Restless by William Boyd

In offering a review of a novel by William Boyd ISo, as Mrs Gilmartin the mother reveals to her
could certainly be accused of bias. I would proudlydaughter via instalments of an autobiography that
plead guilty, since I regard him as one of just fourshe is really Eva Delectorskaya, recruited in Paris
or five British writers who are capable ofto conduct a campaign of wartime disinformation
constructing supreme works of fiction, written inin the United States, the complications of life
a framework that is both informative andgradually attain the status of the mundane.
thought-provoking and all this set within aRecruited, perhaps, because she was rootless and
continuum of contemporary or historical eventsthus expendable, Eva proved herself intellectually
which themselves become re-interpreted by theand operationally superior to her manipulative
fiction. In Restless, Boyd's latest novel, he hasmanagers and survived the posting that was
re-stated this ability and, if anything, written itsupposed to achieve their subverted ends and, at
larger via a smaller form.the same time, erase her potential to supply
The historical element in Restless is supplied byevidence. Many years later, Eva, now Mrs
the activities of an offshoot of World War TwoGilmartin, feels the need to get even, to expose
intelligence. Ostensibly a private, dis-ownablethe double or triple-cross for what it was and
initiative of a particular group, Boyd suggests thatdeliver at least a prod to the comfortable,
it formed an integral part of the British strategy,self-congratulatory but traitorous British
during the early part of the war, to force theestablishment that ran her. Daughter Ruth
United States to join the Allied effort. The fact,becomes the means.
therefore, that it was undermined and subvertedSo one messy life tries to tie up its soggy ends
so that it perhaps aimed to achieve the oppositevia the actions of another who is apparently yet
of its brief was probably par for the course whento attain the same depths of complication. And
espionage meets its freelance counter, but theshe succeeds. The fright is delivered. The
denouement is surprising and wholly credible.memory that Eva, the mother, was
In front of this backdrop of fact meeting fiction,fundamentally brighter than the upper class Brits
we have a landscape of human relationships. Ruthwho were trying to manipulate her is rekindled.
is a single mother in Oxford. She, herself, has hadHer training was perfect, but she went beyond it
certain German connections, nay relations, henceand the plan backfired, irrelevantly as it turned out
the motherhood. She makes a living teachingbecause greater events intervened. But years
English to foreign tutees, has several dubiouslater, Eva, Mrs Gilmartin, is still brighter than her
visitors, dreams about completing an aging PhDboss and, through her daughter's efforts, she
and generally spends much of her time lookingbrings a special kind of justice to bear on the
after a precocious five-year-old. And then herdouble-dealer who ruined, but also perhaps made
mother becomes someone quite unknown to her.her life.
The widow in the Oxfordshire retreat suddenlyIn characteristically humble terms, William Boyd
becomes part Russian, part English, with a Frenchreminds us at the end that we are all watched, all
step-mother. She possessed several differentawaiting the cupboard to reveal its skeleton, but in
identities before she became Mrs Gilmartin andour more mundane lives, it is unlikely to be as
most of these were fiction to provide cover forcolourful an event as that which Eva
the others. How many of us, after all, can claimDelectorskaya, Mrs Gilmartin, and her daughter
to have known our parents before they wereRuth uncover.
parents?