A Son of the Rock

faber and faber Profile, 2012, 201 p. Borrowed from a threatened library.*

The eponymous main character of The Greening of Mrs Donaldson is a widow who has a job at the local teaching hospital as a fake patient, presenting with symptoms of various ailments to aid the students in diagnosis. The medical tutor, Dr Ballantyne, is a laconic presence but incidental to the tale which involves the embroilment of Mrs Donaldson with a young couple she took in as lodgers to boost her income further. When they fall behind with the rent they come up with an unusual method of recompensing her. This story was reminiscent of one of Bennett’s Talking Heads TV monologues, the one starring Patricia Routledge, though Mrs Donaldson is a much less innocent character.

In The Shielding of Mrs Forbes everyone in the family attempts to prevent Mrs Forbes knowing of her son’s homosexuality. Mrs Forbes herself is very opinionated, “The Jews had holidays that turned up out of the blue and the Catholics had children in much the same way,” and prudish. (She tells her husband, “You’re too old to say ‘tits’,” to which he rather reasonably replies, “What age is that? When is the cut-off point?” only to be then told he lacked the brio for it at any age.) Not to mention snobbish. Her son Graham, she says, “does not work in a bank. He is in banking.” Mr Forbes dreads the thought of Graham leaving home to get married, but he, and Graham’s eventual wife have their own compensations in life. A story where everyone – even Graham’s blackmailer – has secrets, except perhaps for Mrs Forbes.

Apart from Bennet having a tendency to tell rather than show these two unseemly tales are delightfully written. I even laughed out loud a few times – which I’m not in the habit of doing when reading.

Pedant’s corner:- a missing question mark.