© DAVID LEVENE / GUARDIAN / EYEVINE
Like her earlier novel The Past (2015), Tessa Hadley’s Late in the Day narrates the fortunes of a quartet of middleclass bed-hoppers; this group is older but no wiser than its predecessor. Other people hover at the edges of the two novels; however, the foursome is the basic unit at the heart of both works, whether it’s two couples (Late in the Day) or four siblings (The Past). Sexual infidelity may be the order of the day, but more attention is paid to the sheets, towels, jewellery and discarded garments than to what anyone might be getting up to in bed.
The Past has a first section devoted to the present, a second section that goes back in time, and a final section that returns to the present. Late in the Day switches freely back and forth across a few decades, encompassing the period in which one member of the quartet, Zachary, was still alive as well as the aftermath of his sudden death. Most people in this universe, whatever they do and however ugly things become, consider themselves benign, intelligent, complex and progressive. People learn to cope with loss, inflicting fresh damage in the process.