, in love with love, risk taker that I’ve always been. There’s growth from experience, but my essential character has not changed. However, I identified with Pru, who is weathering this massive life change, then sees a black dress in a charity shop and wonders what if I was someone different for a while?

Pru’s husband has walked out and has set up home in their little holiday cottage by the sea. Her only consolation is her friend Azra, always a little too wild and boho for Pru’s husband’s taste, but a great solace as she contemplates living the rest of her life without her other spoon. To be honest with herself, it’s not really him that she misses. She misses their life together – the past memories of playing on the beach with the children, always having someone next to her in bed, and those in-jokes that they would only get together. Now the bed feels huge and Pru feels numb and bewildered. In something of a daze, she has to attend the funeral of an old friend, but at the church she notices that something’s not quite right. There are people she expected to see, who aren’t here. As she listens to the hymns and the eulogy she wonders why it doesn’t sound like the friend she knew. Then the penny drops – she’s at the wrong funeral. Yet somehow she gets swept along with it and finds she has a good time, conversation, a few drinks and banter with some of the other guests. So when she sees the black dress hanging there, she allows herself to wonder why not? Maybe she will meet a nice widower to bring some excitement into her life. With this in mind she starts to buy the paper and circle the obituaries.

It is Azra who points out that what Pru is experiencing is grief. The loss of a decades long marriage is enormous and it’s very clear she’s not thinking straight. Whenever she talks to her husband she doesn’t get a clear idea about why he wanted to leave. This is what she feels she needs to know and understand, before she can move forward. Yet, as she finds out, sometimes the truth is worse than not knowing. Now she can add anger to the list of emotions cycling through her head. In the midst of this she attends her first chosen funeral. The deceased is a woman of her own age and used to be a nurse, so her story will be that they lost touch after doing their nursing training together all those years ago. The widower seems a lovely man, devastated by his wife’s death and eager to hear stories about nursing college. Pru is welcomed back to the family home and meets the couple’s grown up children. She thinks there might be something there with this man, given a little time and the right encouragement. That’s if she had a reason to go back to the house of course? As she leaves her wrap behind as well as her number, in case he ever wants to talk some more.

Pru’s audacity really grabbed me. Yes, what she’s doing is crazy and there’s a good chance one of her escapades will go wrong. In that sense it’s a bit like watching a car crash, you can’t bear to look but you can’t look away either. Of course at first she’s looking for comfort, someone who understands the loss she has experienced maybe, and there’s an element of acting out on the anger she feels about her husband’s lies and betrayal. However, the sheer nerve it would take to walk into a stranger’s funeral and play another version of yourself for the day shows she has some sass and attitude. Whenever it goes wrong, and it does, she doesn’t stop taking those leaps of faith just to move forward. Yes, there are less messy and dangerous ways of grieving a lost relationship, but this is Pru’s way. It doesn’t matter where the next step takes her, as long as it’s away from those painful feelings and fear of loneliness. It’s in these early stages that a lot of the comedy lies too, just in the situations she places herself. There’s a kind of bravery in her actions, but a hint of madness too and I wasn’t sure which way Moggach would take her story. As it turns out, a much darker direction than I expected, but so very delicious too.

As Pru takes more risks and trusts the wrong people, her solutions take a darker turn. There were times when I wanted her to keep still for a moment and think, or even better, to feel the conflicting emotions she’s trying to stuff deep down inside. There’s a moment, where one of her beaus takes her on a helicopter ride down to an uninhabited island formed from sandbanks. As she steps onto this pristine sand, where no one else has been, there’s a brief spell of peace. Once the rotors stopped turning and she stops for a moment, I felt a sense of relief that everything was quiet. She’s in a space between places, somewhere she’s never been and that holds no memories. This moment feels like a metaphor for how Pru’s journey could have been, if she’d taken more time and space to think and explore how she really wanted the rest of her life to look. In the spiral of activity she’s missed things; if she’d struck up a friendship with that first widower, rather than a relationship, they might have been a comfort to each other, she brushes aside overtures of friendship from Pam across the road who’s always seemed a bit boring, but might have proved to be a great friend, and she might have come to terms with what happened. Now though, she’s in a spiral downwards.

It’s hard to categorise this novel, because although it feels like a light, easy read, it’s incredibly complex. I would struggle to place it in a genre, because it’s drama, tragedy, comedy, and thriller. Despite covering themes of infidelity, coercive control, death and grief it’s also warm and witty. The author does an excellent job of lampooning middle class morés, shown when Pru takes a rough diamond of a boyfriend to a party with friends. Moggach then pulls off an incredible reveal, worthy of any thriller and I really hadn’t seen coming. So much so that I had to go back and look for how I’d missed it. It was brilliantly well done. Then there’s Pru herself, a central character you can’t help but fall in love with. She’s far from perfect, in fact at times she’s conniving, manipulative and full of revenge, but she’s also warm, caring, funny and at her best she’s full of zest for life. Yet underneath it all, she’s lonely and very vulnerable. There are darker moments towards the end that made me worry for Pru, and they show how easy it is to be preyed upon by others when we’re this vulnerable. I loved being able to read about a woman of a certain age still having an exciting life, when often women over 50 are dismissed as uninteresting. Pru enjoys socialising, dressing up and having sex too. Despite her faults, I was hanging on till the last page hoping that Pru battled through – even if her methods were … unexpected. This wonderful book cements the author’s reputation with me, as a writer whose next book I would buy without hesitation.

Meet The Author

Deborah Moggach, OBE, is a British novelist and an award-winning screenwriter. She has written twenty novels, including Tulip Fever, These Foolish Things (which became the bestselling novel and film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), and The Carer. She lives in London.