What We Can Know

Vivien’s memoir begins at a train station. After visiting a friend named Martha, who has a terminal illness, Vivien notices a small child waiting by himself on the platform. The boy, Christopher, indicates that he is waiting for his mother. A man approaches them, claiming that he is there to take Christopher home. Christopher reiterates that he is expecting his mother, which makes Vivien suspicious of the man. The man carries Christopher away, and Vivien takes a picture of them with her camera to show to the police. She hides the camera under a car, forcing the man to put Christopher down to recover it. This gives Vivien the opportunity to run off with Christopher before calling the police to collect him and arrest the man.

Vivien is still in shock when she returns to Oxford. She forces herself to cry at the thought of Christopher and the man to purge her emotions. She turns her attention to an essay Martha wrote about Albert Camus, who lived in the troubled times that followed World War II. Later, Percy arrives home from a reunion with fellow musicians. Vivien tells him about Christopher. Percy commends her bravery. That night, she feels guilty about having an ongoing affair with Harry Kitchener.

Vivien describes her upbringing. Her father, an airline pilot, didn’t send Vivien or her sister, Rachel, to private school, reserving it as a privilege for their younger brother, Sam. Though Sam eventually dropped out of private school, Vivien’s father did not change his misogynistic attitude. Sam’s troubled adolescence made him resentful toward his father, and all three children distanced themselves from him after their mother died.

This did not stop their father’s influence from persisting in their lives. Rachel married a man who emotionally resembled their father. Vivien, meanwhile, felt compelled to perform household chores whenever she saw something out of order. She also found herself attracted to men in whom she could sense emotional insufficiency. She tackled these issues in therapy and in conversation with Rachel.

After Vivien marries Percy, she tries to end her affair with Harry. However, she continues to think about him and, envious of the idea that he is engaged in another affair, reaches out to him. She reassesses her impulses by reminding herself that Harry has few to no desirable attributes. Even as a poet, he stands in the shadow of his brother-in-law, Francis Blundy.

Vivien reconnects with Harry when the two of them are in New York on business. They promptly resume their affair. While looking for a book for Percy to compensate for her transgression, she becomes overwhelmed by the volume of books surrounding her, which she knows she will never exhaust or match with her own work. She settles on a famous violin maker’s biography for Percy, and he surprises her with a feast upon her return.

Vivien starts taking Italian lessons as a cover for her affair with Harry. She also realizes that the limitation of her marriage to Percy is that literature isn’t a part of her romantic life because Percy has no interest in books. This further justifies her affair, giving Vivien someone to share her interests with.

In 1999, Percy asks Vivien if she would like to have a child, a topic they have already discussed. To finish the conversation permanently, Vivien decides to tell Percy about her early adulthood, when she regularly used drugs, became pregnant with a boyfriend who left, and decided to carry it to term. For six months, she took care of her daughter, Diana, before experiencing a resurgence of her substance and alcohol addictions.

One night, she threw a house party and forgot about Diana. The next morning, she found Diana dead from neglect. Rachel, the only one of Vivien’s family who knew about the child, arranged for Diana’s burial while Vivien grieved. After opening up to her parents about the experience, Vivien entered postgraduate study. She chose not to record the experience of motherhood in any of her journals, writing it down only once, for her memoir.

After Vivien tells Percy about Diana, Percy comforts her. This, along with her experience with Christopher, inspires her to change her mind about having a child. Just as Vivien is about to tell Percy about her decision, Percy forgets about their conversation, the earliest incidence that Vivien observes of his Alzheimer’s disease. His symptoms quickly develop, and after several months of consultation, a neurologist properly diagnoses Percy. His awareness of his illness causes Percy to experience severe depression, but Vivien tries to remain optimistic for his sake.

Percy experiences mood disorders as part of his illness, causing him to lose his temper with Vivien whenever she steps out of the house. Despite Percy’s unfair treatment, Vivien resolves not to place him in a care facility. She takes leave from teaching. On the day of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Vivien is horrified when Percy expresses glee at the news reports.

She knows it is moot to be upset with him but feels it is impossible to go on without intervention. She brings Percy to a support group, but she finds her own feelings exacerbated by what she hears in the meeting. She becomes reliant on Harry for her emotional needs and on Rachel and Peter to look after Percy.

Vivien discovers that Harry is also having an affair with a coworker, and his marriage to Jane is in turmoil. Harry visits Vivien to end their affair, which Vivien accepts with quiet resignation. Later, she is humiliated that she conceded to Harry so quickly. She resolves to take revenge against him when she is invited to an upcoming poetry reading being given by Francis Blundy, which Harry will moderate. At the reading, Francis is received as a celebrity. He reads a new Shakespearean sonnet about an affair that, like life itself, ends full of regret. This is followed by several more poems, the conversation with Harry, and an open forum.

Vivien and Francis meet at the reception, and Francis invites her to dinner. Before they leave, Francis introduces Vivien to Harry, and they pretend not to know each other. On their way to Francis’s hotel, Francis shares his frustration with the poetry reading circuit and his plan to leave London for Oxford.

Instead of going to the restaurant, Francis and Vivian go to his suite. Though Vivien is satisfied with Harry’s humiliation, she opens up to Francis about her experience with Percy’s illness. Francis relates through his mother’s experience of Alzheimer’s. They go on talking about other topics, from mental illness and the poetry of John Clare and Sylvia Plath, to Francis’s first experience using psychedelic drugs. Francis claims that to be a good artist, he must convince himself that he is mentally well. Vivien notes that this does not absolve mentally well people from hurting others.

Vivien learns that Francis’s parents were generally affectionate toward him in his early childhood, but tension developed between them when he broke away from religion in his early teens. He quickly adopted a bohemian lifestyle, whereas Jane struggled with her burgeoning atheism in her late teens. Vivien tells him about her father and childhood before opening up about Diana. Unlike with Percy, Vivien is stoic as she retells the story. At the end of the night, they exchange contact details, and Vivien goes home. She longs to see him again.

Harry writes an angry letter, reacting to Vivien’s revenge. Vivien is unaffected, seeing the pain behind Harry’s words. She meets Francis again and has sex with him. When she tells Rachel about her affair, Rachel suggests putting Percy into care to buy herself more time.

Vivien follows her suggestion, bringing Percy to a “hotel” to stay in while she is away. The care facility’s state causes Vivien to feel disappointed in herself, however, and she brings Percy back home. Percy expresses his distaste for hotels. Rachel and Peter agree to stay with Percy while Vivien goes to spend four days with Francis. Several times before their getaway, Francis visits Vivien at home and tells her about the barn he is building in Oxford. This fills Vivien with hope for the future.

Vivien decides to clean up Percy’s working shed, unused for months, as an act of care. She finds the last violin he worked on before he retired, which fills her with grief for the Percy that disappeared, as well as for the disruption of her career. She blames Percy for both of these losses and nearly destroys the violin. When she sees Peter’s working tools, she realizes that the continued warmth between Peter and Percy means that the Percy she loves still exists. She worries that writing about this moment in her journal might expose the future Peter to her weaknesses. She realizes, too, that she writes her journals with external readers in mind. She writes about the violin incident in the journal, omitting certain details to protect herself.

At the start of their trip, Francis and Vivien drive past an environmentalist rally, which Francis decries as idiotic. He insults Vivien when she expresses sympathy with the activists, but then he promptly apologizes for his rudeness.

As they drive toward the Barn, Francis talks about how the house is shaping up, insinuating that he and Vivien may one day share a life there. They inspect the construction progress, during which Vivien observes Francis’s domineering qualities for the first time. They proceed to Francis’s house in Islington, where they will spend the rest of their getaway. Over dinner, Francis formalizes his intent to live with Vivien in the Barn. Francis predicts that the end of Vivien’s relationship with Percy is imminent, but this makes Vivien feel guilty.

Vivien pauses her narrative to explain that she is writing her manuscript in Jane’s house in Scotland after both women have become widows. She prefers the manuscript as an alternative to her journals, where she can freely exercise her memory. The journals remain useful, however, for helping her to remember the sequence of events.

Upon returning home, Vivien learns that Percy struck Peter, alienating him and Rachel. They leave as soon as Vivien arrives. Vivien fears that she can no longer enlist their help with Percy. Further challenges delay the completion of the Barn. Francis continues to visit Vivien, sometimes even stepping into the house. He is inspired by their getaway to write new poems, which he accepts Vivien’s feedback on. Vivien indulges in fantasies of life at the Barn. When her interactions with Francis become increasingly curt, Vivien becomes desperate to initiate her shared life with him.

One afternoon, Francis confronts Vivien about Percy, urging her to put him in a care facility. Since neither of them can afford to put Percy in private care, Francis suggests that they should “act.” Vivien understands that he is insinuating murder and rejects the idea. Francis assures her that he will take on the burden of the act, and she will have to do nothing. Vivien does not give him a response. The more she reflects on Francis’s proposal, the more she becomes accustomed to the idea of it, framing it as a form of euthanasia. She nearly tells Rachel about it but realizes this would implicate them all in the act.

Martha’s death brings Vivien back to the train station where she encountered Christopher. She resonates with the idea of Christopher and his lost mother as a representation for herself and Diana—the incident renewed her guilt over Diana’s death. Percy’s symptoms intensify, and he leaves the house at night.

Francis asks Vivien to book a place at a private care home, causing her to think that he will finance Percy’s care. However, Percy refuses to go. A week later, Francis comes to the house in discreet clothing. Vivien lets him in, and he proceeds upstairs. Moments later, Percy falls down the stairs. Francis follows him and kills him with a mallet. He orders Vivien to delete the correspondence that links them to Percy’s death and tells her to call an ambulance. Vivien is too shocked to do anything, let alone check on Percy. She obeys Francis’s instructions.

Vivien and Francis stay apart for seven months, during which Vivien grieves and worries about the people who know about her affair. No one ever connects the affair to Percy’s death, especially since the police conclude that Percy died of an accidental fall. Vivien wrestles with her ambivalence, wondering how guilty she is, considering that she rejected Francis’s initial offer to kill Percy but then stood by as the actual murder took place. Soon, she and Francis resume their relationship, though Vivien is not as emotionally committed as she used to be.

Francis invites Vivien to come with him to Amorgos, Greece. Their avoidance of the topic of Percy’s death prevents them from fully consummating their renewed affair. Vivien does not bring it up until Francis observes her foul mood in their hotel room. This upsets Francis, who accuses Vivien of being complicit in the murder.

When Vivien reminds him that he was the one who killed Percy, Francis reminds her that she was constantly sending him emails to complain about Percy in the late stages of his illness. He explicitly references an email in which Vivien wished for Percy’s death. Vivien counters that Francis is twisting her words as an expression of intent. Francis blackmails Vivien, threatening to expose her with copies of her emails if he is arrested. With no other discernible path in her life left to follow, Vivien accepts a life with Francis and proposes marriage.

In 2007, Francis’s new book of poems, Feasting, is celebrated in popular discourse after one of its pieces is featured in a blockbuster romantic comedy. Vivien finds her proximity to Francis’s newfound fame strange, considering that several of the book’s poems are ostensibly about their affair. The more she revisits the poems, the less she is able to see herself in them; instead, she is replaced by Francis’s idea of her.

At the time of the manuscript’s writing, Vivien comments that she and Jane have confided many of their late husbands’ secrets to one another. Jane enlists Vivien in a secret plan to destroy Harry’s archive to obliterate him from history and protect her family’s privacy. Conversely, Jane has given Vivien feedback on her plan to bury Percy’s ashes in a protected area near the Barn. Along with the ashes, Vivien will also bury Percy’s violin in the hopes of sending it to a talented performer in the future. Vivien shares her plans with Peter, who approves and frames the container as a time capsule for the future. This inspires her to include her memoir manuscript with the violin, allowing her to avoid premature publication. Peter connects Vivien with the Bodleian Library, which helps her with the preservation process. Peter and Vivien work together to complete the burial.

Following the trip to Amorgos, Vivien starts teaching part-time at the university again. Later that year, she and Francis are married. Four months later, Vivien moves into the Barn, whose construction is flimsier than Francis anticipated. Though Vivien enjoys solitude in her study, she is haunted by visions of Diana, Christopher, and Francis on the night of Percy’s murder. Vivien goes on occasional walks in which she misses Percy. She starts working on a new book project about religious and social upheavals in the 17th century. It is around this time that she gathers the inner circle that would attend the Second Immortal Dinner.

Vivien elaborates on an incident in her and Francis’s relationship with the Gages, which impacted Vivien’s private life. Though Francis got along well with Harriet, he looked down upon Chris, who never finished his education. The incident began when Chris used the word “hopefully” in conversation, which Francis objected to on intellectual grounds. Several weeks later, Chris deployed the word again, leading Francis to launch another objection. Chris argued that he was using the word as a sentence adverb and that Francis’s pedantic attitude merely demonstrated his targeted rudeness toward Chris. This earned Francis’s respect.

Sometime later, when Francis was away, Vivien engaged in a brief affair with Chris. She also resumed her affair with Harry, who was in discussions to become Francis’s biographer. After the Second Immortal Dinner, Vivien visited Harry several times in Oxford, claiming that she was there to see Peter. Harry made multiple requests to see Francis’s corona, but Vivien refused him.

Vivien affirms that there is no longer anything of value to be found in the Kitchener archive. She describes Jane’s resentment of Harry, who barely engaged with his children. Vivien knows she cannot talk about her own marriage secrets as candidly with Jane, so she chooses to tell her about her childhood. Jane muses on the irony that people who are obsessed with Francis’s lost poem have never even read his accessible work. On the other hand, she has fond memories of the Second Immortal Dinner and the many dramas among its guests. She remembers that night better than Vivien does.

It is revealed that Harry withdrew from Francis’s biography out of loyalty to Vivien. Vivien’s memories of Percy moved her to tears the day before the dinner. She longed for a life disentangled from the idea of sex, which was soon disrupted when she fantasized about having sex with a young farmer who helped her clear a blocked road. By the time Harry and Jane arrived at the Barn for the dinner, Vivien realized that enough time had passed that the fact of her affair no longer hurt Francis.

Vivien shyly admits that she can only remember ordinary details about the Second Immortal Dinner. She suspects that the reason Francis spoke so aggressively against climate change was that he was anxious about reading such a deeply naturalist poem. She insinuates that Harry deliberately gave Francis an over-the-top introduction that evening to irritate him. This caused her to take Francis’s poem less seriously once he began reading it. She nearly laughed when Francis read a line about finding a fish under a stone. Looking around, she could see that nobody else had the stamina to endure the poem and appreciate it.

After the dinner ended, Vivien reviewed the poem and realized that it was about Percy, who had been represented as a large, bearded figure with a fiddle. In the poem, the analogue for Francis smashes the bearded man’s head with a rock while the analogue for Vivien stands by watching. Nobody sensed that it was an admission of guilt because the guests were all distracted during the long reading.

Francis asked her opinion of the poem. She called it a “beautiful fake” that represented his misunderstanding of the natural world and the forces that threaten it. Finally, she alluded to the references to Percy’s murder, angry that he had written them down. Francis argued that his intention was to write a poem that incorporated the essential elements of Vivien’s life: nature and love. He wrote out of character as a sign of his affection for her.

Vivien refused to believe that the poem was anything other than a confession. This prompted Francis to express his regret over killing Percy and admit that he should have used his windfall to finance Percy’s care. He also apologized to Vivien for his shortcomings as a husband and reassured her that the poem would not implicate her. Though moved by his sincerity, Vivien also understood that Francis was performing a sympathetic version of himself for her. She resented him for turning her relationship with Percy into a part of his art.

Worried that the poem would implicate her, Vivien resolved to destroy the only existing copy. She built a fire in her study and reviewed the last sonnet of the corona one last time, admiring Francis’s technical mastery. She knew that if the poem were to survive, it would become would of his most beloved works. She predicted that if the poem were obliterated, it would be a suitable act of vengeance against Francis for Percy’s murder. Vivien burned the poem.