Orange

Of all the authors Scott at Furrowed Middlebrow has talked about over the years, Ursula Orange is the one who appealed most. So it was very exciting when he got three of her novels reprinted through his Dean Street Press series – and Begin Again is the third of those I’ve read. Orange is a wonderfully witty writer, and this novel is no different.

The novel opens with Leslie (early 20s) explaining to her mother why she feels she must move to London, where her schoolfriends Jane and Florence are living a lifestyle that Leslie considers ideal. Leslie wants to spend all the money she has on an art school – though it will not cover tuition and expenses for all that long – and also thinks she should probably have her own little studio, to be taken seriously. Whatever happens, she has to get away from the privileged and calm life she is currently living with her parents:

She knew, not only from Jane and Florence’s conversation (it had been some time since she had had a really good talk with them) but also from the pages of modern novels exactly the way in which young people living their own lives in London talk together – an attractive mixture of an extreme intensity and a quite remarkable casualness. “Henri says Marcovitch’s new poems are the finest things he’s ever read – will certainly found a school of their own. By the way – hand me the marmalade – Elissa is living with Henri now. He says he needs her for his work at present.” Clearly the sort of person who talked like this lived a much freer, a much wider, a much better life than the sort of person who merely said, “Good morning, mummy. Did you sleep well? When Alice brought my tea this morning she said a tree was blown down in the orchard last night.”

One of the things I like a lot about Orange is that she doesn’t have any throwaway characters. While four young women are at the centre of this novel, the secondary characters are not simply there to serve them. I loved the sardonic dryness of Leslie’s mother – which Leslie totally misses, since she expects her mother to be humourless. The reader is quite like Leslie’s mum – we have a definite affection for all the women at the heart of Begin Again, but also recognise they are young and silly.

The others are the aforementioned Jane and Florence, who work in offices and just about earn enough to pay for their unorthodox food and tiny flat – and Sylvia, who still lives in her parents’ grand home, thinking herself very modern with her thoughts on sexual and social liberation. All the women are very earnest, and their problems are real problems inasmuch as they genuinely feel anxiety about them, but Orange is also very funny about them. It’s also a joy to read about arguments over who used the hot water when you no longer have to house-share.

My favourite story of the four was Florence’s – who works as a typist, despite being pretty bad at it, and longs to be recognised as something more valuable. The other typist has fewer ambitions and class hang-ups, and is also much better at her job. The whole set-up of the office was believably unnerving for Florence, while also a joy to read about. That joy continues when the whole bunch travel over to Sylvia’s house for a party, and things get more dramatic and just as absurd.

This was a delightful 1936 read – enough genuine angst to make you take it seriously, and good-heartedness not to mind laughing at the characters. I’m not sure why Furrowed Middlebrow stopped after reprinting three of her novels, but I have my fingers crossed that they bring out the other three at some point…

I loved the first Ursula Orange novel I read (Tom Tiddler’s Ground) and was glad that the 1944 Club provided an opportunity to read another. Company in the Evening is one of the Furrowed Middlebrow reprints – extremely welcome, especially given how much Scott has made us all want to read Ursula Orange over the years. And, yes, it’s another really good’un.

The novel is from the perspective of Vicky, a woman who has recently divorced and is looking after her young daughter (born after the divorce) while also working at a literary agency. She is managing life rather well, but her mother can’t believe this is possible – and decides that Vicky should take in her sister-in-law. Rene has been living with Vicky’s mother, after being widowed (a very WW2 element to the story) – and she makes the move to Vicky’s household, fitting neither in the role of servant or relative. She will provide, Vicky’s mother optimistically hopes, ‘company in the evening’.

Vicky is more a real character than a likeable one. Or, perhaps, she becomes likeable because she is so understandable. She does not particularly want Rene to move in with her, nor does she know quite how to speak to her. Orange is very good in the scenes where Vicky tries to reach across the intellectual and social chasm between herself and Rene, wanting to find the right topics and language, but also (because she is only ordinarily nice; nothing special) not putting in quite as much effort as is needed. She is definitely an intellectual snob and, to a lesser extent, a class snob – but it is undeniable that this chasm would exist, even if Vicky cared less about it. The women are two different to understand one another.

Meanwhile, she starts to reconnect with her ex-husband – recognising, for the first time, that he might want to make something of the role of father, and that she never really gave him the chance. Looping back to the title – might he become the aforementioned company?

The dynamics of the unusual household are done extremely well. We always know what people are or aren’t likely to say, do, and feel, and understand how awkwardly these elements cohere – or don’t cohere. It is a funny novel, but not in the way that Tom Tiddler’s Ground was. It’s the war – set in 1941, if memory serves – and a more sombre light is cast over the book.

Having said that, all the stuff at her literary agency is amusing – particularly her dealings with an author who sends all her best stories elsewhere, and is maddeningly unhelpful in meetings. I love reading about anybody engaged in literary work, and this was all rich material for what a literary agency was presumably like in the 1940s.

Dorothy Harper wafted herself out of the office, all pearls, fur-coat and scent. I am sure that she always pictured herself as bringing just a little colour and romance—a breath of the outside world—into our drab lives. As neither of us ever did anything but listen patiently while she talked her society prattle, perhaps we encouraged her in this conception. I was ‘Miss Sylvester’ to her, as I was to all our clients. I am sure that had she known that I was (like her) a divorcee, she would. have been deeply shocked. Little typists in offices (she would think) have no business to be also divorced women with private lives of their own.

The oddball humour is perhaps an odd fit with the social anxieties – and with all the motherhood aspect, particularly when Vicky’s daughter has a health crisis. But I think it works well together – because, of course, people’s lives have funny moments and unhappy moments, and Orange has written something that is naturalistic in tone, if not in every word spoken. I’m so grateful that Scott and Furrowed Middlebrow have brought Ursula Orange back into print – and you can read his detailed thoughts about this novel on his blog.