CHARLES…NASTY OR NICE?
“Why did Charles Vernon, your grandfather and one of the two male characters in Everlasting Lies, turn from being such a despicable person for most of the book to a kind and loving father and husband right at the end?” That was the question that Ted, my son-in-law, asked me at lunch one day soon after he had finished reading the book. It’s a good question and needs some explanation.
To create a character that is interesting and believable to readers the person needs to have some tension within them. Nobody is totally good or totally bad and I had portrayed Charles as having no good traits at all until the time he arrived back in England. But, on the voyage to India, his family surrounded him, for the first time in four years, except for a leave of a day here and there. It was then that I decided softened him.
I also had to consider the children, Lily, John and Edna. They had lost contact with Bill, Edina’s lover and a man with who they loved, and they were missing their maternal grandfather, Robert Paxton, who was also a kind man. Now Charles, who was their father, had returned into their lives and their mother’s in March 1920. They didn’t like seeing their mother unhappy so I think that the children would have taken on the responsibility of pulling Charles back into the family.
As an author, I wanted to show the joys of the voyage from England to India and I couldn’t do this unless Charles changed.
Charles also saw how happy his children were around their sailor friend on board the SS Mantua. He noticed, too, how polite the children were and that the other passengers and the crew admired this. But change didn’t happen overnight. At first, Charles was rude and dismissive of the children. Edina did everything possible to coach her children in their first meeting with their father. “Now, children, when you meet your Pa, you must be very polite. I know you remember little about him, but he is your Pa and he laid his life on the line for all of us. He is a war veteran” {p193}
But Charles was very frosty on the train journey to the boat. When Edina was uncomfortable and asked to change seats Charles snarled back to her, “I am not prepared to look after the children. That is your responsibility. But if you must, I will give you an hour.” {p195} But when Charles snubbed the family on the boat Lily [the oldest child] protected her mother by saying, “We have managed for a long time without you, Pa. We are capable of looking after each other.” {p199} Charles realised how true that statement was and started to soften his attitude to them all.
As I said to Ted, if I had continued to write negatively about Charles I risked losing my audience. I had to make Charles softer. So by page 204 he turns over a new leaf. “The children looked at Charles with utter bewilderment as it was the first time that he had entered into conversation with his children.”
Interestingly, towards the end of the book, Charles shows kindness and love not only to his wife but to his four children as well. This new relationship sets up the question of whether or not Charles continues in his role as a loving parent and husband in the family’s new life in India or does he revert to the self-centred misogynist he was at the start of this book? So far, we don’t know.
To create a character that is interesting and believable to readers the person needs to have some tension within them. Nobody is totally good or totally bad and I had portrayed Charles as having no good traits at all until the time he arrived back in England. But, on the voyage to India, his family surrounded him, for the first time in four years, except for a leave of a day here and there. It was then that I decided softened him.
I also had to consider the children, Lily, John and Edna. They had lost contact with Bill, Edina’s lover and a man with who they loved, and they were missing their maternal grandfather, Robert Paxton, who was also a kind man. Now Charles, who was their father, had returned into their lives and their mother’s in March 1920. They didn’t like seeing their mother unhappy so I think that the children would have taken on the responsibility of pulling Charles back into the family.
As an author, I wanted to show the joys of the voyage from England to India and I couldn’t do this unless Charles changed.
Charles also saw how happy his children were around their sailor friend on board the SS Mantua. He noticed, too, how polite the children were and that the other passengers and the crew admired this. But change didn’t happen overnight. At first, Charles was rude and dismissive of the children. Edina did everything possible to coach her children in their first meeting with their father. “Now, children, when you meet your Pa, you must be very polite. I know you remember little about him, but he is your Pa and he laid his life on the line for all of us. He is a war veteran” {p193}
But Charles was very frosty on the train journey to the boat. When Edina was uncomfortable and asked to change seats Charles snarled back to her, “I am not prepared to look after the children. That is your responsibility. But if you must, I will give you an hour.” {p195} But when Charles snubbed the family on the boat Lily [the oldest child] protected her mother by saying, “We have managed for a long time without you, Pa. We are capable of looking after each other.” {p199} Charles realised how true that statement was and started to soften his attitude to them all.
As I said to Ted, if I had continued to write negatively about Charles I risked losing my audience. I had to make Charles softer. So by page 204 he turns over a new leaf. “The children looked at Charles with utter bewilderment as it was the first time that he had entered into conversation with his children.”
Interestingly, towards the end of the book, Charles shows kindness and love not only to his wife but to his four children as well. This new relationship sets up the question of whether or not Charles continues in his role as a loving parent and husband in the family’s new life in India or does he revert to the self-centred misogynist he was at the start of this book? So far, we don’t know.
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