Another little drink wouldn't do us any good
Anita Brookner
THE OLD DEVILS by Kingsley Amis
Hutchinson, f9.95
he old devils of the title are a party of not too viable friends, on the wrong side of 60, who spend the days of their semi- retirement together, apparently dedicated to the proposition of drinking Wales dry. It is impossible to overestimate the amount of drinking done in this novel. While the men are pouring down cascades of whisky and water or torrents of gin and slimline tonic, the latter out of deference to their ruined outlines, their wives are tearing into cases of Soave, Frascati, and Yugoslav Riesling. The two sexes rarely drink together. The husbands peel off in the early morning for a session at the Bible and Crown, breaking off for a more or less liquid lunch at the Glendower, before finishing the afternoon or evening in one or other of their houses attacking more whis- ky and listening to old jazz records. Their wives are rarely in attendance since they are visiting one another for 'coffee', and tend to spend the day among overflowing ashtrays and empty bottles saying things in an oblique fashion which matches well with the style of the hospitality. Occasions like holidays, a weekend excursion, a wedding, or the unveiling of a plaque to the local hero, Brydan, poet and boozer, are seen as occasions for further refuelling, yet it cannot be said that anybody is any the better for any of this drinking. Serious curtailments of physical well-being are on offer, constipation here, overweight there, anxiety attacks of considerable propor- tions, and finally a fatality, none of which are seen as more than minor inconveni- ences, to be brushed aside or erased from the consciousness by the further intake of alcohol.
All this takes place under lowering Welsh skies, and the subject most usually under discussion is what degree of Welsh- ness is permitted to the honnete homme and at what point does authentic Welsh- ness deteriorate into token Welshness, a condition liable to interfere with the moral fibre of the principality.
This preoccupation is brought to the fore when the old devils — Malcolm, Charlie, and Peter — await, with varied reflections, the return of their erstwhile comrade Alun (born Alan) Weaver and his wife Rhian- non. Alun Weaver has been all things Welsh on English television for some years and is consequently a figure of some local importance, a professional white-haired charmer given to long rolling sentences when on the job and shorter ones when off it. He is intent on visiting parts of Wales for a television series provisionally enti- tled, 'In Search of Wales'. Many will recognise it although it was never made. It was never made because Alun, using his shorter sentences, optimises his non- drinking time by bringing a little cheer into the lives of all those girls he left behind him, although they now happen to be married to Malcolm, Charlie, and Peter. Age and girth prove no obstacle to Alun until one unexpected evening, the details of which become a little hazy, as Kingsley Amis cleverly lets us ride along on an exhausting tide of alcohol before turning serious and providing a timely reminder of his habitual craftsmanship.
The serious note on which the book ends is introduced halfway through when it becomes clear that Rhiannon, unlike her husband, has inspired lasting and real love in at least two of the characters, Malcolm and Peter. Just why she has done this is less certain for she is barely differentiated from the other wives, all of whom seem distres- singly inter-changeable. But Rhiannon is a heroine because the author loves her: that is how female characters in novels get to be heroines, for they are rarely distinguished by their qualities or actions. What might have been a touching story of love among the elderly is in fact something more grotesque and occasionally painful, some- - thing too which hints at the shortness of endeavour that characterises the amorous lives of men who have drowned their joys as well as their sorrows. The book gives off a savage whiff of powerful dislike before allowing itself a backward glance of real or at least remembered affection.
In undistinguished weather the talk ranges back and forth over two topics: Alun's Welshness and Brydan's Welsh- ness. Both are seen to be hedged about with prohibitions since it is felt to be underhand to be too lyrical when sober and not much more defensible when drunk. Yet as the vista of slag heaps, caravan parks, pubs decorated with old team photographs, and more recently intro- duced Burger Bars unfolds, it is clear to the reader, particularly to the reader who is not Welsh, that this subject is one of the utmost importance, and can be, and indeed is, discussed at great length throughout the entire book. Indeed it is one of two subjects that Kingsley Amis is apparently prepared to take entirely seriously, the other being the steady pursuit of more drink.
There are times in the novel when both subjects become monotonous, when the author's famous irascibility begins to have too weak an edge to it. The equally famous misogyny is less horrendously uninhibited than usual. It is possible to feel rather sorry for these old girls in their trouser suits, despite the handicaps that the author visits on them: loquaciousness, lack of sym- pathy, infidelity, a daily habit of over- indulgence. In a way he is no ruder about the women than about the men. This I take to be a sign of the mature Amis. The mood of the novel might be described as serious dislike buried in affection, or antipathy masked by nostalgia. Were it not for that brief moment of true feeling at the end and the consciousness that the author has not brought us all this way for nothing, the note struck would be unremittingly sour.
For the non-drinker the novel is puzzling. Drinking here is not undertaken to outwit the oppressions of the state or to celebrate natural good fortune; it is undertaken for the sole purpose of getting drunk. It is unaccompanied by wit, satire, courage, or joy. It takes place in unheated bars while veils of rain drift outside the windows. Far more seriously, it does not advance the action of the novel until death unfairly claims a victim: the news of this fatality is on the whole received calmly, drink and Welshness by that stage having done their worst or possibly their best, preserving the survivors in their single-minded pursuit of the ideal state, which would seem to be a greater proportion of drink to that of Welshness. The author's testiness is in fact as sad as the weather, as sad as the alterations brought about by age. Laughter is absent from the final pages, which quicken the action of the entire book. It is these final pages that reveal the writer Amis at his best, and it is with a genuine sense of the passing of time and of the way in which that same passing leads one to the lip of truth that the author at last reveals some- thing of himself, something not always on show, and in doing so awakens in the reader a wry smile of empathy.
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