Everlasting Lane - Andrew Lovett

'I was 9 years old when my father died. Or ten. I don't remember'

Set in Sussex during the summer of 1975 (or 6), Andrew Lovett’s debut novel is an impressionistic coming of age story, a Famous Five-style narrative with a dark secret at its heart. The novel follows Peter, a young boy who moves with his mother to the village of Amberley sometime after the death of his father. The pair settle on Everlasting Lane, in a house belonging to Peter’s grandmother. The lane itself is appropriately long and winding, and filled with strange places to explore – a disused pillbox plastered with ‘keep-out’ signs, a hospital, and a strange hut in the woods constructed by Mr Merridew, a sinister ‘lapsed scientist’. Even Peter’s own home has its own secrets to be uncovered – a mysterious locked room upstairs. 

The mysterious nature of Everlasting Lane mirrors the terra incognita of Peter's own psyche. A troubled boy, prone to silence, with poor impulse control and difficulty in distinguishing reality from dreams, Peter has blotted out much of his past, and has little desire to revisit those troubling events. Relocation is an opportunity for him and his mother to start again. His mother is reinvented as the friendlier figure of ‘Auntie Kat’, though she still reminds him to keep himself to himself around the village. On his first day in Amberley, Peter is joined by Anna-Marie, the smart girl from next door who is so essential to this type of story. Anna-Marie is bold and precocious, ‘the best swearer in school’, and frequently berates her new friend for being ‘the stupidest boy in the world’. Anna-Marie has also lost her father, but instead of retreating into fantasy like Peter, she is fully aware that the universe is sometimes unfair, and that we can’t go back in time to put things right or bring people back. She sees this recognition as the difference between them: ‘children don’t know anything about consequences’. 

Peter and Anna-Marie decide to solve the mystery of the locked room, and set out to explore the hazy landscape of Everlasting Lane, occasionally joined by a boy names Tommie, who lives nearby with his mother after his parents’ divorce. Along the way they speak to various adults; here, the dialogue is impressionistic, filtered through the confused senses of children trying to understand adults who are far from comfortable in their own worlds - teachers who call their pupils 'gutless cunts', reverends who can't explain their faith when questioned by a child, men still haunted by their past mistakes. 

Three adults in particular influence the children’s worldview. First is Mr Gale, a wildly charismatic teacher of the old school, who dominates his class by force of personality and boisterous example, but who instinctively tries to avoid the consequences of his actions when he hospitalises Tommie with a cricket ball, shifting the blame onto Peter. His lack of thought is mirrored by Tommie, who refuses to acknowledge the reality of his parents splitting up, childishly continuing to hope for the best. Mr Merridew, the lapsed scientist, is closest in philosophy to Anna-Marie, painting the universe as a vast, chaotic space where human life in insignificant, and ultimately meaningless. Finally there is Normal Kirrin, a poet, who is a kindred spirit for Peter. Kirrin, known locally as the scarecrow man, is first seen standing in a field by himself, declaiming his verses into the wind. Questioned by Peter, he explains that 'What I'm looking for is forgiveness... I made a mistake once, thirty-odd years ago. I've been searching for forgiveness pretty much ever since'. He believes that he can create a fiction which will redeem his past, and bring him happiness. While Peter is drawn to these characters, he instinctively recoils from his headmistress, Mrs Carpenter and the unctuous Doctor Todd, who between them represent order, religion and science. 

Everlasting Lane is brilliantly evoked by Lovell; the writing captures a hazy sense of summer, straddling the line between realism and make-believe to great effect. Peter is an excellent example of the unreliable narrator, describing events with absolute conviction, even while the reader begins to doubt his account. As the novel rushes towards its denouement, Peter’s struggles to keep up with events and his frantic, confused attempt to regain control of his destiny, make compelling reading. Although there is much in Everlasting Lane to disturb (the mysteries of Anna-Marie’s home life, Auntie Kat’s silent suffering), there is a real sense of hope throughout – Peter clings to his belief in redemption, drilled into him by his mother. Thinking back to the novel, I’m left with a sepia-tinted nostalgia for a childhood which was utterly unlike my own, but somehow feels as real, for a while at least.