Last Friends. By Jane Gardam (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
It's hard to imagine that anyone will read this who hasn't read the two previous books in the trilogy. But I read them to long ago that much of the irony was lost on me. It probably makes sense to read them in a row, as the combined impact involves many of the same events being viewed, Rashomon-Like, from different perspectives. Still, after three books, Gardam's penchant for coincidence and irony to the point of cuteness begins to cloy. This third novel of the “Old Filth” (“Failed London, Try Hong Kong”) trilogy may be my favorite. Within this trilogy, Gardam tells the story of three people: Edward Feathers (“Old Filth” or “Filth”), Betty Mcintosh Feathers, his wife, and Sir Terence Veneering, Feathers' professional nemesis. Feathers and Veneering spent years in Hong Kong, battling English and International Law in the engineering and construction industry on opposing sides always, perceived in their practice as “Titans” by their colleagues. For fifty years, Feathers and Veneering had hated each other; the root of Feathers' hatred is Veneering's past relationship with Betty and his life-long love of her. In retirement, the expats return “home” to England, with Veneering ironically buying the home next to Feathers in the small Dorset village of St. Ague three years after Betty's death, resulting in a friendship borne of loneliness for the two men in the last years of their lives.Gardam's genius is evident in her use of language, her wit, her ability to reveal the complexity and humanity of her characters. My view of Terry Veneering from the first two books in the trilogy was jaded. I thought him a faithless husband, somewhat casual and cavalier about his law practice, a lesser man than Filth. In “Last Friends,” the layers and nuances of Veneering's life revealed a complicated, far more substantial, ethical man of great feeling and commitment. While Filth was a Raj orphan and feared abandonment his entire life and Betty was orphaned in an internment camp, Terry Veneering, born Venetski, was well loved by a devoted, hard working mother and his intelligent, articulate Russian acrobat father, rumored to be a spy, physically disabled. Although Terry's mother's marriage to his father was intriguing to the townspeople, their family in Herringfleet, Teeside, England was grounded, committed to a strong work ethic and education. On one of his many solitary excursions along the seashore, a chance meeting with Peter Parable-Apse, a lawyer, offers Terry the first of several connections that will change his life. The details of Terry's early life with his parents, Florrie and Anton, Nurse Watkins, his first school master, Mr. Smith and his son, Fred, and his second school master Mr. Fondle and his wife, establish Terry Venetski as a bright, inquisitive, athletic young man, loyal to his parents, prepared to work in the local coal mines until Peter Parable opens another path to him.Beginning with Veneering's memorial service in Dorset in the present, moving next to his early childhood in Teesside, Gardam then introduces the third section of the novel, “Last Friends.” Fred Fiscal-Smith, an old friend, Edward Feathers' best man, now a wealthy man, has unsuccessfully tried to invite himself to the home of his old friend, Dulcie, wife of William “Pastry” Willy, Betty Feathers' long-dead godfather, who dismisses him and his old freeloading behavior. “I let him know that we had always thought him mean and grasping.” Fiscal-Smith then begins a journey of sorts as he tries to find a room, “Veneering's oldest friend on earth,” filling in the blank spaces of Terry's life for the reader, revealing Terry as a man of integrity, purposeful about his life, his life nearly upended by German air raids.And then the chapters of Dulcie, 80+ years old, remembering, understanding Fred's place in her life, “last friends,” thinking about Terry's early marriage to the beautiful but alcoholic, Elsie. A visit with elderly neighbors, twins, Olga and Faery, feminists, “they smell of decay...and think I am beneath them,” Dulcie learns her daughter is a lesbian and is overwhelmed by new knowledge. “That is the sharpness of loss. The feelings don't go, even when the brain has begun to wither and stray.” Then, a breath of fresh air, Anna and Henry, as new owners, instilling life into Veneering's house as they convert it to a B and B, are watching out for Dulcie. In doing so, they learn of Dulcie's fierce loyalty to Veneering, protecting what was most private, his love for Betty, the loss of his son, Harry, that “broke his father's heart.” “Nobody really knows a thing about another's past. Why should we.” Different worlds we all inhabit from the womb.”The novel then seamlessly turns to Fiscal-Smith, “born to be a background figure,” but true to Gardam, revealed as much more, connecting his life back to Terry Veneering as an adult from their days when he was the school master's young son, Fred, and filling in more of the spaces of Terry Veneering's beginnings, truths revealed, more of the intersecting pieces and people in place.The reader learns that in his last years, Feathers observed Betty “was not necessary to him anymore.” On the other hand, Veneering continued to love her, defending her honor to his last moment, revealing a much different end for Veneering than read in the first two books.Dulcie continues to look for Fiscal-Smith who has not answered any of her letters and has disappeared. “It's simple, determined rejection of us, of the very, very few last friends.” A wonderful road trip, organized by Anna, accompanied by Henry, does not end as expected, but reveals new insights to Dulcie and leads her back home where Sir Fred Fiscal-Smith, her “last friend,” waits for her at the end of her driveway. “And so they made their way towards the Resurrection.”
What do You think about Last Friends. By Jane Gardam (2013)?
Jane Gardam writes so beautifully - so everything she writes is a pleasure to read.
—fal
It was a good conclusion to the trilogy but the better books were the first two.
—jessie
