Set in the north of England in the early days of the pandemic, Alan Bennett’s darkly comic novella unfolds in a home for elderly people named Hill Topp House. It’s an upmarket establishment that looks down its nose at the council-run care home at the bottom of the hill. While giving a tour of the premises, the supervisor, Mrs McBryde, tells a prospective new client: “We don’t vegetate at Hill Topp. And the cuisine is not unadventurous. It’s not long since we had a Norwegian evening.”
Certainly, there are unusual goings-on among these senior citizens, several of whom are treated to “services that [are] hardly detergent” in the cycle shed courtesy of Gus, the window cleaner. Then there is compulsive flasher Mr Woodruff, the oldest resident, who is of the opinion that there is “an etiquette to indecent exposure. It must not be clumsy”, and is irked when incontinence pads hinder his display. Elsewhere, residents bicker and spend “long and phlegm-flecked” afternoons doing jigsaws or watching television in the Library, a room that, despite its name, has no books.
Familiar Bennett themes of infirmity, mortality and quietly subversive urges underpin this tale, which is narrated by its 90-year-old author, the mordant humour of the prose evident in his gently sardonic if now somewhat frail tones. When word of a new virus reaches Hill Topp, few take it seriously, with Mrs McBryde calling it “some silliness off the television”.
But as the death toll grows, the residents face both a troubling new reality and a thrilling release from the dreary order of their days.
• Available via Faber, 1hr 53min
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