Rag & Bone Man : A Novel

This novel is divided into two more or less equal parts. In the first part, we are introduced to Hendershot, a Canadian hockey player playing in England. He has just been released by his team and he is at loose ends. The era is the early '70s. Hendershot heads to London, where he ends up living on the street. after a couple of days living rough. Getting desperate, he scams some money from people watching a couple of buskers. The buskers chase him through the streets of London, and when they catch him, they beat him unconscious and leave him in an alley. He is roused from unconsciousness by two boys who bring him to the studio of an artist. Margret pays the boys to find her models for specific paintings. She has a commission she needs to finish and she needs a youngish athletic man to sit as a model for a painting of Beowulf. Hendershot figures he could use the money. He is broke, has no place to live and wants to replace the hockey equipment that he lost while trying to elude the angry buskers. Margret also arranges for Hendershot to share a small flat with a pensioner, Mr. Green, who lives above the studio. As Hendershot soon finds out, Mr Green and his good friend Arthur, have a vocation - they assist the police (or so they believe) by conducting their own surveillance of people who they suspect are involved in the IRA's campaign to conduct a reign of terror in London by detonating bombs in public places. Their principal suspect is Conor Mack, an Irish stonemason who happens to be a good friend of Margret. When Mack visits the studio, Mr. Green watches him through binoculars and takes notes. Henderson is curious about the two gents, but has trouble taking them seriously. Hendershot settles into a routine: posing for the painting, recovering from his brutal beating by the buskers and trying to figure out the enigmatic Margret. To aid his recovery, he starts an exercise routine and his daily run takes him past the place where Mack lives. This prompts Mr. Green and Arthur to enlist Hendershot in their surveillance activities. All he has to do is keep track of when Conor Mack's car is in the driveway. The gents are working on a theory that Mack is always out of town every time there is an IRA detonation. Hendershot is willing to take on the assignment, partly because he is wondering if Mack is Margret's lover or just a good friend. Hendershot isn't sure what to make of Margret, she is older than him (late 40s vs early 20s), and seems unfazed by young men posing nude. Hendershot also reflects on his childhood. He has dreams about growing up in a national park (imagine Waskisew) with a father who was a park warden. When he was a boy his brother died when he fell thorough the ice while they were skating. By the end of the first half of the book, the portrait is finished and Hendershot is leaves the studio, Margaret, Mr. Green and Arthur behind. He has some money in his pocket and the phone number of a manger who is setting up a new hockey team in England. He boards the subway to go to the train station with in the happy that things seem to be turning around. That's when the bomb explodes. Part two The second half of he book is set roughly 20 years after the explosion. Hendershot has returned to England with his 14-year-old son in tow. The pair are supposedly spending part of the summer holiday seeing the sights of London. In fact, Hendershot has come back to London to re-examine his past there. He has an artificial limb to replace the lower half of his leg which was destroyed in the bomb blast at the end of part one. He and his son walk route he followed when he was jogging his way back to fitness. They passed by the place where Conor Mack lived; where he and Mr. Green and Arthur had a stake-out to find out what time Mack was coming home in order to pinpoint his movements to see if the timing lined up with IRA attacks. He re-traces his attempt to escape the irate buskers from whom he took some money. He walks by Margaret's former studio and the apartment where Mr Green lived, all the while trying to engage his soon in the story of his past. With the help of his son they track down the painting Margaret did of him posing as Beowulf. It is up for auction. Through the art gallery where the painting is he tracks down Margaret, who is now blind. She agrees to meet him. It turns out she is spending her days attending a trial -- Connor Mack is accused of masterminding IRA bombings. He makes his peace with Margaret and it turns out she and Connor were never lovers, a jealousy Hendershot has been nurturing for two decades. They were childhood friends and have remained friends through many ups and downs. Hendershot attends the auction but doesn't get the painting. Flying home, Hendershot contemplates his son, happy with the prospects of life.