Penelope Lively has assembled a cast of characters whose lives are changed as a result of the mugging of Charlotte Rainsford, whose hip is broken as she falls.
Thus a distinguished Historian, (who is someday going to write his memoirs, peppered with the names of all the people he’s known), has to ask his niece to accompany him to a college where he is to speak; as Rose, his PA, must take care of Charlotte, her mother.
The niece, a decorator, meets a man who offers her an interesting job.
The marriage of a couple who have never heard of Charlotte begins to come apart.
And Charlotte volunteers, while she recuperates, to teach English to a middle-aged Central European immigrant .
Lively has created characters who engage us, amuse and charm us, and writes with clarity and deep understanding of what it is like to be old.
“The long and the short of it is,” fumes the Historian, “you can’t bloody well remember what you were going to say next when you know perfectly well what it was.”
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