The Peahen's Flutter

What will you do if your wife, mother or father doesn’t recognise you anymore?


Christopher Hall is devastated when his beloved wife of over forty years loses her memory of him and their children, Adam and Meryl. Adding insult to injury, she develops a romantic relationship with Joseph Connolly, a resident in the Good Hope Nursing home where she is being looked after. Do the tail feathers of the peahen flutter even in dementia?


Adam swears that he will put a stop to his mother’s unholy affair and his father’s humiliation. Jack Connolly, on the other hand, demands that his father, a widower, and Susan, his newly found partner in love,should be left alone to continue their affair. He asks, ‘When do the rights of those who lose their faculties end and wilful gratification of the relatives take over?’


This tale of tragic romance is set in Eastbourne, the seaside town that adorns the Sussex coastline of southern England. 


George John, in his first novel, tells a captivating story in a simple and endearing narrative style. The incident at the traffic lights, the goings on in the mysterious ‘green room’, the plot of a conniving, greedy ex-girlfriend, the opportunism of a scheming ‘home help’ and the woeful consequences  of Ketamine abuse set the stage for a climax that is as dramatic as it is unexpected.