A Party After Xmas - and the year that followed

One Year’s Time by Angela Milne

published 1942

 

 

[excerpt] There were a lot of people in the long white drawing-room. The men looked mostly rather raddled, and the women wore dresses with narrow shoulder- straps and all had the same voice. Kate wore a gold dress. She cried, ‘Darlings! How lovely!’ She was a different Kate.

Liza took a cocktail. She had lost Walter. She stood next to the man she had just been introduced to; a woman on his other side spoke, and he turned away. Liza thought, I don’t belong, I don’t belong. But I’m here, and I’ve got to last out the evening inside myself.

The party got better. Parties always did. They danced to the radiogram, and Liza danced with some quite nice men, and some very dull ones, and drank champagne down in the dining-room, where people wandered in and out for supper. She danced once with Walter, and they were strangers again. Walter was in the highest spirits, and had danced, and went on dancing after, with a succession of beautiful girls.

 

 

comments: This is an interesting and unusual book: the story of a year in the life of a young woman in London in the 1930s - the date/days given suggest it is 1937, although the book wasn’t published till 1942. The war isn’t mentioned at all.

Angela Milne was a niece of AA Milne (featured on the blog himself twice, though never for Winnie the Pooh) and wrote extensively for publications such as Punch: this is her only novel. The jerky style above is typical: a lot of short sentences, a lot of dialogue. It’s a very easy read, but surprising in some ways: the main one being Liza’s affair with Walter. She is a respectable middle-class single woman, working in an office. She meets Walter at a party, he calls her up, and approximately 24 hours after meeting they are in bed together. This is very unusual for a book of the era  - particularly because Liza doesn’t seem to have any moral qualms whatsoever. It just isn’t that big a deal. (Unlike, say, Harriet D Vane in Dorothy L Sayers’ Strong Poison, from 1930). She does have practical problems with their affair – they pretend to be married, she buys a cheap wedding ring, there is all that signing in to the hotel register.

Walter had previously brought another woman to this hotel, and that leads to an absolutely splendid seasonal line – Liza is chatting to another guest, a regular, who recognizes Walter:

‘I’m quite sure I’ve seen him here before. Were you here four Christmases ago, when the tree caught fire? Oh, no, you couldn’t have been. But I never forget a face. And he’s just like the brave boy who threw the bucket of water.’

Of course Mrs Croft thinks she must be wrong because Walter was with a different woman, and Liza wildly tries to work out if there is enough time for divorce and remarriage...

But although not bothered by sin, it is clear that Liza does wish she was married, she wants Walter to commit to her. Walter is cleverly done – he is not awful, he has his moments, but it is plain to the reader that Liza should probably be trying to get out of this one.

They think of themselves as very modern, but to our eye Liza is doing an awful lot of ironing for Walter.

The year rolls on, with events and parties. Liza is always hoping to spend more time with Walter, then ends up having to go to her aunt and uncle.

‘You must stay a long time and have a nice rest.’ It was funny how relations always wanted to see you; no one else did.

It is all very Bridget Jones.

Knowing the outline, I was expecting something lighter, cheerier, more like EM Delafield: although the book is funny and racy, it is not light-hearted. It is undercut with melancholy and a feeling for the wrong path chosen. The weird dialogue is always on the verge of being annoying, a lot of the happy couple telling each other about their days and what they saw in the street and laughing at other people. It was very convincing as dialogue, and many of Liza’s thoughts and perceptions I found very recognizable.

Further to recent blog discussions

‘Brian is a young name.’

There are some good lines:

‘Are you tired, ducky?’ When people said, are you tired, they meant, are you as cross as you sound?

 

In a scene at a grocers, a character asks for ‘One of those tins of cocktail biscuits, all different.’ This struck me as something that is often mentioned in books of the era, but I’m not really clear what it is. A quick search reveals this helpful description: ‘Assorted savoury biscuits suitable for serving with cocktails’, and confirms that there are plenty of mentions of these tins in novels and food catalogues. I shall be watching for more. *** see important personal note below.

There’s a lot about clothes, and Liza is forever trying to work with what she has: making a new skirt for a suit, turning a dress into a skirt and bolero - but not very successfully. There is this

She had always liked it better than any other evening dress she had ever had, because it had cost too much and made her so thin.

A straightforward reaction that many women will shamefacedly recognize.

New Year features at both ends of the book, and much is made of Christmas too, so nicely seasonal. And definitely an interesting read for its look at the lives and thoughts of the time.

Two women in evening dress, 1932, NYPL

Second picture from a playgoers magazine, Library of Congress.

Cocktail biscuits from the Huntley & Palmers Museum in Reading 

***where else would you go to look? I used to live in Reading, and the company was one of the prides of the town (is 'prides' right?) As you came into Reading by train in those days there was a huge sign saying Reading Biscuits - I always thought, what could be more to my taste than special biscuits to eat while reading... 

Cover of a 1932 movie magazine from the Library of Congress.