(Published by Penguin)
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This novel is essentially about “ending up”, in particular the winter years of the inhabitants of Tuppenny-Hapenny Cottage. The Cottage is a gloomy isolated house occupied by a bunch of oldies thrown together by fate and a lack of options.
Bernard – ex-Army, forced to resign due to his scandalous relationship with Private Derrick ‘Shorty’ Shortell. Long estranged from his wife and family.
Shorty – Bernard’s ex-lover and now butler to the cottagers.
Adela – spinster and sister of Bernard, whose disappointment at never having being loved is subverted in to magnanimous care.
George – Bernard’s brother in law, a bed ridden, Central European Academic, with a memory problem regarding nouns. Taken in by Adela in a fit of generosity he is somewhat resented by the rest of the house, with forced visits to his bedside described as “doing George”.
Marigold – A proud old doll, worried about keeping up a good front, her correspondence and infrequent family visits.
No one really likes each other; Bernard and Shorty were once lovers but now can’t believe they ever had a physical relationship. Marigold is supposedly Adele’s best friend but treats her as the rest do – like a housemaid. George moribund in bed until Marigold’s visiting relatives think of bringing him downstairs. They gripe, wine and annoy each other to brilliant effect.
The story rambles along at the same pace as their lives; meandering gruffly punctuated by a sniggering sarky humour. The lives of the Tuppenny-Hapenny Cottagers are pathetic, saddening and delightfully funny.
I could have let this novel amble on and on… but as all lives must come to an end so must this. And it does – to dramatic effect. At first I found the abruptness of the final act difficult and jarring yet it seems fitting that these lives limped to a bang.
The highlights of this black comedy come from Bernard’s plotting against the rest of the household. One by one he tries to bring them to psychological ruination, even Mr Pastry and Pusscat do not miss his malicious grip. Each character obits around each other in an uneasy trajectory. Shorty trying to keep his drinking to himself, Marigold struggling with her memory loss, George working on improving his, Adela trying to keep the household together and Bernard trying to rip it apart.
The text dances along a line that in the hands of another writer could see this novel falling into the maudlin, crass or disdainful. Yet it never does, as painful and gloomy and fatefully real as the circumstances get are there is relief though the shafts of erudite wit and cutting conversation.
A comic tragedy. 
