The Navigation Log - Softcover

Corrick, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375760539 ISBN 13: 9780375760532

Verlag: Random House Inc, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

Follows the life and times of identical twin brothers Tom and William, born at the end of World War I in 1918 as they take divergent paths at the world moves toward a Second World War--Tom, fascinated by airplanes, who becomes a Spitfire pilot, and William, a burgeoning poet who becomes a schoolteacher--until their lives converge once again at Canterbury Cathedral. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

A graduate of the creative-writing M.A. program at the University of East Anglia, Martin Corrick was formerly a lecturer at the University of Southampton in England. Now a full-time writer, he lives in Gloucestershire.


From the Hardcover edition.

Aus dem Klappentext

Milly dipped a pen in the bottle of India ink and wrote Tom on the label. She looked at the babies. They moved their arms and legs and made small sounds. Quickly she reached out and tied the label around one of their ankles. The child kicked his legs jerkily and the label fluttered. You re Tom, Milly said. She looked at the other child. And you re William.

A sweeping saga of brothers shaped by the chaos and danger of two world wars, The Navigation Log follows Tom and William, identical twins born as the church bells ring out the armistice of 1918. Largely ignored by their preoccupied mother and adulterous father, the brothers share a close bond through their rambunctious boyhood, even as Tom becomes obsessed with airplanes while William, a burgeoning poet, is drawn to his own internal flights of fancy.

By the time the Second World War casts its shadow across England, the boys have largely gone their separate ways. Tom is a Spitfire pilot, entangled in the romantic pursuit of a tempestuous female flier, and William is a teacher at an unorthodox elementary school. The war intensifies, and so do the brothers differences: As Tom patrols the skies, dogfighting high above the coast of Kent, William accompanies his headmaster, students, and new wife in a lunatic pilgrimage across the bomb-strewn countryside below. It is only when they separately approach the majestic Canterbury Cathedral that the twins paths explosively converge one last, unforgettable time.

Marking the debut of a masterly storyteller, The Navigation Log brilliantly conjures a vanished Britain with affection, humor, and lyricism that comes close to elegy.


From the Hardcover edition.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1918

A horse-drawn cab stopped outside 27 Waterloo Crescent and a tall man stepped out. He assisted a fair-haired woman to alight, closed the door of the cab, and said something to the driver. The woman stood still and looked at the house. As the man opened the front gate, the cabdriver flicked his whip and the cab drove away.

On the first floor of number 19 Miss Betty Alcock allowed her drawing room curtain to swing back and turned to her friend Mrs. Marigold Jennings. “They’ve arrived,” she said. “It’s good to see a fair young couple moving in.” Absentmindedly Miss Betty picked up her cat, carefully detaching its claws from the arm of the chair. “Do keep still, you silly creature,” she said. The cat wriggled a little, but she held it securely.

The man was still holding the front gate open, and the woman was pointing up at some aspect of the house. The man, who must surely be her husband, glanced up and nodded, waiting for her to step through the gate. Eventually she did so; the couple walked up the path and disappeared from view.

“That house has been empty far too long,” Miss Betty said. “Poor Mr. Winford! It was entirely unsuited to a widower living alone. I’m sure its size and draftiness were factors in his demise. All those stairs. And the place haunted by the memory of his poor wife! What a frail shadow of herself she became, in the end.” She stroked the cat firmly.

“I hope you don’t mind my mentioning it, Betty,” Marigold Jennings said, “but there’s no need to speak quite so loudly. My hearing is not as bad as all that.”

Miss Betty looked at her. “Was I speaking loudly?”

“You were. You have a tendency to boom.”

“What do you mean, boom? I’m not sure that word isn’t rather offensive.”

Miss Betty twitched the curtain aside and looked again. “They’ve gone inside,” she said. “No—wait a minute. Here they are again.”

The couple had emerged from the French windows into the garden, and the tall man was standing in the center of the lawn. The woman opened the door of the summerhouse and looked inside. She turned and said something to her husband. He replied and she shook her head.

“The summerhouse is not approved,” Miss Betty said. She turned from the window, and Marigold Jennings took her place.

After a few moments Marigold said, “They’re a handsome couple.”

Miss Betty sniffed and continued to stroke her cat. “He looks a trifle on the gaunt side.”

“Perhaps he is. Personally, I don’t mind a touch of gauntness in a man. Better than the other thing.” “The other thing? You should say what you mean, Marigold. Corpulence is the word you’re looking for. Of course, one doesn’t admire corpulence in a young man, though it may add a certain degree of presence in middle age. As for her, she’s very upright, isn’t she? Almost statuesque, one might say.”

“There is nothing wrong with uprightness, Betty. It’s a noble quality.”

“Uprightness can easily become moral rectitude, and one can have too much of that, as we know only too well.”

The tall man took a bunch of keys from the pocket of his overcoat. He searched through them, found a particular key, unlocked the back door of the house, and stepped aside to allow the woman to enter. As she did so, a green van marked “E. Hudson Removals” turned into Waterloo Crescent from the High Street.

At ten in the morning every Sunday, Miss Betty Alcock and Mrs. Marigold Jennings foregathered at Miss Betty’s and walked together down the High Street to St. Saviour’s, returning after the service to imbibe a little preprandial refreshment.

“The imbibing of preprandial refreshment,” Miss Betty had many times remarked to her friend, “is so much more satisfactory than mere drinking, don’t you think? It’s wonderful how that phrase removes all the guilt.”

In winter their refreshment was dark sherry, and in summer a light Italian wine. Both were provided by Miss Betty’s nephew Michael, the owner of a low-key but apparently successful import- export business in Ramsgate. Although she disliked his familiar manner and his choice of shoes, Miss Betty had learned to accommodate his gifts pragmatically. She did not question his assurance that his imported beverages were virtually free from alcohol. “My dear Aunt Betty, you can drink as much as you like, and there’s plenty more where that came from.”

“I daresay Michael’s generosity is designed to ensure his remembrance in my will,” Miss Betty told her friend. “But since the bargain is unspoken, I see no particular need to adhere to my side of it.”

Within twenty-four hours of their arrival, Miss Betty and Mrs. Marigold Jennings discovered that their new neighbors were Felix Anderson and his wife, Constance, who was a painter.

“How lovely! There is a terrible shortage of artists in Finchley,” Marigold said, clapping her hands.

“There is a shortage of scandal of any kind in Finchley,” Miss Betty said.

As soon as they reasonably could, Miss Betty and Marigold Jennings visited 27 Waterloo Crescent and were given tea by Mrs. Anderson. Her husband, she said, was at work. They spotted an easel, a stack of blank canvases, an encrusted palette, numerous jam jars full of brushes, a wooden manikin, and two tea chests containing tubes of paint, rolls of paper, sketchbooks, and cartons of charcoal.

Marigold Jennings said, “So many paintbrushes!”

Miss Betty cried, “Oh, how urgently we require the consolation of art in the wastes of north London!”

Marigold said, “Fancy! A painter for a neighbor!”

As the friends had observed, Constance possessed a stillness that was unusual. She looked carefully at Marigold and said quietly, “I’m only an amateur.”

There was the slightest of pauses. Marigold Jennings said, “Betty is so interested in art.”

Constance looked at Miss Betty, nodded, and said, “Are you.”

The two friends agreed that the response of the artist had not been encouraging. They had worked hard at being welcoming, but she hadn’t even given them a tour of the house. She had shown little interest in their intriguing stories about the previous occupants, the elusive Mr. Winford and his tragic wife. In sum, Mrs. Constance Anderson looked unlikely to become closely engaged with the established residents of Waterloo Crescent.

However, in St. Saviour’s on the following Sunday, her husband, Felix Anderson, was introduced to the congregation. This development made Miss Betty and Marigold Jennings (who always sat on the aisle end of the fourth pew from the front, well clear of all the pillars) lean forward in expectation.

“Mr. Anderson,” the vicar said, “is an experienced lay preacher. He will speak from time to time on matters of concern to himself, and indeed to us all. I’m sure his talks will be most instructive.”

It was true that Felix Anderson looked gaunt, but his gauntness was not uninteresting; it might mean that he had endured some kind of hardship and therefore had a story to tell. When the vicar introduced him he gave a just discernible bow and a fleeting smile, but said nothing. Miss Betty and Marigold Jennings looked around for his wife, but Constance did not seem to be in church that particular day. That was a pity, for they had hoped to catch her eye and confirm their acquaintance...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Inc
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0375760539
• ISBN 13: 9780375760532
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 292
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar