The loss of
Sir Paul
Anita Brookner
A TASTE FOR DEATH by P.D. James
Faber & Faber, f9.95
P. D. James's excellent novel begins with the discovery of the mutilated bodies of two men in the vestry of a Romanesque basilica in Paddington. It ends with a siege in a flat in Notting Hill Gate. These specific locations give a voluptuous ampli- tude to an already loaded story, proving yet again that the conscientious novelist is not someone who merely sits at a typewri- ter but who paces out the territory, gets the timing right, is observant of weather, is an inventor of architecture, a creator of in- terior appointments, a provider of life histories, of families, of chance or habitual encounters. Above all, the superior novel- ist — and P.D. James is just such a novelist — is a withholder of information, urging the reader along, although that reader, half willing, half baffled, might like to stop and consider matters, until such time as the author thinks it wise to release a few more facts, a partial explanation, a clue picked up from a couple of hundred pages back, or revives a suspicion which has lain dormant for an even longer period of time. The tight control that this implies is not inherent in the idea when it first comes to mind. In the present instance the idea itself is of such complexity that one marvels at the urbanity needed to unravel it, and, more important, to keep the reader waiting until the time has arrived for a final accounting.
The chivalrous Adam Dalgliesh is on hand when Sir Paul Berowne, Minister of State, is found with his throat cut, in the company of a tramp similarly despatched. His reason for sleeping in the vestry of St Matthew's, Paddington, is perhaps the only weak link in this solidly and stolidly constructed story. Shades of Dickens and Wilkie Collins are present as the narrative goes back in time, into the anterior lives of Sir Paul, his wife Barbara, his mother Lady Ursula (a true descendant of Lady Ded- lock), his chauffeur, his housekeeper, his mistress, his agent, his cleaning woman, his brother-in-law, his daughter, and the two unfortunate women who have met death while in his employment. On Dalgliesh's side we have Inspector Massingham, and a new arrival, Kate Miskin, a career police- woman whose own interesting story and antecedents take pride of place over Dalg- liesh's famed sensitivity. Kate Miskin is perhaps a sign of the times: the days when Dalgliesh fitted into the slot reserved for aristocratic and romantic detectives is past, and the increase in realism is welcome.
The deliberate romance that the novel possesses is in fact conferred on places rather than on characters, although the characters themselves are marvellously realised. Perhaps the baronet and his family are less interesting than the details of their house in Campden Hill Square; perhaps a certain flat in Stanmore, a villa in St John's Wood, a sitting-room over- looking the Portobello Road, a cottage in Surrey, a riverside restaurant in Berkshire fascinate because they are constructed with so sure a hand; or perhaps the real subject of the novel is the mysterious complexity of lives and their attachment to their sur- roundings, their roots, their appurte- nances. The cosy English village murder was always a poor thing, although it gave pleasure of an innocent nature to many. The emotions aroused by A Taste for Death will be more sophisticated; they will be mixed with a sense of the complexity of cities and the lives lived within them.
The reason why Sir Paul chose to sleep in the vestry is complicated. He is a flawed man: on the surface worldly, cultivated, austere, a little like Dalgliesh himself, but below this surface weak, cold, indifferent, and given to a religious conversion which might be thought to be a solution to his unsatisfactory life. His mother, Lady Ursu- la, is a reformed rake, icily insistent on the conventions, and at heart as indifferent to her entourage as is her son. The wife, Barbara, is a witless beauty who will be retained only because she is pregnant. These unpalatable people reverse one's expectations of what a distinguished family should offer, and do so in such a way that the reader only slowly comes to the conclu- sion that Sir Paul is no loss. This is probably the reason why he is bumped off in the first chapter, although his disappear- ance is a cause for regret, largely by those who hardly knew him. His disconcerting companion in death is not accounted for until very late on, when his agency in the witnessing of a document is established. Since it is in the nature of things that figures with an air of authority and an imperviousness to others should arouse hatred, it is not surprising that Sir Paul arouses a certain amount — in fact, a great deal — in others. Or in one other.
Details of the plot cannot of necessity be given here. Suffice it to say that between the violent first chapter and the extremely violent last chapter there is no further foul play. In the long and sometimes discursive body of the book there is only rumour and a growing sense of the insolubility of the plot. There is also a sense of stress, a sense of uneasy personalities concealing or trying to come to terms with disastrous informa- tion. Indeed the fascination of the story resides in the ramifications that link one character with another, the calls upon their time, their bizarre imperatives, the exper- tise that enables them to go on earning their livings. So far removed from cliche are these characters that the innocent are condemned to obscurity and discomfort. Only the psychopathic killer has a sense of ease, of euphoria, of success. It is a grim story, not because of the quantity of blood spilled, though that is grim enough, but because all the characters are enmeshed in a struggle of one kind or another, struggles to which there is no immediate solution. The burdens of incon- venient relatives, or of frightening soli- tude, the burdens borne by the very old or the very young, by the shabby priest, or the elderly novelist in the waterlogged bunga- low, are not there to be lifted. Above all, the struggle of the upwardly mobile police- woman, Kate Miskin, with her carefully achieved flat and her anxious decor, im- press the reader as authentic, and authenti- cally interesting. I hope that Dalgliesh deserts Cordelia Gray and marries her: not that there is much chance of that. Sexual chemistry between colleagues is also a time-honoured element, particularly on a murder case, and this pair should see us through a few more novels.
It seems unfair, ungrateful even, to urge P.D. James to hurry on with her next, but as soon as one has reached page 454 of A Taste for Death one yearns for the security of another volume. She is an addictive writer, whose own acquisitive attitudes are passed on to the reader. It seems to me that she has gained authority with this novel. The quality of intelligence was always there, but now in addition we have a genuine curiosity about character, and an ability to describe the density of little known lives. Above all, there is that sense of place. It is to the greater and lesser Victorians that one is referred throughout this long narrative. And if the Gothic horrors are present together with the sense of justice, one is only confirmed in one s view that P.D. James takes her place in the long line of those moralists who tell a story as satisfying as it is complete.
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