They had it all in Bidford-on-Avon in 1911, first flooding and later the heat wave that lasted from July to September all over the U.K.
The manor house on the banks of the Avon at Bidford that Barbara Comyns was living in at the time was of course flooded up the stairs. She begins the novel:
THE DUCKS swam through the drawing-room windows. The weight of the water had forced the windows open; so the ducks swam in. Round the room they sailed quacking their approval; then they sailed out again to explore the wonderful new world that had come in the night. Old Ives stood on the verandah steps beating his red bucket with a stick while he called to them, but today they ignored him and floated away white and shining towards the tennis court. Swans were there, their long necks excavating under the dark, muddy water. All around there was a wheezy creaking noise as the water soaked into unaccustomed places, and in the distance a roar and above it the shouts of men trying to rescue animals from the low-lying fields. A passing pig squealing, its short legs madly beating the water and tearing at its throat, which was red and bleeding, and a large flat-bottomed boat followed with men inside. The boat whirled round and round in the fierce current; but eventually the pig was saved, and squealed even louder.
Deny that climate if you like.
Barbara Comyns makes the grotesque normal and the bizarre mundane. All the adults are a whisker short of sectioning, Grandmother especially who owns three farms and the souls of the family and servants whom she terrorizes like a demented Tsarina. She is in mortality competition with the duck caller Old Ives whose foible is making wreaths for the departed of the parish using the symbolism of flowers. For Nana:
OLD IVES sat in the potting shed weaving a wreath of roses and thyme for Mrs. Hatt’s grave—full bloom roses because she was a full blown woman, although she had never had a child. Ives liked to choose suitable flowers for his wreathes. He often planned the one he would make for Grandmother Willoweed:—thistles and hogswart and grey-green holly—sometimes he would grant her one yellow dandelion. Ebin was to have one of bindweed and tobacco plants. Quite often people would die when the flowers already chosen for them were not in season. Then he made a temporary wreath for them, and months later they received the real one.
Will she die before Old Ives? It would be a happy release for everyone. Comyns sketches the family and the villagers setting the scene for the bizarre events that the novel culminates in. It is Grandmother’s rule never to walk on ground that she does not own. This makes attending a funeral impossible until she hits on a solution:
Grandmother Willoweed paced to and fro with her determined tread. Impatiently she kicked a tortoise that happened to impede her. She gnawed her horny thumb nail as she concentrated on the problem of attending the funeral without passing over ground that did not belong to her. Then her glance fell on the river shining between the fir trees, and suddenly the problem was solved. She would travel to the Church by boat. It would mean that the weir by the bridge would have to be opened for the occasion; but that was nothing. She strode towards the potting shed to give Ives his funeral orders. The old punt could be draped in black, and Ebin and Ives would attend her. She could see herself sailing in state under the bridge, the great black plumes on her hat gently swaying.
To say that it was a good novel seems fatuous, odd genius defies appraisal. Her books are maps of dreamtime irrupting into the waking state, too simple and wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment