Monday, February 14, 2011

No Need To Say Goodbye--1989

Last week was Never Say Goodbye (which was so, so good) and I guess Betty felt quite strongly that to utter the word 'goodbye' was the kiss of death for a relationship.  Let's see if we like No Need To Say Goodbye  as well...(pssst.  We don't, more's the pity.)

For the first fifty pages I was trying to stop sniggering over her name: Nurse Payne (which sounds like some basement dweller's World of Warcraft avatar).  Louise Payne, 26, is a lovely and serene girl about whom nobody feels the slightest temptation to make a pun.  She is the possessor of four millstones; Zoe, 19, (which name actually has an umlaut over the e but I refuse to make the effort for a character I feel so conflicted about--actually, that's not so.  I don't feel conflicted.  I want to smack that treacle-y darling up the backside of the head.), Christine (we don't care about Christine except to note that she is underage), Michael (another sibling only trotted to fill out familial conversations and to leave notes like 'Gone fishing') and Dusty the dog.
They're orphans about to be evicted from their dreary London home.
At times like this you can only thank your lucky stars that comfortably-off and satisfyingly distant and disagreeable relatives obligingly pop off and have the good sense to leave their cottage to one.  Louise, hitherto downcast and worried, practically dances a jig on the sidewalk outside the solicitor's and Dr. Aldo van der Linden, a long-time colleague, crosses over out of curiosity.  
Though they've worked with one another for years, there hasn't been an atom of attraction between them. (Which I don't buy for a minute but, if pressed to explain, I might ascribe to the probability that Louise has turned off her pheromones for the duration of raising her siblings.)
Aldo finds out that their new home will be in Much Hadham, just down the street from where he lives!...but he doesn't tell her until he walks in on her scrubbing Great-Aunt Letitia's cabinets.  'Well, I never...'
Editorial Note: One of my gripes with this book is that you don't really get a feel for when he falls in love with her.  (I don't require a time and a place for most books but since they've been like icebergs, bumping along in the mid-Atlantic for eons, then, yes, I would like to know when his fire was lit.)  Anyway, with very little evidence to work with, I think this might be it.  He's there in her kitchen, enjoying surprising her, glimpsing a peek behind the closed curtain of her private life (and getting to see her gallant struggle to keep their family together, enormous sacrifices she's made to achieve it and pathetic relief that they get a small cottage off in the country) and getting told, in the kindest way possible, that if he'd just shove off, she could get on with it.  I think that seeing her hair down (a hoary, if accurate, cliche) sparks things off.
Over the course of the next few weeks, he volunteers to be the family chauffeur, ferrying cleaning supplies and small luggage down to Much Hadham.  Zoe, greets her sister (home from cleaning excursions), with hot tea and sympathy and then is sure to be the one to walk Aldo out to the car for a delightful coze.  On this very thin beer, Louise constructs a relationship.  To her wearied mind, not only does Aldo find Zoe attractive but he also must want to marry her.  And Louise is nothing if not resolute in pressing for Zoe's advantages.
The main theme here is that Louise is an outsider.  She never gets a chance to be with the rest of the family, or is included in other activities (she works night duty, after all) or enjoys a light flirtation with a handsome Dutchman.  Now, a bunch of that is circumstantial and some of it is her own fault but I feel bad for her anyway.
When the time comes to retrench to Much Hadham, Louise (sensible, good sport, serene, Louise) is being sucked into a vortex of silliness.  She is determined to throw Zoe at Aldo's innocent head and conversely strives to avoid meeting him.  She can't make heads nor tails of her feelings but follow them she does--dodging his invitations time after time on the thinnest of excuses.
Aldo, meanwhile, finds Louise's 'maidenly shrinking tedious' (Ouch.) and he calls her out on it.  He is also becoming increasingly amused by Louise the Yenta.  But he's also more than a little annoyed too.  Though the book doesn't make a wonderful case at this point that he is in love, subsequent events lean to the probability.  The girl he loves is evidently impervious to his attractions, determined to force him into wooing Zoe (whom I like to think he thought of as insipid), and closed off to thinking of her own love life.  This has to stop!
The Log Jam of Pre-Mature Spinsterhood is finally unloosed by a couple of things.
  • Zoe meets George Standish--a junior partner at the firm of solicitor's that she works at.  (Though her attraction to George doesn't stop her from ruining her sister's courtship as much as possible.  'Hey, feather-brain, you're about five years too old to be flinging your arms around every personable fellow you meet!  Stop it.')  
  • Also, Louise gets a short-term nursing job for Aldo which requires her to travel up to London with him and, even better, up to Scotland.

'Well, it is romantic, you know.  Grottoes and things,' she added vaguely, and thought how wonderful it would be if he were to take her in his arms and kiss her, a hollow hope.
He turned her around smartly.  'In which case, I think it advisable not to visit the grotto.' A remark which made her face flame...Never, never, she promised herself, would he get the chance to say anything like that again...   
Though signs of his growing attachment have been nearly nonexistent, all at once the jello sets.  He is suddenly tormented, leashed and awesome.  He'll be patient and he'll get his girl and he'll let us watch.  (Which irks me because it would have only taken a couple of paragraphs to sustain us through the first half of the book, when lots of great things happen (I love when cottages are cleaned!) but nothing excites.)
They travel back to Much Hadham in the teeth of a fierce storm and come upon an accident, written superbly by The Great Betty.  While a small family, a couple of teenagers, some house pets and a baby are fed through The Plot Chipper-Shredder, we witness how perfectly they are suited to one another and how much their happiness depends on the other not being incinerated in an auto explosion.
The kids will be fine!
And then he takes her to Holland.  (She doesn't want to go (There be Grottoes!) but he plays the 'You are in my employ' card to withering effect.)  She overheard a telephone conversation before they left which sounds pretty definite: 'I think we had better wait until we are back again before we say anything, Zoe.  You haven't talked about it at all?...You need not feel guilty, my dear...'  (Zoe feels a smidge bad that she wants to fly the coop just when she is in a position to shoulder some of her sister's burdens.)
Louise is only just holding herself together and has begun thinking that a job in a Chilean mine or at a Himalayan base camp.  Christine and Michael (the shadow siblings!) seem to be doing very well without her, watched over by the motherly home help, Mrs. Wills.
So, when Zoe kisses Aldo upon their return, it's only what she has rigidly tried to accept.  Aldo is quick to sack her as soon as he drops her off.
'sokay though.  He's back the next day while she's ironing and proposes the tar out of her.
'...my dear heart, I cannot go on any longer without you.'
Kisses
The End

Rating:  This one feels like two separate books.  You've got the first part where Louise struggles to hold the family together, plots to match-make, feels some vaguely unsettled feelings (Is it a dicky appendix or a reaction against bad shellfish?  We get no real illumination for.ev.er.) and avoids Aldo.  I wish that it all added up to the seeds of attraction or something but it just doesn't go anywhere.  Add that to the flawed premise that Louise talks herself into a cockamamie idea about Zoe and Aldo...Gah. Is it wrong that the parts I liked best involved cleaning the cottage?  Anyway, all this is middling Treacle Tart.
And then comes part two.  Louise has a dawning realization and we are told that Aldo has already had one and the difference is like driving your beat-up Morris and then hopping into a great, socking Bentley.  I loved second half (except for Sweet Zoe.  I couldn't like that gummer of works. The wrap-up tells us that Zoe fell in love with George and that that love gave her second sight into Aldo's feelings.  So, what's she doing kissing him in front of the girl he's trying to woo?  She's fine.  She deserves to have her George.  Just don't make me try to like her.).  Angst, tension, bridled passions.  The works.  That part is a Queen of Puddings.
So, split the difference somewhere between Mince Pies and boeuf en croute but don't blame me when you don't start loving it until you're half-way through.   

Food: They eat a LOT of food.  Salmon mousse, pineapple with kirsch (?) and whipped cream, gooseberry tart (I like to think Betty was winking at the readers, 'Louise thinks she's playing gooseberry!'), genuine lemonade, toast fingers spread with Gentleman's Relish, cottage pie, lime souffle (mmmmm), sole bonne femme, sausage rolls ice cream, steak and kidney pie, game soup, hunter's chicken with buttered rice (yum. yum), creme souffle a' l'orange, asparagus mousse with chicken livers and truffles (Come on, Betty.  You're making things up now.), an entire dinner of 'of's with her future in-laws (quenelles of sole, saddle of lamb, bavarois of raspberries), green herring toast (no, thanks), and parfait of chicken livers (what is it with her and chicken livers?).

Fashion:  She wears an old apron when he catches her cleaning house and dons an abundance of uniforms for work.  Her funner clothes include an amber crepe dress, an angora stole (for the Hospital Ball), a cotton jersey skirt, a blouse and jacket in soft blue, and a grey crepe she is 'heartily sick of'.  One of my favorite scenes in the book is the image of Louise shopping in town and weighing the merits of buying a new blouse versus a bathmat for the house.  Because Louise always does the right thing, she gets the bathmat.

15 comments:

  1. Here's why this book is better than your review -- or at least will be for some people: House porn. Yes, Louise does the whole Martha Stewart thing with Ivy Cottage. I can only think this book coincided with The Great Betty's own move to her pink cottage in Devon.

    Beef en croute for me.

    (I'd write more, but we're off on a mystery vacation!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was under the impression that he had always been "interested" in Louise. Was I being optimistic?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think you might be able to make a case for that Caitlin, but I just didn't see it. The cover makes me optimistic...He's a babe. Still, even if he were interested, he's not so far gone that he goes to any trouble to crack her tough shell before the house throws them together.

    I do like the house porn Betty Magdalen but that only served to highlight how 'meh' the love story was coming along. Still, it pickes up beautifully in the end and I get why it might rate higher for others.

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a difference a comma makes!

    "Sausage rolls ice cream."

    Talk about YUM!

    ;-)

    me<><

    PS Betty Magdalen - enjoy! Take photos! Brings a pressy!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kirsch is a cherry liquor, I think...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Love love love the cover -- I actually referred to it frequently as a reasonably believable portrait of Louise!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I also love the cover. It's obviously circa 1980s but the dress is pretty timeless, the girl looks right and that man is fab.u.lous.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I have pictures of tomorrow's Betty (yes, the one with the ugly dress -- it's just what I had) at the inn, which turned out to be in Northern Maryland. (Sorry, Betty Barbara -- I had no idea that's where we were going, and by the time we got there, we had no internet...)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Betty Barbara here--
    LOL! Betty Keira couldn't stand Zoe and wanted to smack her. I felt the same about Louise! Where's the Clue-By-4 when you need it??
    Zoe starts chattering away about George after her first day on the job and Louise is soooo locked into her Aldo and Zoe fantasy that she's not even listening! It takes Louise 3/4ths of the book before she even acknowledges the fact that Zoe is always nattering on about George.
    I felt Louise verged on 'martyr'. Harsh, yes, I know--but that's how she struck me.
    I rather liked Zoe, even if she was sometimes inappropriately demonstrative. I never got the feeling that she was being cruel. She has No Clue that Louise has manufactured a romance between her and Aldo, nor, until very near the end, did she suspect that Louise had feelings for Aldo. Zoe is treating Aldo as an unofficial 'uncle'--an older man who has taken an interest in the family and is just being nice--he even listens to her chattering on and on about George. Aldo knows (and we know)that Zoe has no romantic interest in him. Only dense-as-lead-Louise persists in interpreting Zoe's enthusiasms and Aldo's niceness as signs of True Love.

    For those keeping track--this one has Fran and Litrik (of Secret Pool fame as cross over characters. Louise stays with them on the trip to Holland. We get to meet their baby SON! and listen to Fran's revisionist history.(Well, what Fran did was leave out a lot of detail--like WHY Litrik wanted to marry her. Leaving Louise and any reader unfamiliar with The Secret Pool with the idea it was because Litrik had fallen in love with her.)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Do you not think it needs say a forced connection between them (marriage/engagement of convenience?)for extra tension? As it is she seems clueless and he drives her on endless extraordinary journeys (we know because every road is named). The temporary job with him isn't enough.

    Or is it that there doesn't seem to be much chemistry?

    ReplyDelete
  11. They eat a lot of chicken!

    She was interrupted here by Mike and Christine and a chorus of praise in which grilled mushrooms in a wine sauce, roast chicken and gooseberry tart with lashings of cream, and unlimited lemonade—the genuine kind, they explained...

    They lunched off game soup, hunter's chicken with buttered rice and crème souffle à l'orange and drank tonic water since the doctor was driving and Louise had no wish to drink wine unless he did so.

    She buried her pretty nose in the menu and only glanced up when he suggested that they should have an asparagus mousse with chicken livers and truffles.

    The menu was French and she chose Chicken à la King with tiny new potatoes and mange touts, and finished off her lunch with an ice and whipped cream dish which she declared to be delicious.

    And shall we start off with the parfait of chicken livers with truffles and asparagus?

    Did you notice?

    asparagus (mousse)/chicken livers/ truffles

    chicken livers (parfait)/truffles/asparagus

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'm with Betty Barbara -- Louise just annoys me. For sure -- bring out the Clue-by-4! I find the book hard to read for that reason. It's like Enchanting Samantha (and occasionally Roses and Champagne) where you just want to smack the "heroine" upside the head.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I don't know why, but I like it! I know that most of what you all say is true, but there you go, I like it. I like how much of a self-sacrificer Louise is, as I would have been calling for help eons ago!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Still one of my favourites but I am never sure why. Maybe it's the lovely ball, the house and Aldo just being Aldo. Louise is a bit of a martyr, my re-read of this one recently had me wanting to push her into Aldo and say "he likes you, you like him so get it together already!"

    ReplyDelete
  15. I came across something interesting which might explain the hair thing. Back in the distant past women in Friesland had their hair shorn and would wear, essentially, skull caps. I was thinking this might account for the hero's fascination/fixation on the heroin's hair especially if it's long. Of course, there are always the usual biblical reasons, thanks St. Paul.

    ReplyDelete