The protagonist is 65-year-old Stella Brentwood who had settled down in rural England, after a lifetime of globetrotting. She was a social anthropologist, specialising in kinship and lineage patterns of indigenous communities. Although she had her fair share of romantic encounters, she remained single, a free spirit at heart. She knew she belonged to the minority of individuals not afraid of solitude.
Most of them spend much of their time in one place, contemplating the same view, locked in communion with those they see every day. For some, this is a stranglehold; others are more fortunate. It all depends on perspective. (p.6)And certainly the opposite of her best friend in university who after graduation, embraced the domestic life wholeheartedly, as wife, mother and good citizen.
Most people require a support base - family, community. Everyone does, perhaps. The extension of oneself that allows ‘me’ to dissolve into ‘us’, that supplies common cause and provides opportunity for altruism and reciprocal favours and also for prejudice, insularity, racialism, xenophobia and a great deal else. Most people are either born into this situation or achieve it, by hook or by crook. (p. 184)
Most people need tethers of one kind or another. They need a support base - spouses or offspring or property. They need an organization to wrap around themselves, or they need power over others, or they need adulation and approval. (p. 213)
‘The thing about life is to have a strategy,’ says Nadine. ‘Ultimate aim, fall-back position . . . And here are you in the fifth week of term with no strategy at all. Do you want David if I don’t need him? I could probably fix it.’Stella kept in touch with the husband of her belated best friend and a former colleague. They courted her for different reasons. But their approaches were covert, even subtle. As if they sensed that Stella would flee at the first hint of any proposal to live together.
‘No, thanks,’ says Stella. ‘... And in any case I entirely disagree. The thing about life is to act expediently and creatively. Seize the day. See what comes up and act accordingly.’
‘Fatal. Drift theory. That way you get stuck doing things you never meant to do and you end up married by accident to the wrong person or not married at all when you're thirty.’
‘Or,’ says Stella, ‘you proceed from one glittering opportunity to the next and are mercifully still available for grand passion when the moment strikes.’ (p. 178-9)
Her retirement in peaceful Somerset was short-lived because of neighbours she did not know (how ironic given her profession). Not that she offended Karen Hiscox and her husband, or their two teenage sons, in any way. Stella never realised the source of the boys’ malice, nor how messed-up the Hiscox family was. In the end, the teenagers destroyed her sole attempt at introducing a steady companion into her life. They killed her dog.
A more detached attitude is a luxury of greater affluence and independence. If you are likely to need the help, guidance, support or co-operation of those around you, then you cannot afford such a cavalier approach. Neighbourliness thrives at subsistence level. The pioneer legacy is to be seen in the American tradition of hospitality and mutual obligation. You can afford to disregard the people next door only if certain that all your requirements will be supplied by neutral agencies. The doctor will come running if you are taken ill. The plumber and the electrician are at your beck and call. The garage mechanic will get your car to start. The money in your bank will cover all contingencies. (p. 122)
And only if your need for companionship and the occasional kind word are otherwise supplied, thought Stella. If you can pick up the phone to talk to a friend. If your personal community is far-flung, but easily accessible. As is mine. The self-contained capsule is a reasonable option, with the technology now available. Whether or not it is a desirable one is another matter. (p. 123)
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