It has been great seeing Celia Fremlin’s work receive more attention in recent years, with Faber & Faber reprinting some of her novels such as The Hours Before Dawn (1958) and The Long Shadow (1975). Recently, they reissued Appointment with Yesterday (1972), which is one of my favourites by her. Today’s review sees a new favourite join my list and I really hope Faber & Faber go on to reprint Prisoner’s Base. If you want to learn how to build tension in a story and how to resolve it in a way which is unexpected and jaw-dropping, then this is the book to read.
Although the title is commented upon directly within the narrative (more on that anon), it initially felt like a reference to how the “home” in Fremlin’s fiction is a frequent source of terror and suppression. Chris Simmons, who wrote the introduction to my copy, noted that:
‘Fremlin took the everyday as her subject and yet, by introducing an atmosphere of unease, she made it extraordinary, fraught with danger. She succeeded in chilling and thrilling her readers without spilling so much as a drop of blood. However, there is a persistent threat of harm that pervades Fremlin’s writing and she excels at creating a claustrophobic tension in “normal” households.’
Having now read this book by Fremlin I would say this opinion is spot on. Simmons further adds that: ‘Fremlin once admitted to a fondness for gossip, and that interest is evident in this tightly told study of how the telling of tales can have rippling effects and consequences.’ Gossip can cause temporary unity in this novel when a calculated comment can make someone an ally, but the ending especially and powerfully shows how destructive gossip can be. In addition, Simmons touches other cornerstone tropes of Fremlin’s work:
‘As in many of Fremlin’s novels, nobody is exactly who they say they are. Was the latest “lost cause”, Maurice, really in prison for the crime of robbery? Are the noises in Mavis’s head real or her imagination? Why do people keep lingering about the place after Maurice’s arrival? In Claudia, Celia Fremlin has created a misguided monster of a character, who truly believes she is helping these people for the better. Unfortunately, as often in the Fremlin oeuvre, the belief does not match the reality.’
When I first read this, it made me think of Rachel Argyle from Agatha Christie’s Ordeal by Innocence (1958), who also enacted problematic philanthropy. However, reading Prisoner’s Base, felt like Fremlin said to Christie: “Hold my beer” as Claudia takes deluded, myopic and toxic generosity to a whole new level. Is it possible to say someone’s awfulness is exquisitely drawn? You would never want to encounter her, but Fremlin compels you to read on, to see what devastating carnage Claudia engenders.
Synopsis
‘Celia Fremlin’s sixth novel Prisoner’s Base (1967) served further proof of her mastery at uncovering anxieties and even terrors in the domestic sphere. It tells of grandmother Margaret, her daughter Claudia, and Claudia’s daughter Helen, who share a home from which Claudia’s husband is frequently absent. Claudia has a penchant for taking strangers under her wing and into the house, the danger being that they never leave. But a different danger is proposed by Maurice, a self-styled poet who boasts that he has served seven years in prison for manslaughter.’
Overall Thoughts
Given the comments made above, the opening of the narrative might seem at odds with its focus on Margaret feeling annoyed because of her assumption that the man in a suit in the field next to their house is an assessor, valuing it for sale to developers. Yet, this beginning is important in setting up the story and also in the way it weaves its way through the plot later. Margaret tries to chide herself for being judgemental and she attempts to think of other reasons why the man might be there, but in her heart of hearts she knows her assumption is right: ‘In these days there are few sights more terrifying than that of a well-dressed man with a notebook looking at a piece of land.’ I initially thought this was another example of anxiety for the environment in Fremlin’s work (see Listening in the Dusk (1990) for a more extensive example). But a few pages later we learn that Margaret owns the field, so naturally our next question is, why is she worried? The field can’t be sold to developers without her say-so. The answer is not long in coming, as it is her daughter Claudia who has sent the assessor to the field and Margaret is worried that somehow, she will be outmanoeuvred and be compelled to give up the field, despite not wanting to. The mother-daughter relationship is the one we are introduced to first in this story, with the field being a lens through which we can observe the power dynamic between them, with the younger woman having the upper hand:
‘Claudia had always been an adept at putting you in the wrong before you had so much as opened your mouth; Margaret had been waiting for her to grow out of this unlovable talent ever since she was thirteen: but she never had. Indeed, she was getting better at it, and now, at nearly forty she could switch off most family arguments before they began at all; like turning the water off at the main in some depressing outhouse to which she alone had access.’
It seems like Claudia has always possessed a strong personality, one which Margaret has dodged trying to confront, until it has dawned on her that the toxic traits she didn’t discourage have now grown out of control.
The argument about the field also brings up another sticking point within their relationship – Helen, Claudia’s daughter. Margaret’s take on the situation bleeds into the narrative:
‘It was Margaret, the grandmother, who had really brought up Helen – or so at least it seemed to her. For surely it is the person who once washed the nappies and sieved the spinach, who later had the toast and tea ready by the fire at the end of a long school day – surely this is the person who can be said to have brought up the child? Not the one who had always been at work all day, pursuing an absorbing career, and whose relationship with her child seemed to Margaret to have consisted largely of flinging theories of child-psychology, like monkey-wrenches, into the otherwise smoothly running household.’
Naturally, at this stage, the reader might be wondering if this is an inaccurate and prejudiced viewpoint, criticising the mother who does not want to stay at home all the time, but I think the reader is given the opportunity to evaluate the circumstances from both points of view and assess the truth of the above statement when they can see Claudia’s behaviour first hand.
Margaret tries to remind herself of Claudia’s strong points, but she struggles to avoid the problematic nature of her generosity, and this leads to explaining how Mavis has ended up living in their home for 5 months:
‘She was sick of Mavis’ inferiority complex. It seemed to her that someone who could extend a Christmas visit to halfway through the summer must have a hide like rhinoceros; if that was what Mavis was like with an inferiority complex, then the mind reeled at the contemplation of what she would have been like without one.’
In characters such as Mavis, it is hard not to spot the selfishness in her projected neediness, as well as the co-dependent relationship she has with Claudia. At this early juncture the Fremlin veteran will be wondering what toxic problems this setup will cause later in the book.
I don’t think it is too wildly off base for me to suggest that Margaret is the character you side with. I am not sure how much of this was the author’s intention. The opening pages are brilliant at showing how a person can chip away at another’s happiness, like water torture, one drip at a time, and in this particular case because the tortuous behaviour is done with “good intentions”, Margaret finds she has no way of calling her daughter or Mavis out on it. Margaret is no saint, but nevertheless, I find you tend to enjoy her less charitable thoughts about those around her, as they are frustrations you can identify with.
The narrative is infused with characters’ points of view, switching between different perspectives. Margaret’s is the first, but this then shifts to Claudia’s which quickly shows you how clueless she is about those around her. She always assumes she knows other people and their situations best. Yet in little ways this is demonstrated to be untrue, and it is fascinating watching her trying to assimilate this conflicting information with her own worldview. This occurs within her relationship with her daughter, Helen, who feels closer to her grandmother, despite their differences. Interestingly, it is because her mother distractedly endorses anything and everything she does, that Helen actually prefers spending time with Margaret:
‘It was funny, Helen thought, that it was so much pleasanter to play pop music to her grandmother, who often protested acidly about various items, and even put her hands over her ears, than to her mother who approved of pop music enormously, and always encouraged Helen to buy the latest hits. Another funny thing was that her grandmother, who so much disapproved of so much of it, could nevertheless recognise the voices of all the current singers, and could often be heard humming the latest tunes as she went about her work, whereas Mummy, for all her admiration and approval, never seemed to recognise one single name or tune.’
In this example, it seems like Claudia despite all her loud support for her daughter, doesn’t really engage with her and her life very deeply. Moreover, it becomes clear why Helen does not find sharing her problems with mother useful: ‘And somehow, in the process, none of it would have been Helen’s any more – not the events, not the feelings – nothing. All would have been swallowed up in Mummy’s wisdom; there would have been nothing left of the evening but the interpretations.’
The roots behind Claudia’s offers of help are explored vividly in this story and her ego and selfishness are strong motivating factors in this area. When we are getting acquainted with Claudia as a character, we are told that she ‘counted nothing – but nothing – as a crime, and […] attributed all evil whatsoever to weakness, not wickedness […]’ This is an important idea within the book. It is not one Fremlin overtly has the characters grapple with nor does she recourse to long didactic passages on the theme, but what she does do is consider what deadly consequences could occur when implementing this ethos unquestioningly. Fremlin has many surprises in store for reader in this respect.
The arrival of Maurice, the poet, who says he has spent seven years in prison for an armed robbery which ended in a manslaughter charge, is a wonderful catalyst within the household. Margaret reflects not only on her own reactions, but also on her daughter’s: ‘[…] Claudia, you could see, was loving it: her very own murderer; and flattery thrown in as well. No wonder she looked like the cat with the cream.’ Again, like when she tries to “help” her daughter, the point of focus is actually Claudia herself. Furthermore, this is reinforced by the fact that Claudia invited Maurice to live with her and her family out of a spiteful case of one-upmanship, as she wants to best an acquaintance who has been inviting him around for lunch.
During one of her conversations with her philanthropic rival, Claudia says:
‘Do you know what I feel like sometimes? I feel that I’m playing that game – Prisoner’s Base – where “He” keeps catching people and putting them in prison, and the surviving, uncaught ones have to try to rescue them. I feel that I am forever the uncaught one, forever rescuing the people that Life has captured and imprisoned.’
This sounds so very noble in theory, but in practice Claudia is blind to the fact she is imprisoned by her own selfishness. In the face of such boasting, for that is what it really is, Margaret finally gives her daughter a big dose of truth:
‘You’re right, Claudia, you are playing a game! But you’re playing it with other people’s real lives. Can’t you understand that, for them, it’s not a game? It’s real sufferings, Claudia, that you collect around you like toys on a nursery floor, to pick up and lay down when you feel inclined!’
In such narratives we as readers can often anticipate such scenes being the beginning of a moment of self-realisation, as the character discovers something unpleasant about themselves. But Fremlin defies such expectations. Claudia cannot see her flaws and Fremlin is confident enough to not allow her character to change/redeem herself fully. By the end of the book, she is still pretty much the same, with the same blind spots and this is part of the way Fremlin creates an uneasiness in her novels which does not go away when you reach the last page.
As this novel progressed, I was reminded of the game of Buckeroo, as more and more tension is piled on top of the inhabitants in this household and the reader is just waiting for the situation to explode. You wonder: what will be the final straw? Prisoner’s Base is a compelling read, and the finale is superb. It was not one that I predicted, yet it can all be traced back to Claudia’s thoughtless “good” deeds. Meddling has such dramatic consequences in this novel. You think it will be alright, that the worst has come and gone, but then Fremlin produces that last twist that leaves you shocked, and the story concludes on a heart wrenching cliffhanger. This is a character and drama rich tale, with moments of both comedy and genuine pathos.
Rating: 5/5