Unforgiven [Paperback]

Jules Hardy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2008

Sammy has an idyllic boyhood with his glamorous hippie parents and his sister. They live a decadent 1960s lifestyle—Sammy's earliest memories are of visitors sleeping outside under the stars, smoking joints, and getting drunk on rum and cocktails. Then, overnight, his life is changed by two tragedies that will remain intertwined in his mind for ever. He is forced to leave Limassol and is sent to an austere English boarding school. There Sammy meets Rajiv, a young, diligent scholar from the West Indies. The two form an unlikely friendship—Rajiv tempers the rebellious streak that the damaged Sammy has developed and, in years to come, that friendship will once more dramatically alter the course of Sammy's life as he is eventually forced to face the demons that have led him to his self imposed exile.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jules Hardy is the author of Altered Land, Blue Earth, and Mister Candid.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

DIANA

Obviously, I've been thinking about him, thinking about Sammy, ever since the news came through, but I have to say I never really knew my brother, even though he was only two years older than me. When I was born, it was as if a...a...as if something, something like a wall, slid down between us. Thinking about it, maybe it wasn't a wall, maybe it was more like a one-way mirror, because I always felt I could watch him forever and he'd never notice me; as if he could lead his life with me watching him and he'd never look at me, never be aware of me. Even when we were very young I felt like that. He never really noticed me, he just lived out his life on the other side of the mirror. Anyway, that's what I used to think, how I used to feel when I was young. I used to feel lonely, I suppose. But, of course, that was before I accepted Jesus into my life. Diana shrugs, tugs at the worn crucifix dangling on a thin, gold chain. She leans forward, picks up a plastic beaker and sips at still water. Now I know that Sammy was just self-absorbed, he was just vain. He was vain. Some people might think I was jealous because I wasn't beautiful, because I wasn't part of his life but I wasn't jealous, I'm not jealous, because I know beauty comes from within. Purity of heart is beauty; faith is beauty; the will to duty and fidelity is beauty; chastity and temperance are beautiful. Some people may laugh, may think these words are old-fashioned, but they are eternal. Those same people only want to know about Sammy just because of who he knew, who he brushed up against. Who he...slept with. How vacuous is that? Because I'm his sister, because I share his blood, I care about what has happened to his soul: is he numbered among the damned? Diana looks away, lowers her eyes, as if to speak of damnation is not her prerogative. But I suppose Sammy was beautiful, he was so handsome. Even the thing with his ear was, in its own way, beautiful. As if that single flaw, that imperfection, made him more desirable. When I was a little girl I always felt alone, as if I had been left on the wrong side of the mirror. Like I was looking through it watching my family living out their lives and I wasn't a part of that. But I'm not bitter. Diana sucks her lips as if they have been dipped in citrus juice. I remember very little about our childhood, when we lived in Cyprus. I know I was always left out of the games. Sammy used to ask school friends over and they'd play in the garden, well, it wasn't really a garden, but anyway, they'd play games and he never asked me to join in. I'd sit on the back doorstep and watch them. But you don't want to know about me...Sometimes I knew my mother was standing behind me as I sat on the step and I'd look up at her and she was always looking at Sammy. I'd tug at her trousers and she'd look down at me as if she didn't know who I was, and then look back to Sammy. Sorry, I'm sorry. So...Sammy...Sammy, Sammy. I don't know. I knew nothing about his life once we came back to England. I went to a local school and he boarded at Redpath. You'll have to ask other people about that time, about when he was at school. I do remember that trouble always followed him around. He nearly killed my grandparents with worry. I visit my grandmother once a week, now she's in the Home, and she's told me about what a tearaway Sammy was, how much trouble he caused. I can remember sitting at the dinner table every night and the talk was always about Sammy and never about me, no matter how good I was, or how well I'd done at school. Even though he wasn't even there, the talk was still all about him. Not that I'm bitter, you understand. I have a wonderful husband and four lovely children; I am blessed. We all are. All apart from poor Sammy. Again, Diana sips at the water, fingering the cross at her throat. There were those parties, of course, the parties at the cottage in Cyprus. Fortunately, I was too young to be able to recollect them clearly. I've heard some of the accounts of those who were there and I am appalled. I can't believe that my parents would subject me to that. But perhaps things were different then? Perhaps parents were different then? I remember that I had terrible arguments with my mother every Friday because she wouldn't let me wear my school uniform for the weekend. She used to call me 'the little Nazi'. 'The little Nazi.' And my father laughed. I remember he always laughed when she called me that. My mother could speak Greek and sometimes I wondered when she spoke, what she was saying about me. Maybe it was difficult for them. They were all so tall and tanned and...and relaxed about themselves, living on the other side of the mirror. I never worked out why I wasn't like them. But I'm not lonely now. Diana shifts in the chair, rubs at her neck, rolls her rounded shoulders. I'm not used to talking like this. I'd really rather not do this. There are many things I'd rather not remember. I'd certainly rather not remember the weekends in the fisherman's cottage. They were...they were...decadent, licentious. The smell of woodsmoke, which my husband adores, makes me feel unwell. Even a hint of alcohol makes me nauseous, reminds me of my mother and her filthy cocktails. But you don't want to know about this, do you? You want to know about Sammy. Always Sammy. He loved those weekends. He revelled in them because, of course, he was always the centre of attention. I do have a memory, perhaps it's more of a feeling, about one time at the cottage when Sammy had been to see his friend, a local boy. I can't remember his name. He was an ugly boy and - God forgive me - I liked him because of that. Anyway, Sammy went to play with him one day and when he came back, he was different. Sammy was different. I know it's not right to speak ill of the dead or disappeared, but Sammy had been arrogant and when he came back that day he wasn't any more. He wasn't arrogant. I remember that. Sammy came limping back to the cottage and, of course, my mother abandoned the game she was playing with me and went to look after him. Sammy had a graze on his knee but he couldn't stop crying, which I thought was odd. But after that he was different. He was quieter, he spent more time on his own. He didn't pick arguments with me so often. A string of rosaries appears in Diana's hands and she begins to fondle the beads, move them around. One summer, years ago, when I was training to be a nurse, I visited my father with Alistair, who was my fiancÉ at the time, and Sammy turned up. I think he'd finished his exams and he turned up in Cyprus for a holiday. Before he arrived we'd all been having a lovely time, visiting the sights and ruins, but once Sammy was there everything changed. There were parties every night and drinking until the early hours. My father even suggested that Sammy slept with some girl in the house which, of course, I tried to stop. But my father just laughed at me. A shuddering breath as the rosaries click. I think this is all wrong. I don't understand it. All the fuss. Sammy wasn't important, he wasn't well-known, he wasn't famous, so I can't understand what all the fuss is about. Why so many people care about what happened to him. I can only think it's because of that woman. That Jezebel. She reminded me of my mother. Poor Sammy. He went away and he was out of his depth. He didn't belong there, amongst those sorts of people. I know you want to know about Sammy and what he was like and how he met the people he met and what those people were like but I can't tell you. He used to phone me sometimes, in the middle of the night. Perhaps he felt guilty about ignoring me, but the calls were always drunken, he never made any sense. Alistair, my husband, thinks Sammy was trying to apologize for something, but that's Alistair for you - always seeing the best in people. I don't think that. I think it's a case of the sins of the father being visited on the son. Which is curious because he was a real mummy's boy. Of course, after that terrible Christmas, you know, what happened at Aspen, the phone calls dried up. I never heard from him again - it must be more than twelve years now since I heard from him. Sammy just disappeared and I barely thought about him until a couple of days ago. Again, Diana looks away, looks into the neutral distance. My clearest memory of Sammy, if you really want to know, isn't the most recent. I can remember him fighting in the jeep, fighting the soldiers who were taking us to the airport when the Turks came. He must have only been about eleven but it took three of them as well as my father to keep him in the jeep and then get him on the plane. I was scared of him, then, the way he was fighting, like he didn't care whether he lived or died. Diana sighs, places her hands together as if in prayer, as if closing a book. What's terrible...perhaps I shouldn't say this...what's terrible, is that I find I can't grieve. I can't grieve because I don't know what's happened to him, if he's...if he's dead or not. And anyway, I hardly knew him. It would be like grieving for a stranger. I always thought Sammy led a charmed life. Sometimes I'd see his picture in a magazine or in a newspaper, you know, once he went to Hollywood with her. And I remember thinking that he led a charmed life - no matter what Sammy did, he always came out of it smelling of roses. But I don't think that now. Now I think he was charmed but he was also damned. Charmed and damned in equal measure.

1963-1974

Samuel Harold Andrew Knight was born in a cottage hospital on the outskirts of a dull market town in Surrey, England. His parents had been married for six months to the day; it was 1963 so no one much cared about the brevity of their marital relationship. Sammy must have been cramped in his sanguine waiting room because when he emerged, face rumpled with red, leathery welts, mouth working soundlessly, his ears were folded over, the skin scored, almost, by a fold. It was as if Sammy had no desire to hear the music of life. The midwife tutted when she saw evi...

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK (November 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743495683
• ISBN-13: 978-0743495684
• Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 5 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,090,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3.0 out of 5 stars Good in part, January 16, 2012

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Benjamin (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Unforgiven (Paperback)

Sammy was born in 1963 in Surrey, UK, but spent his childhood in Cyprus along with his sister and where his father worked as a civil engineer. His part time hippie parents encouraged a natural free thinking way of life, but all that was to change when Sammy was eleven, and circumstances forced him back to the UK where his grandparents sent him to a respectable but unremarkable public school.

It was at this school, Redpath College, that Sammy met Rajiv, a slim, beautiful dark skinned East Indian boy whose wealthy family live on a Sansobella, a Caribbean island. The two boys could not be more different, Sammy laid back, untidy and averse to work, Rajiv neat to a fault and with a serious work ethic, yet they became best friends, a friendship that will last well beyond their school days.

The summer that Rajiv takes his friend to his island home, Sammy is enchanted, here is the paradise he seeks. But much will happen before he will find himself in his tropical paradise, and even then nothing will be secure - for even in paradise trouble is just beneath the surface.

The story follows Sammy through his childhood in Cyprus, his schoolboy years in the UK, the woman in his life, how he finds his way to the US, to the West Indies and to his penultimate destination, where he finally makes his own way and is admired by both locals and tourists for his easy going idyllic life, until the troubles that are to come and their consequences.

Unforgiven is a beautiful story that take place for the most part in an even more beautiful setting. Both Sammy and Rajiv are likeable boys who grow into decent men - once Sammy overcomes his problems. The writing is very descriptive, the Caribbean island of Sansobella along with its near neighbour St George (and less so Dorado, the third of the island group) are vividly depicted, as is the social and political structure of the islands. The majority poor of black African origin being the underdogs lorded over by the wealthy East Indians and other minority groups, and to some extent we are helped to understand the way of thinking of the black African population.

The narrative is for the most part in the third person, but interspersed are occasional and very short chapters which seem to be the responses to interviews with various characters: Sammy's sister, his grandmother, Rajiv and others, and these interestingly give a hint that something of concern has occurred.

While for the most part enjoying this book I have some reservations. It is not an overly long novel, perhaps just little longer than average, yet it seemed at times interminable, I think due to the excesses of the descriptive prose. On more than one occasion I almost gave up on the book. I think the reason for my impatience stems from the fact that Sansobellla and St George are fictitious islands (supposedly situated between Grenada and Trinidad); the descriptions are so precise that I feel they must be based on a real place, and I could not help wondering which Caribbean Islands were the models, in fact I felt cheated being deprived of this information. Put another way if I am going to read at such length about these places I want to know where they really are. (I realise that this might present the author with problems of identifying the troubles that occur with an named island, but such matters are not insurmountable, and there are writers who have not feared to do this.)

I was disappointed too in the development of both Sammy and Rajiv, they are interesting characters yet somehow they never became completely real, I never really felt in my heart for them and so what transpired for them lost much of its impact. Sammy's troubled life and what he endures before finding his final destiny should have moved me deeply, but I felt I viewed it all with a little more that an academic interest. Jules Hardy I feel had more sympathy for her female characters: Sammy's mother Beatrice, and the wealthy and abrasive plantation heiress Susannah Huggins. Of course other readers may feel differently.

It is an interesting read and one which gives some insight into the peoples of the Caribbean; knowing many people from these islands, both of African and Asian descent, I recognise many of their characteristics as depicted here. But It is not a book I can recommend unreservedly, if you like reading long sometimes repetitive descriptions, if you have nothing else lined up to read (or do), this will no doubt keep you entertained. But if you want the narrative to occasionally get a move on, and if you want to feel more for the main protagonists, you might at times find this a frustrating read.