Flock by Lyn Hughes

The language of wallpaper is entrancing: a velvet flock, a Réveillon arabesque, a Dufour panoramic. After ten years’ research and writing, Lyn Hughes’s fourth novel, Flock, is rich with the texture and imagery of wallpaper. This thematic framework for the novel dominates the human stories it supports. Evidently unwilling to sift the gold from her research, Hughes follows up every hint of association with her theme: wallpapering over grief, images of lining paper and wallpaper paste that arise during sex, and the hypothetical link between wallpaper and madness. Hughes claims that Flock is the first ‘wallpaper fiction’ since Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’was published in 1892. The wallpaper theme is carried through Flock, from the gorgeous cover to the rather arbitrary chapter titles and the wallpaper catalogue entries above them that add gravitas to the novel. This overarching obsession echoes the passion of Francis Sprigge, wallpaper designer, who is one of the central characters of the book, and his daughter Adelaide (Addie), a conservator of old houses and arguably the book’s protagonist. Two stories run parallel, told in the third person, in alternate chapters, until they converge in 1986. One is that of Francis and Lilian, who meet in the 1950s and settle in the Blue Mountains, where the former embarks on a career in wallpaper design. The other belongs to their daughter Addie, who in 1986 returns to the vicinity of her childhood in the Blue Mountains to direct the restoration of a historic house, ‘Dalwhinnie’. The novel opens in 1950 when Francis meets his future wife at a train station, in a scene that situates it firmly in its era. The details are precise: Lilian’s plumed hat and her job as assistant milliner; her memories of childhood in an orphanage; and Francis’s dissatisfaction with his job as a junior architect. We follow the couple over the next thirty years, beginning with the early days in the Blue Mountains and Francis’s growing success as a designer, and lingering in the 1960s to witness the impact of sexual liberation on their marriage. The tensions in their relationship create a strong narrative drive. Francis has a passion for creating wallpaper designs that use the forest flora and wildlife of the Blue Mountains to manufacture flocked patterns. He is a charismatic character, inspired by nature but bemused by human foibles. With the advent of the 1960s, Lilian, frustrated with her life as a helpmate and mother, decides to pursue her own creativity and passions. Their story unfolds slowly, with emotional insight and poignancy, supported by a small cast of minor characters. Hughes draws a moving portrait of the brave and down-to-earth neighbour Beattie, married to the inadequate Arthur and caring for their disabled son Neallie. Some of the novel’s finest scenes include Beattie in action, defending her hapless son or comforting the abandoned father or daughter. The eras are clearly defined. There is a formality and romantic idealism in the 1950s that is dispensed with by the 1980s. The dialogue, characterisation, and sexual proclivities of each generation differentiate the two worlds. As Addie grows up, the two strands of narrative dovetail neatly, with her mother at the emotional centre. Unlike her parents’ narrative strand of three decades, Addie’s story moves slowly in real time through the restoration project in 1986. The conservation of the house serves mostly as background to an exploration of the psychology of the four young conservators: Addie, Sylvie, Will, and Richard. Each character has equal importance. This even-handed approach weakens Addie’s point of view and our involvement in the outcome. There is little physical action in the work of restoration, but plenty of meetings, where the four discuss their academic papers on Florence Broadhurst, Réveillon, and Ruskin, and numerous scenes where the individuals lie awake at night reflecting on their past. Here are four personal journeys, with no minor character to step in and illuminate the action. Instead, there are implausible scenes. In one, Sylvie pauses on the steps down to a cellar, wary of spiders, and launches into a speech about her childhood. The house restoration brings no major discoveries, just revelations of the soul. The sustaining narrative is Addie’s burgeoning passion for Sylvie, but her story, diluted by the concurrent journeys of her colleagues, is not compelling. In the first narrative strand – that of Francis and Lilian – Hughes uses her research lightly, weaving it into Francis’s foray into wallpaper design. In Addie’s story, the author’s research informs the characters’ academic research, slowing the overall narrative. The details may be fascinating, but the fiction starts to flag. Resolution of the novel’s undercurrent of loss and abandonment comes when Lilian’s story finally catches up with that of her daughter, but the reconciliation of mother and daughter makes for an odd dénouement in a novel in which the familial bond is strongest between father and daughter. Flock has much to interest the reader: historical minutiae, psychological and emotional depth, fluid prose, powerful dialogue and some engaging characters. It is a shame that Hughes does not linger over these – permitting the story to unfold with even greater depth and integrity – instead of maintaining such firm control on theme and material.

Carol Middleton

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