Rereading Mr Loverman & The Secret Scripture

These two recent rereads focus on older characters who have been diminished by their culture’s punitive attitudes to their sexuality. In the first, a contemporary Londoner has hidden his love for his closest friend on account of the Caribbean community’s homophobia. In the second, a woman has been ostracised in twentieth-century Ireland because of the misogyny and genophobia among the powerful Catholic clergy. Yet a degree of redemption is offered to the characters, albeit late in life.

Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo

Seventy-four-year-old Londoner Barrington (Barry) Jedediah Walker has been one half of a couple since their school days in Antigua. But despite the strength of his love for Morris, he’s kept that relationship secret from his daughters, the Caribbean community and his long-suffering wife. Now Morris, himself long divorced, is pushing for them to live together. Barry wants this too, but is terrified of coming out.
 
Barry is a flamboyant character, a snazzy dresser who is nevertheless full of prejudice himself. His story unfolds with pathos and humour, but I think I preferred the chapters narrated more poetically in the second person (a device the author uses in her 2019 Booker-prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other) from the perspective of his wife.
 
Although light in touch, the novel makes serious points about LGBT history, not only in showcasing a gay relationship within the Caribbean community, but with some reflections (perhaps a bit preachy for a novel, but I welcomed them) on tolerance of homosexuality in pre-colonial Africa (p258):

It also breaks new ground in terms of contemporary literature: how often do we encounter a triply marginalised character – in this case, black, gay and elderly – on the page? The third of these is the reason I reread, for a post I’m writing on older characters for the IQ blog. I wanted to check whether Barry and Morris have sex: Viagra is name-checked, they definitely do.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

Approaching her hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty is transcribing the vicissitudes of her life in western Ireland. The tragedy that blighted her hitherto happy childhood, and sent her mother mad. The bigotry and sectarianism that curtailed her marriage. The ostracism. Her lost child.
 
Meanwhile, William Grene, her psychiatrist, is reviewing his own life as he approaches retirement, while trying to make sense of the patchy record of hers. In the crumbling hospital scheduled for closure, her case notes have been devoured by rodents, although fragments from her previous placement in Sligo remain. It’s not until later that he discovers how these contradict Roseanne’s own testimony, although the reader is aware from early on. Whose version will you trust, that of an elderly woman shut away for decades or a self-interested Catholic priest?
 
I know where my biases lie, but the Father Gaunt’s narrative is doubly disadvantaged by coming to us second hand. Whereas Roseanne’s memories, distorted or not, are poignantly vivid, and the injustice bites at the reader’s heart.
 
First published in 2008, Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture was shortlisted for the Booker and won the Costa award that year. Rereading it, I wasn’t as disappointed in the neat-and-cosy ending as I was the first time round. Perhaps because knowing what was coming gave me space to admire the setup. And I loved Roseanne’s tragic story of the twin wounds of misogyny and religiosity, which have blighted so many lives, not only in twentieth century Ireland.
 
I also enjoyed the politics, but was less captivated by the theme of unreliable memories, and as for the psychiatric setup, well! I’m not qualified to criticise the representation of Irish mental health care, but that won’t stop me saying that I didn’t believe in Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital or in the lonely psychiatrist, Dr Grene. He seems to perceive himself as solely responsible for assessing Roseanne for community care. William, let me take that weight from your shoulders!

As you’ll learn if you read my forthcoming novel – although not in a preachy way – psychiatry would have only a minor role in such an assessment, but we meet no social workers, psychologists, occupational therapists or nurses in Sebastian Barry’s fictional asylum. The only other staff is a medical doctor and the strange man who cleans Roseanne’s room. Also, the assessment would focus not on her history and sanity, but on behavioural skills. But even if Roseanne’s account of her life is defective, she still seems too competent to have been left to fester in the hospital years after those in the UK have been set free. (Although I could all too well understand her admission years before.)
 
So I could have done without depressed and depressing Dr Grene altogether. Roseanne’s tragic tale could stand on its own. But I nevertheless enjoyed rereading, although I much preferred the author’s more recent novel Days Without End.

My response to the latest flash fiction challenge is a homage to Roseanne, albeit based on a scene involving the young social worker, Janice, in Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home. The prompt is swift passage.

The morning after

Rain lashed the windscreen as Janice scoured dismal streets for a pharmacy open a bank holiday. Were she so inclined, she’d have lashed herself. She hoped her pounding head would be the worst legacy of last night’s foolishness. She couldn’t even claim he’d spiked her drink.

Her sober profession was no protection. Nor was her degree. In twenty minutes she’d regressed twenty-odd years to the age of ignorance. Of apathy. Of female disempowerment. As a green neon cross loomed from the murk, she scolded herself for scorning her birth mother. The only difference between them was the morning-after pill.