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Of the two old adversaries, now pillars of the establishment, only Terry is in the foreground, his being the most significant change of status. Feathers, or Filth, is still protected by his background, while Veneering is a magnet for needy old acquaintances, who persist in contacting him, eager for some sort of invitation. He has none to offer, being untrained in these matters.
Veneering dies first, in Malta, in more or less unexplained circumstances. But before that, they two men have ended up living in close proximity in Dorset. It is left to Filth to make sense of it all — the discarded mistress, Veneering’s escape from the doomed SS City of Benares, their rise to power and their subsequent reconciliation — but by this time he is too old to discern a pattern, if there ever was one.
Recklessly inconsequential, this is not so much a novel as a schema for a novel, one which Jane Gardam has not written. There are glimpses of narrative, but these are insubstantial.We would like to have known more, for instance, about Veneering’s Cossack father and how he came to end up with Florrie, as well as about the various benefactors who paved the way for Veneering’s eventual success. And fall — of course; for this is a story in which everyone is dying. Though it is the way all stories end, here the trajectory is relentless. It is a relief to encounter Dulcie, very old, very decrepit, but emboldened to contemplate a journey from which, we assume, she will not return.
All in all, it’s a mysterious novel. Unsuccessful as it is, it has a power to linger in the memory, and this in itself must be counted a success.
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Also by Anita Brookner
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