Max the mad manipulator
Frank Egerton
THE PUPPET SHOW by Patrick Redmond Hodder, £10, pp. 470 Patrick Redmond's first novel, The Wishing Game, was a disturbing thriller about a public school in the 1950s. Its cen- tral character was a shy former grammar- school boy, traumatised by the break-up of his parents' marriage, who entered into an intense relationship with the Byronic son of a local landed family. Behind his mask the latter proved to be equally scarred and developed a psychopathic personality. Gothic murder and mayhem ensued. Red- mond's second novel covers similar psycho- logical territory but in a different context.
It is 1999 and the young innocents are Michael Turner and Rebecca Blake. Michael is a recently qualified solicitor working for a leading City firm. As a child he spent many years in care, having been taken away from his drug-addicted mother. Although eventually fostered by a wealthy couple, he has remained an 'angry, lonely, frightened person' until meeting Rebecca.
She is a graduate of St Martin's School of Art now working at Chatterton's book- shop near Trafalgar Square. She dreams of becoming a professional painter. The strength she gives Michael is drawn from her secure childhood and its legacy of 'non- judgmental love'. If one discounts the irony of her parents' sniffiness towards Michael for not being quite good enough, the future looks rosy.
The move to a new flat changes every- thing. Max, their landlord, is a rich socialite with a similar children's home background to Michael. Within an alarmingly short time he is telling him, 'You're the closest thing I've ever had to a son', and the lives of Rebecca, her best friend Emily, not to mention various work colleagues, are being turned inside out. As Max charms people into feeling obliged to him Redmond ratch- ets up the tension: Michael's catastrophic mistake during an acquisition is remedied by a man who owes Max a favour; an exhi- bition for Rebecca in Cork Street? No problem — Max 'knows everyone'.
Then he begins to call in his debts. It is soon clear that he is being driven by 'demons' from his past to destroy Michael and Rebecca's love and the struggle for Michael's soul becomes almost Faustian. However, the journey towards the surpris- ing climax is far from straightforward. Quite apart from the battle of wills, much of the story's interest stems from the delayed ending. There are interludes dur- ing which Max's power begins to wane and life appears to be 'reverting to normal'.
Such breathing-spaces are effective. They let Michael and Rebecca's relationship exist naturally without being overly deter- mined by the plot. The rhythms of City life are nicely introduced. Redmond uses the contrast between Michael's present sur- roundings and his experiences of the care system to question the priorities of a soci- ety that has a lucrative private sector but a poorly funded public one.
There are only one or two melodramatic occasions when Redmond controls his characters crudely. At such times the light catches on their wires, but to his credit he quickly re-establishes the illusion. Overall this is a highly successful thriller: a page- turner, certainly, but also original, well- constructed and intelligent.
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