Krishna
This is my first book by Ruth Rendell. I know she is quite an accomplished author and is admired for her skill in storytelling. She has written over fifty well received books. So, if there are any fans out there reading this review, I apologize in advance for the comments about this book that I did not enjoy.
Let us look at the story first.
Marc and Harriet are standing for a group portrait (manual, by an artist – hand painted). The painter is Simon Alpheton. Harriet is red haired.
Jimmy Brex and Eileen Tawson go on a picnic to Broadstairs. In a pokey restaurant, Eileen goes to the bathroom and, coming out, finds a diamond ring, apparently left by an earlier user of the bathroom, a woman she had seen leaving the room as she entered. Eileen decides to keep it, hide it in her purse and when she returns and they have left the place, shows it to Jimmy. He, realizing that it would make a free but perfect engagement ring, proposes to her. He has no intention of marrying her and she is not in love with him. So they stay engaged for years, and stay celibate but when Jimmy’s mother dies, he marries her (someone is needed to look after the house) and she moves in with him and finds Keith, an older brother of Jimmy, in the house too.
At the age of forty, she finds herself pregnant and nonchalantly chain smokes. Being forty and pregnant in those days itself is high risk, and people say that the child, when born, would ‘have something wrong with it’. (They mean Down’s Syndrome) but the child is born outwardly healthy. He is named Teddy and ignored for the most part – except cleaning and feeding him. So he grows up without knowing love, emotional attachment or care.
Meanwhile, a misdemeanor saved Fraincine’s life. She was sent to her room as punishment early in the afternoon. She sees a visitor (brown hair only visible) ringing her doorbell but when she hears arguments and gunshots downstairs, she instinctively hides because she knows that the killer would check the rest of the house to see if anyone else was there.
She is traumatized and Richard Hill, who came home later blames himself with guilt. It appears that the killer found his name Dr Hill and address from the phone book when he was in search of another (medical) Dr Hill who was involved with shady dealings and had kept a lot of money in his house. Why guilt? Because he had insisted on the Dr title in the phone book out of vanity – he was a doctor of philosophy from Oxford.
In the meanwhile Julia sees Francine as a psychotherapist but she and Richard grow close together. When Richard wants to marry Julia, Francine is unhappy but knows enough to nod because she knows adults will do whatever they want.
A grandmother called Agnes keeps giving Teddy pocket money of a pound a month and stops it when he goes away to college. They both are emotionless people who do not care about anyone else. This entire story seems to be populated with unfeeling, uncaring, uncared for people galore.
And the whole story is a slow burn piece, testing your patience. The book just does not move and you lose patience many times in plowing through small developments even after reading dozens of pages. Nobody will accuse Ruth Rendell, based on this book at least, of a writer who develops her plot in an adequate pace to hold your interest, let alone the scorching pace set by most popular authors.
When his dad dies – a matter in which Teddy took no interest – Teddy is told by Keith that he, Teddy, is not the real son of the father and so all property now belongs legally to Keith. He lets Teddy stay in the house until he finishes his studies and then Teddy should move out. This is a big blow to Teddy who was counting on selling the house and moving.
The story is so slow, rising on a snail’s shell.
And then the story moves to a foolish girl Harriet Oxenholme, who was a groupie and went behind Marc Syre, a mediocre singer. After living with him for a while – while he was inviting other groupies for casual sex – she is thrown out with all her possessions with nowhere to go and no money. Her parents of course will not take her back. She was expelled from school and disobeyed them at every turn before choosing a vagabond groupie lifestyle much to their horror.
Back to Teddy. When his father dies, he does not mourn and finds out that Keith, his uncle owns the house that he thought was his by inheritance rights. When Keith tries to kick him out, he waits and kills Keith when he is very drunk. Even that is told agonizingly slowly, in my opinion.
Harriet accidentally gets a thousand pounds from Marc who threw her suitcase down when he threw her out. She spends it all, but then before she is destitute again, meets an old man Franklin Merton and, finding he is rich enough, marries him. He puts her in a mansion and she spends his money happily. She is not in love with him in the first place but after a few years of marriage, she is irritated with him. Meanwhile she has a series of affairs with young things – she is past fifty now – who are generally servicemen. She serially seduces them without a qualm.
Finally, Teddy meets Francisca in a private art gallery viewing where his mirror has won a prize and is completely infatuated. He manages to give her his phone number without Julia knowing about it.
When Frencisca senses the huge resentment of Julia about Teddy, she decides to phone him. In the meanwhile, Herriet tries to seduce Teddy (a series of workmen, right) but he is totally oblivious – which is worse than being rude.
He finally decides to take the car to Herriet’s house and bury Keith’s body but the plan goes horribly wrong when he is surprised by Herriet who had returned home early unexpectedly and he in his panic throws a chair at her and she falls down the cellar steps, dead.
Teddy decides to leave both bodies there and seal up the place for good. He also figures out the pin for Herriet’s card and withdraws money at will. He repeatedly takes Francine to the house but she becomes uncomfortable – he first claims that his client has given him the full use of the house in her absence; then he is unable to perform where it counts; then he objects to her behaving in any way contrary to his mental ideal (- for instance, he does not like her in jeans and T shirts)
Meanwhile Julia goes more and more crazy, realizing that Francesca is slipping away from her grip. Even Richard, Francine’s father, finally seems to have a suspicion that Julia is ‘not all there’.
When Julia imprisons Francine in the room, she calls Teddy for help and he murders Julia in her sleep on the way to Francine. He does not tell her of that but takes her away. There Francine comes face to face with Teddy’s dark nature and is appalled.
He runs out of money soon and does not know what to do. The story drops into the hopelessness of the characters. Meanwhile, Francine’s father Richard gets worried about Francine’s call to him abroad and the lack of response from Julia. He decides to come back and investigate. (Not knowing the fact that Julia is murdered and Francine now lives with Teddy).
Francine finally goes home to wait for her father, who she knew was coming there the next day but finding Julia dead turned her mute – unable to speak – for the second time in her life.
The last thirty pages are simply fantastic and told me why Ruth is so admired. The resolution of the various knots that has been woven so carefully is done well, and the final state of Teddy, Francine, and even Richard’s resolution are absolutely brilliant.
The other unexpected thing about this book is how major characters meet their ends. It is sudden, but interesting. Having not read any other book of Ruth, I do not know if this is characteristic of her stories but here it really spikes your interest when it occurs.
If you are already a fan of Ruth Rendell or if you don’t mind a (very) slow burn mystery, you are definitely in for a treat. I am not a slow burn mystery fan and so my score reflects my preferences mainly.
I would say it deserves a 5, the score lifted mainly due to the excellent conclusion of the story.
== Krishna