Shrines of Gaiety

“Crime paid, fighting it didn’t. Frobisher felt his law-abiding bile rising while he had to quash a pang of envy for the Bentleys. He was in the process of purchasing his own modest motor, an unshowy Austin Seven, the Everyman of cars.”

This quote delineates Frobisher from the Cokers. Frobisher is the “Everyman” good guy, while Nellie and her family are the rich, Bentley-driving criminals. The phrase “Everyman of cars” parodies the advertising language used to peddle an ever-expanding range of consumer goods in the period.

“Maud was an account demanding to be settled. There was a reckoning coming for Nellie. Could she outrun it?”

Nellie got her start as a club-owner thanks to an act of theft. Although she doesn’t seem guilty about the theft, she’s plagued by guilt regarding the death of Maud, a girl who died in one of Nellie’s clubs. Maud’s ghost creates a sense of foreboding and gives the book an ominous tone. The image of Maud as “an account demanding to be settled” establishes the sense of Maud as Nellie’s superego.

“Dear Mother, I have run away to London to seek my fortune. I am going to dance on the stage. The next time you hear from me I will be famous.”

This is the note Freda leaves when she runs away from home. Freda’s ambitions will ultimately put her in dangerous situations—speaking to the book’s thematic treatment of ambition and its risks. Atkinson highlights Freda’s naivety by using the clichéd language of “seek[ing] my fortune.”

“They seem to eat girls.”

Frobisher thinks this about Nellie’s clubs, creating an ominous tone that overshadows the plot development of Freda working for Nellie’s clubs. The phrasing of how the clubs “eat girls” is also telling, positioning the girls as passive objects instead of active agents of their lives—something that various characters subvert.

“He couldn’t help the odd sense that Gwendolen Kelling’s missing girls were the harbinger of something. There was evil in the air of London.”

Frobisher’s thoughts here help to create tension in the narrative, hinting at the dangers to come. The “evil in the air in London” will touch many characters, literally through the use of setting and figuratively within the narrative arc.

“What if they were all in league with Maddox? What if the whole barrel was rotten?”

Frobisher wonders this about his fellow law enforcement officers. The use of the “barrel” as a metaphor links the deeply ingrained nature of the corruption with alcohol which is served illegally in Nellie’s clubs and therefore with the financial incentives for the corruption.

“The barbarians were at the gate.”

Nellie thinks this as she realizes the various forces that are out to get her: Azzopardi, Maddox/Oakes, and Frobisher. The phrasing raises tension by invoking images of the battles in classical texts alluded to in the book; however, Nellie will ultimately defeat those barbarians.

“He’s [Tutankhamun] haunting the streets, looking for victims, because we dug him up and disturbed his eternal rest.”

The references to Tutankhamun in the book (there are multiple) help to historically contextualize the narrative; the tomb was unearthed in 1922. However, the references also add mystery and a sense of foreboding to the work. The unearthing of the tomb can be seen as a testament to the dangers of greed; there are many tales of how digging up a pharaoh’s tomb—to look for riches, for example—brings a curse to the person who digs it up.

“Why don’t you fuck off, you fucking posh fucker.”

Some workmen shout this at Ramsay, speaking to the book’s treatment of class issues. Ramsay may be rich but he’s lonely and lacks the camaraderie the workmen have. When he tries to approach them, they rebuff him. Atkinson uses a polyptoton device with the words “fuck,” “fucking,” and “fucker” not just to add humor to the incident but also to reduce the vocabulary of this speech to basilect and underscore the men’s attempts to emphasize the class difference between them and the “posh” person before them.

“He had saved her, and in doing so he had lost himself.”

This line refers to Frobisher and his wife, Lottie, whom Frobisher saved from a suicide attempt when they first met. The words establish Frobisher’s hero complex and his constant desire to save others, especially women, so they are vital to his character exposition as well as Atkinon’s exploration of the theme of Expectations and Subversions of Gender Roles.

“[Niven] could save his mother or he could betray her. He liked to think that he was undecided, but in his heart he knew that blood would win. It always did for the Cokers.”

Family loyalty is a central topic in the book, as explicated here. Nellie’s children ultimately remain loyal to her, despite her fears that they’ll betray her. Atkinson uses “blood” as a metonym for family to generate a sense of a grand dynasty for which battles would be fought.

“Did she want to be beholden to Niven? Or any of the Cokers?”

Gwendolen thinks this when she realizes that Niven has paid for her hotel room. The moment highlights Gwendolen’s self-sufficiency, as she subverts typical gender roles by paying for the room herself.

“Freda jumped off the bench and sped away, feeling an unfortunate kinship with the poor pigeon, for she, too, had been snared and devoured by a beast of prey.”

This symbolic moment, described by Freda, reflects the state of many of the “lost girls” in London. The pigeon represents the girls and the pelican represents the city, swallowing them whole. When they’re “spit out,” so to speak, it’s often to end up dead in the Thames.

“She’s not family. In fact, she’s a complete stranger to us. She might be a Trojan horse, for all we know.”

Betty says this about Gwendolen, emphasizing the importance the Cokers place on family. This is also an example of how the author uses literary allusion to communicate ideas—in this case, a hidden threat—to the reader.

“If you want to earn money, then I know a way. Do you? Want to earn money?”

Oakes says this to Freda. It’s the first concrete hint the reader gets that Oakes is siphoning girls to a sex work ring. Oakes’s actions will become especially egregious when it becomes clear that he targets at-risk girls who are unlikely to be missed. Atkinson writes his speech as closed questions (“[d]o you?”) to highlight his coerciveness.

“Girls were currency in the capital and she would be bought and sold, traded again and again until she was worthless. Freda straightened her back and put up her chin. She was not that girl.”

Freda thinks this to herself when she ignores Oakes’s invitation to join a sex work ring. It’s a moment where she exemplifies her self-sufficiency which Atkinson uses to explore Expectations and Subversions of Gender Roles. The voiceless plosive sound of the alliteration of “currency” and “capital” portray the harshness of this environment.

“Rumour has it that all the loot he’d stolen was stashed somewhere but he was never able to retrieve it. Jewellery, mostly, from a big job at the Ritz.”

These words are a pivotal revelation in the plot. The reader finally learns why Azzopardi is after Nellie: The jewelry that Nellie stole from her landlady was Azzopardi’s loot. This is not yet spelled out explicitly, leaving the reader to pick up the threads and infer the significance of these words, just as the detectives in the novel must do.

“The spell was broken.”

This line comes toward the end of Frobisher and Gwendolen’s day in Oxford, where their relationship becomes more intimate. However, Gwendolen then learns that Frobisher is married at which point “the spell” is broken. It’s a significant moment for the romantic subplot since it generates the anti-climax and subverts expectations of a romantic arc.

“Were all her children betraying her, one by one?”

Nellie wonders this after learning of Edith’s affair with Maddox. This rhetorical question prompts the reader to ask the same, before they observe the fact that Nellie’s children remain loyal to her.

“Girls who had run away from home, girls from orphanages, girls from the street, girls from dance schools, girls lured with promises of a clean bed and a square meal or a transformation in their fortunes.”

When Edith tells Frobisher about Oakes and Maddox’s sex work scam, she reveals that the duo targets at-risk girls (as described here). Atkinson uses “girls” as an anaphora in each clause, highlighting the extent of the danger for the many at-risk girls in London.

“Freda wondered what [Cherry’d] had to do to get the part in The Co-Optimists. Although she didn’t need to wonder, she knew.”

Freda thinks this when she runs into a former dance school companion of hers, Cherry, and learns that Cherry has a role in a play, The Co-Optimists. Atkinson often leaves things left unsaid in the novel, an effective narrative strategy that leaves readers to infer the horror of events. Freda’s allusion to what Cherry had to do to get the part emphasizes how rampant this predatory targeting of young girls is.

“She was every missing girl in London who haunted his waking hours.”

Frobisher has this thought when he rescues a girl from drowning in the Thames—only to discover that it’s Freda. The moment highlights Frobisher’s good heart, as he’s genuinely haunted by the lost girls in London he can’t help. His thoughts resolve the idea throughout the novel that Freda and the other girls found dead in the Thames present parallel narratives.

“The son of the notorious nightclub owner Nellie Coker.”

These words define Ramsay in his obituary. They are an amusing nod to the fact that Ramsay is never able to achieve fame beyond his family’s shadow, and invert the trope of women being remembered for their male connections. His ambitions, which he pursued by nefarious means—stealing a dead man’s manuscript and passing it off as his own—fell flat.