Trespass

I have just spent a deliciously indulgent afternoon finishing off Rose Tremain's fantastic novel: "Trespass". So engrossed was I by her skilfully woven narrative, that an afternoon set aside for housework, was seriously eaten into! I vacuumed the lounge, read a chapter; pegged out the washing, read another, and so on, until by the time I should have been prepping the dinner, I had read feverishly to the last page, not caring whether the family went hungry. That's the sign of a good book!

Initially, my heart sank when I thought I was going to have to read through the characters' personal histories of sordid sexual encounters, which is something I prefer not to have thrust in my face, either when reading a novel, or watching a film on T.V. However, these do not dominate the narrative, and they do allow us to understand what drives the protagonists to behave how they do.

Tremain writes with authority about antiques, garden design and the landscape, architecture and industrial heritage of the Cevennes in France, where the majority of the plot unfolds.The story is essentially about the disintegration of two families over two generations, with their associated psychological baggage. The first is an English family: Anthony Verey, a well-known antiques dealer from Pimlico, and his older sister, Veronica, who lives in the Cevennes with her lover, Kitty. The second is French: brother and sister, Aramon and Audrun Lunel; the former an alcoholic, living in the ancestral home, whilst the latter lives in a modest bungalow down the road. It is when Aramon decides he wants to sell up, and Anthony that he needs to retire to France, that the two families' paths meet.

It is a deftly crafted novel of longing for lost innocence, and yearning for happiness. About wanting to be secure and loved, and to have a special place of one's own, which the world cannot threaten or remove. V's lover, Kitty, exasperated by the intrusion of Anthony into their love-nest bemoans: "Doesn't every love need to create for itself its own protected space? And if so, why don't lovers understand better the damage trespass can do?"

Sadly, even if we realise our grand designs for building a home, our past can often catch up with us, and the reader feels the weight of the Lunels' blighted history closing in on them. Audrun and her friend Marianne, try to explain this to Marianne's daughter: " When lives are blighted young, Jeannette, sometimes you just don't quite recover, and that's a true tragedy."

The joy of this book is discovering just how far someone will go to get and hold onto that "protected space". I will not say who that someone is, but even when you guess their identity, it is a delicious pleasure watching them execute their plans. Everyone knows it's the quiet ones that need to be watched.