The Unspeakable Skipton – Pamela Hansford Johnson (1959)

Pamela Hansford Johnson I think is probably still a much neglected writer. That is a real shame however, as she was a very good writer indeed, and a very prolific one. Hodder and Stoughton have re-issued some of her titles (including this one) though I have had a lovely first edition of it waiting on my tbr for some time. Very pleased that I finally pulled it from the shelf.

The Unspeakable Skipton is the first book in a trilogy which is completed by the books Night and Silence Who is Here? And Cork Street, Next to the Hatters – Pamela Hansford Johnson was good at titles. Since finishing this book, I have tracked down old copies of those, and snapped them up on ebay – just waiting for them to arrive now.

This is a wryly satirical novel which I thought was very enjoyable, though not an enormous amount happens. Daniel Skipton, the unspeakable one of the title is an English ex pat living in Bruges in some poverty. He is a writer, utterly convinced of his own genius and fairly disparaging of pretty much everyone else around him. His room is sparsely and poorly furnished, he is frequently hungry and there are many days when he takes steps to avoid meeting his landlady in the hallway. He spends a lot of time writing rude letters to Willy; his publisher regarding his manuscripts which are clearly unpublishable, or to his elderly aunt “Flabby Anne”, who he is convinced keeps peacocks, is rolling in money and conspiring to keep it from him. He is forever looking for ways to raise some money, totting up what he has spent and how much is left and despairing at the figures before him. Skipton is a well-drawn character, not especially likeable, though no one in this novel is. The one thing he does seem to appreciate is Bruges – a place where he has lived for some time, and knows well.

“A miraculous evening. The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire. He held his breath: an angel could appear in full dress with insignia, he would not be surprised. It was a wretched thing, on an evening like this, he had to turn away from such majestic sweetness to write to such a swine as Willy”

In the evening Daniel ventures forth watching out for likely looking tourists who he can con out of some much needed money. Offering various services to mainly English tourists, the sourcing and procuring of works of art (some of which may or may not be what they are hoped to be) he can strike a mean little deal with the Flemish seller who has clearly had dealings with Daniel Skipton before.

Towards the beginning of this novel, Skipton comes across a peculiar little party of English tourists in a café terrace opposite the Cloth Hall. Dorothy Merlin, a verse-dramatist, her bookseller husband Cosmo Hines, and their friends Duncan Moss and Matthew Pryar.

“Daniel was not one to peer round and about him. He sat proudly aloof, his profile raised, his mouth sternly set. He could see who was behind him in the pocket mirror concealed in his cupped hands.

Just behind him was a party of four people, English, one woman and three men. The woman was short and meagre, perhaps at the beginning of her forties. She was dark-skinned, and the hair wrenched back from her box-like forehead into a bun had a surface fuzz which the violence used upon it had been unable to repress. Her eyes were prominent, her nose was small and hooked. She looked like some distraught bird chained by one claw to a perch.”

He woos them very cleverly by promising access to a strange little spectacle that he pretends to be rather a little shocked by, and so piques their interest beautifully. In this way, he brings himself into their orbit and earns himself a fee. Skipton is quick to judge Dorothy and her companions, however, they turn out to be people to be reckoned with. Though, no matter the difficulties, no matter how much running around and conspiring he has to do, Skipton is never less than completley unshakable in his belief in himself.

Through this funny little band of friends, Skipton meets Querini, an Italian singer and apparently a count, and the mysterious, grand socialite Mrs Jones. Even these two in the end prove too much for Skipton, and the reader is unsurprised that not everything works out as he had planned.

There is a lot of dark humour in Hansford Johnson’s portrayal of Skipton, though in the end there is something rather tragic about him. The huge disconnect between how the world sees Skipton and how he sees himself is the beginning of it, his scathing opinion of everyone else, his desperation at trying to appear to be something he isn’t, and his own self-delusion is pathetically sad. However, Skipton is not the kind of character anyone will shed tears over.

1950s Bruges, with its old buildings, canals and ringing bells is beautifully recreated – this strong sense of place clearly written by someone who knew and loved the city. Bruges is a city I have encountered in PHJ’s fiction before. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable novel – and I am looking forward to reading the next two books, and will try not to leave it to long before I do.