Marele Day: Mrs Cook

By NORMAN BILBROUGH

This handsome book is subtitled The Real and Imagined Life of the Captain's Wife, and it seems to offer the promise of an intriguing tale set against the dense and vivid background of 18th-century London. Elizabeth Cook was an intimate witness to the life of a hero, a man who travelled further in the world than any man before him.

But, sadly, one's expectations come to nothing. No matter how much Day tries to extend Elizabeth Cook's actual life by imaginative extensions, the life of the great man's wife is essentially dull.

It's a tragic life, and it's a pertinent illustration of a woman's lot at the time. She lost all her six children, either in childbirth or through later misfortune, but nevertheless hers is a life without a narrative. Despite being subjected to her husband's need to explore the world, her life is respectable and secure. Her husband has all the substance of a great story, off-stage.

Elizabeth died in May 1835 when she was 93. She died in comfort and with material privilege, surrounded by the amazing acquisitions of her husband's life. James was the only man for her. They met when she was 6 and he was an apprentice seaman. She fell in love with him when she was 18.

James, apparently, loved her deeply in return. Their intimacy and their sensuality is described perfectly. Their appreciation of each other is nearly arresting. In these passages Day shows a confidence and sureness of touch that is absent elsewhere. And the documentation of London at the time, the London of the river that Elizabeth removes herself from after she marries James, is interesting in an informative way.

But after this, the story is fragmented by James' appearances. In his early seafaring life he spent much time charting Newfoundland, returning to impregnate Elizabeth, then departing across the Atlantic again. Then the great voyages began. In 1769, Cook left for the south to observe the transit of Venus in the Pacific and look for the Great Southern Land, a myth among seafarers.

He was sometimes away for three years, during which time Elizabeth gave birth - and buried - several of their children. Between these tragedies and her husband's return, she tended house. She never lived a story: James was obviously living it for her.

And apart from those lovely scenes of sensuality, Day is not a fluent writer. She doesn't have a narrative knack and finds it difficult to make smooth links and connections between chapters. The story has a jerky, awkward quality. Gulps of time pass, the arrivals and departures become tiresome, and by the end of the book I had lost interest.

Day picked the wrong subject, staking a claim on unproductive ground. A life doesn't necessarily make a story, even if one's husband is extraordinary.

Allen & Unwin

$35.00