Caroline's Bikini

by Kirsty Gunn

  Practices

  Caroline’s Bikini is a novel that itself details many of the practices of courtly love as laid down in the biographies of Dante and Petrarch both – i.e. from first sighting of the beloved, the lover begins to turn away from the world to focus all his energies and thoughts and imagination upon the world and life of the beloved, attempting at all turns and at every available moment to set down his feelings and responses in highly finished literature – in the case of Caroline’s Bikini, this ‘literature’ must be only the prose which is the particular signature of Emily Stuart, honed as she is on the writing of chiefly unpublished short stories and a good deal of advertising copy for insurance companies, sports shoes retail chains and pet food conglomerates.

  Even so, the practices of an ancient tradition are copied and adhered to in her work – even reaching as far back, in iteration and tradition, to the Arabic influence of a version of courtly love that played out in the songs of troubadours, a group of wandering poets who would go from court to court, singing of a love that could have no earthly fulfilment, setting a precedent for the tradition that would be fully established in southern Europe some centuries later.

  When Evan Gordonston is inclined, at times, with his friend Emily Stuart, to sing aloud the well-known Neil Diamond song ‘Sweet Caroline’ – focusing especially on the chorus of that song, and the crescendo leading towards it: ‘Hands, touching hands’, etc. – and at some point suggests to Stuart that they might ‘dance along’ to the music, he might be following in gesture and instinct an ancient tradition that had its roots, even a Neil Diamond classic played on jukeboxes and in massive crowd-pleasing stadia the world over, in the poetry of early medieval Persia and the Middle East. As Evan would say, that’s ‘quite a thought’.

  Role of the Beloved – General

  As we know from, in particular, the ‘Steady’ and ‘Go!’ sections of Caroline’s Bikini, the status of the idealised woman serves to underline and heighten the abject nature of him whose role it is to adore her from afar. Though the lady herself, whether she be a Florentine girl of noble birth or an attractive housewife from Richmond, has no knowledge of the desire she incites on the part of him who has come upon her, to gaze upon her while she remains unaware of that gaze, nevertheless her effect upon him is dramatic and physical. The lover sickens, thins and pines in the shadow of this great love; unable to express himself other than in the lines set down on his document that serves to prove to himself the love, the lover seems to ‘fade away’, as Emily Stuart writes, observing her friend in unattractive tracksuit bottoms and a jersey thickly encrusted with stains. His hair, always an attractive feature, and one shared by all his family and noted by the writer’s mother (‘It’s genes, Emily. The Gordonstons are blessed’, Margaret Stuart, p. 126), is now thin and unkempt-looking, an aspect of the lover’s overall untidy and degenerate state, so lost is he to the condition of unrequited love.

  The single history of this condition, as a psychological state, is one held at variance by different schools of thought and philosophy; there seems to be no ‘one story’ that may sum up the root and background to the feeling and its representation in art.

  As the etiquette of courtly love became more complicated, so did its effects. The knight might wear the colours of his lady: where blue or black were sometimes the colours of faithfulness, green could be a sign of unfaithfulness, etc. This aspect of art presented in terms of dress and attire, however, is not a specific feature of Caroline’s Bikini and in fact the opposite may be said to be the case. Caroline Beresford, noted for her exceptional dress sense and predilection for colours of taupe and caramel and white, does not see her sartorial palette reflected in the outfits of Evan Gordonston; the tracksuit bottoms or ‘sweat pants’ bear no resemblance whatsoever to the elegant bag of ‘gym wear’ Beresford sports as she goes out the door on her way to a Pilates class.

  Role of the Beloved – in Caroline’s Bikini

  As noted, the very existence of the beloved is the definition of her role in this narrative. Caroline Beresford need not ‘do’ anything, ‘say’ anything – though Emily Stuart, her textual recorder, may well wish her to ‘act out’ in various ways, so bringing about a ‘novel’ or ‘some kind of story where something happens, for goodness’ sake’.

  It may be enough here, however, to note that her associations with fertility, fecundity and fruitfulness – her role as mother to ‘three teenage boys!’ as she cries out, through the course of sections ‘Steady’ and ‘Go!’; her abilities to conjure up and cater for large-scale dinner parties, and her background in high-profile cookery classes and PR; her association with the ‘scent of oranges’ and her handy way with the interior decoration of her home: think ‘House and Garden’, as Emily Stuart observes – announce her as the very essence of those traditional archetypes of femininity and submissiveness that we see through the canon of western literature, albeit a ‘submissiveness’ that might be traced to the Eve of that poem so loved by Emily ‘Nin’ Stuart, Paradise Lost, in other words, a submissiveness that wields a particular kind of domestic power that in turn welds the whole family into shape. This, despite David Beresford’s dalliance in Classical Studies and PhD planning and so on.

  Use of Flora and Fauna

  As an extension of the remarks above, we may note Caroline Beresford’s association, too, along with that ‘scent of oranges’, with various kinds of flowers and gardens. Her garden in Richmond is ‘huge’ and ‘well planted’ with ‘old trees’, ‘flowering herbaceous borders’ and so on; she ‘goes up’ to Evan’s room periodically and replaces the flowers there with fresh blooms from the garden – Stuart goes on to recite these as a list, according to the season, narcissus in winter, roses in summer, and so on.

  There is, also, the house in France, with Caroline’s open invitation to Evan to join them there – this at a point in the story when she barely knows him, has only just met him – with its associations of rural bounty and Mediterranean ease. One imagines the flowers, the scents, the plantings, etc. (Caroline’s skin, surely as a result of these visits to a rural idyll in the sun, carries always ‘the honey trace of a tan’) and the atmosphere of floral abundance persists even in the darkest days of midwinter in Richmond.

  See former Notes and the following phrases on p. 166 of Caroline’s Bikini for examples of this floral motif and its expression in the form of the beloved: ‘“There are always fresh flowers after she’s been in,” he said, confirming, too, Caroline’s status in this whole story as a kind of Laura or Beatrice … Yes, there was a precedent exactly for establishing the role of the kind of woman who could be thought of in terms of fresh flowers in the history of romance writing and courtly love…. “Flowers,” I’d said then. “Yes, I get it.”’

  Note, too, that key arranging of stems in a complicated vase on p. 239 – this after the invitation to the pool party has arrived in the Beresford family home and is featured in pride of place on the mantelpiece in the kitchen beside the daily planner. There are other instances of similar moments throughout the story.

  Richmond

  It is remarked upon at dramatic moments or in changes of scene that are effected in Caroline’s Bikini that ‘Evan could have lived anywhere’, that, as a key player of senior stature in the world of international finance who was ‘put up’ by his company, after all, upon first returning to London, at a suite in the Connaught Hotel, he need not have lived in Richmond.

  Richmond, to be sure, is not an unpleasant place to live. On the contrary, this green and leafy part of London is a desirable address for professional families from the world over, as well as being one of the capital’s postcodes that have not changed with the generations: Richmond has always been, for a particular sort of British family, well, Richmond. (See ‘Old London’ in ‘Personal History’.)

  However, as also noted at several junctures in this book, it is ‘at the end of the District Line’ and so can never be described as a central location. Suburban, even, in mood – if tha
t adjective pertains in London, as Evan Gordonston suggests it may – with its off-street parking, propensity towards swimming pools laid out in its large gardens, and its wealth of beautiful, accomplished middle-aged women who have abandoned careers and any notion of independence in exchange for the management of a large and gracious home with room, more often than not, on the top floor for a lodger or two, Richmond has never positioned itself amongst the often more transient, conspicuously affluent parts of town. It is too well established for that; too many houses, like the Beresfords’, are inherited. For sure, the estate agents who must have their way in so many of the other SW postcodes of the capital may not in the same way prevail in Richmond. TW is the postcode in Richmond, and proudly so. A postcode, the close reader may have noted, that would have been written on the backs of letters and cards as a return address by the young Evan Gordonston, when he lived as a child with his family next door to the Stuarts in Berkshire Way, Twickenham, all those years ago.

  Richmond: Key Geographical Facts

  Sited within the Greater London area across an area of 2.08 square miles, Richmond hosts a population of some 21,500 people, a great number of whom commute into Waterloo Station or take, as has been noted in Caroline’s Bikini, the District Line.

  An information guide may cite the borough in the following terms: Richmond is a suburban town in southwest London with a large number of parks and open spaces, including Richmond Park, and many protected conservation areas including individual houses.

  Richmond was founded following Henry VII’s building of Richmond Palace in the sixteenth century, from which the town derives its name, and town and palace were particularly associated with Elizabeth I, who spent her last days there. During the eighteenth century Richmond Bridge was completed and many Georgian terraces were built – these remain well preserved and many have listed building architectural or heritage status. The opening of the railway station, a feature of the area noted by Evan Gordonston, in 1846 was a significant event in the absorption of the town into a rapidly expanding London.

  The House in Richmond

  The house at No. 43 Chestnut Way is detailed throughout the pages of Caroline’s Bikini – including a large portion of material that appears towards the end of that story, taken directly from Evan’s pages of notes. ‘Think … House and Garden’, states Emily Stuart at some point, referring to the way the home has been furnished and decorated, but readers should observe, too, the relaxed atmosphere suggested by accessories as various as an old hall table and many other pieces of furniture inherited by David Beresford from his grandmother who favoured him, as well as, by contrast, that breakfast bar that features so prominently in the narrative and in the Beresfords’ kitchen.

  Evan’s Living Arrangements

  ‘Evan’s room was at the top of the house … It was a big house, the house in Richmond … As many houses are, out there at the end of the District Line … large gardens, places to park two or three cars … That kind of scale. And this house of that scale particularly so – was there talk of David Beresford being given it by his grandmother, on his mother’s side? I think that was the case … for the house had that lovely lived-in feeling, old sofas and bits of furniture and so on, a lovely wide stair … All meaning that Evan’s quarters, his lodgings … Well, it was more than a good-sized room, he said. Like a studio flat really … not just a bedroom.’

  The line that follows the above is:

  ‘In New York they might even call it an “apartment”.’

  Certainly, there are a number of instances in Caroline’s Bikini when the narrator draws a point of comparison between arrangements – in all kinds of contexts, whether it be about the choice of language, or idea of good manners, or in the sense of clothing choice and dress – held up in Great Britain and as determined in the United States. Though she herself has no particular expertise or personal knowledge in this area of cultural differentiation, nevertheless she sees fit to pass judgement and hold a point of view about a range of ideals and circumstances, no doubt on the basis of an old and long-standing friendship with Evan Gordonston and because her brother, Felix, with whom she has always maintained a close bond, spent four years in California and has talked with her at length about the historical, intellectual and social circumstances of that country in the light of their family’s attachment to the Gordonstons, and the Gordonstons’ attachment to theirs.

  For this reason, and others besides – possibly to do with her professional life as a copywriter and, as she puts it, ‘short order cultural prose stylist’ – Emily Stuart feels entitled to pass remarks such as that above: ‘In New York they might even call it an “apartment”.’ Though she has never visited Evan in his temporary accommodations in Chestnut Way, nor, in the past, has ever had much reason to visit Richmond or explore its parks and greens and ‘town’ – there was a visit, once, with Evan to a cafe near Richmond, already remarked upon in Caroline’s Bikini and, some time ago, another with friends listed in this text that involved an ‘eco-rally’ around a particular oak tree near White Lodge that had been listed for felling, sleeping out, overnight, around the tree, etc., creating copy for a leaflet that went on to be the basis for an art project with an East London collective, but, apart from a couple of walks and picnics, that was it – even so Stuart writes about Gordonston’s domestic arrangements with a great amount of authority and verve. This extends not only to passing remarks about the social environs and circumstances of Richmond itself, but also to comments and reportage about the interior decoration of the Beresford home, the signification of certain pieces of furniture such as the ‘chiffonier’, and so on. As far as Stuart is concerned, without ever once visiting Evan at Chestnut Way, she knows Richmond.

  What she knows about American apartments, by comparison, is anybody’s guess. Whether they have ‘landings’, half stairs and so on, bathrooms with a ‘bath and a separate shower’ as Evan is keen to describe … Stuart can only imagine. In fact, despite her comments, there is nothing ‘New York’ about Evan’s arrangements in Richmond, whatsoever. Evan is a lodger in a house, a very gracious house, at the end of the District Line. Is the final summation of his circumstances. As far away from the word ‘apartment’ and its groovy autonomous connotations as we could think it to be.

  Alternative Narratives

  As noted, from the very first page of Caroline’s Bikini, the narrator, Emily Stuart, is concerned about the quality of the narrative. She worries about her own role as ‘amanuensis’ – ‘I mean, I’ve never done this sort of thing before’, she writes on p. 7 – and is concerned throughout the ‘novel’ as to the quality and quantity of what she refers to as ‘plot’; on p. 92 we read: ‘Back in Cork, in the winter, I’d been adamant. “I just don’t think anyone will read your book”, I’d said then,’ referring later to the need for “ballast” in a story.

  To this end, and because of her own uncertainties about her status as any kind of ‘novelist’ – after all, this is someone who has only ever written short stories, with ‘ideas’ for further fictions of that kind, and has never embarked upon a longer more sustained narrative form – Stuart allows, at certain pages in the text, the inferences made by Evan Gordonston, via his own pages of writing, that there may exist alongside the ‘facts’, as he persists in referring to them as, of his relationship with Caroline Beresford, of certain paragraphs and pages of invention, imaginings, fantasies, even.

  That these sections of the text should be permitted within the overall ‘project’ is less a decision made by Stuart than a situation that simply develops or occurs within the pages of the story that are taking shape by her own agency.

  Remember the story Gordonston creates about having met Caroline at Oxford? That’s an example of the sort of thing being referred to here: a case of Stuart here transcribing a fantasy story about him knowing Caroline from a much earlier life and asking around after her in New York.

  This sense of an alternative plot line, ideas about another story, another moral univers
e or context, another tale that might be told, so to speak … There are suggestions of this appearing in other guises throughout the novel. There was that coffee taken at a cafe on the ‘outskirts’ of Twickenham and Richmond, when Gordonston and Stuart first get together again after so many years apart, the event that took place in her flat late at night, when Gordonston appeared at the door …‡ These scenes might be present as ideas running underneath Caroline’s Bikini without obstructing or interfering with it; these other stories are not so much part of the ‘novel’ as such, but simply there, as suggestions. For overall, as the author is keen to remind us, the main energy of the project must be devoted to its two protagonists, as any further information spent on the narrator and her subject will disperse, for some readers, the overall intensity of the love affair that might seem to exist between Caroline Beresford and her ‘paramour’, the lodger, Evan Gordonston.

  Background

  As noted, this ‘novel’ is a kind of literature uncertain of its own status. Were it not for Evan Gordonston’s – some may say – vainglorious claim that what he had in mind to write was ‘a big love story’, and a ‘novel’, to boot, it is unlikely Caroline’s Bikini would exist at all.