ELIZABETH JOLLEY (1923-2007)
Key Study: Mr Scobie’s Riddle (1983)
At first glance, Mr Scobie’s Riddle, by Elizabeth Jolley, appears to be a very funny read about the mistakes, misadventures and sheer general mismanagement that goes on at Matron Hyacinth Price’s nursing home. Which it is, but underneath Jolley’s humour lies a shrewd social commentary that focuses in particular on the lives of those who are forced to live in such institutions, treated like commodities and existing most fully in their memories of the past, simply because the present is so grim and the future holds nothing they want to see. The Mr Scobie of the title is one such: an eighty-five-year-old man who, to escape the indignities inflicted upon him in the nursing home, plays his piano music and dwells constantly on thoughts of his lovely old house and garden, which have been wrested from him in his old age.
But first to the Hospital of St Christopher and St Jude, humble establishment of Matron Hyacinth Price. The dodgy way in which the nursing home is run is a continuing joke throughout; hints that all is not exactly pressed linen and pot-pourri sachets are rife from the beginning chapter, which consists of the Night Sister’s reports and Matron Price’s responses: ‘Mother vioded 4 a. m. Nothing abnormal to report,’ writes Night Sr. Shady; Matron Price replies ‘Night Sister Shady please note spelling of void. V.O.I.D.’[1] This brief and amusing exchange is nonetheless an indicator of a) how the patients are viewed by the staff (i. e. primarily in terms of their bowels) and b) the incompetence of the staff (Night Sr. Shady’s poor spelling and tendency not to check other patients besides her mother). Consequently Night Sr. Shady often does not notice when a patient is absent from his/her room, or has been taken to hospital, or has died the previous day. Matron Price, the proprietor of the establishment, is no better; upon discovering that Shady is not even a registered nurse she merely docks her pay and requires that ‘for the purposes of the Good Name of this nursing home you will continue as Night Sister Shady brackett (unregistered) close brackett.’ [2] Upon the arrival of three octogenarians with various mental and physical health issues, she prescribes a daily dose of Epsom Salts as their sole medical treatment.[3] Moreover, Matron Price also keeps her bigamist ex-husband (now married to her housekeeper) in a caravan in the backyard, and it is implied that she still does her share of the, ahem, marital duties.[4]
Evidently Matron Price treats her husband better than her patients, and certainly better than her friends, of whom one is a patient herself. Heather Hailey, former school headmistress and aspiring writer, is only sixty years old and not senile or forgetful like many of the others, so it is through her that we learn the other unsavoury truth about the nursing home: that it is funded through the patients’ life savings, which Matron Price has extorted from them. She attempts repeatedly but unsuccessfully to gain power of attorney over Mr Scobie’s money, under the guise of easing his mind: ‘...the hospital will take care of all your affairs. You will have no more worries.’[5] Later, Miss Hailey warns him of Matron Price’s intentions: ‘We were good friends; we still are, but... well... Hyacinth and Iris [Matron Price’s brother] have taken complete custody of all my lolly... and I’ve gone out of my mind.’[6] She tells him not to accept Matron Price’s offer of ‘going on a visit’ on any account. (Matron Price always begins her spiel by inviting Mr Scobie on a visit, presumably to a notary’s office, to sign over his assets.) Yet Matron Price is also a victim; she has lost her husband, for the most part, to her housekeeper; the nursing home is all she has; Night Sr. Shady and her (Shady’s) mother have been fleecing Iris Price every night at cards and slowly acquiring all the Prices’ money; thus, Mr Scobie’s funds are her last hope.[7]
Mr Scobie is a poignant character. At the nursing home, he exists, with two other octogenarians in a room filled with ‘the mingled smells of reheated food, stale tobacco and urine’[8] and not enough space for the three beds crammed into its confines. It is little wonder that he confides desperately to his niece Joan, ‘There’s no dignity, absolutely none whatever.’[9] Joan, of course, never listens; she moves on an entirely separate plane from her elderly uncle, and as she is irritated and impatient with his age and feebleness, so Mr Scobie is uncomfortable with her youth. He doesn’t like her short dresses or the way she wears her hair; similarly, he is adamant that her brother Hartley’s dalliance with a divorcée is an act of evil.[10] Mr Scobie’s world is that of a time which has passed: simple, spiritual and wholesome. He recalls touching memories such as that of his first school teacher, who would give him fourpence to buy apple turnovers like the rest of the children[11]; however, the tragedy is that whenever he tries to share such recollections with others, they cut him short, uninterested in listening to someone who is, for all intents and purposes, merely an object taking up valuable space for the time being. His pleas to escape the nursing home are taken seriously by no one; in his time there he makes two desperate bids for freedom but is found and returned, and on one occasion he applies for lodging at a house, only to be turned away because he is old. He recognises that people have no use for the old and infirm.[12] The past is all that Mr Scobie has left of value, and he plays his music to himself repeatedly to remind him of happier times: in particular, of teaching his former student Lina and observing the heavenly transformation that the music would exact upon her.[13] He longs painfully for his lovely old home; the idea of leaving the nursing home to return to his house ‘was his favourite thought and it consoled him.’[14] Tragically, he never sees his home again, and dies in the nursing home. However, despite the weight of circumstance against him, Mr Scobie comes across as a strong character, because he remains firmly adhered to the simple goodness of his faith and ideals. Heather Hailey is as much a victim as Mr Scobie, and perhaps even more, because she is under no illusions as to the dark side of human nature and also because of her unrequited longing for companionship from Mr Scobie. She views him as a soul mate – not in a romantic sense – because of his appreciation for classical music; she is an aspiring writer who has long sought after a fellow inhabitant of the artist’s world[15], and his arrival offers her the chance to ‘relieve the spiritual wilderness which was her life’.[16] However, Mr Scobie exists primarily in his memories and has no need of Miss Hailey’s overtures of friendship. Another difference between their situations is that Miss Hailey is offered the chance to escape the nursing home when the two young nurses formerly employed at St Christopher and St Jude invite her to live with them in a commune, but she ultimately decides that she cannot inflict her old age upon them, sacrificing her literary ambitions and hopes of happiness in the process.[17]
In conclusion, there are no heroes in Mr Scobie’s Riddle; only victims of greed, negligence and old age. Underneath the humour lies a sobering picture of human nature and society. As we all grow old eventually if death does not intervene, this is a story which no reader is likely to forget.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jolley, Elizabeth. Mr Scobie’s Riddle. London: Penguin, 1985. First published in 1983.
[1] E. Jolley, Mr Scobie’s Riddle (London: Penguin, 1985), p. 1-2
[2] Jolley, p. 7
[3] Jolley, p. 9
[4] Jolley, p. 49
[5] Jolley, p. 54
[6] Jolley, p. 83
[7] Jolley, p. 157
[8] Jolley, p. 11
[9] Jolley, p. 46
[10] Jolley, p. 87
[11] Jolley, p. 94
[12] Jolley, p. 194
[13] Jolley, p. 79
[14] Jolley, p. 50
[15] Jolley, p. 25
[16] Jolley, p. 136
[17] Jolley, p. 219
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