Loving and Giving – Molly Keane (1988)

When Molly Keane wrote her final novel; Loving and Giving, she was well into her eighties. It had been over sixty years since her first novel was published under her pseudonym of M J Farrell.

In her introduction to this modern vmc edition (sorry virago, but I don’t like the cover at all) Michelle Roberts says Loving and Giving is her best novel. Other readers may argue that, Good Behaviour (another later novel) could also be in the running for that accolade. As Roberts says, the novel shows Keane’s maturity, describing it as ‘less superficial, less obviously funny than most of her previous fiction.’

Loving and Giving is a superb novel, Keane’s writing is as good as ever, she recreates a recognisable time and place without sentimentality. I always feel her characters could have been – and perhaps were, taken from life.

The novel opens in 1914, Nicandra is eight years old, life is good at the family’s grand Irish home; Deer Forest. Maman is beautiful, Dada a small, silent man is only really happy around his stables, horses and dogs. Aunt Tossie – Maman’s widowed sister is big bosomed and kind, and looks, she knows, quite wonderful in her weeds. This is a place where everyone has his or her place, above stairs the family live comfortably, below stairs or in the stables, the maids, butler, grooms and steward have a different kind of life. Nicandra runs between the stables, and the house with a freedom few modern children ever experience.

“Then, as light follows darkness, she saw Maman coming down the drive. She wore her lilac coat and skirt, braided with deeper lilac; the skirt, widened at the hem and floated out over thin boots, the tidy laces criss-crossing on shadowy ankles – there was something playful in Maman’s way of walking, something jaunty that swayed her hips, and made her straw hat tilt up on her frizzled curls…From the shrubbery side of the avenue fresh wet heads of lilac bowed over her, heavy in their prime flowering. She lifted her arm to catch at a branch and, as she held it down, rainwater fell on her face – her eyes were shut; it was as if she was drinking the scent of lilac.”

Nicandra simply worships her mother, enjoying the intoxicating scent of her hand cream, taking pleasure in small everyday acts she knows will please her mother. Every morning Nicandra runs into her mother’s bedroom when the morning tea is delivered. Life seems very nearly perfect, until Maman does something too terrible to be discussed, and thereafter, disappears from Nicandra’s life.

When love is suddenly ripped away, it leaves a hollowness so deep, perhaps it can never be filled. Nicandra takes the confusion and distress of her mother’s disappearance, out on Silly Billy – the son of the lodge keeper – who has some kind of unspecified learning difficulties. It is the one act of spite of her young life – a moment she forgets all about. As she grows up into a lovely young woman she wraps those around her in love and kindness.

As a young woman starting out in society, Nicandra is looking around for what love could possibly be, what it might mean for her. The heady excitement of a hunt ball, her best friend; beautiful heiress Lal helping her dress, the two young ladies are accompanied by Nicandra’s faithful old friend Robert and his friend Andrew. Here finally, is love.

“Before she undressed, Nicandra pulled back the window curtains, cold as glass in her hands, and stood between them to look out at the changed world. Even the moon was not the same. It hung lower in the sky, nearer, more golden, since now she loved and was loved.”

Nicandra’s heart is ripe for hurt and betrayal, Andrew is happiest when at the races, he sometimes seems to have more in common with their mutual friend Lal.

Meanwhile at Deer Forest, not too far from where Nicandra lives with her husband, Dada and Aunt Tossie have fallen into a comfortable, companionship. The two old friends rub along pretty well, understanding one another’s little ways. Around the time of the Second World War, Deer Forest is falling into disrepair there isn’t the money there once was, and the family home may need to be sold. In preparation, Aunt Tossie moves into a caravan in the grounds with her whisky hidden in the ‘po’ cupboard and her stuffed parrot, attended to faithfully and a little jealously by Silly Billy – now called William.

I can’t say too much more about this novel and certainly not about the ending, but suffice to say, there is the most spectacular and unexpected conclusion to this novel. My jaw dropped.