So far, so awful then, but she is a survivor of the first order and this is the story of an inch-by-inch battle for a life of functional family relations, self-respect and a house full of the material evidence of normality — of mobile phones, CD players, computers and proper food. Food in particular is an index of recovery and the making of soup has all the intensity and expectation of a witch brewing up a spell:
She peels the potatoes … she chops some of the spuds and slides them into the pot. And the tomatoes; she empties the tins. She holds them just over the water. The steam bites at her knuckles. She holds the bag over the pot and the lentils flow out slowly. She watches them float, and sink. She gets the wooden spoon. She washes it. She gives it a shake. She stirs the mixture. It’ll start working soon. The house will fill with the smell.
Her regeneration within the house is mirrored in the shifting pattern of her world outside — she starts by shopping meagrely at SuperValu, and wondering if she will have the money or the energy to progess in time to Tesco’s further up the road. Eventually she’s shopping for Marks and Spencer finger food. Broadening the perspective, Doyle notes the answering change in Ireland’s economic life — the rural landscape of Paula’s childhood peppered with multinationals, the cafés serving lattes and cappuccinos, the native Irish workforce largely replaced by immigrants.
In its bare bones this is a dark, claustrophobic story where every day is a struggle with guilt and temptation, where motherhood is often nightmarish and almost always thankless and where all is never well for long. Constantly Doyle teases his readers with the possibility that Paula has succumbed to the bottle and time and again she scrapes herself together to seal the small, redemptive victories of the reforming alcoholic’s life. She is an irresistible character: brave, warm, funny and self-knowing. It’s Doyle’s genius as a writer, too, that we live every moment of the year with and through her — ‘She runs up the stairs — this is me running. She closes the windows — I’m shutting the windows …’ — sharing the minutest triumphs — remembering to take a plastic carrier bag to the shop to save 15c — and the harrowing drama of Leanne repeating her mother’s mistakes.
The supporting cast is fun too — the pantomime sisters with their Bulgarian property portfolios and affairs started at parent-teacher nights, best-friend Rita with her own ghastly life, who knows where to bulk- bargain shop for Christmas in June and the horrendous daughter-in-law Star. And they are a supporting cast — they stick by Paula through thick and thin, underlining and justifying the attraction of a personality that holds the reader to the very end.
Comments
There are currently no comments for this article.