‘Nothing was over. Nothing is ever over.’ Thus muses Humphrey Clark as he travels towards the small windswept northern port of Finsterness, scene of formative childhood holidays. Humphrey, a reclusive marine biologist, is on his way to collect an honorary degree. Much more significantly, at Finsterness he will re-encounter Ailsa Kelman, his childhood companion and later — secretly, briefly — his wife.
The idea that ‘nothing is ever over’ provides the momentum for this, Margaret Drabble’s 17th novel. As young adults, Humphrey and Ailsa believed that they had found a perfect, time-cheating happiness together. This failed; now, in their sixties, they try to protect themselves from emotional pain, Humphrey by reducing his life to the four walls of his study, Ailsa, a flamboyant feminist polemicist, through her exhibitionist love-affair with the media. Ailsa once famously displayed an aborted foetus — her own? Humphrey’s? — on a chain round her neck; notoriety gives her a stage presence that masks her insecurity.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in