Amakar Press (Haverhill, 2021). Pbk. 278 pages. £12.
My previous reviews have been of non-fiction creations, or novels based closely on historical fact. So I made notes along the way to keep me focussed and awake. The Picardy Third proclaims itself to be ‘entirely a work of fiction the names, characters and incidents portrayed the work of the author’s imagination’. So, I read it as a story, without writing anything, though making a mental note of certain things.
We follow four relationships; one from the past, one falling apart as we read, one newly forming and another born of some of the fall-out from the first two. These are played out on a global stage – well, in Britain, France, Spain and various parts of India.
Through the ups and downs in the life of Elise Allenby, 33, Cambridge music graduate and Parisian business woman as we join the story, we learn of her mother’s death, her strong ties to her brother Gil, and of a past love, Kiran, from a former time in India. Joining a prep school in Suffolk, her home county, she meets Edwin, music teacher, 50 something, his childless marriage to Sheila already pretty much ‘on the rocks’. An initial friendship develops into a love affair.
The couple first meet by chance at a cheap hotel in France, awaiting the ferry, meeting again when Elise unwittingly takes up a job at Edwin’s school. Gil grows gradually closer to Vicky, hospital chaplain, who helps them with their mother’s death and related matters, first becoming family friend and subsequently Gil’s wife. Later Elise and Edwin encounter one another by surprise, in locations in France and again in India. These might be interpreted as unlikely coincidences, Thomas Hardy style, but we are told early on by Elise that all such meetings are in fact driven by the law of Karma – a nod to her Indian past, ever present via her beloved statue of Saraswati, Hindu goddess.
The Indian influence on the lives of the players is strengthened by the year-long stay of the Indian children, Suraj and Amrita, son and daughter of Kiran, sent to Elise for safe-keeping from Canada whilst he, Kiran, establishes his academic career. Indian traditions and beliefs are compared and contrasted with ours as the children prepare to join their father and his new wife. Somehow a satisfactory balance is achieved, as when the children, Hindus, are baptised into the Christian faith by Vicky during their stay. The book is rich in cultural references to Indian religion, literature and music.
Edwin suffers a serious mental breakdown, faced with juggling various loyalties, past and present. His tribulations and treatment are openly and realistically addressed. Assisted by the ongoing support of Elise, he makes a strong recovery. One other character is the ever-present Sandy, a teenage piano pupil of Edwin’s. He acts throughout rather like Shakespeare’s Puck – facilitating Edwin’s and Elise’s ‘surprise’ meetings and watching over the children from time to time.
Places are described in enticing detail, clearly from experience rather than a brochure. As a sometime traveller to India myself, I was strongly drawn to chapters relating to Elise’s return there, chaperoning the two children as they take their first steps in their father’s land. The Indian people, the auto rickshaws, the elephant and the gradual modernisation all seem very true.
I would query only two things in the narrative: Judging by a reference to ‘the new millennium’, I am guessing we must be in at least 2005. By 1994, Bombay had become Mumbai (though I too still prefer Bombay). And I was quite surprised that Vicky’s priest friend Kate (vehicle for a brief plug for Sea of Faith) still suffers such gender-based prejudice.
Surely there must be something at least of the writer in so detailed an account as The Picardy Third? How can so much imagination be fired up out of nowhere at all? And so, despite the author’s disclaimer I am left wondering where/who is the real A.J. McRobb in all this? Who are all the others? It doesn’t really matter, but it is fascinating to speculate.
How does it all end? I leave you to read the novel for yourself. The places feel very real, the people feel very real and their lives feel very real. What a magnificent read!
John Pearson is a retired lecturer in Quantity Surveying at the University of Northumbria and current chair of SOF Network Board of Trustees.