Life After Life

Sylvie explains Ursula’s strange premonitions as déjà vu and tells her to have sunny thoughts. Once, Ursula gets in trouble with her parents when she knows the contents of a Christmas gift in advance. Bridget calls it the sixth sense. The baby rabbits George Glover gave the girls have multiplied, and the rabbits eat the garden vegetables despite the foxes. As Bridget gets ready to leave for the armistice celebrations, Ursula, compelled by a great sense of dread, pushes her down the stairs. The narrator says, “Practice makes perfect” (124). Teddy says he still loves Ursula even though she did something dreadful. Their father comes home from the war.

Ursula returns to her apartment in London after a shopping trip, feeling cold. She lives alone now that Millie, her roommate, has married and moved to the United States. She’s delighted to find a box of produce sent to her from Fox Corner by Pammy. She misses her mother, Sylvie, who swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills on VE day—“another casualty of war, another statistic” (132). Ursula lights her gas fire to heat water and thinks of the Jewish people killed in Auschwitz and Treblinka, which her younger brother Jimmy told her about. Ursula’s job during the war was to tabulate the damage and dead, but she thinks “the numberless infinities of souls” is beyond comprehension (133). She cooks an egg and thinks of Hugh, who died in his garden, and looks at the picture of Teddy, now forever young, awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) after his plane went down in the war. Ursula writes a postcard to Pamela and then goes to bed. The pilot light on her stove goes out, and Ursula is gassed to death in her sleep.

Queenie, Mrs. Glover’s cat, curls up on the new baby and smothers her. Sylvie removes the cat and blows air into the baby’s mouth and nose, reviving her. The midwife, stranded in Chalfont St. Peter, sips her rum.

Ursula, 13, tells Izzy she has been cured by Dr. Kellet, the psychiatrist she began seeing after pushing Bridget down the stairs. Dr. Kellet works with soldiers returning from war and he himself lost a son, Guy, at Arras. Izzy treats Ursula to lunch in London. Izzy writes a column on life as a modern singleton under the name Delphine Fox. Ursula thinks of how Sylvie dislikes Izzy’s wild ways and has never forgiven her for giving up her baby. She describes Dr. Kellet, who brews tea in a Russian samovar and tells Ursula about reincarnation. He has introduced her to the idea of amor fati, which he defines as “a simple acceptance of what comes to us, regarding it as neither bad nor good” (164), and encouraged her to “become who you are” (164). Izzy takes Ursula to her apartment, plays her music, and takes her for a spin in her car. It turns out Izzy is living well beyond her means.

Ursula’s father meets her at the train station, and they eat dinner left by Mrs. Glover, who has moved out to care for her son George. There are many war-wounded people in their neighborhood, though Clarence died from the influenza. Sylvie returns and is cross about the meal. Ursula does not tell Pamela that she saw their mother in London that afternoon.

Out picking holly, Ursula and Teddy find the body of a young girl who appears to have been beaten before she died. Lady Daunt of the Hall, who lost three sons in the war and a daughter who died in infancy, helps pay for a burial. The identity of the girl and her murderer is never found, so they call her Angela.

On her 16th birthday, Ursula’s father tells her that her future is all ahead of her. Maurice is down for the weekend from college, where he is reading law. He is more a prig than ever and has brought two friends, one an American, Howard. Pamela makes Ursula biscuits and Millie Shawcross brings her hair ribbons. Izzy brings gifts for Ursula and a book she wrote, The Adventures of Augustus, about a dog and a boy who is based on Teddy. Izzy says life is an adventure; Sylvie says it is more of an obstacle course. Ursula walks Millie home and on her way back cuts through the garden, where she runs into Howard, who kisses her unpleasantly. She wishes her first kiss had been Benjamin Cole but thinks, “She was surely passing beneath the triumphal arch that led to womanhood” (184).

Sylvie tells the girls that a woman’s highest calling is to be a mother and a wife. Maurice shows up with Howard; they are going to London during a transportation worker’s strike. Howard traps Ursula on the way to her bedroom and rapes her. Shocked, Ursula stares at the wallpaper. She tells no one what happened and locks the occurrence in a cupboard in her mind. She wonders what Howard saw in her that was wicked.

At a dance, Ursula waltzes with Fred Smith, but thinking about him unlocks that cupboard door. She gains weight and eventually realizes she’s pregnant. She can’t confide in her mother. One afternoon she walks to the station and Fred lets her ride the train for free. Ursula goes to Izzy for help, and Izzy takes her to a clinic. Ursula imagines they will remove the baby and give it to a nice family; she doesn’t realize she’s getting an abortion. Ursula wakes up sick, and Hugh takes her to a hospital. Her father reminds her of Teddy; she sees “[t]he boy within the man, the man within the boy,” and it makes her want to weep (199). At the hospital, she feels death nearing and tries to reach for it but can’t grasp it.

Sylvie is cold and distant to Ursula. Pamela learns the whole story and is furious on Ursula’s behalf. Sylvie blames Ursula, but Pamela does not. Ursula chops off her hair, which makes her “feel rather like a martyr or a nun. She supposed that was how she would live out the rest of her life, somewhere between the two” (200).

Mr. Shawcross comes to the door looking for Nancy Shawcross, who is Teddy’s twin soul. They find Nancy dead in a cattle trough; she’s been raped and strangled. Sylvie says that is what Mrs. Shawcross gets for letting her girls run wild. Instead of going to college, where she had planned to study the classics, Ursula goes to a secretarial school. The man who runs it, Mr. Carver, occasionally touches the girls and sometimes makes them wear blindfolds. When he touches her neck once Ursula wonders if there is something in her that attracts this attention: “Was she not a good person?” (205).

Pamela marries a doctor named Harold. Ursula lives on her own in London and develops a drinking habit. She lives in solitude and feels she has no depth. One day, coming home from the shop, she trips and falls. A nice-looking man helps her. His name is Derek Oliphant, and they are married three months later. Ursula feels “relief that someone want[s] to look after her, someone who [knows] nothing of her shameful past” (215). She believes she will belong to someone and be safe. Sylvie asks if her husband knows Ursula is not “intact,” and Ursula wonders when Sylvie stopped loving her. They move into a home in Wealdstone. Derek teaches at a boys’ school and is writing a textbook.

Derek changes once they are married. Ursula does not enjoy married life or housework. Derek is stingy and controlling; he limits her budget and her activity outside the house. He increasingly becomes upset with her over small things. When she meets his mother, Ursula discovers Derek told her several lies about his past. One day, when he doesn’t like how his eggs are cooked, he hits her.

Ursula begins to feel sad, but she blames herself for her circumstances. As she attends a function at his school, Ursula realizes her husband is not respected. She looks in his study and realizes his textbook is incoherent. He beats her, and the next morning she goes to Izzy’s, deciding she wants to live. She stays at Izzy’s while she heals. Teddy visits and Ursula is glad for his company. Then Derek finds her and attacks. Ursula reaches for Teddy as she dies.

Ursula punches Howard when he tries to kiss her, then kicks him in the shin. She finds Teddy’s lost ball and returns it, and she and Teddy have more birthday cake.

Ursula is reading a book on the lawn, drowsing in the sun and thinking about where she wants to go to college. She is in love with Benjamin Cole, and Izzy says she was in love at 16 as well. Izzy suggests adopting Jimmy. Ursula sits in the kitchen with Mrs. Glover, who is thinking about George’s ruined lungs, when Ursula has a sudden, vague premonition of disaster. Ursula goes outside, runs into Nancy Shawcross, and walks her home.