I think Nicola wants to reassure herself that Foley is all right, trustworthy and so on, and a testimonial from Anquetil will help. When she doesn't get one she's disconcerted, perhaps also because she's seen a hint of Peter in Anquetil maintaining a friendship with someone he doesn't like or trust.
I think Robert is a virtuoso code-switcher, as working-class people who end up operating in a middle-class world often are, and that helps in his intelligence career. Forest actually has him reflect on undercover work, doesn't she, about assuming fake identities. He's good at that: he's done it all his life. (There's a line at the end of chapter 8 which confuses me, tbh, "He had done it [put Robert in awkward predicaments] when they were boys at school, cheerfully telling Robert all his intentions so that when the mischief was discovered..."--"boys at school", as opposed to "when they were boys" implies they were at school together, but I can't see how they can have been after the age of 8. Forest nodding maybe.) I think Robert's probably genial enough that he can maintain superficial friendships with the village children, but his attachment to Lewis is going to isolate him for sure. And there'll be a further break when he continues his education and most of them go to work, possibly accompanied by family conflict, depending on how supportive his family (just his father? a mother and siblings are never mentioned) is of his education. At grammar school he'll feel quite an acute class gap, one imagines, because he probably has a whole lot less leisure than his peers, and again while I see him being generally well-liked, because he's bright and competent and agreeable, he might not make deep friendships there. Same at Oxford: he has to work much harder than most to maintain his academic performance, and never has the money for much leisure anyway. The only constant in it all, ironically enough, is Lewis. (I also see there being a relationship of obligation, perhaps; that the Foleys intervened financially or with social pressure to allow Robert to continue his education.)
Robert already has the wardroom manner down pat when he joins the RNVR: he can live at close quarters without being intrusive or getting on anybody's nerves, he's sociable but not over-familiar and so on. I think some of Lewis's recklessness in wartime actions might have opened a breach between them, and Robert does make an effort to keep him at arm's length. But Robert's also lonely, and he finds it difficult to resist when Lewis does favour him with his company. So both, both is good. On the matter of whether it's a sexual or romantic relationship, there's nothing to go on in canon: you know, children's lit published in 1953, and all that. My feeling is that compulsive friendships like that tend to have an erotic dimension even if that's never expressed physically: Robert doesn't like Lewis all that much, but he loves him. And that the murderous rages might be deflections of sexual attraction.
And you bet Nicola thinks of Robert's comment when she goes back to school that Autumn to realise that Tim rather dislikes her even though they're friends! I wish Forest had managed a note to that effect.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Friendships
Date: 2014-06-28 10:06 am (UTC)I think Robert is a virtuoso code-switcher, as working-class people who end up operating in a middle-class world often are, and that helps in his intelligence career. Forest actually has him reflect on undercover work, doesn't she, about assuming fake identities. He's good at that: he's done it all his life. (There's a line at the end of chapter 8 which confuses me, tbh, "He had done it [put Robert in awkward predicaments] when they were boys at school, cheerfully telling Robert all his intentions so that when the mischief was discovered..."--"boys at school", as opposed to "when they were boys" implies they were at school together, but I can't see how they can have been after the age of 8. Forest nodding maybe.) I think Robert's probably genial enough that he can maintain superficial friendships with the village children, but his attachment to Lewis is going to isolate him for sure. And there'll be a further break when he continues his education and most of them go to work, possibly accompanied by family conflict, depending on how supportive his family (just his father? a mother and siblings are never mentioned) is of his education. At grammar school he'll feel quite an acute class gap, one imagines, because he probably has a whole lot less leisure than his peers, and again while I see him being generally well-liked, because he's bright and competent and agreeable, he might not make deep friendships there. Same at Oxford: he has to work much harder than most to maintain his academic performance, and never has the money for much leisure anyway. The only constant in it all, ironically enough, is Lewis. (I also see there being a relationship of obligation, perhaps; that the Foleys intervened financially or with social pressure to allow Robert to continue his education.)
Robert already has the wardroom manner down pat when he joins the RNVR: he can live at close quarters without being intrusive or getting on anybody's nerves, he's sociable but not over-familiar and so on. I think some of Lewis's recklessness in wartime actions might have opened a breach between them, and Robert does make an effort to keep him at arm's length. But Robert's also lonely, and he finds it difficult to resist when Lewis does favour him with his company. So both, both is good. On the matter of whether it's a sexual or romantic relationship, there's nothing to go on in canon: you know, children's lit published in 1953, and all that. My feeling is that compulsive friendships like that tend to have an erotic dimension even if that's never expressed physically: Robert doesn't like Lewis all that much, but he loves him. And that the murderous rages might be deflections of sexual attraction.
And you bet Nicola thinks of Robert's comment when she goes back to school that Autumn to realise that Tim rather dislikes her even though they're friends! I wish Forest had managed a note to that effect.