The Batchelors by Muriel Spark

I always relish the moment when I know that I am going to enjoy a novel. Muriel Spark can supply piquant phrases wholesale. Two bachelors meet while shopping on a Saturday morning. They are Martin Bowles barrister of thirty five and Ronald Bridges curator of a small museum of handwriting in the City of London. He has become an expert handwriting witness and at age thirty-seven would appear to be settling into bachelorhood in a serious way. The novel was published in 1960 when a man that age unmarried would be regarded as a dodgy property by any woman and probably needing extensive renovation. They pull into a cafe for an espresso and continue to discuss prices and availability.

‘At a price,’ said Ronald. ‘At a price,’ Martin said. ‘What bacon do you get?’ ‘I make do with streaky. I grudge breakfasts,’ said Ronald. ‘Same here.’ Your hand’s never out of your pocket,’ Ronald said before Martin could say it. A small narrow-built man came in the door and joined the girl, smiling at her with a sweet, spiritual expression.

This man is Patrick Seton who is recognised by Martin as a man whose hand is continuously in the pockets of others. (I know you planted that association Muriel) He will be the prosecuting council in a case coming up -

‘What for?’ ‘Fraudulent conversion and possibly other charges. Somebody in my chambers defended Seton ages ago. Not that it did either any good. Let’s go.’

In those opening pages we meet the moral poles of this novel, Bridges and Seton. The former is a decent chap who suffers from grand mal epilepsy and Catholicism as the mileu that he moves in would judge as double affliction.

Ronald was used to hearing his hostesses over the years come out with this statement, and had devised various ways of coping with it, according to his mood and to his idea of the hostess’s intentions. If the intelligence seemed to be high and Ronald was in a suitable mood, he replied ‘I’m anti-Protestant’ —which he was not; but it sometimes served to shock them into a sense of their indiscretion. On one occasion where the woman was a real bitch, he had walked out. Sometimes he said ‘Oh, are you? How peculiar.’ Sometimes he allowed that the woman was merely trying to start up a religious argument, and he would then attempt to explain where he stood with his religion. Or again, he might say, ‘Then you’ve received Catholic instruction?’ and, on hearing that this was not so, would comment, ‘Then how can you be anti something you don’t know about? ‘Which annoyed them; so that Ronald felt uncharitable.

Seton is a nasty conman and a trance medium who occasionally picks up some real information from the beyond at seances run by a group called The Wider Infinity within which an esoteric splinter group functions as The Interior Spiral. Seton has robbed a widow of £2000 and is trying to pass it off as a gift by forging a letter urging the promotion of the great work. Bridges will be examining this letter and acting for the prosecution during the forthcoming trial. Its a plot rich novel with many amusing scenes and situations. Seton as a developing psychopath comes to contemplate murder as the release into the great beyond. That is convincingly Crippenesque. Fun too:

‘He pees in the sink,’ said Walter, ‘not that I hold that against him.’ ‘He doesn’t!’ said Chloe.(barmaid) ‘True,’ said Walter. ‘It’s nothing. We bachelors all pee in sinks and wash-basins.’ ‘I don’t,’ said Matthew. ‘You’re young yet,’ Walter said. ‘Filthy beasts, the lot of you,’ Chloe said, laughing towards one face and another as she leant over the bar.

A good novel, living out its life in the space of a week with a fine sense of moral balance and evil.