[In the following essay, Smith examines the latent homosexuality and postponed heterosexuality in The King of a Rainy Country, relating these themes to various narrative plot conventions that structure Brophy's novel.]

At first glance (and perhaps second and subsequent glances) Brigid Brophy's second novel, The King of a Rainy Country, might not seem an Ur-text of lesbian postmodernity. Like many of its earliest critics, Charles J. Rolo found it merely "a curious sort of comedy" concerned with "the romantic temperament" and "youthfulness of spirit." Indeed, in the midfifties, long before postmodernity was consciously defined as a mode of "playful irony, parody, parataxis, self-consciousness, [and] fragmentation," Brophy's slippage-ridden text must have seemed to many readers (if not most) little more than a diverting and slightly risqué book that ultimately falls short of the mark, one that, in Rolo's words, is "as a whole … far from being a success: it is somewhat disjointed, lacking in coherence, and at times not sufficiently convincing." But I would argue that with the critical hindsight of nearly four decades we can readily perceive The King of a Rainy Country as an example of early postmodernity, a metafiction that tries on and discards a variety of conventional generic plots which, because of their deeply ingrained heterosexual narrative ideologies, offer no viable solutions or means of closure to the protagonists. Ultimately, Brophy indicates, when all other plots fail, there is always opera. And opera, not coincidentally, has long been one of the few "respectable" art forms in which women en travesti can switch their gender and make love to other women with impunity.

The tripartite structure of The King of a Rainy Country, while recalling that of the superannuated Victorian triple-decker, in fact delineates the shifts from one master narrative to another. These transitions are not only carefully manipulated on Brophy's part, but are also self-consciously metafictive on the part of her literarily aware protagonists, who, given a lack of conventional, established fictions by which to plot their own desires, attempt to "normalize" themselves, hopelessly, through conformity to available narratives. Thus Brophy begins with an offbeat courtship plot à la vie de Bohème in the novel's present, backgrounded with a homoerotic girls' school narrative. Once the protagonists push the conflicts of those modes to their logical points of climax without achieving the prerequisites for any resolution to ensue, they embark on a new plot, a picaresque travelogue qua quest narrative. When this strategy also fails in achieving the socially and narratively prescribed outcome of heterosexual consummation, the main characters, now expanded in number from two to four, attempt to enact and, ironically, come to varying levels of self-knowledge about their desires through the adoption of a plot from opera, in this case Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. Through this most self-consciously artificial mode of fictional representation, the characters are able to perform their irreconcilable forms of otherness and achieve various degrees of closure that, perhaps inevitably, fall somewhat short of absolute or even satisfactory resolution—at least to readers with conventional expectations.

Until its highly original denouement, The King of a Rainy Country chronicles the unsuccessful courtship of Susan and Neale, a young couple who are ostensibly "in love" and, without any formal declaration of intention, assume that they will eventually marry. Although both are the products of a relatively privileged educational background, they assume a Bohemian lifestyle of voluntary poverty, with Neale working as a dishwasher and Susan as the secretary to Mr. Finkelheim, a pornographer functioning under the guise of a rare book dealer, a Gentile pawning himself off in the business world as Jewish. Finkelheim's disreputable game of appearances versus reality serves not only as a reflection of the couple's own naive game of passing, but as a conduit for the subtle expression of the troubling reality behind their facade of acceptable—even, in its historical context, avantgarde—heterosexuality. For while Susan and Neale do in fact share a bed, they do not do so simultaneously. Their shared fiction that they are prevented from consummating their relationship by the exigencies of work schedules (Susan works during the day, Neale late nights and early mornings) could potentially provide the foundation for a comedy of manners and a series of jests revolving around the familiar bed trick. Yet in the context of Brophy's novel (in which the couple does contrive, despite the demands of their employment, to spend a significant amount of time together), sleeping separately in the same bed provides not the basis of endless jokes but rather a shield to deflect suspicion. When Susan balks at the idea of having any of her old school friends "snooping round our flat," Neale inquires if she is "afraid they'll think we go to bed together"; instead she fears that "they'll guess we don't." For Susan, the raised eyebrows that might result from this simulacrum of an unsanctioned and therefore daring heterosexuality are preferable to a revelation of the celibate condition that in fact attains.

Ironically, the trappings of Finkelheim's shop, where Neale regularly visits in the proprietor's absence, provide the means by which the inexplicable obstacles to consummation become clarified. Susan, while uninterested in the volumes of male nudes in stock, discovers in her perusal of a striptease picture book the likeness of her schoolmate Cynthia Bewley, the obsessional object of the girls' school narrative constantly present in Susan's memory. Homosocial school fictions, though given relatively little attention as a serious novelistic mode, have their own particular conventions and narrative expectations. Usually focused on the bildung of one particular and often troubled girl, they feature the highly emotive attachments and conflicts of adolescent female psyche in an atmosphere of ubiquitous sexual awakening. Separated from the world of men and boys, the students conduct themselves in a type of lesbian utopia, minimally aware of but generally oblivious to social disapprobation of same-sex love until discovery or intervention, usually by an authority figure, exposes the "inappropriateness" of the affection. This disruption of an Edenic situation, which generally precipitates the separation of lovers, ends, at worst, in tragic consequences. At very least, as in Susan's case, the result is one of unresolved and ongoing hurt and shame.

As the events of Susan's day-to-day life with Neale plod on, the narrative of the past surfaces in nonsequential and fragmentary fashion. As she is in Neale's presence when she discovers Cynthia's picture, some explanation of her visceral response is required. Thus it is revealed that, some years past, the adolescent Susan was enamored of the slightly older Cynthia, and, over the course of a fall term, the two entered into a close romantic friendship that culminated, on the last night before the winter break, in a passionate kiss during a performance of As You Like It. While the crossdressed Rosalind makes her speech to her "pretty little coz," Cynthia, sent with Susan into the storage space beneath the stage to retrieve, suggestively, "Hymen's crown," finds a faded silk rose among the old props and, placing the flower in Susan's lapel, suddenly kisses her friend. Before Susan can realize her desire "to kiss again," the girls are interrupted by an importuning school-mistress, leaving Susan yearning and "dissimulating in an entirely new way." Susan's complete understanding of the extent of this dissimulation must, however, be deferred; she must endure the separation of the winter break, anticipating the results of this awakening. We discover from another fragment of Susan's recollections that what subsequently transpires is not fulfillment but rather an inexplicable aloofness and alienation on the part of Cynthia, who refuses to communicate further. Subsequently, she publicly rejects and humiliates Susan and enters into a superficial attachment of dispassionate sex play with Susan's erstwhile friend Gill, leaving Susan alone without either solace or an explanation of a series of events that, because of their unspeakability, must stand unexamined.

Under more usual circumstances Neale might be expected to become jealous or suspicious of a past female love who continues to hold so strong an attraction for his presumed intended; yet he not only encourages Susan's apparent obsession but joins in it himself. He encourages Susan to find the "lost" girl, urging her to call all the Bewleys in the London telephone directory, to contact other former schoolmates for information, and to visit the art school where she was last known to model. The absent Cynthia not only becomes one more example of what Terry Castle calls the "ghosted lesbian" but also the erotic connection between Neale and Susan in lieu of a heterosexual relationship—and yet another excuse for delaying what would seem the inevitable in this relationship. Indeed, Neale, whose interest in sex and marriage seems primarily a matter of discourse, is as undefined in his orientation as Susan. This is readily apparent early in the novel when Susan returns home to discover François, a mysterious French houseguest with whom, at Neale's invitation, she is to share a room for the night. Affronted by this unwanted bedfellow, Susan balks; but François, in the course of an episode rendered almost entirely in French (contributing even further to the slippage that permeates the novel) informs her she need not fear for her virtue: "Pas impuissant, non. Pas impuissant—comment dit-on en anglais? C'est un des mots que je connais—quair." But while Neale's "quair" friend soon vanishes, in effect, from the text, this interlude, along with his interest in Finkelheim's male nudes and his distaste for the shop's "marriage manuals," indicates the extent of Neale's own dissimulation and suggests that what brings Susan and Neale together is nothing more or less than their shared latent homosexuality.

Susan and Neale could, conceivably, continue their game of deceptive appearances and shared obsessive fantasies of Cynthia interminably; but such a scenario would soon become static and, accordingly, nonnarratable, the avoidance of conflict ultimately allowing no hope of resolution. Accordingly, two events put an end to the stagnant courtship plot. A police raid of Finkelheim's shop leaves Susan bereft of employer and employment, and a missive from Gill (in response to Susan's letter at Neale's instigation) brings a newspaper clipping announcing that the aspiring actress "Cynthia Beaulieu" will be attending a film festival in Venice—along with the warning "Don't ever write to me again." Given these motivations, the pair falsify their qualifications, obtain employment as tour guides conducting American tourists from Nice to Venice, and exchange their exhausted narrative for a new one, that of the travelogue; but what is found in this journey is merely a variety of means by which heterosexuality can be postponed.

The exigencies of travel almost inevitably give rise in the picaresque to numerous and various occasions for illicit sexual encounters. If the restraints of British middle-class mores were all that had prevented carnal knowledge between Neale and Susan, surely the context of another country would allow for a release from these inhibitions. But, as we have seen, this is only the case ostensibly; and, ironically, exposure to the boorishly libidinous Americans only reinforces the pair's stereotypically English reticence, an attitude that seems to grow in proportion to the Americans' expectations. Sexual union becomes, for Susan and Neale, a highly articulated (and thus artificial) fantasy that can only occur at an optimal moment. The very real possibility of rape—which, in the minds of the young American men of the traveling party, is merely a matter of fulfilling social expectation—serves the purpose of minimizing the likelihood of this moment for Susan; yet Neale persists in seeking, presumably for no purpose other than to provoke rejection and thus continue to postpone the seeming inevitability of heterosexual consummation.

Once they have arrived in Venice and are relieved of their charges, however, there seems little excuse for deferral left. Outside the hotel lobby, as Neale badgers her with a series of tired poetic clichés, Susan reluctantly assents to the moment, distracted all the while by scene around her: "Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a cotton dress move in the hotel foyer. I turned. So did Neale…. Inside the hotel, Cynthia was facing us, but not looking out: we were the direction, not the object of her gaze." Although Neale whispers "Let her go," as soon as Cynthia turns her back toward them, both burst through the door in pursuit of her. In this interrupted moment of possibility Susan and Neale find the dea ex machina Cynthia and thus in a sense fulfill their quest; but then they must face what they hoped to achieve in doing so. Conventional literary wisdom dictates that the end of the quest narrative must result in some sort of self-knowledge or completion for the seeker. Would the resolution of an earlier interrupted moment (and the apparent sexual panic that arose from it) clear the path for heterosexuality in the present? Would it offer an explanation of Neale's problematic sexuality as well? Or was the fantasy, as Neale later suggests, in itself more pleasurable than its fulfillment? As the end of this journey results, in any case, in merely one more reason to defer consummation, yet another generic plot fails the characters—and so a new one begins.

Part 3 commences with Cynthia's arrival for her reunion with Susan. Neither woman seems willing or able to face this meeting alone; just as Susan is accompanied by Neale, so Cynthia too brings a friend: the fading operatic soprano Helena Buchan. As Cynthia proves herself the stereotypical starlet, a form virtually devoid of content, Helena comes to the fore. Once known for her portrayals of the tragic Tosca and the betrayed Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Helena, who deems herself "not feminine enough," has over time settled into the role of the Countess Almaviva in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro—a woman, like Helena, for whom romantic love and marriage have proved disappointing. Accordingly, the other three assume various operatic demeanors as the plot shifts into a miscast version of Mozart's opera, a Marriage of Figaro without a Figaro to regulate (and manipulate) the excesses and foolishness of the other characters. The result is a romantic rectangle in which all parties are sexually ambivalent and thus unsure of their own desires.

Cynthia, with her childish dreams of fame and glory, has become little more than ancillary to the grand diva; as such, she functions as the page Cherubino to Helena's Countess Almaviva. Neale, for his part, becomes churlishly aggressive as the sole male in this ensemble. He would assert his "right" to dominance over the women, suggesting that Helena run away with him, in much the same manner that Count Almaviva in the opera would reassert the traditional droit du seigneur. But as he is thoroughly lacking affluence and power—and really desires an erotically tinged mother-son relationship with the diva—so does he too become Cherubino. In her critical study of Mozart's operas Brophy makes a point of explaining "Who is Cherubino, What is He?" (Mozart the Dramatist 103). But she omits one salient point about this character: while Cherubino is literally a sexually overwrought adolescent male and figuratively, according to Brophy, an eighteenth-century manifestation of Cupid (Eros), he is performed, both in Mozart's opera and historically in Beaumarchais's original play, by a woman. Thus while the staged "reality" of the opera presents a boy attempting to seduce a woman, the overriding appearance of what transpires on stage is a simulacrum of lesbianism.

But with a Countess, no Figaro or Count, and two Cherubinos, Susan's part in this opera remains vague. The adulation around the ever-present Helena not only prevents Susan from obtaining any explanation from or resolution with Cynthia—who seems to have acquired a highly selective amnesia about the past—but results in an alienation of Neale's affections. Only after Helena kindly but resolutely declines Neale's proposition can Susan assume her designated role, that of her operatic namesake Susanna, the Countess's confidante. Intuiting Susan's resentment, Helena invites her, alone, on a day trip to Padua, where the diva is to have a publicity photograph taken. While en route, they discuss the intimate details of their lives. Helena tells of her failed marriage, in which she "wasn't really the girl," "wasn't the type," and simply "gave a performance"; and, dropping all inhibition, Susan explains "about Neale. And Cynthia." Just what she explains, however, is a matter of critical interpretation; Brophy provides only a white space in lieu of direct discourse.

In the wake of this confession Brophy departs from the Mozartean plot in order to restage the novel's foundational narrative. As Helena waits for the photographer, she and Susan rummage through the studio props and find a wreath of silk roses; Helena takes one and places it in Susan's lapel, thus replacing Cynthia's rose, which Susan had preserved and Neale had since appropriated as his own. In this case, however, the photographer does not intervene, nor is there panic and dissimulation; rather, the two women acknowledge their mutual "sympathy." Subsequently, they stay the night at a local inn, where Helena pays a curious visit to Susan's room. Terry Castle calls the episode "a tender lesbian scene between diva and female fan." Indeed, the encounter is suggestive, taking place as Susan lies naked in bed and Helena speaks of her own recent nakedness, proscribed only by her need to traverse the corridor. But while no sexual act is directly represented, the symbolic resonances serve their purpose: the women exchange acknowledgments of their otherwise covert sexuality. In achieving this self-knowledge, Susan can effectively put closure to all her previous and abortive plots.

Upon her return to Venice, Susan discovers that Neale and Cynthia have mutually succumbed to their own form of sexual panic. Cynthia, having failed her much-sought screen test, and Neale, stung by Helena's rejection and seeming "conspiracy" with Susan, turn to each other. At Cynthia's demand, Neale beds her, immediately becomes engaged to her, and makes plans to go into business and assume an appropriately middle-class existence—with Cynthia as house-wife—upon their return to England. Thus in a moment with Cynthia he accomplishes what could never occur with Susan. While this final plot is a Marriage of Figaro without a Figaro, it will not lack for a wedding, the conventional ending to a comedy. He explains to Susan that he is not really in love with Cynthia, but "at the back of my mind I have the faintest feeling—as if I had, once, been in love with her." Unable or unwilling to take the risks that male homosexual existence entails (the law that sent Oscar Wilde to prison was, lest we forget, still in effect in the 1950s), Neale opts for a simulation of lesbianism instead, appropriating Susan's past so as to become her and thus write a happy ending to her earlier narrative. Yet because it lacks the self-knowledge inherent in Susan's revision of the interrupted moment, Neale's conclusion can offer little in the way of resolution or closure.

Back in England to begin a new plot, Susan places the rose from Helena in a drawer for safekeeping. Her friend Tanya, who helps her set up new housekeeping arrangements, remarks that she has "brought back" Cynthia's old rose. She replies, "No. It's a replacement." In the end, Helena—quite literally—replaces Cynthia as the lesbian ghost. Susan, having earlier declined an invitation to join Helena in her travels, finds in the older woman a conclusion rather than a continuing narrative; as Helena, unknown to Susan, is terminally ill, little in terms of continuance would be possible. Susan returns home to chart a new course for herself, only to discover that Helena has died en route to Vienna—and that a parcel from the diva awaits her: Helena's own wedding dress, a fulfillment of her promise of a gift "You may have a use for…. Or you may not. It doesn't matter if not." Countess Almaviva does, after all, oversee the preparations for Susanna's wedding to Figaro. A conventional interpretation might assert that this gesture symbolizes a mother-daughter bond between the two women, a passing-on from generation to generation. But this overlooks that the dress is itself the symbol of a failed marriage plot—and that the figure of Figaro is conspicuously absent from the opera plot of part 3. Rather, the dress is a symbol of shared knowledge and a union, metaphysical if not physical, between Helena and Susan; it is a memento mori, a reminder to keep alive the moment in Padua that has obviated the earlier painful one, a reminder of the "temporary shelter" that the marriage plot, if embarked upon falsely, provides.

Thus Brophy's opera buffa makes one last generic plot shift to opera semiseria. Susan, once more, will have to find a new plot by which to live; but it will be a plot to which the reader will not be privy and, we may assume, one for which there is not a preordained narrative convention. As for girls who want to be Cherubino, however, Brophy returns to that trope in The Snow Ball (1964) through the character of Ruth Blumenbaum. Dressed as the Mozartean page for a costume ball, Ruth intermittently obsesses about Anna K. as her potential Countess figure; but Anna K. is far too busy to notice, for she is in the throes of playing Donna Anna, pursued by—and pursuing—a suitor disguised as Don Giovanni. And that is another opera—and another novel—altogether.