Married Quarters
This novel is set in 1959 on the Irish border, where Danny, the sharp-eyed, sharp-eared, sharp-witted and articulate son of the Guards’ Sergeant, is well placed to know what is going on amongst the Guards. But he is only sixteen, hasn’t even kissed a girl, and sometimes misinterprets the activities of these men who are both soldiers and policemen. Danny is cockily confident but vulnerable, and Officer O’Keefe, with his attractive ‘wild streak’, is just the man to lead him into—and out of—trouble. But women are so mysterious. How did Officer Fleming, sickly and unappealing, win the love and fidelity of a stunningly lovely wife? It is like a fairy tale of beauty and the beast. Danny generously describes everything he witnesses and experiences and has no hesitation in being diverted from the main thread of his narrative to describe whatever has taken his fancy.
I fell straightway in love with this book and everything in it, whether deserving or not—such as farmer Chisholm, whose notion of a friendly greeting is, ‘I’ll f…ing shoot yah.’ It is a treasury of traditional storytelling and modern subtleties. Its fluency and use of high-wrought language emphasise the tragedy and even horror threatening the vitality and humour. For a reader there is the sensation, so hard to put into words, of some things that everyone knows but are never said. This richly compelling book deserves re-reading. Which I intend to do very soon, always hoping that those ‘some things’ inviting but elusive, will be revealed. Does Danny give and receive a kiss? Yes, but he is flummoxed by the outcome.
