Instances of the Number 3, by Salley Vickers

Instances of

"After Peter Hansome died, people were surprised that his widow seemed to be spending so much time with his mistress." I do appreciate an emphatic start to a novel. Salley Vickers is good at pungent lines in the right place, and clever with pace and narrative. This tale of two women in the wake of a death covers a few months, but whips backwards over decades to fill in the detail of three lives, all with admirable economy. Peter Hansome has indeed died, but he remains a central figure in the novel, given his own retrospective view of how things were, not just between himself and his wife and mistress, but with others.

Wife Bridget and mistress Frances strike up a friendship which is an odd mixture of shared regret and prickly feelings, and if their association does seem a touch unlikely, odder arrangements have been known. Here it sits comfortably within a piece of fiction that teases credulity in other ways.

There is a mysterious and charming young man, Zahin, who attaches himself to both women. He moves into Bridget's house, where he turns out to be a dab hand at housework and useful house-minder when Bridget visits her country retreat. Zahin seems to have known Peter, though how is initially obscure. He may or may not have a sister, who seems to visit, but is never actually seen.

And there is a ghost. That of Peter, who manifests himself to Bridget, first as a patch of darkness and eventually arriving as a presence from "a dark and windy place", disconcertingly equipped with a capacity for mind-reading and furnished with the information that he is in purgatory now.

The ghost is difficult territory for both writer and reader. The reader wonders if we are in Henry James mode and should be looking for the psychological backdrop, or if this is pure M R James stuff and a respectful shiver is appropriate. The writer walks a tightrope: one false step and you are grounded. Salley Vickers sets the stage for her apparition by lacing the story with reflections on Hamlet. Bridget is obsessed with Shakespeare and given to impromptu quotation; somewhat tiresomely so, one may feel.

At the country retreat, Bridget falls in love with the local chimney sweep, who turns out to have similar literary tastes; a frustrated and poignant love affair ensues. In London, Frances is coping with the wayward Zahin, and discovers that she is pregnant – by the late Peter. Far from being dismayed, she is delighted. The climax sees mother and baby moving in with an elderly male artist who turns out to have a penchant for such a ménage.

All this sounds pretty hectic. Actually, it works. Salley Vickers moves adroitly between past and present, and sweeps the action along with such conviction that the implausibilities become irrelevant. There is a recurring insistence on the significance of the number three – triangular relationships, triple events – that does seem contrived, as though she felt the story needed the ballast of a suggestive theme. Then there are the Hamlet parallels, which are used to allow Bridget to ponder questions of moral choice and the nature of reality.

Like Salley Vickers's Miss Garnet's Angel, this story is laced with imagery. There, the narrative was interwoven with an alternative fantasy, a device which can be exasperating. I much preferred the less encumbered approach of Instances of the Number 3. The images here garnish the story rather than attempting to embed it within some apocalyptic framework. I was uncomfortable with the Shakespearean tether, and the overt desire to supply a metaphysical significance. If there is to be a message, it can be more subtle if hidden behind the action, and Salley Vickers has a way with persuasive characters and crisp narrative that would enable her to do just that.

Penelope Lively's book 'A House Unlocked' is published by Viking next month

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