Tessa Hadley's new collection of stories, After the Funeral, plumbs the depths of what we see, hear, and understand about our fellow human beings, dwelling on the private things people hide from one another. A contemporary writer often published in The New Yorker, Hadley is from Wales and follows the realist literary tradition of Elizabeth Bowen and William Trevor. She makes characters and settings visible, which is a great pleasure in and of itself, and shows their effect on the story's protagonist, and in this way, invites the reader to experience those effects as well.

Each story is such a full and satisfying experience, it was difficult to find a favorite, but I chose to focus on "Funny Little Snake" because the ending, which I won't talk about directly to avoid any spoilers, achieves that difficult-to-pull-off combination we writers strive for: to craft an ending that is both unexpected yet believable. In "Funny Little Snake" preparation for the ending begins with the first sentence, "The child was nine years old and couldn't fasten her own buttons" (81).

To craft an ending that contains a surprise turn of events requires lots of covert preparation. Here, she states a curious fact that suggests either the child is overly passive or living in a situation where an adult hasn't bothered to teach her how to dress herself. Which is it? The reader is put on alert.

Four adults appear in the story: Gil, a university professor who lives with his young, second wife Valerie, a former secretary; Marise, Gil's eccentric ex-wife and the child's mother, and lastly, Jamie, Marise's boyfriend. It is the relationship between Robyn, the nine-year-old who lives with her mother most of the time but has come to stay with her father and Valerie for a week long visit, that propels the story. And because Gil absents himself and the entire burden of caring for the girl falls exclusively on Valerie, hers is the point of view the reader inhabits.

Valerie does her best to welcome and entertain her husband's daughter and though Robyn is always agreeable, she is never anything but remote and emotionless. The child's passivity is something Valerie notes over and over and this is another seed for the story's ending. The reader suspects that Gil is selfish and self-important; he's an academic with a popular TV following and Valerie, an uneducated typist, is timid about asserting herself. But spending hours with an unresponsive child gets tiresome.

"As she week wore on... she grew sick of the sound of her own voice jollying Robyn along, acting out the nice time they weren't really having" (86).

When Gil is unable to return Robyn to London himself, Valerie agrees to do it, confirming the reader's suspicion that Gil is simply using his young wife. But then, a moment of play-acting between them reveals that sexually, Valerie has the upper hand. This glimpse of their private world prepares me for the bold manner Valerie strides into the London house where Robyn lives and demands a cup of tea from Robyn's unwelcoming mother. It gives her a chance to see the kitchen where there are piles of unwashed dishes and no evidence of food anywhere. And although Robyn's mother has been described, by Gil, as "the Great Whore of Marylebone" and her house a "sink of iniquity" (85), we see another side of the haggardly beautiful woman who welcomes her daughter with careless effusiveness:

"Oh Christ, is it today? Shit! Is that the kid?...It can't be Wednesday already! Welcome home, honeypot. Give Mummy a million, million kisses. Give Jamie kisses. This is Jamie. Say hello. Isn't he sweet? Don't you remember him? He's in a band" (93).

Marise hands Robyn "a package of salted crisps," saying, "I saved those for you especially: I know that little girls are hungry bears" (96).

And suddenly, Robyn starts pretending she's a bear. It's as surprising to the reader as it is to Valerie. She is "hunching her shoulders, crossing her eyes, snuffling and panting, scrabbling in the air with her hands curled up like paws, her face a blunt little snout showing pointed teeth" (96). It is the first time we see her acting like a normal child, but her mother cuts her off abruptly and sends her to her room.

Viewing the house's disorder as well as Robyn's expressiveness prepares us for the stunning turn that will soon develop. The other bit of preparation, the most important piece really, is what the bear performance does to Valerie. Finally, Robyn acts in a way she can relate to; it reminds her of the hours she spent playing imaginary games as a child. And when Valerie tells Marise that Robyn had a good lunch on the train, listing the things she ate as she says, "...I don't know what your plans are for Robyn's tea," Marise counters with, "I don't have any plans...I've never really made those kinds of plans" (100) in an archly superior tone. In a house where there's always ingredients for a stiff Bloody Mary, it's a casual statement that's meant to be a put-down of proper mothers, which is what Valerie, of course, was doing her best to imitate, but it's also the last bit of preparation and though it's embedded in an arrogant tone, it's as damning as a view into the kitchen's empty refrigerator.

Hadley, Tessa. After the Funeral. New York: Random House, 2023.

Filed under: Preparing for an unexpected turn