Aroon’s father has returned from the First World War without a leg. But here is one instance that happens early on and doesn’t give much away. It’s hard to write about these dark moments without giving away the plot and taking away the element of surprise. These hideous occurrences scream out at you as you are ushered past, instantly vanishing under the carpet as your attention is pulled away to the next hunt or dinner. It was all the more shocking thanks to the way Aroon refuses to let the narrative even so much as pause to let us give these moments our full attention. I read Good Behaviour with the unnerving sensation of feeling my jaw actually drop when the first of these dark moments erupted. The narrator, Aroon, now middle-aged and looking back on her youth, insists on focussing on the surface, but the reader can’t ignore the sinister goings on underneath.
It happens again and again, thrust after horrible dark thrust disrupting the frothy surface, until the two fall into an uneasy co-existence.
Indeed we can scarcely process it before the narrative forces us to return to the shimmering surface of grand country life. But the reader is not allowed to dwell on this horrible thing.
It bobs along, all hunting, gardening and dancing, but then, just as you begin to sink into the relaxing comfort of this old-fashioned, grand way of life, out thrusts a hideously dark, utterly shocking occurrence. I really was shocked by Molly Keane’s novel, Good Behaviour.
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