Krishna
This is a very unusual story and, having reviewed the same author’s book, The Colour, earlier, we realize that Rose Tremain has a penchant for taking unusual stories and making them her own. That story was set in New Zealand and this story takes place largely in France.
Melodie is 10, and is in a class. She has moved ‘here’ from Paris, which was her home. She likes the teacher Mademoiselle Viala. She is very volatile and runs away to be on her own sometimes.
Meanwhile, Anthony Verey, an aging arts dealer is going through more difficult times. He was once at the top of the game but knows that he is nowadays an object of ridicule and pity ‘whose time has come and gone’.
Aurun, a girl is the daughter of Bernadette. Her father has died and she marries an evil man called Serge. Serge ill treats Aurun who bears everything stoically. Serge and Bernadette give birth to a son called Aramon.
When Bernadette dies, Aurun is under control of the two evil folks Aramon and Serge. Serge also dies a few years later, and the house inherited by Bernadette is partitioned into a mansion (Aramon has removed the extensions which contained the stables and kept the central portion as an independent house, though he preferred to live in squalor and did not take care of the house. He spent his days drinking away the inheritance.
Aurun was given a shack on the outskirts and lived there independently.
He turns to Victoria, his sister (whom he calls ‘V’). Victoria lives in France with her partner Kit. Vincent decides to fold up his failing business and go live near her.
Vincent’s friend, the rich man, comes in the story to no purpose. He is married to an attractive but now aging wife and seems to leak pee whenever he laughs. They both get drunk on the expensive wine of the house. All this seems to be of no purpose at all.
He stays with V, and finds Kitty irritating. So does she about Anthony.
Meanwhile Aurun finds that her brother Aramon, who owns the plot next to hers, plans to sell his place to the developers, take the money and retire. She hates the idea and tries to sabotage the sale by pointing out that cracks on the buildings have been papered over and not fixed but no one is listening. But Aramon has a problem. Aurun’s ‘cottage’ is an eyesore and when he learns that Aurun has no plans of selling, he is furious. He says that she has built her shack crossing into his legal territory and arranges for a surveyor to come and confirm that, so that he can forcibly order Aurun to demolish her house and move across the border. Aurun is devastated and even dreams of killing Aramon before he can sell, so that she inherits the entire property and keeps it pristine, the surrounding forest and all, instead of having it ‘developed’ into a concrete monstrosity.
Kitty sulks when Anthony reveals his plans to stay in France, near them, forever. Her irritation seems to delight him.
Meanwhile, he is terrified to go look at any of the houses even though he told V that he intends to settle down in France, near her. A bit confusing, this one is, but Rose Tremain’s novels are inherently slow moving. They are books to savor, not read fast.
The loose strands come together finally. We learn that Aurun was sexually abused by both Serge and Aramon until Serge died. Shocking. After Serge died, he told Aramon to desist as ‘he is going to hell but Aramon still has time to stop’.
The person who is planning to buy the Mas Luas (the main stone house of Aramon) is none other than Anthony Verey. He balks at the monstrosity next to the house (Aurun’s house of course) and Aramon, who is desperate to sell, is furious. His dreams of cashing in and retiring are about to crash down.
Meanwhile, Aramon’s health keeps deteriorating, and he also starts having fugue states, where he blanks out. There is a vague suggestion that Anthony may have come back to Mas Lunas and Aramon cannot remember if that is true or, if so, what happened to him.
With Victoria running off to search for Anthony in the hills to which he had departed, Kitty, who hates him, realizes that she probably needs to help if she has to keep her relationship with Victoria from being shattered. So she decides to visit Mas Lunas to see what she can learn from there. She finds a sandwich wrapper but Veronica does not give it any credence. Unable to see Victoria pushing her away always, Kit simply leaves and goes wandering over the world to settle down somewhere and Veronica finds that she doesn’t mind that at all. It was Kitty who wished Anthony ill and now he is missing. Kitty does not understand the bond between V and Anthony.
Aramon finds a car in his stable hidden under hay, with no memory of how it got there. He is terrified, especially with his frequent fugues and his failing health and pitifully begs Aurun to help him. She does not, and just watches him crumble.
We witness a shocking turn of events. Aramon finds two used cartridges in his gun with no memory of how he came by them. He discovers a car presumably Anthony’s in his garage, hidden in a pile of hay. He convinces himself that in one of his fugues, he must have killed Anthony, absurd though it is.
Later, when the police come to interview Audrun, she lets slip that Aramon had gone off with the Englishman and she did not see them return. The police arrest Aramon and throw him in jail.
Next in a huge surprise, Melodie runs away from a picnic and when the teacher zzz goes to find her, she finds a leg sticking out of a pool instead, which turns out to be Anthony Verey. He has been shot.
We realize in another astonishing twist that Anthony Verey came to Mas Lunas to take another look at it, and met Audrun. She, afraid that she will lose her house and Mas Lunas, has committed the murder and framed Aramon, knowing he is dying and also feels guilty anyway.
But fate has other plans; after Anthony’s funeral – a touching moment that – a fire engulfs and guts Mas Lunel. Audrun is trapped when she went their foolishly trying to retrieve her mother’s cabinet but recovers in the hospital.
The book kind of ends abruptly. But that is OK. It is representative of life, which is messy sometimes, and does not always end in justice for all.
The narration is good, and true to her style as revealed in The Colour, Rose Tremain has a gift for making the characters come alive and for the situations to be realistic and credible, keeping the story moving at an interesting pace indeed.
Another good story from Rose. Deserves a 7/10
== Krishna