She…quite liked to talk to her mother, but somehow her mother was always about to go out, or into another room, and by the time Maria had got to the point of the conversation, she had gone. Her father when she talked to him would listen with distant kindness, but not as though what she said was of any great importance. Which, of course, it might not be. Except, she thought, to me. And so, for real conversations, Maria considered, things were infinitely preferable. Animals, frequently. Trees and plants, from time to time. What they said was consoling, and sometimes it was uncomfortable, but at least you were having a conversation.
During one of my ill-advised purges, I got rid of all my Penelope Lively children’s books. Now, I am gradually gathering them again. I found A Stitch in Time at the library book sale, and it is one that I never had in the first place, so what a win!
Maria, the 11-year-old heroine, is a quiet and imaginative girl, small for her age, hesitant and introverted. As the book begins, she is arriving at a holiday cottage in Lyme with her parents. They are quiet people, too – though not imaginative enough to relate to their daughter. They don’t seem to know what to do with a child, so Maria bottles up her spark and intelligence, and holds long conversations with inanimate objects. She wanders about in the house and garden, poking around, talking to the resident cat (a critical, rather ill-natured creature), discovering a fossil collection and an irrestistible-to-climb ilex tree with a view into the hotel next door…
So, all set for the kind of book I love. It’s beautifully written, very descriptive and in comparison to current kid’s lit, slow. The old house is full of its original furniture, books, objects and family memorabilia. The elderly landlady, Mrs Shand, lives just over the road. There’s a possible tragic mystery involving a young girl, one of Mrs Shand’s aunts, who sewed a sampler but didn’t finish it. And the sounds of an invisible swing and barking dog… Lively’s familiar themes are time, memory and the sense that past events can leave an imprint on the places where they happened.
But as well, there is present-day growth and change for Maria. A large family – aunts and uncles and cousins – is staying in the hotel, and gradually Maria is drawn to the liveliness of the children. She makes friends with 11-year-old Martin. He’s very different to her – outgoing and confident, expert at wrangling younger children and managing adults. But like her, he has serious thoughts and an inquiring mind. They bond over a shared fascination with fossils, and soon Maria finds herself joining Martin in noisy, shambolic family outings. Maria’s self-contained, reserved parents are taken aback by her new friends – I found the section where they are nudged into taking the kids for a rainy day in their cottage quietly hilarious.
The ‘mystery’ is not exactly a ghost story – more a fleeting suggestion of the past leaking into the present – and not quite the tragedy that Maria had imagined. The subtle time-slips are beautifully realised; the ending is gentle. Penelope Lively won the Whitbread Children’s Book Award in 1976 for A Stitch in Time.