I’ve seen a couple of blog posts about her, and read reviews
of Wendy Pollard’s ‘Pamela Hansford Johnson: Her Life, Works and Times’, but I
knew so little about her novels it was difficult to pick one. So I printed off
a list of available titles, took a pin, shut my eyes, stuck it in the paper,
and came up with An Impossible Marriage.
And yes, I know this is an odd way to choose a book, but it’s no worse than
selecting one for its cover, or because you love the title.
Anyway, I downloaded a Bello edition on to the Kindle
(hurrah for Pan Macmillan’s digital re-issues), and it turned out to be a
pretty good choice because, quite apart from the fact that I really enjoyed this
particular novel, I think it’s an excellent introduction to PHJ.
 |
| The cover of the Bello edition of 'An Impossible Marriage' - though I'm not sure if E-books really do have covers! |
It’s the 1950s, and Christie (our narrator) has reluctantly
returned to Clapham, where she was brought up, to visit Iris Allbright who, she
tells us, had ‘one brief moment of real importance in my life, which was now
shrivelled by memory almost to silliness’. Christie (known to most of her
friends and family as Chris or Christine) doubts Iris will remember the
incident, and adds: “She and I had grown out of each other twenty years ago and
could have nothing more to say.”
And she most definitely does not want to rake over the past,
but that’s just what she does as she remembers the time she and Iris were
friends, when she was the clever one, and Iris the pretty one – they each had
their labels.
Iris
Allbright was one of those ‘best friends’ sought by plain girls in some
inexplicable spurt of masochism, feared by them, hated by them and as inexplicably
cherished.
Ouch! Strangely there seems to be a degree of complicity between
the more assertive pretty girl and her plain, compliant friend, a little like
the childhood relationship between bullying Cordelia and shy, quiet Elaine in
Margaret Atwood’s ‘Cat’s Eye’. However sensible or strong-minded Christie may
be away from Iris, with her she plays second fiddle, and cannot escape that
role, however much she would like to.
Iris, whose devoted mother is putting her on the stage, is exceedingly
pretty, exceedingly self-centred, and a collector of men - even those already
attached to her friends…
So Christie is understandably wary when she starts going out
with Ned Skelton. Ned is older, and seemingly sophisticated. On their first
date they go for a drive in his little sports car ‘bright as a ladybird’, and stop
at a hotel for a ‘Sunday outing tea’. In an effort to appear older and more
experienced she’s bought a new black hat and borrowed a friend’s fur coat, but
she is ill at ease. “His flattery in seeking me out seemed almost too great for
me to accept,” she recalls. “I felt humble, and angry because I was humble.”
 |
| A 1954 edition. |
Describing the early days of their relationship Christie
says: “I felt he was already invading me: that he had plans for me.” That doesn’t strike me as being a good basis
for any relationship, but she is besotted with Ned, even though she knows he is
not gentle and will not be kind to her.
Two weeks before their wedding, she realises she doesn’t
love him, only the idea of him, and breaks off their engagement. But he takes
her to dinner at a posh restaurant where Iris is appearing in cabaret… And she
is scared that Iris will take everything from her, including Ned. So she
marries him, although she knows they are wrong for each other, and she doesn’t
love him. She is 18 and he’s 32, and they have absolutely nothing in
common.
Initially Christie believes she can make the marriage work.
She has hope. But once again she finds herself playing second fiddle, this time
to a husband who pays no attention to her needs, takes no notice of her likes
and dislikes, and is not interested in any of the things that matter to her. He’s
not violent, or abusive: in fact he’s quite charming most of the time. But he’s
selfish, manipulative and domineering, inept rather than feckless, incapable of
applying himself to anything or holding down a job, and unwilling to take
advice.
Bit by bit he isolates Christie, presumably to make her totally
dependent on him, but he never provides for her financially, emotionally, or
intellectually. First, of course, she has to give up her job in a travel agency
– in 1930 it wasn’t acceptable for married women to work. Then, gradually, her
friends are cut out of her life. He doesn’t care for the things she likes, and
doesn’t want her to write (she has had poems published). And when their son is
born, Ned is jealous of the time she spends with the baby and refuses to have
anything to do with the child.
Eventually Christie acknowledges that if she is to survive
with her soul intact she must escape. She's been married less than three years, and she's not yet 21, but she is determined to break free, and to take her son with her. She wants to live life on her
own terms, to get a job, and to be independent, which must have been a bold and
unusual stance when the novel was published in 1954. Set against that is the
view of Ned’s mother, equally disappointed in her marriage, who stayed (with
the aid of alcohol) because it was the thing to do. But I’m not sure you could
say she made the best of things because she’s been so anaesthetised by life she
no longer lets herself feel for anyone or anything.
Pamela Hansford Johnson’s career as a novelist covered a
similar period to that of Margery Sharp, and they both portray some strong and
unusual women. But PHJ is not as warm as Sharp. There’s an underlying sadness
to some of her work, and she’s spikier, and not so interested in happy endings.
She’s a very keen observer of people and relationships, and her characters are
always credible, even if they’re not always likeable, but I get the feeling
that she doesn’t really like people (rather like Julia’s daughter Susan in
Sharp’s novel ‘The
Nutmeg Tree’).  |
| Pamela Hansford Johnson. |
