God on the Rocks

By Jane Gardam

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize: “So charming a novel that you don’t want to give away a single one of the many twists of its plot” (The New York Times).

Originally published in Great Britain in 1978, the novel describes Margaret Marsh’s coming of age one summer between the world wars. Caught in the backwash of a fervently religious father, a mother bitterly nostalgic for what might have been, the tea and sympathy of some thoroughly secular neighbors and the bawdy jokes of her nanny Lydia, Margaret’s world hurtles toward a shattering moment of truth. Drama, tragedy, and a touch of farce lend themselves to Gardam’s typically eloquent prose. With subtlety and precision, God on the Rocks provides an intimate portrait of the tensions that divide men and women, present and past, and the love and sorrow that linger throughout.

Jane Gardam’s reputation in the United States has been greatly enlarged by the critical acclaim and commercial success garnered by her latest novels, Man in the Wooden Hat and her masterpiece Old Filth. Now, newcomers and fans alike can enjoy the pleasure of the splendid writing that established Gardam’s considerable canon some four decades ago.

“Gardam is a unique and wonderful writer, mixing no-nonsense presentations of heartbreak, despair, and uncertainty, with equally dry but hilarious bouts of humor, desire, love, friendship, and even happiness, fleeting as that might be.” —The Huffington Post

“Gardam orchestrates the subtle evolution of character and plot with Olympian omniscience and wry humor.” —The Boston Globe

“God on the Rocks offers plenty of the wit and humanity that are her trademarks.” —The Christian Science Monitor

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781609450212

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events,

real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. 

Copyright © 1978 by Jane Gardam

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction

in whole or in part in any form.

Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco

www.mekkanografici.com

ISBN 9781609450212

Jane Gardam

GOD ON THE ROCKS

For Paul Scott,

in grateful memory

1.

Because the baby had come, special attention had to be given to Margaret, who was eight. On Wednesdays therefore she was to go out with Lydia the maid for the whole afternoon. Wherever Lydia liked. So long as Margaret’s mother knew of course where that was.

Lydia said, the first Wednesday, that she had thought of the train. Maybe to Eastkirk—and a nice walk about on the Front and down the woodland. Margaret’s mother said that Eastkirk meant money and the sands were better here at home, but Lydia said that Margaret would like the woods.

Teacakes were thus buttered and twirled in a paper bag and Lydia and Margaret took a train to Saltbeach and changed on to the single track line to Eastkirk and went slowly, see-sawing from side to side in the dusty coach with blinds with buttoned ends and a stiff leather strap arched like a tongue on the carriage door. The material on the carriage seat was black with red birds and very coarse and hard. There were two pictures above each long narrow seat on either side of a blotchy mirror. One picture was usually of Bexhill and the other of Bournemouth. They were sleepy, comfortable, upper-class places, decidedly foreign. The train stopped once on the way to Eastkirk, and through the open window you could hear the sea faintly breathe, at long intervals, below the cliff for the single track line ran close to its edge. Gulls stood about the platform or skimmed low, level over the distant cliff edge and the station-master’s fine geraniums.

Margaret loved Lydia—or at any rate she loved the look of Lydia, sleepy and sunny like the pictures, with a huge fizz of yellow hair. Lydia had on, this first Wednesday, a dress of royal blue sateen with little red and yellow flowers, a bolero to match, high-heeled shoes and shiny silk stockings the colour of very ripe corn. She smoked a cigarette and held it in her bright red lips. When she took it out the cigarette had a pattern of fine red lines fanning together at the end. Lydia’s thighs were broad and heavy under the silk dress, soft and flattened out on the red and black seat.

The sun blazed through the carriage window—it was a remarkable summer—hot as Bexhill or Bible countries. Lydia jerked about with the blind, fixing it first in one little sneck and then another, finally pulling it right to the bottom and pressing the button into the little brass hole. But still the sun shone in from the other windows across her lap.

At Eastkirk they got out on to the quiet platform and walked to the ticket man, and the train stood still as if it would never move again. Then it gave a long, releasing sigh and slowly eased itself off, haunch by haunch, towards Cullorcoates for Whitley Bay.

Margaret was a quiet child and Lydia was a quiet woman and they took hands and walked to the promenade without a word. It was summer holidays and young men stood about in clusters eating ices. Lydia and Margaret sat on a green seat high above the sea. Little ships bobbed. The pier was merry.

‘Oi-oi,’ said one boy. Lydia paid no attention but bought ices.

‘What’s oi-oi?’ asked Margaret.

Lydia licked.

‘Oi-oi, oi-oi,’ said Margaret, wagging her legs from the knee down as she sat on the seat, liking her white ankle-socks and buttoned shoes. Other children ran about in sandals and shorts, but Margaret was neat with a hair-slide low by her ear and a cotton dress with smocking along the back as well as the front. ‘It’s only by the back you can tell,’ her mother always said. ‘You can tell a nice child from the back!’ Some gulf obtained between Margaret and children with undecorated backs.

They began to walk along the Front, Lydia easily rolling, rather like the train. She was watched a lot and Margaret watched her being watched. She looked up at the high bulk of Lydia. ‘You’re a real bobby-dazzler,’ her mother had said faintly when Lydia had come downstairs dressed for the outing—gone the maid’s coffee-coloured dress and cap and apron of cream muslin, the black shoes and stockings. Margaret felt wonderfully proud to be walking beside Lydia so stately and at ease.

When they got to the beginning of the woodland, however, Lydia began to loosen up a bit. The path was steep down to the wood where the stream ran in to the sea and Lydia’s high shoes toppled. ‘Eeeeh dear,’ she said. ‘Eeeeeh dearie me!’ Margaret began to skip and prance in front. The wood grew darker and higher and the sun was far away above, only dappling the earth under the trees now and then. There were few people about until they came out on a terrace above an ornamental bandstand where men in uniform were playing very sweet music in a loud and carefree way. People sat around the bandstand in rows of deck chairs, some of them with newspapers over their heads to keep off the sun but mostly, both men and women, in hats. The men wore panamas like Margaret’s school panama but without the elastic under the chin, the women in broad-ribboned fine straws if they were old, or brimless cloth thimbles if they were young. Lydia said that they would sit down too but Margaret said she would like to go on and Lydia said all right then, and they wandered on into the trees again until it grew quiet and the splendid music died away. Lydia tottered over a tree root and cried out, ‘Eeeeh dear!’ again, laughing.

‘Take them off,’ said Margaret.

‘And ruin me stockins?’

‘Take off your stockings.’

Lydia sat down in the dark wood heavily and slowly and took off the high-heeled shoes and then stretched and heaved up above her skirts to release the suspenders of her orange stockings; three to each leg, front and middle and back. She rolled down the stockings and wiggled her toes. She stuffed the stockings down the front of her sky-blue dress. ‘Carry me shoes then,’ she said, ‘and gis an ’and up.’ Margaret pulled and Lydia arose. After a bit she said, ‘Eeeeeh dear, me corset. I wish I could tek off me corset.’

‘Well, do,’ said Margaret. ‘You can see right along the path and there’s no one in the trees.’

Lydia however was unsure and they walked on together a good way until they came to a wavery side-path down towards the stream. They took this—and the wood was now very dark for such a brilliance above it—and met no one. They came to a dry stream bed with a rustic bridge over it. There was a gate on the bridge at their side of the stream and on the gate a white wooden notice saying PRIVATE. Across the bridge the wood cleared into a green circle of grass with a huge spreading tree over it. The tree’s roots were liked webbed fingers and there were black triangular caves between them.

‘You could take off your corset and put it in the tree roots for a bit,’ said Margaret.

‘Git on,’ laughed Lydia. She leaned on the rustic gate and looked at the soft grass and the graceful tree with the sun shining through its branches in splashes. ‘In’ it bonny?’ she said.

‘Come on,’ said Margaret and pushed Lydia which pushed the gate which opened and they giggled again and crossed the bridge. While Lydia took off her corset she made Margaret stand behind the tree. ‘All right now,’ she called in a minute and Margaret came back and saw Lydia rolling up the huge, pig-pink bundle all slats and eyelet holes and laces.

‘That’s better,’ said Lydia, tying the laces to hold the whole thing together. Margaret took the bundle and felt it while Lydia scratched with both hands at the small of her blue silk back and then round to the front over each hip. ‘Shove it undert’ tree.’ She laughed again, putting her head back. ‘It’s huge,’ said Margaret. It was also heavy and warm and very damp but she did not say so. She pushed the thing quickly into the tree.

‘Lovely,’ said Lydia lying down. ‘Grand.’

‘What shall we do now?’

‘I’ll do nowt. Not owt. I’s sweatin’.’

‘Can I climb the tree?’

‘Don’t get yer dress mucky.’

‘I’ll take it off.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘T’d not to.’

‘Well look at you!’

‘I’m me own boss.’ Lydia knew limits for Margaret.

‘It’s not fair. I’ll just tuck it in my knickers then.’

‘Aye, tuck it in thy knickers.’

Lydia’s eyes were closing. A big round flower, Margaret thought, climbing the sycamore. A big pudding of a flower. A big pudding on a dish. A big sticky pudding, juicy like an apple pudding. Fat and hot and squidgy like an eiderdown-pudding, she thought looking down at uncorseted outspread Lydia. Think I’ll jump on her. Squelch and squish.

But at the top of the tree she shot her head out into the bright air. There was a breeze. The thinner branches swayed, the plates of pointed leaves were finer up here and greener. The faint sound of the faraway band blew up. The tree-top swung.

Margaret wanted to laugh and weep. She took the two top-most branches in her hands like the reins of a horse or a water-diviner and with her head still collared by leaves she sang very noisily a song about a baby falling falling falling down. Down and dead, dead and down, on his head, baby dead, until her own head was burning hot and a foot in the buttoned shoe slipped a bit and she went into watery terror and began to feel with her feet downwards, downwards till the branches thickened to comforting bars, then to elephant legs and then—with a thump as she landed on the circle of grass—were not important.

‘I’ve been to the top,’ she cried, ‘I’ve been over the top.’ She felt the silky boiling crown of her head again and looked round for Lydia. But Lydia was not there.

‘Lydia?’ she called.

‘Lydia?’

There was almost complete silence in the wood. There was the dry stream bed, the rustic bridge, the flattened, sun-splashed grass where Lydia had lain. Quickly Margaret looked in the tree-root for the corset which was there.

But Lydia was not there.

‘She’ll be in the bushes,’ Margaret thought. ‘Lydia!’

There were some crackles and rustles of perhaps field mice or frogs, but no Lydia. Margaret went over and stood on the bridge and kicked at it a bit with her round-ended shoes. She climbed on the rustic logs of its cross-over rustic side and hung over. Then she slithered down the bridge from below. Then she squished about in the pale mud which was the stream and looked around at one thing and another.

‘Lydia,’ she called more sharply when she had scrabbled her way up the bank again, ‘Lydia?’

A short distance behind the green, lawn-like pool of grass beneath the tree was a bank of other trees, very steep and thinning to sunlight along a ridge, and Margaret began in a great hurry to rush up this bank. ‘Lydia,’ she shouted now. ‘Where are you, Lydia?’ At the top of the bank fear suddenly had hold of her and made her hands heavy and her legs wobble. Tears came in to her eyes. ‘Lydia!’

She shot out of the trees at the top of the slope into wide empty sunshine. There was complete silence, not a soul about, just a great swelling plain of upward-curved parkland sleeping in the afternoon. Several immense trees stood about on it, dark gold and as still as cut-outs. Beyond them, far away, stood a massive yellow house. Its eyes watched her. She stared back.

Then below she heard quite a long way off Lydia calling Margaret.

‘Margaret? Where you gone? I lost yer.’

She turned and flew down the bank. Lydia stood on the far side of the bridge.

‘I lost you,’ shouted Margaret, ‘I lost you. I hate you.’

‘I was just int’ bushes,’ said Lydia. ‘It’s time we went home. I was washing me hands int’ bushes.’

‘Why didn’t you go this side in the bushes?’

‘I didn’t like.’

‘I was lost.’

‘You’d not of got far,’ said Lydia.

After she had got into the corset again they ate the teacakes out of the paper-bag and walked up through the wood and passed the band. In the train Lydia said, ‘Wherever did yer tek off til, anyway?’

‘Nowhere,’ said Margaret. ‘If I tuck my dress in my knickers can I get in the rack?’

Lying in the luggage rack above Lydia, rocking like a sailor, she said, ‘Can we go there again next week?’

‘I’m not bothered,’ said Lydia. ‘If yer want.’

2.

Mrs Marsh, Margaret’s mother, was a great breast-feeder at a time when it was fashionable to be otherwise. Nor had she shingled her hair nor seen to her waist-line. She was a largish, loose-jointed, still-young woman much given to God and sympathy and immensely loving to babies. She sat hour after hour in her bedroom, knees apart in a nicely-made but antique sort of a skirt, deeply-waved brown hair falling round her face untidily.

Sometimes she had flour on her face, for she seldom looked in the glass and was fond of cooking. As she fed the baby she looked into its face all the time with a very gentle deep expression. When Margaret came into the room she would raise her head with a long and understanding look.

‘Going out, dear?’

‘No.’

‘I thought it was Wednesday.’

‘It is. That’s this afternoon.’

‘What, dear?’

‘Going out.’

Mrs Marsh, dazed about times of day, detached herself from the baby, drawing herself back and mopping about with a cloth. She lifted the baby up on her shoulder where a huge towelling nappy lay, hanging a little way down her back for the baby to be sick on. She massaged its back, which was like the back of a duck, oven-ready. The baby’s unsteady head and swivelling eyes rolled on her shoulder, its round mouth slightly open, wet and red. It seemed, filmily, to be trying to take in Margaret, who was fiddling with things on the mantelpiece behind her mother. She looked down at it with a realistic glare. The baby under the massage let air come out of its mouth in a long explosion and pale milk ran out and over its chin.

‘Filthy,’ said Margaret.

‘There’s my little lovekin,’ said Mrs Marsh. She lifted the baby into the air before her, both hands under the armpits, and let it hang like dough about to drop. ‘What did you say, dear? It’s your treat-day with Lydia, isn’t it?’

‘This afternoon,’ said Margaret, dropping the baby’s bottle of gripe water and smashing it to bits on the mottled cream tiles of the fireplace. Glass flew everywhere in splinters, and the baby, after jerking as

Reviews for God on the Rocks

[carltonc_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this a little time ago now, but I enjoyed this engagingly story set in Yorkshire and featuring a cast of well observed characters, with the central character being a young girl trying to make sense of her world. The themes are ones that Jane Gardam revisits in some of her other books (Bilgewater, Faith Fox), but this added to my enjoyment.

[laurenbdavis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not quite as good as "Old Filth," which is the only other book by Gardam I've read to date (although I will surely read the rest). But then again, "Old Filth" is a very hard act to follow and "God on the Rocks", for all it was shortlisted for the Booker back in 1978, was (I think) Gardam's first.In this novel, Gardam's humor is by turns scathing and sweet and surprising. Her characters are marvels of three-dimensional creation. Here, between the two World Wars, we have quiet, self-contained, old-before-her-years Margaret, growing up in an alarmingly religious household with her mother Ellie, who has just had another child, and her father, Kenneth, Pastor of an evangelical church. Enter stage left -- Lydia, a somewhat blowsy, vulgar and undeniably alluring 'maid'. Lydia and Margaret go on day trips, where the world becomes far more complicated than Margaret had imagined up until this point: they visit a lunatic asylum, wherein lives an old lady with many secrets and a painter who paints, among other things, quite a lot of snakes.Lydia evokes all sorts of emotions, not least of them from pious Kenneth. Ellie, in turn, revives a friendship with a long-lost love, the estranged son of the lady in the asylum. In other words, everyone's life gets a good shaking up, resulting in a rocky cliff of disillusion, which echoes the title -- God on the Rocks. Gardam uses a complicated omniscient point of view in this work -- multiple voices and multiple time frames, and if she doesn't quite pull it off on every page, she comes close enough for it not to matter. You have to pay attention when you read Gardam, so as not to miss anything, and the effort is well rewarded. Highly recommended.

[ccayne_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an older book of Gardam's which was recently published in the U.S. It is quite a complex story revolving around an 8 year old girl, Margaret, who is trying to make sense of the chaos of her home life. Her home life involves odd and unhappy parents, religion, Lydia, a sensual girl who helps in the house, and a madhouse next door with connections to Margaret's home. Needless to say, it's an unusual book. and for not fans of linear narratives.

[bodachliath · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another one from the 1978 Booker shortlist. This was a very enjoyable read, but one which seems impossible to compare objectively with the last one I read, Rumours Of Rain - reading the two consecutively just makes you realise what a difficult job the judges have. Set in a Northern seaside town between the wars, the first part of the book is told from the point of view of Margaret, a precocious eight-year old who is starting to see beyond the strict religious indoctrination she has been brought up with, and the story then widens out to focus on the people around her. A lovely book full of deft comic touches, warmth, wisdom and intriguing perspectives.

[lahochstetler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of eight-year-old Margaret Marsh. Daughter of overly-religious sectarian parents, Margaret finds little affection at home. Margaret's main caretaker is a bawdy servant, taken in by her father as a sort of religious project. Lydia is the most challenging of converts, she is also the only member of the household who shows Margaret much affection. Margaret's mother is overworked and overtired, and chaffing at the boundaries of her religious life. Margaret's father is everyone's holier-than-thou nightmare. During the summer an indiscretion on the part of Margaret's father sets in motion a series of events that will end in tragedy. The plot of this book is quite straightforward. It is the elaborate details, rather than the plot, that give this book its brilliance. Gardam does not stray away from the absurd. She reminds me much of Barbara Comyns. This is a well-executed book, well-worth the time to read.

[starbox_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Strange but quite compelling read, set in a 1930s seaside town, where eight-year old Margaret, child of Primal Saints parents, is taken out by the unsuitable maid, Lydia. She sees a different world, with Lydia's liaisons with a man; meanwhile her mother imagines the path her life could have taken with an old flame (who has just returned to town), and her father is starting to see Lydia as more than just a soul to be saved...The writing is extremely funny at times: "It was brawn and shape for tea." but also has a sadness at the way life turns out. Put me somehow in mind of Beryl Bainbridge's writing.

[nwreader_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The author creates a very believable child as the main character, who tries to make sense of her family and village environment: evangelical preacher father, crazy(?) people in nearby mansion, hints of mother's true love, eccentric nanny, etc. Despite these elements, this isn't a gothic novel--it's a touching story of people's need to relate.

[jack2410 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wish someone would confirm for me what happened at the end.

[cariola_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This early novel by Gardam had it's moments, but I can't say that I enjoyed it as much as Old Filth, the book that set me in search of more works by this author. I got lost somewhere in the middle--perhaps due to the favt hat I was listening to the book on audio during Thanksgiving commutes to and from the airport. I should go back and reread it, but there are too many other books calling from my stacks and shelves.The story begins with a focus on eight-year old Margaret, daughter of a rabidly evangelical minister. Her mother, Elinor, a convert to this small religious sect, has recently given birth to a son. A rather flashy young maid, Lydia, is hired to help with the housework--and to take Margaret for outings as a treat to make up for the lack of her mother's attention. Elinor fears that Lydia is a bad influence, but her husband insists that "Lydia was sent" by the Lord.Where I started to get lost was when Margaret encounters on her walks people her mother knew when she was young. The story suddenly shifted its focus to Ellie, her friendships with Charles and Binky (neighbors who have recently moved back into the family home) and with an artist named Drinkwater. I had difficulty sorting out these people and others and telling when the story was in the distant past, the less distant past, and the present. At the end, I found myself at a memorial service, not sure who was being memorialized or why, who tried to save who, what had happened to Elinor, etc. Utter confusion--and what I could figure out, I had no idea where it occurred in the sequence of the story.So I'm giving this one an extra half star for what may be my own inattention, but I think 3.5 stars is about right.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good absorbing read; nothing earthshaking. The most remarkable and improbable eight year old you will ever meet outside of science fiction, observes and tries to find the logic in her world, which contains some very odd characters. For her mother, caught in a stifling marriage to a fundamentalist bank manager, the past knocks on the door, presents an opportunity, and shows the futility of trying to right what went wrong way back when. A bit too much "I see what you're doing there" with the author's technique. Still, I wanted to see how it all came together, and it did, rather appropriately.Review written in February, 2011

[lucybrown_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In God on the Rocks bit by vague bit the reader slowly learns more about the relationships, especially between the members of two families within a English seaside town, until it all becomes clear in the end, with a few surprises thrown in for delectable measure. Gardam's prose is limpid, never fussy or overwrought. The dialogue is at times maddeningly, tantalizingly evasive and vague.

Most of the this summer world is viewed through the lens of an eight year old girl, Margaret, whose father insists on a rigidly religious household. Margaret's mother, a fanciful woman, tries to maintain the proprieties expected of the her banker-cum-charismatic-preacher husband, while Margaret at once chaffs at her father's teachings and proselytizes of her own accord. She is certainly a child who often "gets beyond herself" in her vexation with the seemingly queer ideas of adults. However, our omniscient narrator will sometimes shift her focus to other characters such as Margaret's mother Elinor. With these shifts much of that which has only been half understood begins to become clearer.

With the introduction of a voluptuous maid, a new baby in the household, and the return of Elinor's childhood friends to the area, family bonds are stretched to a breaking point.

God on the Rocks is a well paced book full of odd types and underlying mysteries of love, acceptance and change.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Margaret is eight, growing up in a super-religious family where her father is the pastor and they're more defined by what they can't have than what they believe. Lydia, the maid, arrives that summer and takes Margaret out on Wednesday afternoons, upending the whole family's life without even trying to, while the minister attempts to convert her.I think this is one of those stories where for much of it nothing much happens and it goes along so quietly that you don't realize what it's about until the end. I'm not sure I ever fully "got it" to be honest. I spent most of the book trying to figure out if I liked it or not and once I decided I was solidly underwhelmed I was so far into it that I decided I'd rather finish it than not.

[sparemethecensor · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Resembles some of Ian McEwan's most boring works. It was not for me. It's rather slow and the religiously fervent father subplot the book jacket promised is just so bland. I like Gardam's writing but ultimately this novel has neither sufficient plot nor sufficient character drive for me.

[copperskye · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A charming and unpredictable coming of age story set between the two world wars in a seaside village in northern England. Gardam switches up the POV and weaves her characters’ lives around each other until the wonderfully satisfying and for me, surprising, conclusion.

[widsith_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Written in the 1970s but set forty years earlier, this is one of those quiet, revelatory novels of family secrets and childhood understanding whose sensitivity to melancholy seems so well-suited to that period in Britain between the wars.It's a lovely novel. Though no passages of writing leapt out at me, I'm left with a strong jumble of impressions of English seaside towns, men picking through the surf with trouser-legs rolled up and knotted handkerchiefs on their head, a heavy sense of memory and lost opportunities, a productive opposition between dogmatic religious fervour and a joyous, fleshy sexuality.Except for the charming and serious eight-year-old, Margaret, most of the people in here are obsessed with choices they made years before, looking back variously to spoiled romances, to the first War, to when they still had money, to before dementia set in. This sense of looking back is reinforced by an epilogue set after 1945, and the effect is to make all the characters seem clear but also somehow indistinct, impressionistically blurred by memory. They are not unlike figures in a Renoir painting, one of which – perhaps this one – plays a small, pivotal role in the story. Gardam seems like a wise and generous storyteller and I will definitely read more of her.