Trouble Was, the debut novel by Guardian journalist Charlotte Edwardes, offers a haunting child's-eye view of adult neglect, set during the long, hot summer of 1976. The heatwave, with its escalating water shortage, frames the story of three young children staying with their aunt in a remote West Country farmhouse, where their mother's marital and mental health crisis unfolds.
A convincing child narrator
Edwardes takes the risk of a first-person child narrator, primary-aged Frank. The use of past tense allows both immediate observation and the feeling that the prose is in the steady hands of a remembering adult. Through the gap between Frank and the reader's comprehension, the book conveys what the reader needs to understand about the adults' lives: most are adulterers, the mother's mental illness is hereditary and situational, and her efforts to fob off social services are just about adequate.
We meet Frank and his younger siblings, four-year-old Odette and toddler Patrick, in their mother's smelly old car, packed in 'so close it made my job of looking after us easier'. They're driving through the night to the big farmhouse of their Aunt Perry, leaving home as many times before, for reasons Frank never really understands. Their father is away in the navy, but Frank's memories of and longing for him are complicated: an adult reliably in charge when present, but also a volatile threat to his mother's stability.
Deteriorating conditions
Aunt Perry is also raising her sons mostly in the absence of their father, albeit with private schools and a large house. She too is unable or unwilling to meet children's basic needs. Food is erratic and inadequate, water comes from a dirty well, there are maggots in the kitchen sink, pee all over the bathroom, and nothing and no one is ever washed. Frank's cousins are casually brutalised and brutal, given attention only in the form of humiliation and inconsistent punishment that they yearn to pass on.
The plot is the painfully inevitable deterioration of this scene. Inasmuch as there's any consistent principle, basic parenting for both mothers is about 'toughening up'. Frank's mum tells him in response to a rare complaint about the cousins' bullying of Patrick, 'If you want to survive in this world, you have to put up with it … put up and shut up.' She calls Odette 'Pudding' and sings to her that she's big and fat, until Odette howls and is scolded for being too sensitive. She slaps Frank for twisting his hands when he's upset, tells him not to shake his head because 'you look deranged'.
Elegant storytelling
Edwardes has been a war correspondent, and is excellent at the small detail that tells a terrible story. She knows when looking away is more effective than a full frontal description, and how to haunt readers without sensationalism. The story makes us wait for resolution, for justice and vindication, for some kind of happy ending. As often, the commitment to realism that makes this book also makes the ending difficult to deliver. There can be no cheerful resolution for children whose carers don't care, and Edwardes has been too true to that position to betray it for a fairytale conclusion. Her solution is, like the rest of her writing, elegant. Though the rain falls at the end, there's no cleansing storm and you don't get to pretend the pain is washed away. The joy here is that of good writing.
Trouble Was by Charlotte Edwardes is published by Bloomsbury (£16.99).
