Not all marriages have happy endings, not all marriages last forever and moving on can be difficult. That is what the short story Reconciliation, written by Polly Clark, is trying to tell us.
The story is written in 1st person because we are able to read what she is thinking and feeling – even when she doesn’t know it: “It’s my first day, I cycled here” etc. It all starts “in medias res”, where the reader is thrown into the events and quickly forced to understand everything that is happening. The fact that it’s the narrator who tells the story gives a very good insight into her world and what she is thinking and that is very important when you have to characterize her.
The story takes place in an office and we follow the narrator and main character, Laura, as she has her first day at her new job. Not just any job, it’s also where her husband works. Her husband is called Vernon Pringle and Laura describes him as a turtle: “..His name is Vernon. He looks like a turtle. More specifically he looks like a turtle without a carapace which gives him a rather exposed and nervous air.” He is also described in a more bad way: “His arms in his shiny blue shirt are curved protectively around his papers, as if all of us, being human, are prone to cheating”. That shows how little he trusts people and is always trying to protect what is his from all others.”
When the story starts and Laura describes her clothing and appearance she seems very normal and not really too interesting. Laura has been married to Vernon “for half a life” which means she can’t be that young but I’d guess she was somewhere around her midlife or younger, even though the story never tells us. She knows Vernon very well and points it out a lot in the story: “I know every line of his face. That face has watched over me, that face has known me at my best”. She is very keen on making a good impression and