Footprint Upon Water
Barbara Fitzgerald
Somerville Press £11.99
(978-0-9573461-0-9)
IT IS A shame that Barbara Fitzgerald never enjoyed the success
of her second, final novel, Footprint Upon Water. Turned
down by Jonathan Cape, it was published by Blackwells only in 1983,
a year after her death.
Now it is stylishly relaunched by the Irish publisher Somerville
Press, and has made an excellent revival. In the tradition of other
great Anglo-Irish writers, Fitzgerald was of good Protestant stock:
her father was Archbishop of Armagh, and she married Edith
Somerville's nephew. But, though we recognise the decaying
gentility of a great Irish house ("Fellowescourt") as the backdrop,
her dramatis personae surprise us with their forceful,
often damaged, personalities.
A ruthless patriarch dies in debt, leaving his martinet
daughter, Katharine ("the Pope"), to dominate her sisters and
strive to bring up her niece, Susan, in her own strict religious
mould. The pivotal aunt/niece relationship drives the narrative
even when the two have separated. The unlikely male romantic lead
is a wilfully self-sacrificing clergyman - he only just succeeds in
preventing history repeating itself, despite his dreadful
sister.
It is a wonderfully colourful novel, spanning half the 20th
century: two world wars, the flu epidemic, 1916, and the Irish
Civil War. Class and religion divide this rural society into "them"
and "us", and its members watch each other tirelessly.
Unromantic but passionate, the characters are often left
speechless, inhibited by their undeclarable feelings. This is one
of the strengths of the book: its psychology is usually spot-on
(Susan, "whispering her excuses to the toast-rack, left the room";
Dr Byrne's "words on the edge of his mouth, piled up and ready for
utterance. He closed his mouth suddenly and they were swallowed up
for ever").
The house itself is a character; so is the landscape; and both
are described with heartfelt intensity - as are all the other
members of the drama. It is a big book, and kept me entertained to
the end.