Though without memory, Liam is not devoid of resources. He concocts an elaborate scenario to engage the woman — Eunice — into his employ. It will be a work of collaboration, he thinks, under the pretext of preparing a job application in the elderly man’s business. For a time they play along with fictitious aspects of his invented history. He sees someone whose willingness in this enterprise disarms him, as does her untidy appearance and anxious demeanour. What she sees is somewhat different: a man once widowed, once divorced, with three daughters and a grandson, apparently financially secure. In other hands this could presage lurid developments, but in the world of the present novel safety is maintained and there is no loss that cannot be made good.
Of course he falls in love with Eunice, but the implications here are elided. Their meetings are frequently interrupted by his younger daughter, Kitty, by his middle daughter, Louise, who is an evangelical Christian, and by Eunice herself whose movements are unpredictable. Revelation comes abruptly. This is the least convincing part of the novel, but it has the effect of stimulating Liam into some sort of reminiscence. Here the sweetness becomes a little bitter, since reminiscence means not recovery of memory but regret for an unfulfilled life. The slightly more realistic tone is a welcome corrective to a narrative that threatens to become mired in its own harmlessness.
The style cannot be faulted: it is as smooth as ever, but the structure is less assured. Some sort of resolution is affected, not without difficulty. Liam finds a job supervising a pre-school class of three- and four-year olds, whose company he finds entirely satisfactory. (In the real world this might be questioned.) Ideal holiday reading, then, that evades all the real issues, but at some cost. The absence of irony is disconcerting, almost shocking. Yet there remains enough evidence of good faith on the part of the writer to call forth a similar response in the reader.
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