This is the story of Blanche and Vicky, who as children read Ethel M. Dell and Elinor Glyn up a tree. Following the death of their grandfather—in whose enormous Warwickshire house they live—their mother relinquishes drink (to which she had taken in a big way) for the joys of frantic housework. Naturally the girls long to escape.
Blanche trains as a mannequin at a dubious institution in London, and Vicky flees to Holland and a purgatorial life as an *au pair* to a lot of dogs. But this is only the beginning and other adventures await them, including the poverty and cabbage smells of one-room living, the charcoaled fingers of art school, drunkenness and cheap restaurants of Soho bohemia, and varying degrees of excitement with several husbands and lovers.
First published in 1967, *A Touch of Mistletoe* shows Barbara Comyns’ original voice at its best, mixing a characteristic simplicity with a quiet but cunning wit.