Lady Living Alone by Norah Lofts

I picked up Lady Living Alone by Norah Lofts in a wonderful, cavernous bookshop in Whitehaven, Cumbria, when I was there last year. I bought it off the strength of the title, and the fact that I’ve never quite disentangled Norah Hoult and Norah Lofts. The novel is from 1945, but if I’d found an original edition (rather than this reprint) then I wouldn’t have known it was by any Norah. It was originally published under the name Peter Curtis, perhaps to distinguish from the historical novels for which she was, and is, best known.

The lady of the title is Penelope Shadow (what a name!) She is ‘one of those women who is never described without the diminutive: a sweet little thing, a funny little thing, poor little thing’ – and she is not unattractive, but she has never been married. She is reaching the onset of middle age, or at least what was considered middle age in 1932 (when the novel is set), and realising that she is likely to remain single.

And again, however much women may wish to deny this fact, it is a fact that a woman who wishes a man to marry her must do a little – especially in the initial stages, towards bringing this desirable state of things about. After all, Pygmalion, falling in love with a beautiful and unresponsive statues, is unique enough to be remarkable; and even those women who most ardently wished matrimony upon their little friend could hardly say that Penelope ever ‘tried’. She didn’t; she hadn’t; and for the very simple reason that to be married was never one of Penelope’s ambitions.

OK, you might think, but how is Miss Shadow going to survive financially as an unmarried women in 1932? Well, she has recently come into a lot of money – because she turned out to be so chaotically bad at every job she turned her hand to, and decided as a last resort to write fiction. Her first efforts went unnoticed, but the latest novel – Mexican Flower – has become a runaway success. She can certainly afford to live alone. But she has an absolute terror of it.

In a convincing and delightful novel, this is a conceit that takes a bit to swallow. You can understand why someone might not like long stretches on their own, but Penelope Shadow cannot abide a single night. Rather than be alone for a full evening, she will wander the lanes and fields. Let’s assume this trait is believable, and move on.

Being the 1930s, Penelope Shadow has household staff – she can avoid being alone, because she always has a live-in servant who does more or less all the work needed to keep a single-person household going. But they routinely quit or have to be fired. Lofts is quite funny about some of the absurd ways these servants behave, and we rattle through a few. Indeed, particularly at the beginning of Lady Living Alone, Lofts has a delightfully amusing turn of phrase – a mixture of exaggeration, ridicule, and realism that makes a fun concoction. For instance…

The great future opened, as it was bound to do, with a happy burst of generosity towards Elsie and the children – now big enough to enjoy substantial presents. There was a car, too. And to everyone’s surprise and carefully suppressed horror, Miss Shadow herself learned to drive it. That is to say, she mastered the mysteries of making it start, increasing its speed, and bringing it to a standstill; nervous, inattentive, impulsive and completely lacking in road sense, as in most other kinds, she was quite the worst driver in four counties.

I love Miss Shadow’s combination of ineptitude and power. She is evidently, if accidentally, very good at writing a bestseller. She is single-minded in what her spirit needs and forgetful about what necessities she actually needs. She’s great fun to be around.

One evening, keen to evade a night’s loneliness, she sets off as chaotically as ever in her car. Eventually she ends up at a fairly rundown hotel, perhaps closer to a motel. For lack of other options, she decides to stay the night. The proprietress is unhelpful and unfriendly, but she becomes friendly with a young man who works there as a chef – but also as a general dogsbody. When they first meet, he goes off to find some help.

He disappeared, still calling, and several moments passed. Miss Shadow occupied them in staring about the hall. Empty it would have been lovely with its elegant proportions and creamy panelling; but its furnishings were hideous; the carpet looked as though pounds of liquorice all-sorts had been stamped viciously into mud; there was a fiercely bristling hatstand. a Windsor armchair painted a bright sticky red, and the panels were defiled by pairs of Victorian pictures, hung irregularly; Beckworth Bridge in summer and in winter; lovers parted and re-united, married couples quarrelling and making it up again.

Hopefully you can see why I enjoyed Lofts’ writing so much. She is brilliant at this sort of teasing, deprecatory fun. But the tone of the novel slowly becomes something else.

Spontaneously, after a disastrous night and breakfast, Miss Shadow asks this young man – Terry – if he would like to come and work for her instead. He is industrious and kind, clearly equipped for more than his role. Yes, he is muscular and good-looking, but Miss Shadow hardly has that on her mind – she simply sees a solution to her eternal problem. Here is a young man who will not abandon her. She need not be a lady living alone anymore.

I shan’t spoil what happens after that – but Lofts takes us from the funny, fun style at the beginning of the novel through something with more pathos – through to something closer to a thriller. Is Terry the man to protect her? And will their relationship remain one of mistress and servant?

I loved Lady Living Alone, and the way that Lofts expertly manages the shifting tone. It’s not a particularly long novel, but it takes the reader on a long and vivid journey. There are brilliant scenes later in the novel that could be from a psychologically tense film – but because we are bedded in the silliness of Miss Shadow and her whims, Lofts tethers her novel to the domestic and everyday. Her writing style continues to be brilliantly done, and the way she structures sentences is so well observed. It keeps anything from feeling over the top.

This is my first Norah Lofts. I’m not particularly interested in the historical novels, but I’ll certainly be looking out for the three other novels she wrote under the Peter Curtis pseudonym. In my opinion, it’s something unusual and special.