Monday Morning

by Patrick Hamilton

Genres: Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

'If you were looking to fly from Dickens to Martin Amis with just one overnight stop, then Hamilton is your man' Nick Hornby

'I recommend Hamilton at every opportunity, because he was such a wonderful writer and yet is rather under-read today. All his novels are terrific' Sarah Waters


Patrick Hamilton's novels were the inspiration for Matthew Bourne's new dance theatre production, The Midnight Bell.

'Beyond the fact that it was, in face of a vivid and calamitous ending, to reveal from his own experience the ardent splendours of Youth's adventure, he didn't quite know what his novel was going to be about.'

Monday Morning wryly tells the story of Anthony, a young man taking his passionate first steps in life, in London, and in love. Not yet worn down by the world, Anthony is determined to write the novel that will bring him fame and fortune - and to marry the beautiful Diane. Patrick Hamilton's witty, playful first novel introduces us to the grimy world of metropolitan boarding houses and provincial theatrical digs that would be the setting for his later masterpieces Hangover Square and The Slaves of Solitude, and the hopes, dreams and regrets those who live there.

Release date: August 2, 2018

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 256

Sample

It is a mystery that for many years the work of one of the century’s most darkly hilarious and penetrating artists fell into near obscurity. Doris Lessing declared: ‘I am continually amazed that there is a kind of roll call of OK names from the 1930s… Auden, Isherwood, etc. But Hamilton is never on them and he is a much better writer than any of them’.

Recently, however, Hamilton’s novel The Slaves of Solitude was adapted for the stage, and the films of his taut thrillers, Gaslight and Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of Rope, are now considered classics. He is regularly championed by contemporary writers such as Sarah Waters, Dan Rhodes and Will Self.

Patrick Hamilton was one of the most gifted and admired writers of his generation. With a father who made an excellent prototype for the bombastic bullies of his later novels and a snobbish mother who alternately neglected and smothered him, Hamilton was born into Edwardian gentility in Hassocks, Sussex, in 1904. He and his parents moved a short while later to Hove, where he spent his early years. He became a keen observer of the English boarding house, the twilit world of pubs and London backstreets and of the quiet desperation of everyday life. But after gaining acclaim and prosperity through his early work, Hamilton’s morale was shattered when a road accident left him disfigured and an already sensitive nature turned towards morbidity.

Hamilton’s personality was plagued by contradictions. He played the West End clubman and the low-life bohemian. He sought, with sometimes menacing zeal, his ‘ideal woman’ and then would indulge with equal intensity his sadomasochistic obsessions among prostitutes. He was an ideological Marxist who in later years reverted to blimpish Toryism. Two successive wives, who catered to contradictory demands, shuttled him back and forth. Through his work run the themes of revenge and punishment, torturer and victim; yet there is also a compassion and humanity which frequently produces high comedy.

In 1924 Hamilton gave up his job as a shorthand typist, working for a sugar producer in the City of London, and began work on the novel that would become his first work of published fiction, Monday Morning. The book went through a number of working titles, including ‘Immaturity’, ‘Adolescence’ and ‘Ferment’. By the end of the year it was finished.

An introduction via his sister, Lalla, led to the book being taken on by the distinguished literary agents A. M. Heath. After rejections from Jonathan Cape and Heinemann, the rights were bought by the respected Michael Sadleir at Constable, and a very happy personal and professional relationship began. Hamilton received a £50 advance against future royalty earnings. Within a year Monday Morning was published to good reviews and in an American edition from Houghton Mifflin. Hamilton’s career had begun.

After the success of his second novel, Craven House, came Twopence Coloured, his witty satire on the theatrical profession, published in 1928.

In the 1930s and 40s, despite personal setbacks and an increasing problem with drink, he was able to write some of his best work. His novels include the masterpiece Hangover Square, The Midnight Bell, The Plains of Cement, The Siege of Pleasure, a trilogy entitled Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky and The Gorse Trilogy, made up of The West Pier, Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse and Unknown Assailant.

J. B. Priestley described Hamilton as ‘uniquely individual… he is the novelist of innocence, appallingly vulnerable, and of malevolence, coming out of some mysterious darkness of evil.’ Patrick Hamilton died in 1962.

The door was shut fast upon an empty and forgotten room.

It was high up in a high hotel, and its window overlooked a rough sea and a grey sky, and the wind-driven, deserted King’s Gardens of Hove.

Many noises came to the room. There was the noise of the sea, pounding measuredly in the lulls of the wind. And the wind moved the window pane to little thuds and rattles. Far below, an errand boy on a bicycle could be heard whistling ‘In a Monastery Garden’ as loud as he could, louder than he could.

His whistling faded in the wind. Outside the door could be heard a maid at a cupboard. A man dimly hummed and bumped about in an adjoining room.

All the things in the room lay, with a certain silly acquiescence, exactly as they had been put; save for one of the two Japanese fans in the fireplace, which gave a startling little fall in its newspaper bed, as though it had been listening to all this strange silence for a long time, and had had quite enough of it.

There was a small, white-quilted bed, on which lay folded pyjamas of plain pattern. Over the bed-rail was a highly coloured school tie.

There was a dressing-table, and on this one hair-brush with a handle to it, and a bottle of brilliantine.

There was a washing-stand with ordinary washing things, and a small leather box containing a safety razor and blades – a very new box.

In one corner of the room was a cricket bat, shiny from recent oiling, upside down – a ‘Force’ bat, with ‘J. B. Hobbs’ heavily engraved across the splice. The oil was on the mantelpiece with some crested hotel ornaments and a pipe, which had been smoked perhaps three times. Beside this lay two packets of wire pipe-cleaners. One pipe-cleaner had been taken out and used, but was not at all dirty.

And by the bed was a small wicker table. On this a chess-board, a box of chessmen, Staunton’s Chess Handbook, Wisden’s Cricket Almanack, and ‘The Cloister and the Hearth’.

The front cover of the last was open, and there was an inscription on the fly-leaf. This was not an ordinary inscription. It would be gathered from some quaint turns in the phrasing, and the spelling, and numerous elaborate curls and flourishes in the lettering, that the writer was giving his impression of what he thought, perhaps, a very old-fashioned inscription might have been like. It was certainly no success as this.

First, the writer’s great, unbridled delight had been to alter each available ‘s’ into ‘f,’ which peculiarity, to begin with, an old-fashioned inscription never had. And then, having tasted a substitution or two, and found them good, the writer had lost his head quite, and turned even each sibilant ‘c’ into ‘f.’

‘Thif book,’ it went, ‘if the fole property of one Mafter Anthony Charterif Forfter, and waf purchafed by him in the yeare of Grafe One Thoufand, Nine Hundredf and Twenty One, fhortly after leaving Weftminfter Fchool, where he refeived an college education af befitf a young gentleman.

‘A moft model young perfon, loved by all hif friendf, refpected by all hif acquaintenfef, and gone in fear of by hif enemief.

‘May hif life prove an highly merrie one, and pleafaunt, and fucfefful.’

‘Fucfefful’ was surely a triumph. The author might have done well to finish on ‘Fucfefful.’ But he could not forbear one final poke, in the tombstone manner —

‘Not gone before but loft.’

Save the pictures, nearly all the things in this room have been mentioned, for it was a bare room.

The pictures had been chosen by Anthony Charteris Forster. Along the wall by the bed were five postcard pictures of Kirchner girls, who had tender, slim limbs, and creamy, pampered skins; and they were very dreamy and soft. On the wall above the bed was a large portrait of Mary Pickford. It was a present from the Picture-goer. Mary Pickford was seen in a fresh, brown mist, and she looked, with a facetious and provoking indifference, across the room at another picture called ‘Off Valparaiso’. This was a fine, deep-blue affair, with a great wind and a stout old ship.

These pictures had plainly been up some time, and the drawing pins which held them to the wall were becoming a trifle rusty. But over the mantelpiece were three very new pictures, and the drawing pins were a bright gold colour. Three pictures – of Shelley, of Byron, and of Keats.

In all the grave patience and stillness of the empty and forgotten room, Shelley and Keats, very properly, were at their Writing. They were not writing just at the moment, but had pens in their hands and gazed out at the wall opposite, in a meditative hunt for the next phrase.

Byron was not at his Writing. He was looking very sternly at Mary Pickford. That gave meaning to all her provoking indifference. Also Byron did not want anybody to miss the fine points of his profile.

 

A boy, about eighteen years old, was standing on the steps of a small hotel in Earl’s Court.

It was dusk in January, and the subdued Square attended gravely to the noise of some children playing with a great dog in the Square garden. The boy was nervous and depressed. He touched a white button which said ‘Press’, but heard no answer in the house. He put down his heavy bag and waited. Soon there were clicking noises behind the door, and the door was opened by an untidy man in a shiny blue suit and a begrimed shirt.

‘Oh. Gould I see Mrs Egerton, please? She’s expecting me, I think.’

‘Yessir. Not quite sure she’s in, sir. What would the name be?’

‘Er – Forster,’ said Anthony.

Mrs Egerton, the hotel proprietress, and in appearance a hotel proprietress, came and brightly welcomed Anthony. She took him to his room. She showed him the billiard-room, the ball-room, and the dining-room. She told him the time of the meals, and she said ‘Nowadays they don’t dress for dinner unless they want to.’ Then, after laughing instructions for finding his room again, she left him.

He sat on his bed, looking at the twilit window and thinking that Mrs Egerton was a very nice woman. He hoped that he would see her again soon, and she would perhaps introduce him to some people in the hotel; but he had a notion that Mrs Egerton was the sort of person who was wonderful when you first arrived, but afterwards only the person to whom you gave your bill at the end of the week, and with whom you just passed the time of day, if you met her in a passage.

Rising, he switched on the electric light. The bulb was old and dirty and gave out a reddish tinge. He started to unpack his bag, which his aunt had packed for him yesterday. In all places she had screwed, or wrapped, or lain newspaper. Anthony put all this out on to the floor, diving straight for his chessmen and Wisden’s Cricket Almanack, which were at the bottom. These he put on his dressing-table. Then he made well-compressed balls of all the bits of newspaper and put them in a drawer, and kicked his bag under the bed. He put his hands in his pockets and looked at the impression of himself in the glass. This was of a person with dependent eyes, a fairly good nose, a very good mouth, and a nice figure. The reddish light was a kind light. Anthony did not like his face. Nor did he feel able to judge his face. It was not a clearly-defined thing, like other people’s faces.

He stood for some time looking at the floor with wide, unseeing eyes. Then he ran downstairs to what Mrs Egerton had trained her guests to call the Lounge. This was a sort of hall, and entrance, and centre of the Fauconberg Hotel. It was a fair-sized room, deadened by thick carpets. There was a large fireplace with a black and grey fire, dull red, leather armchairs and sofas, and some small tables. In the centre a palm, and in one corner a woman having tea.

Anthony pretended he was cold, and rubbed his hands in front of the fire. Then he sat down in one of the armchairs and lit a cigarette.

Leisurely, high exploration of absent eyes towards the woman. Sidelong attainment. Sudden sharp meeting of eyes and lightning withdrawal.

Soon the woman gathered her bag and some parcels and left the room. Anthony heard her meet another woman outside, and talk to her. ‘Would you really be so kind?’ he heard, and ‘I really feel quite ashamed for troubling you about it.’ Confiding words, laughter, and silence.

Overwhelmingly quiet down here.

‘I think I’ll go out and get a nice light novel,’ thought Anthony. So he ran upstairs for his hat and coat, and came down into the cold night air.

He went to Smith’s, bought ‘The Lady from Long Acre’, by Victor Bridges, and wandered about Earl’s Court for awhile. He thought of his aunt, and the things she would be doing at this hour, down at Hove. He saw her sitting alone at their table, choosing her dinner with the agreeable Swiss waiter…

When he returned to the Fauconberg Hotel bright lights were up in the lounge, and quite a few people were about the fire, which was becoming red. Not wanting to face them, he ran up to his room, paced, decided to face them, came down and sat on a red sofa by himself.

The door of the lounge creaked often now; many people were coming in. They set up a confused, loud mumble, broken by louder laughs. They all looked very brushed and washed, and most of them wore evening dress.

The women were mostly in black lace dresses. A youngish woman stood in front of the fire, with her thin, over-cherished hands bent back in front of the blaze. She asked all as they entered if they would make a fourth at Bridge. Her husband stood by her, a man lavishly reminiscent of Lord Carson. He had just given up his armchair to an old lady who knitted and talked to him, looking, with a contortion, over her spectacles. There was a pretty girl of about twelve, double in an armchair, with a big book, scowling at it. Everybody made bluff remarks to her; she looked up to smile for a polite length, but was soon scowling again. There was a girl of about twenty-three, nearly pretty from a special and rather infrequent angle. There was a moustached, vigorous young man in good tweeds, who looked like a man in an advertisement for an expensive pipe tobacco.

All about were conversational centres for Bridge, Dancing, ‘The Beggar’s Opera’, Setting up as a Dressmaker, The celibate disposition of the Prince of Wales, The Differentiation between Einstein and Epstein, The Adventure of Mrs Jackson with a Rude ’Bus Conductor. The wife of the Lord Carson man told a young man that she would tell his mother about him. One of the knitting old ladies said that she thought his mother knew.

And frequently there would be the clicking noise of a key at the front door, and young men with double-breasted blue overcoats would come in; they were tired, untidy, office-dirty, and they went upstairs.

People were very near Anthony now, crowding him out, talking across him. So he lit another cigarette. Then he had to bring an old letter from his pocket and read it carefully, twice over. Then, after running headlong into a vigilant pair of grey eyes, he was compelled to look for a small pencil in his pocket, which he fortunately found. He started writing in a thoughtful, important way, looking up to think. He wrote ‘A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, also l. I might even go so far as to say One two three four five six seven eight, the position in which I am in at the moment of speaking is, much as I grieve to say it, deeply as it hurts me to pronounce it, embarassing embarrasing embarrassing is that the correct manner of spelling the word shortly however, hereunder, heretofore some bell or gong will call these people to dinner. Yes, yes yes. Gongs are very good things very likely originating in China, a land where the inhabitants or Chinese as they are called eat eggs so I have been told after they have been soaked in mud for over two hundred years a most peculiar thing.’

Here the gong was heard, and nobody took any notice. Noticeably they did this.

But they were dispersing gradually. Anthony continued his paper on Chinese habits. ‘To do under the circumstances under which it was done,’ he wrote.

Then he rose, looked at the letter-rack, and strolled into the dining-room.

His table was set for two. He was soon joined by a thin, elderly woman with the most fanciful jumper. They gave a soft ‘Good-evening’ to each other, and smiled. There followed a bad silence, and alert, curious ga. . .