Alan Bennett includes three stories in THE LADY IN THE VAN AND OTHER STORIES: one nonfiction “The Lady in the Van” and two works of fiction “The Laying On of Hands” and Father! Father! Burning Bright. “ The three are very difficult although they all of course are flavored with the author’s wit that is wry, subtle and delicious as always. One thread that does run through all these narratives and loosely connects them is that someone dies. I don’t think I’m revealing any spoiling secrets here since everyone must know that the bag lady dies, the second story- or most all of it—takes place at a memorial service in a church and, if you read the blurb on the back of the book, you find out that there is a death in the third story as well.
I read “The Lady in the Van” after seeing the film so of course it was impossible to read this story without seeing Ms. Smith at every point. (In this edition Mr. Bennett includes excerpts from his film diary about the making of the movie.) It was an extremely kind thing for him to have done, letting the lady (Miss Shepherd) who could only be described as a loveable—on some days—fruitcake park her vans—she went through three or more vans over twenty years, always painting them bright yellow—park it/them in his garden for many years. She obviously tried his patience and challenged his sense of smell on many occasions. Ultimately, however, Mr. Bennett was duly rewarded for his kindness—contradicting Oscar Wilde’s observation that no good need goes unpunished—since he must have made a mint telling this lady’s story. One fact about her life that touches the heart is that she was once a piano student of Alfred Cortot who believed she had a promising career as a concert pianist but she gave up the piano and toyed briefly with becoming a nun. She also had been an ambulance driver during the war; but the event that apparently pushed her over the edge mentally was an accident when a motorcyclist crashed into her van, killing himself, although Miss Shepherd was in no way to blame for his death. Mr. Bennett attends Miss Shepherd’s funeral at a local Catholic Church where the priest and the congregation sing “Lead Kindly Light” and “Kum Ba Ya.” “Now, though, arrives the bit I dread, the celebration of fellowship. . . when everyone had to shake hands with their neighbor” (I couldn’t agree more.) Mr. Bennett concludes his quite in-the-end moving tribute to Miss Shepherd by observing that she now lies in a grave not much narrower than where she spent her last 20 years. The grave is unmarked, but Mr. Bennett believes Miss S. would not be displeased since she was so reticent to discuss the facts of her life with anyone.
In “The Laying On of Hands” Mr. Bennett has a good time satirizing—though gentle in his humor, he is relentless-- a lot of things: the clergy, the current funeral fashions in England, the hypocrisy of most of us with his subtle, nuanced narrative. An Anglican church quickly fills up with all these people, many of whom know each other. The big question on most everyone’s minds is how did the other attendees know the decedent. He is one Cleve Dunlap, a black (“though palely so”) masseur dead at 34; but no one is quite sure what he died of. And this is not a funeral but a memorial service, “and a smart one at that.” We should not be surprised then if we are treated to a saxophone solo of Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me” and a baritone rendition of “Some Enchanted Evening.” But the organ prelude is an arrangement of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” obviously a winning choice of the organist since “many in the congregation were enjoying, having been made familiar with the tune from its frequent airings on Classic FM.” Father Jolliffe, who is in charge, has the difficult task of conducting a memorial service, “a smart one at that,” when “God was an embarrassment.”
In the final story “Father! Father! Burning Bright” the younger Midgley is summoned to the hospital deathbed of his father, the elder Midgley. The delicious first lines set the tone for this little death vigil where various family members come to and from the hospital: “On the many occasions Midgley had killed his father, death had always come easily. He died promptly, painlessly and without a struggle.” His actual death, however, is a lot messier, although Midgley, who is a teacher, finds the timing perfect since his father has “scheduled” his death during the middle of ‘Meet The Parents’ week, a function that the Younger does not enjoy since the parents get younger each year and with more tattoos and facial studs. Every family member has his own and a different agenda. For example, Mark, who is the fourteen-year-old great nephew of the soon-to-be-deceased elder Midgley—and at his advanced youthful age only appears “with the family at state functions”-- comes to the hospital to win points for his Religion and Knowledge instructor Miss Pollock, who is having sex with at least one other student. She has pointed out to him that this will be a rare occasion for him to see a dead person and get a “real perspective on the human condition.” And Aunt Kitty, a rabid racist, can only be described as a hoot. She always gives the race or national origin of everyone connected with the hospital. My favorite of her many comments on this subject as she describes sleeping immigrants in the hospital waiting room to Midgley: “’They’ve got feelings the same as us,’ she whispered. ‘They’re fond of their families. More so, probably. . . But then they’re less advanced than we are.’” Mr. Bennett unknowingly has taken almost the exact words out of the mouth of a white woman I worked for briefly when I moved to Atlanta years ago. That is precisely how she compared black Americans with more advanced white ones.
Reading Alan Bennett is always a delight.
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