Beyond the Pale by William Trevor
"Beyond the Pale" by William Trevor is a poignant short story set in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, focusing on a group of four English bridge players who vacation at Glencorn Lodge each year. The narrative is told from the perspective of Milly, who cherishes the group's established routines and overlooks the complexities of their lives. The peaceful atmosphere is disrupted by the arrival of an unwelcome stranger, a troubled young man whose tragic fate becomes intertwined with the group's dynamics. After he confides in Cynthia, one of the players, about having committed murder, he ultimately takes his own life, prompting a stark confrontation with the characters' suburban complacency.
Cynthia's recounting of the young man's story challenges the others to reflect on the deeper social and historical issues of violence connected to the Irish conflict, evoking themes of guilt and complicity. As she exposes their sheltered existence and the fragility of their relationships, the illusion of perfection at the lodge is shattered. The story intricately explores the tensions between personal desires and broader societal realities, highlighting the characters' struggles to acknowledge the consequences of their detachment. Through its rich narrative, "Beyond the Pale" invites readers to consider how the past and present collide in everyday life, especially in regions marked by conflict.
Beyond the Pale by William Trevor
First published: 1981
Type of plot: Domestic realism
Time of work: 1979
Locale: County Antrim, Northern Ireland
Principal Characters:
Dorothy Milson (Milly) , the narrator and protagonistMajor R. B. Strafe , her loverCynthia Strafe , the major's wifeDekko Deacon , an old friendMr. Malseed , andMrs. Malseed , proprietors of Glencorn LodgeKitty , the waitressUnnamed young man
The Story
This tale of four English bridge players who habitually go on a summer holiday excursion to the same lodge in County Antrim, on the coast of Northern Ireland, examines what happens when something disrupts the "casual comedy" to reveal hidden unpleasant undercurrents in their lives. The story's narrator, Milly, insists on the perfection of the ritualized patterns of the foursome. For many years they have spent the first two weeks of June at Glencorn Lodge, hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Malseed. She notes approvingly that this year things are just the same as always at the lodge, and that all is well. Milly sees little outside the narrow field of her vision. The behavior of the foursome is equally unchanging. They go on drives and walks to the same locations; there is a day when Strafe and Dekko go fishing; they play bridge after dinner; and, most importantly, they maintain a tacit agreement never to talk about each other. Their reserve allows Milly and Major Strafe to carry on their love affair in the evenings after the major's wife Cynthia retires; the Strafes have separate bedrooms and the lovers assume that Cynthia does not notice them.
On the first night, an unwelcome stranger disrupts this comfortable routine. He is an unhappy young man whom the four friends and the Malseeds feel is out of place. When Milly and the men go walking the next day, Cynthia talks with the young man, who then commits suicide, leaving her terribly upset. The others immediately assume that the young man has made a pass at Cynthia, whom Milly mentally criticizes for her lack of assertiveness in "allowing" an improper advance. Indeed, the young man has approached Cynthia but not sexually. Rather, he has revealed to her that he has just murdered an old girlfriend to stop her from making bombs for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He returned to Glencorn to kill himself because he and his girlfriend had frolicked there as children. As Cynthia recounts the man's story, the two later parted, with the girl growing up to make IRA bombs and the young man eventually killing her to stop the violence. He has committed suicide (by walking into the sea) to expiate his guilt. (The man's suicide resembles a famous Irish death—that of the legendary hero Cuchulain, who drowned himself after discovering he had killed his own son in combat.)
Cynthia strings together a narrative that links Irish history, the intimate history of the two young unfortunates, and British (and by extension, their own) culpability. Embarrassed and disturbed, the other three vacationers try to deny the validity of her tale, putting it down to shock, or to bad form on her part. Meanwhile, the Malseeds, parodies of hotel propriety, anxiously try to hustle Cynthia away from the scene. Before she is shunted away, Cynthia plays her trump card. Summoning Kitty, the dining room waitress, she announces that she knows all about the affair between Strafe and Milly, that Dekko and Strafe have never passed beyond the adolescent level of development, and that from the safety of their domesticity in Surrey or their idylls at Glencorn, they blindly ignore the horrors of murder and armed occupation in Ulster. She then departs, but the damage is done, and the illusory perfection of Glencorn Lodge is destroyed. Even then, however, Milly cannot bring herself to admit the justice of what Cynthia has said. Instead, she wishes that it had been Cynthia who had died in the sea. She dismisses Cynthia's narrative as "awful rigamarole" and sees the two children as having "grown up into murdering riff-raff."
Sources for Further Study
Encounter. LVIII, January, 1982, p. 49.
Library Journal. CVI, December 15, 1981, p. 2408.
The New Republic. CLXXXVI, February 22, 1982, p. 39.
The New York Times Book Review. LXXVII, February 21, 1982, p. 7.
Newsweek. XCIX, February 22, 1982, p. 74.
Saturday Review. IX, February, 1982, p. 59.
Times Literary Supplement. October 16, 1981, p. 1193.