Mrs Palfrey cannot even take comfort from visitors since her daughter lives too far away in Scotland and grandson Desmond has never been much good at keeping in touch. The somewhat frayed decor of the Claremont with its assortment of similarly displaced guests, tests her resilience to the limit. Having skilfully navigated the trials of life as the wife of a colonial administrator in Burma, she is now a widow of ‘comfortable’ means but not wealthy in need of somewhere to live other than her daughter’s home. Set in the early 1970s, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont is the story of how a woman whose whole life has been an exercise in saving face and stiffening ones back.

The disaster of being old was in not felng safe to venture anywhere, of seeing freedom put out of her reach. She realised that she never walked now without knowing what she was doing and and concentrating upon it once, walking had been like breathing, something unheeded. Such however is the reality experienced by Mrs Palfrey who, eschewing nursing homes, has moved into the Claremont Hotel in west Lonon for what she knows will the the final stage of her life. No sign of arthritic knees or failing memories, of stiffening joints or nervousness about venturing out anywhere after dark. Before she knows it, in fact, she tries something else.Įlizabeth Taylor’s final and most popular novel is as unsparing as it is, ultimately, heartbreaking.The owners of care homes and residential homes for elderly people like to adorn their promotional material with photos of bright-eyed, smiling, carefree people in the twilight of their years.

Palfrey prides herself on having always known “the right thing to do,” but in this new situation she discovers that resource is much reduced. Well, she does have her grandson who works at the British Museum, and he is sure to visit any day. Palfrey to do with herself now that she has all the time in the world? Go for a walk. who seemed to dislike female company and seldom got any other kind” serve for her fellow residents, and there is the staff, too, and they are one and all lonely. “If it’s not nice, I needn’t stay,” she promises herself, as she settles into this haven for the genteel and the decayed. Palfrey moves to the Claremont Hotel in South Kensington. On a rainy Sunday afternoon in January, the recently widowed Mrs.

A blackly humorous story of loneliness, deception, and life in old age by one of the most accomplished novelists of the twentieth century.

Mrs claremont