Just One Drink...
How much does the author understand? In the first book of the trilogy we
live inside the narrow mind of the hero, Bob; an ordinary guy, with no special
talents; a bit of a bore, if truth be told. The little that we see of Jenny is mediated through his actions
and opinions, many of which are hopes and dreams, and little fantasies; of a
respectable life together, comfortably asleep between the well-ironed sheets,
homely under a crocheted blanket, of wild flowers and a blue border... In the second book, The
Siege of Pleasure, we see the world
from her point of view.
He was in a wretched state of
depression, and could eat nothing.
She could see that he repented last night’s dissipation, and she had
suffered too much in that way herself not to feel sorry for him. He gulped and gasped at the hot tea,
and looked ahead of him.
“You’re feeling sorry now,”
she said, smiling. “Aren’t you?”
She always rather enjoyed
this moment of the morning, after she had spent a night with a man. Being able to lie on in bed, without
regrets of any sort, while he, full of remorse and with passion spent, had to
rush off back to his work, filled her with an indolently indulgent, one might
almost say a maternal feeling towards him.
This is near the end of the novel, and suggests how little
Hamilton understands his central character. If he had greater insight, and could see her more clearly, this
scene would be at the beginning of the book; the start of an exploration into
the range of emotions so brilliantly expressed here. The indolence, a feeling of exception, the enjoyment of
luxury; the riches of her senses and all that free time - Jenny has the life of
a wealthy lady, and yet she is poor…
What a paradox to investigate!
There is her power, of course, how nice it must be to have so much
control. And the talented use of
her body, in which she takes obvious delight – she is a skilled professional,
and there are times when she enjoys her work. She also has a certain sympathy, an animal response to
another’s vulnerability; and for a few moments the whore, looking to squeeze
every john, becomes a kindly person sorry for a fellow human being… Her work done, lying down in self-made
luxury, she scans the horizon from atop her high tower: servant turned master,
she can look down at the man who has bought her; and see how small she has made
him. It is perhaps the moment in the day that she can exercise her
stupendous superiority; when men become silly children, forced to run back to
school and home. How much we would
like to see inside her….
Yet this world, suggested by these few paragraphs, is not
explored; for the rest of the book is concerned with how Jenny became a whore;
it is not interested in how she experiences life in the here and now. Like the
earlier Bob, Hamilton can catch brief glimpses of her nature (the author
himself was infatuated with a prostitute), but he does not have the confidence
or the skill to write an extended study of such a personality; of a beautiful
streetwalker in her prime. What a
novel this could have been!
But Hamilton is not Zola, and Jenny is far from Nana… For this is a story about a respectable
girl.
Afraid of his limitations the author runs away from the
difficulties, to the very beginning of her fall, when Jenny was just an
ordinary girl, who never went into pubs or kissed strange gentleman. He goes back to a time when even a car
ride was a novel experience, and she was going out with a dull but decent chap;
destined for a quiet marriage with three children.
The book has comedy, and overturns some stereotypes: it is
the richer middle classes that are seen as the corrupting influence; their fast
cars and drunkenness alien to the Puritanism of Jenny and her class. This seems right, capturing as it does
the earnest moralism of many of the working poor, particularly acute for those
living just above the barest poverty, or during the uncertainties of the
interwar years.[i] Jenny is an innocent who is led astray
by just one night, or perhaps even more extreme, just one glass of port: it produces a liking for drink, and a weakening of her will; so that she falls for
the attraction of a handsome but dissipated man, who appears to have
independent wealth. Of course, as
the author knows only too well, it is not that one glass of alcohol that leads
to her ruin. Her beauty and
poverty, and a certainty passivity, she is too willing to please, there is a
sort of yielding quality to her character, are the main reasons why she
eventually gives in to the attractions of a permanent holiday…
There is also something attractive about a lack of routine
and rigid habit. Hamilton cleverly
locates her fall on the first day of her new job. The conflicted emotions of starting in a novel position -
the excitement and dread, the unease, and the realisation of the boredom and
routine to come, she is a domestic servant for two old women – all soften her
up, so that a comfortable car ride appears a glittering alternative, and the
easy way out of that difficult first day...
This new job produces a break in the pattern of her life, it
has temporarily broken her settled and restraining routines, and creates a
small space, a gap, if you like, into which she can fall. A couple of loud, drunken men, of a
different class, and alien experiences, one of whom offers the prospect of
mannequin work, is just enough to push her off her respectable world; although
it had to occur at this particular time.
A week later it would have been too late.
And we see her fall, little step by little step; it is the
story of a well brought up girl defeated by circumstance. It is a kind of thriller, and reminds
me of Hitchcock’s Rope, written by the same author, of course. It is just a little too neat and
contrived. The possibility of a
rich narrative sacrificed to a single idea: the fall of a poor but respectable
girl into the sensual life; which, we are led to assume, inevitably results in
prostitution.[ii] It is a large assumption, and suggests
something of Hamilton’s deficiencies: he has a somewhat mechanical idea of
people’s motivations; which may in turn reflect his class; his own poor
understanding of the people he is writing about – in his eyes they may lack the
full human capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. They are like dolls to be picked up and
played around with by their local environment: it is other people who determine
their behaviour; although in an aside he glosses it, writing that ultimate
responsibility rests with her personality, for the reasons I give above. So we see each little detail of her
decline: the first drink, her first car ride, the offer of an exciting job; the
charming words, the power of peer pressure, and class too, we see that, oh yes,
we see that too, especially close to the end.
The rich ‘gentleman’ doesn’t mind being late for work, he
can have a bath, take his time, he can be as long as he likes over his toilette
– other people have to wait for him.
If he wants the day off he can have it; just like that. He is secure in this life; and this
luxury and his insouciance have a kind of authority; which at first irritates
but eventually captivates Jenny.
He overburdens her with his class.
He makes Jenny badly late for work. Once past that all-important deadline
how much easier it is to justify a holiday. On time and outside the owner’s door the pressure would be
too intense to resist. But over an
hour late and now it becomes harder to go to work; to explain and apologise, to
submit to a bad impression, the anger and incredulity of your masters; and your
own feelings of guilt; acknowledging your weakness, admitting your mistakes…
you will feel bad about yourself, possibly for days to come. And all those excuses you must
create. Yet you have a hangover,
and this gentleman is so confident in his easy ways; and he has promised you
something that is hard to resist: a carefree and glamorous life; to be a
mannequin!
A working man, aware always of the fragility of his life, of
the pressing need for work and the power of his bosses, would have been more
sympathetic to her predicament, would have understood her need to get out of
his house quickly. He would have
tried to accommodate her; and saved her in his own way. Instead she ends up in a bar to drink
off the previous night’s headache.
The gentleman has opened the door to another world. A world where you can lie in bed during
the day, and let others do the work.
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