I’m currently reading this wonderful novel by A. S. Byatt, a writer whose reputation has, for many years, been unfairly overshadowed by the popularity of her sister, Margaret Drabble.
I was a devout fan of Drabble’s early fiction, especially A Summer Birdcage, The Garrick Year and The Millstone, but I went off her a bit when she went all heavy, ‘doon t’mine’ Yorkshire in some of her later works. I found The Peppered Moth, her semi-fictional account of her mother’s life, unreadable and never finished it. Then last summer, I picked up a copy of her recent novel The Red Queen, set in 18th-century Korea, and was absolutely enchanted. So I’m thinking I should get back into Drabble again, although I’m not quite sure when I can squeeze in the time. During that mythical shangri-la of retirement, when I will spend every waking hour catching up on my reading? Unlikely, if The First Husband has his way. He’ll be dragging me around the world, insisting I keep moving, lest I perish like the shark!
However, getting back to Byatt: (See what I mean? Overshadowed by her bloody sister again!) She has been gradually moving away from the somewhat showy erudition of her earlier works and, ever since her Booker-winning Possession, has been writing novels I’ve found utterly engrossing.
This one is no exception. In fact, I’m reading it rather more slowly than is my wont (I usually tear through books at a canter, then forget everything I’ve read within a few days, alas) so that I might savour it. This paragraph, at the beginning of Chapter 3, really resonated with me because, although it describes a time near the end of the Victorian era, it reminded me so much of my own childhood.
…the children in this world had their own separate, largely independent lives, as children. They roamed the woods and fields, built hiding-places and climbed trees, hunted, fished, rode ponies and bicycles, with no other company than that of other children. And there were many other children. There were large families, in which relations shifted subtly as new people were born … and in which a child also had a group identity, as ‘one of the older ones’ or ‘one of the younger ones’. The younger ones were often enslaved or ignored by the older ones, and were perennially indignant. The older ones resented being told to take the younger ones along, when they were planning dangerous escapades.
In this age of helicopter parenting, it’s sweet to look back to such innocent times: the warm summer days when our mothers shooed us out the door immediately after breakfast, warning us not to come back until lunchtime. And, since I grew up in 1950s Ireland, there were indeed many other children out there, with the same order ringing in their ears. As a middle child, with two older and two younger than me, I experienced both identities, although not as part of a group. I was first dragged reluctantly along by my brother and sister—seven and five years older respectively—and then I hauled my two younger sisters—five and three years younger—along in my turn.
Being the dragger-along was much easier, on me and on my younger sisters. As the dragee, I was terrorised by my older sister, aka The She-devil. As I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned elsewhere in these pages, it was her mission to at least scar me for life, if I couldn’t be drowned, stabbed or pushed under a bus. When my turn in the role of Big Sis came along, I was more likely to be looking for a quiet spot where I could read the books I smuggled out with me, than planning any dangerous escapades, and we soon came to an understanding. So long as they did their level best not to get themselves killed, I would happily leave them to their own devices and we would meet up in time to return home as a single unit. It never occurred to me, of course (and I was supposed to be the one with the brains) that my mother might occasionally have wondered why my sisters always came home in flitters from their adventures, while I was in the same pristine condition as when I left the house.