When it comes to people ruthless and otherwise, few writers can match wits with Ruth Rendell. With The Water’s Lovely, the author’s 63rd novel, she eschews whodunit for whydunit and, along the way, delves into some of life’s most mysterious wonders: revenge, guilt, slights and, most delicious, class warfare.
The story centers on two sisters, fashionable Ismay and dowdy Heather, who share a murderous secret. A decade earlier, the sisters’ stepfather was found dead in the bathtub. On that day, Heather emerged at the top of the stairs with her clothes soaking wet. The daughters and their mother told police the drowning was an accident and no one has discussed it since.
Now in their mid-20s, the sisters live together in a flat below their mentally ravaged mother. As the sisters become enmeshed in serious romantic relationships, the fallout from their dark secret wreaks havoc.
Rendell makes superb use of the family’s orbit of friends and acquaintances: a small-time conniver and cheat who caters to the elderly, a thirtysomething male nurse who still lives with his insufferable hypochondriac mother, and the ruthless playboy Ismay adores in spite of her better judgment.
The conniver, Marion, injects the blackest of humor into the novel. She flits from scam to scam, all the while resenting the lower-class grifting done by her younger brother, an alcoholic named Fowler. He inevitably ransacks Marion’s apartment when she is away working on some scheme or another, including a botched murder attempt. This last stems from a job Marion has finagled caring for an old woman’s pet rabbits in hopes of securing a spot in her will.
On one of her snooping jaunts at the woman’s house, Marion hatches her plan after brushing up on pecuniary matters:
The contents of a will shed a good deal of light on the testatrix’s circumstances. Who, for instance, would have supposed Avice to own not only this place but a terrace of houses in Manchester? Or so many Tesco shares? No wonder she could afford to part with twenty pounds for the unnecessary services of a rabbit-minder…
Marion just happens to have a bottle of morphine on hand. A dollop with dessert for Avice and — presto! But not so fast. Fowler, it seems, nicked the morphine while snooping in Marion’s house, replacing it with cough syrup. Work is hell, even for a murderous cheat.
Side plots abound in The Water’s Lovely, but Rendell has little trouble threading the storylines into a taut tapestry of intrigue as she pulls all of the characters together in a tidy but believable package.
The Ismay sisters find very different types of lovers, leading to a maze of frustrations and anxieties that only serve to exacerbate the tension caused by their stepfather’s murder and the subsequent cover-up. Ismay’s playboy boyfriend dumps her, using the convenient excuse of tension between him and Heather. Devastated by his decision — and a dizzying confrontation with her former love and his new socialite girlfriend — Ismay wallows in depression. Heather decides to help, appealing to the new girlfriend to give Ismay’s boyfriend up.
In Heather’s appeal, which occurs as the socialite takes her daily jog in St. James Park, the author again offers a deft sketch of class warfare. Eva, the socialite, judges Heather with a quick glance:
Only the very uncharitable would have called her overweight but she’d never get into a size ten again, if she ever had. Nice hair or it would be if she had it properly cut. Having summed up Heather Litton, Eva let her eyes comes to rest on the woman’s knees in what were probably Gap jeans and said, “Well? What is it?”
As for judgment, Rendell provides a head-spinning finale that satisfies even as the dread of its symmetry dawns on the reader. The inevitable denouement detailing what happened on the day the sisters’ stepfather died all those years ago provides a chilling surprise.
In other words, this is a master at the height of her powers. So what are you waiting for? Dive in.
This article appears in Aug 15-21, 2007.
