Sipsworth

“Three years pass with nothing to fill their pockets. Then early one morning, something happens.”

The story’s first part, the Overture, is told largely from an omniscient perspective and in past tense. With the sentence beginning “Three years pass,” the narrative shifts to present tense, and with the sentence beginning “Then early one morning,” the present-day story begins, signifying a momentous change and increasing reader anticipation. The tense and present-day time frame then stay the same for the duration of the novel.

“She ponders the deep sea diver she can now feel holding her entire life in place like an anchor dropped years ago and then forgotten.”

The plastic figure of a deep-sea diver symbolizes all that Helen has loved and lost. Her son David had the same toy as a child, and since she burned all the photos and scrapbooks of her loved ones before moving back to England, it is her first physical reminder of them in years. She wonders if it is trying to drag her back to her old life. The anchor simile emphasizes the idea that is weighing her down, like her past.

“Either way, for her as for others, a great storm was approaching. She could sense it swollen on the horizon, ready to burst.”

Helen is still defining herself by her advanced age at this point, and she uses the metaphor of the storm to describe her impending death. She believes she is very close to death, which is why she senses the storm is “ready to burst.”

“This is knocking⁠—an impossibly light tapping like somebody small or timid is outside and wants to come in.”

Sipsworth’s tapping from inside the broken fish tank first alerts Helen to his existence, although she doesn’t recognize its source in Chapter 3. Sipsworth, who symbolizes the loved ones Helen lost, wants to “come in” to her life. The “impossibly light tapping” seems delicate, almost ghostly, emphasizing that Sipsworth will remind Helen of her past connections and loves.

“Herein lies the cruel paradox of human existence⁠—not that you die, but that all happiness eventually turns against you.”

The Difficulty of Overcoming Grief is one of the novel’s major themes. In the novel’s early chapters, Helen is so grief-stricken that she believes she is being punished, and must punish herself, for having once been very happy. She denies herself the smallest treats, even a piece of fudge, and makes herself stand in the cold until she is chilled before she will allow herself a second bath.

“By late afternoon, God is everywhere.”

This sentence is ostensibly about the church services Helen watches on TV, but it also functions as a declaration of the novel’s message. Helen hasn’t attended church since the funeral service for her son, David, decades before. However, she prays along with the people at a church service on television. This prompts her to act kindly toward the mouse, and she is on her way to Finding God Through Love.

“There must be something in gentleness, she ponders, some great power that people just aren’t aware of.”

The words “gentleness” and “power” occur frequently in the novel. The mouse is gentle, as Helen’s son David was gentle. Here, she thinks that the mouse’s gentleness has power, contradicting popular notions that power lies in brute force. She finds the gentle power of love—as represented by Sipsworth—more persuasive.

“Its eyes are like two currants, but bright with something she has seen before, in the faces of those who now haunt her.”

Sipsworth’s dark eyes are compared to “two currants.” The mouse symbolizes the people Helen loved and lost: her son, David; her husband, Len; and her parents. This is the first instance in the novel when Helen thinks he is similar to them, seeing love in his eyes. Over time, he will take their place in her life. She will begin Living in the Present Moment instead of in her memories.

“If there is something, Helen ponders, and it’s not malicious but loving⁠—then it must be very small and at times powerless, rather like the mouse in her sink.”

The “something” Helen is wondering about is God. She cannot picture a God who would take everyone she loves away from her. She thinks that if there is a loving higher power behind the changes taking place in her life, it must be much like Sipsworth himself. Small, powerless Sipsworth does act like a divine presence for Helen by rescuing her from a lack of faith. His entrance into her life is typical of the “Found Family” trope to which the novel belongs, in which a small change leads a character to form a new, family-like group of friends. Sipsworth is small in size, but his effect on Helen is powerful.

“Except he is downstairs in a pie box. Not dying. And for the first time in many years, against her better judgement, neither is she.”

Helen prepares for the possibility that she might die in her sleep each night by making sure her feet touch under the bedcovers, so she will look dignified when she is discovered. In Chapter 16, however, she realizes that if she died, there would be nobody to take care of the mouse.

“The fur on his stomach is as soft as child’s hair.”

Sipsworth reminds Helen of all her family members, and his fur evokes memories of both her son, David, and her mother. Helen loved to brush her son’s shaggy hair with her hand, and she comes to love stroking Sipsworth’s fur. This simile reinforces the association between Sipsworth and David.

 “Maybe you’ll get lucky like my father, and some nice fishermen will scoop you up.”

The novel has numerous instances of rescues, all supporting the theme of the Difficulty of Overcoming Grief. In this scene, Helen is telling Sipsworth about how her father was lost at sea after his ship was torpedoed in World War II. He was miraculously rescued by Spanish fishermen, with whom he stayed in touch for the rest of his life. Helen is hoping Sipsworth will be similarly rescued if he is ever in danger, highlighting her growing affection for him. In fact, she has already rescued him. In turn, Sipsworth will rescue her from her grief.

“Not that I believe in a purpose, but something is going on.”

“Sipsworth” is beginning to make Helen believe in a higher power that gives purpose and meaning to life. Also, the mouse is working a transformation on Helen, taking her from the depths of her grief and giving her a new sense of purpose—this is the “something” she alludes to and feels.

“It’s the first time she’s been touched by another living thing for over twenty years.”

This line highlights the depth of Helen’s loneliness in the past years. She has isolated herself so thoroughly after Len and David’s deaths that she has had no human contact, determined to hold her grief in by herself. She touches Sipsworth and, in the process, opens herself up to companionship and vulnerability.

“In the end an animal saved me. A dog.”

The second rescue in the novel, after that of Helen’s father in the war, is Helen’s rescue from the abandoned well by the dog that found her. The well symbolizes the depth of her grief, which has overpowered her and taken away her voice. Sipsworth, another animal, saves Helen from her grief, just as the dog saved her from the well.

“You remind me of them, Sipsworth…the way you go about your own business with quiet cheerfulness. Definitely a Cartwright.”

Helen has already compared Sipsworth to her dead son, David, as well as her mother. Now she compares him to both her parents. In naming him a Cartwright—she will later give his name to Dr. Jamal as “Sipsworth Cartwright”—she is claiming ownership of him as a member of her family.

“OH, BUGGER OFF, TONY!”

Helen’s infuriated interjection, directed at the animal rescue staffer, is one of several instances in which she uses the word “bugger,” a rude term from British slang meaning “go away.” It shows Helen reclaiming the voice she lost when she was trapped in her grief. She previously would not even take a taxi because it would require talking. Having to step up to care for Sipsworth means that she has to speak—and to speak forcefully if necessary.

“‘Dr. Helen Cartwright,’ Kathy reads aloud. ‘Head of Pediatric Cardiology, Sydney General Hospital.’”

The revelation that Helen was once a distinguished cardiologist who saved many children’s lives is the climax of the novel. Until this point, her narrative has only provided one hint about her past, when she remembers the “miraculous things” her hands could once do. It has been one of the “locked doors” that she doesn’t want to rattle, but she will do anything she can to help Sipsworth recover from his health crisis, even if that means having to confront her past. This revelation highlights how her grief has rendered her incapable, even though she had a brilliant career.

“It’s organic engineering like this that keeps me guessing about a higher power.”

Helen has just told Dr. Jamal, “abruptly,” that she doesn’t believe in God. However, she and Dr. Jamal are both cardiologists and are experts at the physical structure of the human heart. As Helen surveys Sipsworth’s rapidly beating heart, she is willing to admit that there may indeed be a God.

“Someone who has recently adopted a mouse, turned vegetarian, broken the law, and gotten a library card…as though preparing to start her life all over again.”

At this point in the story, Helen has completely shed the anonymity she had assumed as a form of self-protection from heartbreak. In the space of little more than a week, after Sipsworth’s arrival into her life, she has demonstrated that she is ready to engage with the world and assert herself once more.

“Definitely a doctor’s child.”

Helen accepted Sipsworth as a member of the family when she told him he was a Cartwright and when she told Dr. Jamal that her “patient” was named Sipsworth Cartwright. Now, she explicitly calls him her child, a replacement for the dead son whom she compares to the mouse.

“If you happen to see someone who looks like me, that’ll be David. He knows who you are and will be waiting for you. Len will be there, too, with a slipper and fresh peanuts. They’ll take you in and look after you. I want you to let them know that I’m fine. I wasn’t for a long time, but I am now.”

With this monologue, Helen affirms both her renewed faith in God and her commitment to live again. Her “guessing” about a higher power has now extended to a belief in the afterlife, and she is finally able to admit to herself that her long self-imposed exile from humanity is over and that she is “fine.” The passage links the mouse’s symbolism as a replacement for her lost loved ones with the theme of Finding God Through Love.

“Since you ask, I had two. One big and one little.”

Helen has previously referred to herself and Sipsworth as “two mice in a mouse hole” (168). Here she describes her husband and son as mice, too: “One big and one little” (179). Her concept of a family has grown to encompass everyone she loves, whether humans or mice.