"Tomorrow"

There was an old sideboard in our Majorcan villa. Half of it was filled with old paperbacks - no doubt left by previous renters. Ninety nine per cent of the titles and authors did not appeal to me with the genres being crime, horror or romance. Not my cup of tea at all.

However, amongst all that dross I spotted a rather thin novel by the living and much respected English writer - Graham Swift. Immediately, I was intrigued by the title - "Tomorrow". It reminded me of this speech by Shakespeare's Macbeth:-

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow 
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Knowing nothing about the novel, I nonetheless decided to purloin it. I liked the intriguing cover image too. As I often say, "Always judge a book by its cover".

In Majorca, when not being assailed by grandchildren, I occasionally picked up "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King so "Tomorrow" would have to wait. And then when I got home I needed to finish reading "The God Delusion". However, this week I picked up "Tomorrow". With only 247 pages it was likely to be a much swifter read (geddit?).

And I must say that I absolutely loved "Tomorrow". It was set in a suburban house in London. The narrator is forty nine year old Paula Hook.  She is wide awake but right next to her, in deep sleep, is her husband Mike. Sleeping in other rooms are their sixteen year old twins - Kate and Nick.

The little family has always been "normal", healthy and happy. Paula and Mike have had good jobs and they are comfortably off - or as we often say in Yorkshire - "not short of a bob or two". So what has Paula to fret about? Why is she awake? And why is she addressing her children?

The answer is revealed slowly. Tomorrow is going to be a momentous day, perhaps a turning point in their lives. Paula has no idea how everything will pan out so she's mulling over family history, thinking about minutiae which is what most of us do when we are awake in the middle of the night with things on our minds.

When I began reading the novel I imagined that we wouldn't be in Paula's head for very long - perhaps three or four chapters and then the drama of tomorrow would happen with everybody in the house awake and actively participating.

But I was wrong. The entire novel was Paula's sometimes confused but always tender and kindly nighttime monologue.

Of course, Graham Swift is a man so could he successfully pull off the trick of being in a woman's head? Later, I discovered that some past literary critics - all female - have derided his sterling effort. Perhaps that response was rather predictable.

To be honest I thought he did a great job of it. Intelligent, sensitive Paula is very believable though I felt that I could have done with less reference to her marital and pre-marital sex life. That jarred a little for me. Most people keep that stuff in safe boxes in their heads labelled "Private".

Here are two small  tastes of the language of "Tomorrow":-

"Everything's quiet, the house is still. Mike and I have anticipated this 

moment, we've talked about it and rehearsed it in our heads so many times..."

&

"How quick and rushing life can sometimes seem, when at the same 

time it's so slow and sweet and everlasting."

I am so glad I read "Tomorrow" with zero foreknowledge, my mind untroubled by what critics might have written about it. To me it was quiet in its ordinariness and coloured with genuine humanity. Maybe I was ready for such a read but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Graham Swift b.1949

⦿

On Wednesday I watched live streaming from Glen Hansard's funeral in Dublin. Good heavens, what an event that was! I blubbered several times. Nobody does funerals like The Irish. They know how to give a much loved relative, a friend or a hero a proper send off. And as the service ended and Glen's wickerwork casket was carried from St Patrick's Cathedral the performers and the congregation sang Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" in unison - extending it like a mystical dirge. It was as if they were singing Glen away. Outside on the green hundreds had gathered to watch the  funeral on a big screen.

Here's Glen's big brother Gary singing "I Can See God" by their uncle - Paul Cahill...

And here's the self-penned poem that Glen's wife Maire bravely read out from the lectern:-

Come to me with beauty,

I require it to stay alive.

I'm not talking of precious gifts,

nor do I want a dolled-up, dutiful

and well-assessed array of tender words.

Hurl the cash of what you've pocketed

from this day at my feet,

and then be brave enough to look me in the eye.

Push the boundary of two minds 'til it stretches,

'til there are two bodies in one embrace,

and a moment of understanding or acceptance,

or blind faith and a sense of the infinite jump and jive.

That to me is beauty, and I require it to stay alive.