A Dry Spell - Clare Chambers

...middle-age crisis. Guy Bromelow, a school headmaster, is increasingly uneasy about his neurotic wife Jane, who is tormented by Harriet, their demon of a small daughter, and worried about her sudden frigidity. Meanwhile Nina Osland, having brought up her son James on her own, fears that his girlfriend Kerry is leading him into bad ways and that drugs are going to disrupt his exams.

Then things get even worse when an old university friend ...
...and another student, Martin, on a geography field trip to Africa during the summer of 1976. The venture was cut short by tragedy, but Nina could hardly put the memories behind her for once and for all, as by the time they returned to England she realised she was pregnant with James. Now Hugo, having spent some years in Australia, decides he is coming home for good, and rings Jane and Nina to suggest a get-together for old times sake on his return. ... more

Two families are both heading for the familiar early middle-age crisis. Guy Bromelow, a school headmaster, is increasingly uneasy about his neurotic wife Jane, who is tormented by Harriet, their demon of a small daughter, and worried about her sudden frigidity. Meanwhile Nina Osland, having brought up her son James on her own, fears that his girlfriend Kerry is leading him into bad ways and that drugs are going to disrupt his exams.

Then things get even worse when an old university friend (the friend from hell, more like), Hugo Etchells, reappears from the distant past. Some twenty years earlier, when they were all at university, Hugo co-opted Guy, Nina and another student, Martin, on a geography field trip to Africa during the summer of 1976. The venture was cut short by tragedy, but Nina could hardly put the memories behind her for once and for all, as by the time they returned to England she realised she was pregnant with James. Now Hugo, having spent some years in Australia, decides he is coming home for good, and rings Jane and Nina to suggest a get-together for old times sake on his return. Old times that the two women would rather leave undisturbed. As yet they don’t know each other, but an unforeseen discovery brings them together for reasons that everyone involved finds hard to accept.

Guy is already troubled enough by his conscience; he fears that he’s drifting into atheism, which would sit uneasily with his status as a headmaster. Jane has made good friends with the delightfully scatty Erica Crowe, who lives in a permanent state of blissful chaos with her children (the husband is working in Kuwait), and wonders if she is turning into a lesbian.

At first I found this novel a little disjointed. Two separate families, apparently unconnected, are both going their separate ways. Then there are the flashbacks to Guy’s and Hugo’s schooldays, followed by Nina’s university days, all interwoven with the present-day narrative. About halfway through, everything suddenly falls into place.

It’s not a comic novel, though you’d be hard pressed not to laugh at some of the incidents. Jane goes to the doctor rather guiltily, because she’s ‘gone off it’, and Harriet creates havoc as soon as her back is turned (like finding a fascinating new toy lying around - a speculum). Later on she is having an appalling Sunday lunch with Guy’s insufferably snooty parents. Another few chapters, and she invites Erica and the kids round to her house, they end up playing hide-and-seek, and one of them accidentally comes across his headmaster who has just retired for forty winks and is in a state of partial undress.

These episodes are matched by the high drama of what went wrong on the African trip. Later on there is a tense moment when Jane and Erica, having gone for a day out in the countryside (a kind of parting before the latter goes out to rejoin her husband in Kuwait), have their day wrecked by an ominous call on the mobile phone.

A book which should appeal equally to male and female readers, it could have easily descended into total dullness and fallen flat on its face. Most of the main characters are pretty middle-class and ordinary, with pretty middle-class and ordinary hang-ups and phobias. But maybe that’s what makes the story so credible. The author has a knack of observing and developing characters skilfully, her style is very readable, and what could so easily be a very mundane plot suddenly becomes rather more.

Arrow Books, 2001
ISBN 0099277646
Price £6.99 p/b
 

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