Heat Wave by Penelope Lively

I bought a copy of this novel last year, attracted by the striking artwork on the front cover and the promise of a perceptive portrayal of ‘a fragile family, damaged and defined by adultery’. Fortunately, the book itself very much lives up to this impression, unfolding over a dry, claustrophobic summer underscored with a developing sense of tension.

Fifty-five-year-old Pauline – a freelance editor – is spending the summer at World’s End, her cottage in the English countryside. Residing in the adjacent cottage are Pauline’s daughter, Teresa, Teresa’s husband, Maurice, and their baby, Luke. Ostensibly, the family is there to enable Maurice – a writer of some promise – to complete his book on the history of tourism, a topic on which he holds fervent views.

At twenty-nine, Teresa is some fifteen years younger than Maurice, whom she loves very much. As Pauline looks on, she is reminded of the time when she was newly married to Teresa’s father, Harry, a rising star in academia back then, in demand both at home and abroad. While Pauline stayed at home to care for Teresa, Harry was free to play the field with various students, chalking up a string of affairs over the early years of their marriage. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Harry denied any suggestion of infidelity when first confronted, casting Pauline as the overly suspicious accuser while reminding her of his need to circulate for work.

Confrontation is self-defeating, she has come to realize. Harry is not so much defensive or evasive as perplexed. An invisible observer of such an exchange between them would see Pauline as the flailing accuser, resting her case on inference and conjecture, while Harry is the voice of sweet reason, explaining that he is a busy man, that he knows and sees many people, some of whom are indeed women, that these accusations are not reasonable, not sensible.

And all the time she knows, she knows. (p. 107)

In time, however, Pauline came to realise that her devotion to Harry was misplaced, prompting a split and ultimately a divorce.

From an early stage in the novel, there is a sense of the past being reflected in the present, of history threatening to repeating itself from one generation to the next. Like Harry before him, Maurice can cast a spell over those who surround him, coming across as genial, curious and magnetic. As Pauline observes Maurice, she wonders how faithful he will be, especially when Maurice’s editor, James, appears on the scene, accompanied by his attractive partner, Carol, who is also connected to the publishing industry.

She [Pauline] recognizes Carol. Not Carol personally but Carol as a species. She is a literary groupie – one of those who leech on to writers, who are passed from hand to hand among poets, and for whom publication and a degree of fame spell sexual magnetism. Pauline has worked with several Carols. They do not last long because they lack efficiency and ambition – they are only there for the pickings. They do not want to go to bed with a book, but with anyone who wrote one. (p. 61)

You can probably guess how some aspects of this story will play out – the relationship between Maurice and Carol is more than just a friendship or professional connection. Naturally, it is Pauline who sees and understands precisely what is going on between the two of them long before Teresa does. Having been a cuckolded wife herself, Pauline is well able to read the looks that pass between Maurice and Carol, signals that trigger painful feelings from her own troubled past.   

Maurice stands nearby – just waiting, it would seem. Pauline glances away from James and sees that Maurice’s look is upon Carol, who is absorbed still in this problem with the sandal. There is a concentration about this look – an intensity – that she has seen before. In Maurice’s eyes above a glass of red wine. In someone else’s eyes, at another time. She both sees the look and feels it like some chill shadow. (p. 60)

As the weeks go by, Pauline finds it increasingly difficult to control her anger at Maurice, fuelled by the frustration she once experienced with Harry (now living in California with his thirty-nine-year-old second wife). Drawing on the characters from the novel she is editing, Pauline hints at the options available to a woman in Teresa’s position, albeit somewhat pointedly. Nevertheless, there is a sense that what is left unsaid is just as important as what is explicitly conveyed, the exchange of looks and gestures being highly relevant here.

Lively’s descriptions of the natural world are so evocative, clearly reflecting the novel’s simmering tension through images of the scorched landscape withering in the blistering heat. What was once lush and furtive is now barren and arid, mirroring the process of decay in Maurice and Teresa’s relationship.

This is very much an interior, character-driven novel, giving a rich insight into Pauline as an individual, covering both her present life and earlier experiences. (There are several flashbacks to Pauline’s married life with Harry along the way, with Lively moving seamlessly between the two timelines.) The other characters are nicely fleshed-out too, from the vulnerable, trusting Teresa, to subtly manipulative Maurice, to the genial editor James – they all seem to ring true.

Alongside the main narrative, we also gain an insight into the nature of other marital relationships, each with their own specific challenges. Perhaps most notably there is Pauline’s client, Chris, an author whose wife ups and leaves him while he is trying to complete his book. We also see the quiet tragedy of another life, that of Pauline’s close friend and former lover, Hugh, who has stood by his housebound wife for several years despite her crippling mental health issues.

In some respects, Heat Wave reminded me of some of Anita Brookner’s novels, particularly Providence and Hotel du Lac. There is a similar tone or ‘feel’ to it, giving a window into emotions of jealousy, betrayal and frustration. Definitely recommended for fans of perceptive character-driven fiction that taps into these themes.     

Heat Wave is published by Penguin Books; personal copy.