A novel based on the sinking of the Titanic might not seem the most original of ideas. Historical fiction based on fact too often relies on stories we know well, sometimes too well. Yet Beryl Bainbridge, so often the victim of over-generous praise in the past, and of her own caustic, very English cleverness, has, with Every Man for Himself (Duckworth, £14.99 in UK), written a lively, fresh tale in which the sinking of the unsinkable luxury liner is merely a backdrop, albeit a vividly described one.
Written in sharp, exact, witty prose, this novel's strength lies in its young narrator, Morgan, the distantly-related nephew of J. Pierpont Morgan, the owner of the shipping line. Morgan Junior is an interesting mixture of arrogance, youthful bravado, self-mistrust, vulnerability, hurt pride and an all-saving sense of humour. As the novel begins it is clear that he has had a dramatic coming of age. The narrative which follows explains his arrival at an understanding both of himself and of life itself.
Drama, he reasons, has never been far from him, and the succession of bizarre experiences recalled by him early in the novel such as having met at the age of ten "a man who blew his head off" helps explain his likable fatalism. Little Morgan had helped the man dig a hole; "when the hole was deep enough he poured gunpowder into it from a sack slung from his belt and he said, `Here I go and may the Lord go with me' and then he lay down with his head over the hole." Morgan remembers looking back to see his old straw hat tossed into the misty sky as though someone had brought good news."
In the opening sentence of Morgan's flashback, he announces: "A stranger chose to die in my arms." Possessing a vivid sense of high drama, he describes the scene: "He was hung upon the railings of one of those grand houses in Manchester Square, arms spread like a scarecrow, the cloth of his city coat taking the strain. With his very first words he made it plain he wasn't overwhelmed by circumstances. `I know who I am,' is what he clearly said.'" Morgan himself does not appear to have been overly shocked by the scene, noting: "In the open window behind him a maid stabbed flowers into a vase."
The novel develops through epigrammatic exchanges, a device Bainbridge may be guilty of exploiting, yet it is true to the socially competitive society Morgan belongs to, if only by virtue of his dead mother's distant relatives - we are told Morgan's mother is "half-sister-in-law to his Uncle Morgan". Meanwhile the young narrator's response to the dead man's announcement is the first of the novel's many quasi-philosophical comments: "It's as well to know oneself" he replies. "Looking back, I saw the unfortunate had shrugged himself out of his coat and was stumbling in my direction. His colourless face had eyebrows arched like a clown and lips that were turning blue." Bainbridge immediately draws on nautical language; the dying man "pitched forward"; he is described as "drowning" in the street; a tear breaks "the swell" of his lip.
Morgan is drifting through London and American society, deliberately cultivating an amusing and completely unconvincing world-weary cynicism. He says of a friend: "Hopper's people and mine were connected by marriage and equally disconnected in that all our lives our respective father figures had preferred to spend time with women other than their wives." He has gone to Harvard, experienced London and is now on his way home, having stolen a painting of his dead mother. Clearly dying to be daring, Morgan reports every drunken binge while still remaining an innocent. This innocence remains intact as he boards the Titanic, a ship he has some technical knowledge of, having worked on it through his uncle's connections.
Considering the forensic precision of Morgan's narrative, it is interesting that he is soon presented with three versions of how one of the characters acquired a disfigured lip. The character Scurra emerges as the real driving force of the novel. It is he who repeatedly challenges contrasting versions of the truth and comes to represent the harshly realistic face of truth itself. Initially Morgan adopts him as a mentor, but is soon unsettled by the older man. It is the mysterious Scurra, the increasingly sinister truth-teller, who crushes the youth by asking him: "Have you not yet learnt that it's every man for himself?" The question refers to survival in life in general and has nothing to do with the ship's sinking. Earlier, Scurra makes a far more interesting observation: "One should always attempt to understand what is being asked of one, don't you think?"
On board the liner, the well drawn characters drift about preoccupied by boredom and sexual intrigue. No one is more sexually preoccupied than Morgan, who believes himself to be in love, while also vowing to take more exercise, although what he mostly does is drink and make a fool of himself. "When I first heard my voice getting louder I was angry at myself, but by then it was too late." Disappointed - in fact, humiliated - in love Morgan blunders on, saying things such as "Some men shy away from society when life deals an underhand blow. That's not my way; I need people to restore my spirits and could scarcely wait to join the others for dinner", and is pretty much an innocent Everyman figure in an atmosphere of corruption. And as is fitting, he survives to tell the tale.
This is Bainbridge's fifteenth novel; it is also her fourth work to be short-listed for the Booker Prize. It is wise, human and often wryly funny. While Young Morgan pretends to be world-weary, some of the others are truly weary. Rosenfelder the tailor, whose life's hopes reside in an evening gown he has designed, listens to young Morgan and asks: "The people who you mix with ... you find them amusing?" Morgan's response is predictably cocky: "Some more than others." Wise through suffering, the tailor suggests: "Does it not occur to you that none of them are nornal?" Told that he sounds like Scurra, Rosenfelder retorts: "I sound like any man who is no longer young."
Intelligent, and perceptive, Every Man for Himself is an unusually good English novel demonstrating daring and restraint. Morgan is a beguiling feat of characterisation. It is possible to breathe new life into an old story, which is what Bainbridge has done.
