In 1979, a small press, Academy Chicago Limited, began to reissue the novels of the English writer, Elizabeth North.  One of the books was Everything in the Garden, which I reread with pleasure and surprise recently:  why is North so little-known here?

This is the kind of book I love, a witty social novel in the vein of Alice Thomas Ellis and Stanley Middleton.  North’s observations of life in a country town are mordant and often funny.  The narrative is a bit edgy, because the protagonist, Joan, can be moody and cranky.

Set in the 1950s in a country town in Dorset, the novel begins with a description of the idyllic countryside. Joan, a secretary for an architectural firm, and her boyfriend, Richard, an articled clerk at a solicitor’s office, are bicycling  home from work holding hands. 

North emphasizes the beauty of the scene.

You could not help but think it was the prettiest place to be…They rode along holding hands because the traffic was so sparse. You could hear a tractor or a country bus a mile away….  The lanes smelt all the sweeter for the diesel fumes.

In this mellow setting for love, the couple have sex outdoors, never in the same place twice. Both are sexually satisfied:  24-year-old Richard assumes they will marry someday, but Joan is unsure.    She loves Richard in a way, but has romantic fantasies.

Living at home with their respective parents, the two are immature and a little spoiled.  Sometimes they discuss moving to a city, as their older siblings did, but it is so comfortable here. Yet Joan’s father, the Colonel, wants to get her off his hands:  he wants her to move out. 

Richard and Joan are literally in Paradise in the lush gardens, where Joan picks fresh strawberries to give to Richard’s mother when she is invited to dinner. There is a slight contretemps between the two women about whether they need to be washed or not. Joan says no, but Mrs. Pridaux prevails.

North is expert in her dissection of the nature of fantasies. Though Joan had stellar marks on exams, she squanders her talents in the typing pool. She is an asset at the office:  she corrects her boss’s wording in letters and has a photographic memory for numbers. But out of the office she dreams about fashion:  she wants to look like Mitzi Gaynor in South Pacific,  singing about how she’s “gonna wash that man right out of her hair.”  She wants a short curly hair-style and perky breasts like Mitzi’ Gaynor’s, but realizes the latter especially would be difficult to achieve.  On payday, she spends four pounds of her five-pound salary on stylish red shorts to wear at a tennis party. Joan doesn’t play tennis, but her parents insist on throwing a tennis party for her.

The third main character, Ben Hodges, is in his thirties, the junior partner at the architectural firm.  He has a wife, two children, and a mortgage, and is faintly bored by his home life.  He is sorry for his wife Win, taking care of the children all day, but doesn’t see what he can do about it.  And when they visit friends for a weekend, he happily flirts with Liz, a former model.

When he is bored at work, he makes nonsensical lists of women he would like to have  sex with and where they might have it. This, by the way, might be inappropriate in our era, but North clearly understands men’s fantasies.

Here is part of his fantasy list:

Mrs. Adderley, twice in orchard with Mr. Adderley watching from the wheelchair.

Joan Falconer daily at ten on office floor.

Liz endlessly and everywhere.

His previous secretary, once in the car and three times in her flat.

Despite the list, Ben is sweet and satiric, and does not harass the women. His poor wife, Win, stuck at home, is jealous and suspicious.  Joan has a pretty good idea what is going on, between the letters marked PRIVATE! and a woman who calls and will not leave her name if Ben is out, and Win’s frantic phone calls asking where Ben is.

By the end, one marriage plot is achieved, rather like a satiric modern Jane Austen novel, but there is not a happy ending for everyone. The characters who have a chance seize the day, and as for the others… we are sorry for them.