The subplot involving Tom and Mary’s relationship starts when Mary decides to abort the baby with Tom’s help. Tragically, these two revelations cause Dick’s suicide. At the same time, the boys discover Dick’s real parentage. Although Freddie’s death is declared an accident, at the end of the novel Tom proves Dick did the deed. Henry fishes the body out of the water, and Tom notices a suspicious bruise on Freddie’s head, prompting him to investigate Freddie’s cause of death. Dick believes the baby is his, but to protect Tom, Mary tells Dick the baby is Freddie’s.Ĭonsequently, Dick kills Freddie in a fit of rage, and Freddie’s body washes up on the shore of the Cricks’ property.
She promises to show him how babies are made and becomes pregnant.
Mary is curious about Dick, though, who wants to learn about love. Freddie is a friend who challenges both Tom and Dick when he flirts with young Mary, whom they all admire. Tom tells the story of his family history beginning with Freddie Parr’s death.
Helen, a clever, well-meaning beauty, dies too young, leaving the men to fend for themselves on the Fens. Henry, Tom’s father and Dick’s stepfather, is reserved but hardly calm Dick “potato-head” Click, Tom’s older brother by four years, is mentally challenged but physically endowed, and the product of an incestuous union between Helen and her father, Ernest Atkinson. The Cricks-Henry, Helen, Dick, and Tom-comprise the primary nuclear family, with the Atkinsons and Metcalfs following close behind. Waterland, more commonly known as the Fens, is the main setting. As Tom addresses his students in his last days at work, he recalls various memories try to make sense of his past, alluding to pertinent historical events along the way. He is sacked when his wife Mary steals a baby from the local supermarket and creates scandal in their corner of London. Tom Crick, passionate history teacher and master storyteller, unburdens his soul when his career ends after 32 years.
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