A Son of the Rock

Harper Perennial, 2006, 238 p (plus 7 p “About the Author” and 4 p “About the Book.”) First published in 1987.

It wasn’t until I read the “About the Author” section at the end of the book that I realised this was a sequel of sorts to Mantel’s previous novel Every Day is Mother’s Day. Not that it matters as this was written in a way that doesn’t require knowledge of the earlier book.

It begins with a one page vignette focusing on the existence of Muriel Axon, before switching to the humdrum marriage of Colin and Sylvia Sidney. Sylvia is a depressed housewife immersing herself in good works and with a yen for the local vicar. On marriage Sylvia is of the opinion that “After twenty years you can’t expect passion. It’s enough if you’re barely civil.”

Years earlier Colin had had an affair with a young social worker called Isabel Field which had more or less ended by the time he was caught up in a bizarre situation where he saw her trapped in an upstairs room and ran to her rescue. One of the occupants was found dead and the other her daughter was more than a little strange.

It turns out that that daughter was Muriel Axon, who has spent the years in between in a mental institution and is now prone to using disguises. The Sydneys moved into the old Axon house and Muriel, in the guise of Lizzie Blank, is now their cleaner.

Further complications arise when Suzanne Sydney, the eldest daughter, returns from University pregnant with no wish to abort the baby and the belief that the father wants a divorce and to marry her.

I know it is the author’s job to represent the world, and that she must do so with a small cast of characters. But it strains credulity more than a little that this father, Jim Ryan, is the husband of Isabel Field and that her father is the dirty old man in the care home where Muriel, in another disguise, is a cleaner, but has an even closer connection with Muriel’s backstory.

The cover blurb describes this as “Savage and funny black humour at its best.” There is certainly darkness at the centre of it all, Muriel’s young life was constrained, Gothic even, and the ending appears bleak; but the humour is hard to find, except perhaps in the quotidian banalities of the Sidneys’ marriage or the doings of the younger Sydneys.

Yet Mantel knows how to weave a story and creates memorable characters. Vacant Possession is no Wolf Hall (nor its sequels) but is an intriguing read just the same.

Pedant’s corner:- “it’s worse that I thought” (worse than,) “she did use to give her some funny looks” (did used to,) whinging (I prefer whingeing,) bye-and-bye (by and by,) “haled him out of bed” (hauled him,) shrunk (shrank,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech.