Mr Fox – Barbara Comyns (1987)

I have come to love Barbara Comyns over the past few years, my adoration perhaps sealed with The Juniper Tree last year, which made my books of the year list. Though I have loved everything I have read by her to date.

Mr Fox was only published in 1987, something like thirty years after it was written (according to the fly leaf in my battered first edition). Comyns style belies the darkness beneath her stories, she is infectiously chatty, and rather naïve, throwing off odd quirky asides with airy frankness. Mr Fox is not quite as dark as Sisters by a River or The Vet’s Daughter, though one can never expect a happy ever after. In this novel – like in Our Spoons Came from Woolworths – Comyns portrays an unhappy relationship, motherhood, poverty and uncertainty. I’m a little surprised that this novel hasn’t been re-issued more recently along with some of the other Comyns novels, because for me, this is every bit as good as some of her earlier books.

Set just before and during World War Two and depicting an ambiguous relationship between Caroline and Mr Fox – this novel was a perfect fit for the Librarything Virago group’s ‘reading the 1940s’ event, and February’s theme of relationships.

As the novel opens it isn’t long before the start of the war, Caroline Seymour and her little daughter Jenny have recently moved into a flat with Mr Fox. Caroline is aware that the other residents don’t like her because she isn’t married to Mr Fox. We learn that Caroline and Jenny were abandoned by Oliver, Jenny’s father. Caroline’s attempt to earn money letting rooms out in the house her mother left her the lease to; wasn’t successful – all her tenants gave notice. Mr Fox had owned a garage nearby and became a friend and frequent source of worldly advice. Mr Fox is what was once known as a ‘spiv’ – when Caroline first knew him, he would often choose to spend a short spell in prison rather than pay his rates. Caroline isn’t a bad mother – but she does recklessly leave her little three-year-old alone at night – Caroline sits on the bus idly worrying a fire may break out and wondering if she should go back. Caroline is unworldly and sometimes childlike, like other Comyns heroines she is something of an innocent.  

When Mr Fox suggests to Caroline that she and Jenny move in with him – she is a little taken aback by his certainty that she will say yes. However, it all starts to make sense – with the bailiffs terrifying the life out of her, Caroline sees no other option at least in the short term. So, Caroline moves in with a man of often explosive temper – and her neighbours will have nothing to do with her. There is an ambiguity to their relationship – while Caroline feels she has to be up early to make Mr Fox’s breakfast, she appears to sleep only with her daughter.

“Mr Fox didn’t get drunk or keep string under his bed, but he was very moody and sometimes bad-tempered, usually when he was short of money. Then he used to grumble about my cooking and Jenny chattering and about how much we cost him to keep. When he was like this I felt dreadfully sad and homesick and longed to escape from him, but we had nowhere to go.”

As War comes to Europe – Mr Fox is soon heavily involved in the black market. The kitchen cupboards are suspiciously full – and no one in this peculiar little household goes hungry. Mr Fox gets angry more and more often, and Caroline is drawn in to buying and selling pianos through newspaper advertisements, she does quite well. Only, Caroline isn’t very happy with Mr Fox anymore – and so decides to advertise for a job as a live-in cook/housekeeper so she and Jenny can move out.

Mr Fox is a brilliant evocation of World War Two – with air raids, rationing, evacuation and the black market. Comyns view of this new world is so familiar and yet there is always something in her descriptions that takes her reader by surprise.

“You could see them, all the children being herded through the streets with their little bundles and gas-masks bumping on their backs. It made me feel sad. The newspapers were full of war, and an awful lion was always appearing on the Daily Mirror.”

She is employed by one woman she never meets, but whose neighbour; a mother of thirteen, is terribly self-serving – inducing Caroline to hand over various items she swears were promised to her. When that job ends abruptly, she is employed by a terrifying vegetarian – with a spoiled little brat of a daughter who hides her toys from Jenny. Here she is not allowed to drink tea and must endure a healthy herbal drink in the freezing little bedroom she shares with Jenny.

“We had watercress and grated carrot and bread and peanut butter for ‘tea’ and the table had an American cloth instead of a tablecloth. I expect it was more hygienic. It was so cold I felt like crying.”

Mr Fox is still not far away, though I kept hoping something lovely would happen to Caroline, but I suppose that was unrealistic. Dog lovers beware, a rather dear little dog does not survive to the end of the book. I won’t say any more about how things end for Caroline Jenny and Mr Fox, as some of you may not have read this one yourselves yet. This was a real unexpected treat, I perhaps hadn’t expected it to be as good as the others I had read – and I was captivated from the first sentence.