The Haywards: Appearance and Reality

               At the beginning of the story, as described in previous posts, Stephen idealises the Haywards. In his distorted view, the Haywards are the perfect family and Stephen wishes his own family were like them. Little by little, we realise how unreliable Stephen's point of  view is and we start perceiving the conflicts and the dark truth behind the Haywards´ immaculate white walls. Stephen also realises his initial conception of Keith´s family was inadequate, but his understanding of their problems is still not complete. We- readers-. are sometimes a step ahead him in interpreting the clues provided by his close observation of this family. A good example of this difference is provided by  chapters 8 and 9.

Spies as a Coming-of-Age Novel

"Spies" can be considered a coming-of-age novel because it shows the changes brought about by Stephen's growing up process. The spying adventure helps Stephen mature and move on to adulthood.

The most noticeable change that affects Stephen is related to the way in which he understands events.

Lamorna

LAMORNA

Lamorna is the name of Barbara Berrill´s house, but, for Stephen, "Lamorna" means a lot of different things:

• the sweetness of Barbara and Keith's mother, (and therefore, his discovery of sexual attraction), 
• the match with which he and Barbara lit their first cigarrete (a rite of passage to adulthood)
•  the terror of the Lanes (and how he overcame it)  
• the silence under the elders (=the loneliness of Uncle Peter, and his terrible reality) 

Furthermore, the name seems to represent a concrete period and place in the narrator´s life. Stephen refers to the "Lamorna Time" and to " a distant land across the sea" The time  seems to be his transition between childhood and adulthood, and the place where that happened is the Close, in the suburbs of London.

The name is also linked to the smell of the privet in the lookout:"... And, woven somehow into the sweetness of the smell(...) L...A...M...O...R...N...A" We knew the smell was important for Stephen, as it aroused a lot of different feelings and in fact  is the catalyst of the whole story. Now we learn that the perfume of the privet and the name Lamorna are closely related, and they connote the same ideas for him. 

In conclusion, Lamorna is the  mixture of sensations, experiences, feelings  and discoveries that turned Stephen into an adult. It describes the time in which, while playing a spying game, he learnt about love, relationships and growing up, and in which he gradually abandonned the innocence of childhood.

Stephen´s hypotheses

Stephen´s hypotheses change a lot along the novel. At the beginning, Stephen believed  Keith´s mother was a spy helping the Germans. Later, this first hypothesis evolves into the belief that Mrs Hayward was  having an affair with a shotdown German pilot whom she is also helping to survive. 

Everything starts when Keith tells Stephen the six words: “My mother is a German spy”. Stephen is surprised and excited about the idea of going out and investigating. The first hypothesis that comes up to his mind is “She has her eye on all of us”, and together with his friend Keith, he starts  observing her closely and following her around. They believe she is passing information about the neighbours in the Close to the Germans. They even consider the idea that she might have been responsible for the destruction of  Miss Durrant´s house.

What information do Barbara Berril and Mrs Hayward provide as regards Keith's personality?

  In chapter 5, both Barbara Berrill and Mrs Hayward provide some new information as regards Keith, which throws light on his character. Up to this point, we have only learnt about him from Stephen's point of view, and according to him, Keith has a very strong personality that made him the leader of all their conjunct projects. Keith admired him blindly and  felt extremely grateful to be his only friend.  However, what the female characters comment on Keith  give us a new insight on his character.

On the one hand, Barbara Berrill says nobody likes Keith because he is very bossy and arrogant. The reason  nobody visits Keith is because he doesn't have any friends and that’s why Stephen is so welcomed at Keith's house. Therefore, we understand Stephen's gratefulness just stems from his sense of inferiority, because he shouldn´t be grateful to have to suffer Keith´s haughtiness. On the other hand, Mrs. Hayward confirms what Barbara commented about Keith:` “It's such fun for Keith,” she says “ finding a real friend, because it does get a bit lonely sometimes if you don’t have any brothers or sisters, and he doesn’t make friends easily.”´ However, her next statement about Keith astonishes Stephen completely: “But Keith’s easily led, as I’m sure you realise”. In Stephen's view, Keith is always “the instigator and commander of every enterprise”. Having a different perspective make us wonder if Stephen may have played a more active role in their adventures than the one he is convinced he has. The question arises:  What did Mrs Hayward observe and know about her son that made her get the idea that he was influenced by Stephen? Could it be that even though Keith suggests the ideas for their projects, Stephen is the one who gets carried away by them and the one who keeps them going? Could Stephen´s role be more important than what he himself realises?

In conclusion, the female character´s comments on Keith confirm the unreliability of the narrator, and make us question his perspective on the roles they played in their relationship.

Barbara Berrill

Barbara Berrill lives at number 6. She has a round face with big brown eyes and a big mocking smile. Her hair is curled and it falls onto her cheeks. She is a year older than Keith and Stephen.

She doesn't go to the same school as the boys, so she wears  blue and white summer checks,  puffy summer sleeves and  white summer socks. She has a purse slung around her neck in which she takes her bus and milk money.

She has an elder sister, Deirdre, who "hangs out" with Geoff, Stephen´s eldest brother. The Berrill girls´ father is away in the army and most people in the Close say that they are running wild.

Stephen and Keith despise Barbara because she is a girl, and they are not interested in the opposite sex yet. They don't even understand female behaviour: “ Why are girls like this?” Stephen says she is below their notice and thinks that everything about Barbara is soft and "girlish". For them, she is sly, treacherous and dislikable.  To make matters worse, Barbara tries to intrude into their private male kingdom. Barbara begs the boys to tell her about their new mission because she wants to join them, but they refuse to let her in. So she starts to shout that they are spying on people, which the boys find most humiliating.

Barbara´s reaction to the boys´  adventure is surprising and interesting. She wants to know what they are doing, even though she thinks it is a stupid little boys´ game. She uses the words “playing” and “game” to refer to the boys´adventure, and she suggests their lookout is just a “camp”. Besides, she links this new enterprise with their worthless past investigations: “´Who is it?´ She demands. ´Not Mr Gort still?´”

Barbara´s comments make us -readers- doubt that the children´s new project is serious. They even shatter Stephen and Keith´s convictions: “I know now that the whole thing- the disappearances, the secret marks in the diary, everything- was just one of our pretend games. Even Keith knows it.” At this point, both the narrator and ourselves align with Barbara Berrill, and  we dismiss the whole adventure as just a flight of childish imagination. Girls are generally considered to be more mature than boys, so we believe Barbara is right: This can't be more than a silly game. But...Is it?