Looking forward (by Marcia Willett)

(Amazon UK link)

‘Looking Forward’ is the first book I ever read by Marcia Willett, over twenty years ago (before I started this blog). I found it in a thrift store, at a time when we didn’t have many books, and thought it looked like my kind of novel. I was right - I was instantly involved in the storyline, and when I had finished, I put the two sequels on my wishlist.

I re-read this book back in 2007, so it was well overdue for another re-read. And while I recalled the outline of the plot, particularly the opening scenes, I had forgotten most of the detail. The book starts in the summer of 1957 when three scared and miserable children are waiting at a railway station for their grandmother. The station-master is kindly, and is trying to find out where she is.

Mrs Chadwick - or Freddy, as their grandmother is usually known - arrives feeling stressed, after a minor incident on the road, and a misunderstanding about where the children are going to meet her. And she’s grieving too - their father was her son, and he is dead. Worse, their mother and older brother are also dead, killed in a horrific incident in Kenya, by the resistance Mau-Mau. This sets it in historical context, although it’s not really historical fiction as such; all the characters are fictional.

Fliss - Felicity - is the eldest of the three surviving children, and she’s only eleven. She’s taken on a lot of responsibility since the killing happened, and is so relieved to see her grandmother at last. Her brother Mole is just five, and has become mute since the tragedy. And there’s Susanna, a cheerful child of about two, who doesn’t recall her grandmother at all. But she’s young enough that she has been least affected by what has happened.

It’s a dramatic and emotive start to the novel, without anything gratuitous to make it unpleasant reading. And the story is about the children growing up, while Freddy attempts to deal with her own grieving, and also has to give up her comfortable life in the country, as she attempts to mother and advise her young grandchildren.

The book has four different sections, each one moving forward a few years so that the last part is set in 1970. We see Fliss becoming more independent and Mole beginning to outgrow some of his terrors, in a household of people who are in their sixties at the start; in their mid-to-late seventies by the end of the book. The Chadwick family is unashamedly upper middle class, with boarding school expected for all the children, and most of the men going into the Navy.

But it’s not just about Freddy and her household; we also meet her other grandchildren Hal and Kit, who are twins a few years older than Fliss. Their mother Prue has also been widowed, but it happened during the war and they were babies, so they have grown up without knowing tragedy. Prue doesn’t always get along with Freddy, but they respect each other, and I found I liked her more than I had recalled. She doesn’t entirely ‘fit in’ with the Chadwicks, but that’s not a bad thing.

There are low-key romances, and several threads involving unrequited (or undeclared) love. There are some very poignant moments when I found tears in my eyes, and also a great deal that’s uplifting. I thoroughly enjoyed re-acquainting myself with the Chadwick family, and am already looking forward to re-reading the sequels.

Definitely recommended to all who like women's fiction.

Review copyright 2021 Sue's Book Reviews