The Water's Lovely [Hardcover]

 

 

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Murder, blackmail and deceit lie at the heart of Ruth Rendell's wickedly devious The Water's Lovely where the shady past inevitably reaches its sticky fingers into the complicated present. Ismay Sealand lives with her sister Heather in a ground floor flat in North London. Upstairs lives their aunt Pamela who spends most of her days looking after Ismay and Heather's mentally deranged mother Beatrix who shouts out violent passages from the Book of Revelations after she went off the deep-end when a death shook the family twelve years ago.

What first appears, as a rather civilized family arrangement is in fact a sort of pact based on an incident involving Beatrix's second husband, Guy who allegedly drowned in the upstairs bathroom. Heather supposedly murdered Guy after she witnessed him touching and kissing Ismay in appropriate ways. Doing little to alleviate Guy's advances, perhaps because she was secretly attracted to him, Ismay has spent the past twelve years dreaming over the drowned Guy and also over what exactly had Heather done, if anything.

The four have continued to coexist in a convenient relationship, in particular Ismay and Heather as they are sisters and are also very close. Living together, they have never discussed the changes to the house, still less what happened on that hot and sweaty August day when she was fifteen and Heather was two years younger.

The verdict was accidental death, the bruises on Guy's ankles dismissed as due to some other cause. But seeing how it looked - Heather's wet dress, the wet shoes, her dislike of Guy, and also Beatrix's lie that gave her an alibi, her need to protect her from police questioning have thrown Ismay into a maelstrom of anguish and for ten years. Ismay has constantly probed and speculated and wondered. Suppose if she found out about Heather, what could she do with the truth she discovered it?

This delicate familiaral balance is upset when Ismay falls in love with Andrew Campbell-Sedge, a stuffy and self-involved lawyer who takes an instant dislike to Heather and her latest beau Edmund Litton, a diffident hospice nurse, who still lives with his horribly autocratic mother Irine. Ismay is swept away by the throws of passion, but Andrew steadfastly refuses to live in the flat while Heather is there. Heather is a thorn in Ismay's side, "a mistress of the persistent silence, and "a gorgon." "It would matter less of she didn't live with you."

Meanwhile, petty thief and confidence trickster Marion cheats and lies her way in and out of elderly people's lives, especially those with money such as the kindly octogenarian Avice, who adores her two pet rabbits and is seeking someone like Marion to look after them. At her heart Marion is a cold-blooded opportunist and a ruthless blackmailer who will stop at nothing to convert Avice's will so that she will be the only beneficiary of much of the poor woman's wealth.

Particularly heedful of Marion is the irascible Irene, who thinks Marion will make a perfect wife for her beloved Edmund. Possessing a weak constitution with migraines that plague her for days on end and perpetually tired with acid indigestion, she sees Edmund's commitment with Heather as brittle and delicate; certainly the young girl is gauche to say the least. She's also appalled at her son's intentions to take out mortgage on a flat on his salary when he would be far happier living with her and her four-bedroom house at his disposal.

Presented with a family structure that they cannot seem to undo, Heather and Ismay become ever more involved with the Litton's and also with Marion who - along with the help of Fowler - her transient and dumpster scavenging brother - weaves together her web of murder and extortion. The multi-layered plot hinges on a brown bottle of morphine sulfate, a tape of Ismay's which falls into the wrong hands, and of course Ismay's reoccurring dreams, of Guy dead under the water, and all of the other dreams peopled by her mother, Pamela and Heather, and once by two older policemen one of which plays an integral part in Sealand family's secret.

The strength of The Water's Lovely is Rendell's fabulous ability to present such beautifully selfish characters who end up becoming so totally skewed in the perceptions of themselves and of each other. Everyone has subsequently modeled their lives on the assumption that Heather had essentially murdered Guy, especially by living the way they lived; Beatrix in madness, Ismay watching over Heather, and everyone over the years so totally convinced that Heather had actually done away with her stepfather.

Rendell continues to expound on her themes of misguided obsession and the kinds of mistrusts and suspicions that can lie at the heart of the human psyche. Set against a backdrop of the author's beloved Finchley Road and Chudleigh Hill area of London, Rendell proves that difficult times do indeed draw her characters into an unknown terrain: When a secondary character is ruthlessly murdered in a park one night, in the end, Ismay really does believe that Heather murdered Guy and that given the right circumstances, her sister might do it again.

Full of carefully crafted contrivances, The Water's Lovely proves that you can never really hide from the events of the past and that the kind of disconnections and misunderstandings that appear throughout can have devastating consequences for all. Mike Leonard November 07.

The Water's Lovely is more about demonstrating a life philosophy than it is a mystery. If you are looking for a rewarding mystery, this book probably won't satisfy. If, however, you are looking for an interesting novel with unexpected plot developments, you'll enjoy your read.

Ms. Rendell displays a world that's very dangerous to women where they need to seize advantages wherever they can and protect themselves in as many ways as possible. Rendell's women also have to become cold-hearted if they are to win what they want through taking timely actions. The book's main strength is in using plot development to display the characters in considerable detail. The writing is quite well done except for a jumbled beginning that makes it a hard book to become comfortable with. If you make it through the first 100 pages or so, you'll find the story's flow works much better and you'll become engrossed in the action.

Ismay is the main character in the book and Chapter One opens with Ismay experiencing a dream about seeing a dead face in the water. That dream is based on an event that haunts Ismay with fears and doubts. Did her sister, Heather, murder their stepfather?

Ismay and Heather live in half of the family's former house, which has been converted into two flats. Their mother, the schizophrenic Beatrix, lives in the other flat with her sister, Pamela. Why this arrangement? Well, someone has to keep an eye on Beatrix who doesn't always take her medicine and without medicine she wanders off and becomes a great source of quotations from the Bible's book of Revelation. Pamela also hopes that changing the house will help painful memories die down for the rest of the family. Ismay and Heather can fill in for Pamela when she needs to go out.

Despite the pain that the death has brought to Ismay, she's never discussed it with Heather. Ismay's focus is outside of the house as she falls madly in love with Andrew Campbell-Sedge who reminds her of her stepfather. Sometimes Andrew's face appears in the dream as a face under the water.

Heather isn't the kind of woman who normally attracts men, but she eventually finds a boyfriend, Edmund Litton, a male nurse at the hospice where Heather is a cook. Edmund, too, has a mother, Irene, who needs lots of attention . . . but because she is a hypochondriac. Irene also has someone who helps look out for her, Marion, who likes to find rich elderly people who are about to die in hopes she will receive an inheritance in exchange for her attention. Irene hopes that Edmund will marry the older, plain Marion, who doesn't appeal to Edmund at all.

Ms. Rendell stirs the pot well by having the characters interact with each other, creating many complications and challenges. In the course of that stirring, Marion brings into the two families the influence of several other characters who she aims to gain money from as well as her stumblebum brother, who leeches off of her.

The story is filled with misunderstandings, misapprehensions, and ill-founded hopes that characterize the normal human existence quite well. You'll find yourself chuckling through many of the scenes. But there's always a strong element of danger in the story. When might threats and violence break out again? The balance between the humor and the danger is well executed.

Once you get past the first 100 pages or so, don't expect to put this book down. Ms. Rendell will draw you forward irresistibly with many twists, turns, and unknowns. But don't expect to fall in love with the characters.

Jodi-Hummingbird, I am sorry about your M.E. but those who have not read this book (I didn't find it very good by the way, not a typical Ruth Rendell) could easily be misled by your piece.

The point is that Irene Litton does not have M.E. (see page 11 in my copy). She is a hypochondriac who only THINKS she has arthitis,scoliosis,M.E. and early Parkinson's. Ruth Rendell is not saying M.E. is imaginary, but that the character imagines she has it. Before attacking her Jodi you should have re-read that paragraph - but maybe your pain got in the way.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Ruined by an offensive comment about M.E.
I really didn't think much of this book, but I'll admit that the offensive and ignorant comment on page 10 of the book may well have had at least something to do with that... Read more

Published on Dec 16 2007 by Jodi-Hummingbird

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