Yes, I know this is All Virago All August month, but I started reading this before I knew that, and anyway I never promised that was all I'd read. So -- are there any admirers of Rumer Godden out there? It is interesting to me that I never seem to read reviews of her many wonderful novels in the blogosphere, even though she was an exact contemporary (1907-1998) of many of the novelists we all rave about so much. Even if you haven't read her, you may have seen one of the films that were made from her books -- The Greengage Summer (1958, filmed 1961), The River (1946, filmed in 1951 by the great French director Jean Renoir), and the amazing Black Narcissus (1939, and filmed in 1947 by the extraordinarily talented duo Powell and Pressburger).
It turns out that this one, published in 1956, was also filmed, as Innocent Sinners (1958), though I've never seen it or even heard of it. Nor had I ever heard of the novel till I found it a few days ago on my daughter's bookshelf. But oh how I loved it.
This, really, is a story about love, though not a love story in the accepted sense. It's set in post-war London, and in one of those parts of the city (which still exist, though there are fewer of them) where squares of wealthy houses sit side by side with streets where the houses are shabby and the people a great deal poorer. In Mortimer Square live the two middle-aged, unmarried Chesney sisters -- tough-minded, busy, successful Angela and gentle, nervous, frail Olivia. Living in nearby Catford Street are Lovejoy Mason, aged eleven, and her friend Tip Malone, who is thirteen. Though they have become unlikely friends, the two childrens' family lives could not be more different. Tip comes from a large, noisy Irish Catholic family, while Lovejoy is the daughter of a feckless, selfish, and usually absent mother whose interest in her little daughter has decreased sharply since she ceased to be "sweet" enough to be taken on stage as part of her mother's dancing act.
Lovejoy is one of those children whose lives have been to a large extent subsumed in caring for their parents, though with Mrs Mason so often away she has had to learn to fend for herself. As a result she has developed a tough, resiliant exterior though she's pretty angry and obviously supressing a lot of pain. Having always adored her mother, she has come to recognise that her mother cares little for her and has, in fact, more or less abandoned her in their rented room. But Lovejoy suddenly makes a discovery which will transform her life -- she picks up a packet of flower seeds and gradually, after some false starts, and helped by Tip, she starts to make a garden in a disused yard behind the Catholic church. Needless to say nothing runs smoothly and when the children are discovered taking earth from the square to grow a rose bush, serious trouble descends and things look very black for poor Lovejoy.
I was talking recently about good writing, and that was partly inspired by my reading of this novel. There is so much to praise here. For one thing the characterisation is wonderfully perceptive and believable -- Godden has really seen into the hearts of these two children, both in their different ways so disadvantaged but both so bright and so sensitive, and all the other characters are also really well observed -- I particularly liked Vincent, husband of Lovejoy's landlady, who struggles to run a high-class restaurant in shabby, poverty-stricken Catford Street, and takes Lovejoy for walks in Mayfair and Chelsea to admire the quality of life he aspires to. As for Angela, prejudiced, blinkered, controlling, unable to appreciate the fine qualities of her timid, warm-hearted sister, she is a rather terrifying but totally convincing creation. The plot moves along at just the right pace, with just the right amount of uncertainty and tension and you are never sure if there is going to be a happy ending. As for the themes -- well, there's class prejudice (Angela vs the poor of Catford Street), religious prejudice (Angela and her housekeeper vs. the Roman Catholics), but above all, as I said earlier, there's love.
Olivia, who has never loved or been loved, finds comfort and even a kind of redemption in the feeling she develops towards the children and this brings about the novel's immensely satisfying denouement. But it's the love that develops between Lovejoy and Tip that is so beautifully handled here. The adults are generally completely bemused by it, though towards the end Tip's mother comes rather unwillingly to see it for what it is. There are some wonderful moments, as when Lovejoy is being "difficult", and Tip finds himself distracted by
noticing how she had a ridge of very fine short hairs on the back of her neck, soft as down, mouse-coloured but tipped with gold; they looked as if they were protecting the tender knobs of her spine; gently Tip put out his finger and felt those little bones. It was no good; even when Lovejoy was difficult and ungrateful he found it impossible to be angry; instead he began to coax her.
As for Lovejoy, she is almost horrified to discover that Tip is the only person in the world in front of whom she can cry, and despite her sharpness towards him she misses him desperately when he is not around. So, though I said this wasn't a love story in the conventional sense, it really is, or it's what a love story really should be -- gentle, understated, innocent.
As for the quality of the writing -- well, it's not showy, poetic or obtrusive, but for me the words just leapt off the page and as you can see I enjoyed every minute of it.
