Mind Picker: Dear Evelyn

Evelyn, her spine straight, her shoulders back, strides ahead with the two girls in her wake, Valerie wobbling along on the scooter he made for Lily.

He soon catches up, walks next to his wife. Dear Evelyn, you are the sweetest wife...he used to write her in his letters home. Dear Evelyn. My dearest.

“Oh –” She looks straight ahead as she speaks. “I thought you said you wanted to be left in peace. And frankly, so do I.” Touché. He has to admire her skill with the rapier; though at the same time, it brings him to the brink of tears. Why? What are they doing? Such a waste! He walks beside her, but says nothing.

Dear Evelyn is the story of a seventy year relationship – beginning with the birth of Harry Miles in a “sooty little London terrace house” during WWI and ending with some of Harry's last experiences in a comfortable nursing home. Along the way, we meet Evelyn Hill – a spoiled, headstrong, and beautiful young woman from the same working-class neighbourhood whom Harry finds irresistible – and as they marry, have a family, and move firmly into the middle-class, it's aching to watch as happiness never really finds the pair. If I had a complaint it would be that author Kathy Page felt the need to remind me too many times about the childhood forces that made Evelyn who she was, but I can't deny that watching this couple age together tells a satisfying story of the twentieth century, and ultimately, delivers an emotional wallop. Winner of the 2018 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Dear Evelyn is worth a look.

Unreasonable, he felt, put things mildly – truth was, there was a line between strong-minded and outrageous that Evelyn now crossed with increasing frequency. Though sometimes it was his fault, for goading her. Or, according to his daughters, for letting her get away with murder. Or even, as he admitted to himself, because there were still times when he found Evelyn's anger arousing, and enjoyed making up afterwards...

When Harry was at school, he was the only student who responded to the poetry that their WWI veteran teacher – wounded in body and mind – offered to the boys. Throughout his life, Harry would carry a notebook in his pocket for when inspiration struck, but sadly, he was never able to make words do what he wanted them to. Even meeting Evelyn as he did – bumping into her on the stairs of the local library as he was entering and she was leaving, and then offering to walk her home – shows Harry literally turning his back on the world of books and reading to which he had intended to devote his life. Within two years, Harry joined the army and was shipped off to fight the Axis Powers in North Africa, and when he returned, despite having vowed to himself never to be ground down by routine, Harry's main priority became to give Evelyn everything she desired – which somehow resulted in Harry becoming a municipal beancounter. But none of what Harry provided made Evelyn truly happy: the big house and garden made her obsessive about housekeeping, his attempts to be conciliatory made her furious at his subduedness, and every time she complained to their three daughters over the years, they would always seem to take their father's side in things. It's hard to watch both of these characters as they age – neither is truly happy, yet neither of them considers leaving (even if their more modern daughters think a divorce is in order).

Her hunger for life seemed starker and more desperate without the distracting glow of youth, also less charming, more primitive. It was growing more powerful; as she felt the pressure of mortality, the life force in her, the ego, or whatever you called it, the thing about her that everyone noticed, pushed back harder. This was Evelyn: strong, hungry, wilful, beautiful, sometimes kind, sometimes harsh: completely extraordinary. The woman he had met on the library steps thirty-five years ago had changed only in degree. He had chosen her and continued to do so. What love was had changed to the point that he no longer understood it, though he knew its scale and depths, and knew that it was most of who he was.

The narrative in Dear Evelyn can jump ahead years at a time, but the little vignettes are enough to paint a portrait of an entire life. I really enjoyed the bits about Harry's war experience, and also Evelyn's challenges as a woman pre-feminism (how galling would it be to go to the doctor for heart palpitations and have him not only perform a pelvic exam, but recommend volunteer work or hobbies to occupy one's mind?) As uncomfortable as it is to watch the long-suffering Harry squirm under Evelyn's thumb, there are many scenes that make Evelyn's own unsoothable pain apparent; if only love were enough. As the story approaches this pair's elderly years, it becomes nearly excruciating to watch as minds and bodies – and maybe even love itself – eventually waste away. Four stars is a rounding up.