“The Other One”
by Tessa Haldey
from the April 13, 2020 issue of The New Yorker
I adore Tessa Hadley’s work. With each new story I read I become more and more convinced she is one of the great short story writers out there. I’m excited to see a new story from her. More than ever I’m excited to see a new story from her. “The Other One” begins with a look back at a woman’s childhood, which is common ground for Hadley:
When Heloise was twelve, in 1986, her father was killed in a car crash. But it was a bit more complicated than that. He was supposed to be away in Germany at a sociology conference, only the accident happened in France, and there were two young women in the car with him. One of them was his lover, it turned out in the days and weeks after the crash, and the other one was his lover’s friend. He’d never even registered at the conference. Didn’t it seem strange, Heloise’s mother asked long afterward, in her creaky, surprised, lightly ironic voice, as if it only touched her curiosity, that the two lovebirds had taken a friend along with them for their tryst in Paris? The lover was also killed; her friend was seriously injured. Heloise’s mother, Angie, had found out some of these things when she rushed to be at her husband’s bedside in a hospital in France: he lived on for a few days after the accident, though he never recovered consciousness.
Heloise is looking back on this more than thirty years later (so more or less the present day). The other one is referring to the friend who survived. I haven’t read much more of the story as of yet, but I’m betting this is the beginning of quite a bit of drama. I’m excited to sit down with this!
I hope you are doing well, wherever you are, and that you’re able to enjoy something new from Hadley (or whatever you’re reading to be sure). I look forward to hearing from you if you care to share your comments below.
The best part of this story is the ornate layered description and detailing given every character, every scene, every physical location, even the weather. It all gives a singularly clear picture of who these people are suggesting similar characteristics in people you may have noticed sometime or have actually met. But it is a little difficult to be able to identify with characters who seem upper middle class, seemingly very privileged, smart and capable and yet seem so reckless and capricious in how they live their lives so that anything bad that happens was just bad luck. There is the incongruity of smart intelligent people who could probably figure out everything concerning the initial accident somehow managing to hide all the true actual details, these being warped into an untrue or artfully withheld fully accurate account (until the end). Very well written but a little tawdry in terms of content. If the characters weren’t flawed in enough different ways the story wouldn’t have held enough interest. Of course certain characteristics are not considered flaws but just choices so there is never any control over anything that results. Still it seems an accurate rendition of a long ago incident and its effects on oneself and immediate family.
Larry —
Help me out here. What was artfully withheld and then revealed at the very end? I don’t understand what that voluptuous teacher with thick ankles had to do with the accident. What did I miss?
William,
You probably didn’t miss anything. Now that I think about it, it wasn’t artful concealment because it was 30 years ago and we are given the wrong information in the beginning or not all we need to know about what actually happened. The teacher with the voluptuous ankles apparently went along for the ride. She was the other in the car whereas the father’s girlfriend was the other woman besides his wife and the daughter seems unclear as to what actually happened. There is no real significance to any of this. It seems bad plotting when a story gives faulty information in the beginning and you feel as the story unravels something significant will be revealed but isn’t. The story seems like a typical British family with secrets not as respectable as it would appear on the surface. Which is kind of usual so nothing much. And why would she throw a blonde into the mix when it doesn’t do anything for the story. This seems as though the family is disengaged as a family but that doesn’t make for much of a story.
I really enjoyed this one — nice tension built throughout, as the mysteries revealed themselves — but I’m not entirely sure I understand quite a lot of it. It’s definitely one I want to re-read, because I feel like there is quite a bit that is unsaid.
Trevor —
Here is my understanding. All the weight of the story revolves around the title.
1. At first, the “other one” is the woman who was not the lover. The lover died instantly. Delia is the “other one” and she survived. This creates a bit of confusion. Usually we speak of the lover as “the other woman”. In this case, the “other one” is the woman who was not the lover. Then, at Antony’s party, Heloise finds out that Delia, the “other one”, the woman who survived, was Clifford’s lover. Hadley is juggling “facts” and assumptions.
2. At the end of the story, in the last few paragraphs, which are told through Delia’s perspective, I think there may be a further twist, a suggestion that Barbie was actually Clifford’s mistress. She certainly is portrayed as being more frisky and daring.
3. We might also see Delia being the “other one” in relation to Heloise and Antony. She “steals” Antony from Heloise as she initially stole Clifford from Angie.
4 However, I think the most freighted use of the title is to describe Delia as seen through her own eyes at the end of the story. It is not in relation to Clifford, but in relation to Angie and Heloise. All the story has focused on how Angie and Heloise have been impacted by the car crash. Then, right at the end, we see what Delia’s life was like just before the trip to France. She was very happy and looking to her future, playing Brahms for Clifford. Delia is the “other one” whose life was blighted by the accident. Of course, this hasn’t occurred to Heloise. I think we are also meant to see Delia as more of a survivor then Heloise, even though Delia was physically injured. She gets on with her life. She finds a way to support herself through her violin talent. And she seems more outgoing than the morose Heloise. Whereas Heloise has just imagined establishing a bond with Antony, sometime in the future, in a very gradual way, Delia has already connected with Antony. Heloise is a brooder, Delia is a doer.
So that’s the view from this reader.
Thank you, William. Your analysis helped me understand the story better. Either it could’ve been clearer or I could’ve been more astute. I just couldn’t get reconciled to the ending, with its sudden switch in the POV.
Yes, that sudden switch in POV was a tipoff, kind of an alert –wake up, something is happening.
Yes, I appreciate the enlightenment as well!
Glad I could help.
I’ve been watching so much serial narrative t.v. of late since house-bound that the idea of “twists” has probably been on my mind. So…rather than criticizing the late reveals–first that Heloise is Anthony’s lover and then that she’d been Cliffords’–I sort of enjoyed these a “twists.” Obviously, “literary fiction” ane “serial narrative melodrama” aren’t the same thing but I got pleasure out of the “twists.” Otherwise, this is typical Hadley–solid, well-constructed and interesting but I can never think of her without thinking of Alice Munro who does this sort of thing better and got to the well first.
Ken —
Amen to that comparison with Munro. One contrast that I sense — Munro’s stories are emotional, empathic. I like this story of Hadley’s in a cognitive way. I like Munro’s stories in an emotional, human way.
Excellent observations and comparisons. Hadley´s and Munro´s entry angles to writing literature are different. Hadley was a scholar with PhD and teacher of creative writing before she got her first novel published.
Harri T —
Thanks for that info. Makes sense.
Mail hasn’t been too swift between Belgium and the US these days, but it was a treat to be able to read your comments just after reading this story, as well as the interview with Hadley…a New Yorker fiction experience at its best :-) As for the title, The Other One was always Delia for me, whether as the friend that tagged along in the beginning, or the actual lover/other woman in the middle, or as Antony’s lover in the end. I like the thought of Heloise as the other, as well, but such a sad soul, I felt for her. Hadley might not yet be Munro, but she’s almost there.
Take a look at Hadley’s descriptions of the way Delia and Angie dress as compared with Heloise. This gives you a good idea of the personalities of the three women. Delia and Angie have their own very personal styles that reflect the way live and move about in the world. Heloise “…puts her outfits together, always, with the same effort she might use in dressing a room for a shoot, working toward some idea at the back of her mind, like an old photograph or a painting.” Delia and Angie’s clothing styles are natural extensions of who they are while Heloise, not feeling comfortable within herself, carefully constructs a personality she wishes to project. The first two women comfortably inhabit themselves. Heloise does not.
Good observation, Diana. This story is about several women. I think the point or “message” of the story revolves around differences among them as we try to interpret which is the “other woman”. Maybe several of them. Maybe the point is about seeing someone as “other”.