69 pages • 2 hours read
Clare MackintoshI Let You Go
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Jenna has a nightmare, waking herself up. The bad dreams won’t stop, and she keeps thinking of alternative endings where Jacob survives. She says, “for weeks now I have woken several times a night to the thud of a small body on the bumper, and to my own fruitless scream as he rolls off and slams onto the wet road” (60).
Jenna has become a hermit with a bad hand that prevents her from working. She feels the pain is deserved and likes the solitude. She gets up to jog on the beach, running to the sea where the tide comes in. She goes through the water, speeding up until she almost hits the cliff ahead of her. She only stops herself at the last minute with her hands outstretched. She feels an urge to write her name in the sand.
She decides to take a picture of her name in the sand, “so I can capture the moment I felt brave” (63). The framing is wrong, so she writes other names in different places, and then takes pictures. The incoming tide is already washing them away. Suddenly she feels homesick, considers visiting Bethan, then changes her mind. Her door isn’t locked, as the mechanism is unreliable.
As it turns out, Bethan comes to see her, bringing a pie. She offers her visitor tea. Bethan asks how she likes Blaen Cedi, and Jenna says it’s exactly what she needs. Bethan asks what her story is but doesn’t push when Jenna deflects. Jenna does divulge that she has a sister, but adds that they don’t talk anymore. Bethan tells her to stop at the caravan park for tea, and Jenna agrees.
Afterward, Jenna takes the memory stick from her camera and looks at her pictures. She then realizes that her stove has gone out, and wonders, “When did I get so pathetic?” (68). She spends all night fixing her range and feels a sense of accomplishment when she finally completes the job.
Chapter 7 Summary
It’s Monday morning and Ray is supposed to take his kids to school after spending twenty-four hours without his wife. They are running late because Ray let them stay up to watch a movie. Lucy is first to run to the car, then Tom, who forgets to close the front door on his way out. He takes Lucy to class after parking illegally.
Ray tries to make conversation with his son, but Tom isn’t interested, and asks his father to drop him off two streets away from the school. Ray tries to tell Tom he’ll miss registration, but Tom slams the door and leaves. Ray leaves for headquarters, where the chief constable wants to see him.
Olivia Rippon makes him wait a bit, and then tells him to close the Fishponds hit-and-run case. They’ve had enough time—almost six months—and it has become embarrassing. She tells him he is a good detective: “But if you want to progress, you need to accept that policing is about politics as much as it is investigating crime” (74).
Ray calls his team into the office. Kate asks to take the information on the car seen on the CCTV to the police expert. He breaks the news. Kate says she just needs more time, and seems to be taking the closure personally. Her remarks border on insubordination: “I suppose you’ve got your promotion to think about” (77). The problem is, he agrees with her, and doesn’t want to close the case. After the meeting, she apologizes to him. He tells her, “I know the case means a lot to you” (79). She feels like she let the boy down. He puts the case away.
Chapter 8 Summary
Jenna continues writing words on the beach, and she’s getting more skilled with the camera. She is starting to look forward to summertime, and the tourist season is starting. It starts to rain, and as she turns to leave she sees a man with a dog. She tenses, but she has seen this man before. Still, she feels trapped. He says good morning and tells her to enjoy her day. She feels silly as her heart returns to normal.
She goes to the caravan park to see Bethan, who puts on a kettle. There is a kitten there, and Bethan offers her one, but Jenna refuses. Bethan asks to see her pictures and thinks they are beautiful. Jenna thinks back to her father, who called her art incredible. She thinks, “I’m glad that he isn’t here anymore. I would hate to see disappointment in his eyes” (86).
Bethan thinks Jenna should sell the pictures. Jenna actually took one with Bethan’s name, and Bethan asks if she can have a printed version. In return, Bethan offers her some items for her home—cushions, throws, and clothing that she says she was going to throw out. Jenna takes them home and puts them in her house, making it feel warmer immediately. Iestyn knocks at the door; he has brought her logs for the fireplace. They aren’t good enough to sell, he tells her, so she might as well have them. He mentions that his family is visiting.
Jenna, alone again, thinks of her sister Eve and her niece and nephew. “I may have lost my son, but I still have a family, no matter what happened between us” (90). She and her older sister, whom she calls “Lady Eve,” once got along well, though they were different. But after their father left, they were never close. Jenna never forgave her mother for driving him away, but Eve did. Jenna misses her sister now, though, and she has taken a photo of her sister’s name on the sand. “I can’t risk my sister knowing where I am, but I can tell her that I’m safe. And that I’m sorry” (92).
Chapter 9 Summary
Kate and Ray go out to lunch together at Harry’s. A chance spotting of some CID officers leads to talk of the Jacob Jordan case. Kate is still bitter about being taken off it. She admits she is still working on the case, on her own time. She reminds Ray of his own early idealism, so he doesn’t tell her to stop. He wants updates, and for her to be sensible about her time and work priorities.
Ray also makes a confession: he and his wife aren’t getting along well lately, in part due to Tom’s issues. The teen has become surly and insolent, and Ray wonders if he is being bullied. Kate says she won’t have kids for a long time. He envies her less complicated life.
Back at the office after hours, Ray admires Kate’s dedication and wonders what drives her. He had promised Mags he would not be late, but decides to take another look at Jacob’s case.
Chapter 10 Summary
Bethan has news for Jenna; a greeting card company thinks her pictures would make great postcards and wants samples. Bethan offers to sell them in the store, too. If Jenna can put up a website, Bethan will send out the news to their mailing list. Jenna does need money, and she misses working. She decides that instead of staying at Penfach, she’ll visit a different beach: Port Ellis. She gets on a bus.
As she gets off the bus, she sees a bag in a hedge, and it moves. She finds a dead puppy and a live one and calls to a passing man for help finding a veterinarian. He points her to Alun Mathews’ son, who has an office nearby. The receptionist, Megan, takes the dead dog away and then asks if she’d like to see Patrick, the vet, with the living pup. He tells her the puppy is a “bitza”: “You know: bitza this, bitza that” (104). He elaborates, telling her the dog is probably mostly spaniel, possibly with collie or terrier. Then he asks if she can give him a home, since the kennels are overloaded.
She isn’t sure how to explain, so says she isn’t sure if her landlord would allow it. But it turns out Patrick knows Iestyn: “Iestyn Jones was at school with my dad, and I’ve got enough dirt on him to let you keep a herd of elephants, if you wanted them” (106). He tells her spaniels are great with kids and asks if she has any. She hesitates and says no, and then agrees to take the dog.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
In these chapters, the author begins to build conflict on the one hand and explore motifs of renewal on the other. These include the beautiful Welsh landscape and the inclusion of an animal and a new man in Jenna’s life as instruments of healing. The background and new people she meets are designed by the author to represent certain stumbling blocks that assist her in building trust and friendship as she recovers from the trauma of her previous relationship. Within these chapters, the setting of Wales, with its cliffs, winds, and waters, becomes more of a presence—in some ways, a character in itself because of the detailed way Mackintosh describes it and the role it comes to play in the theme of her recovery.
Here, readers can see that Jenna’s previous relationship with Ian has left her feeling helpless and dependent, which is very much a symptom of the domestic violence that she has experienced, a continuation of that ever-present theme within the narrative. Jenna’s being forced to deal with small but practical matters such as the re-lighting of her stove illustrates how Ian has eroded her self-confidence to the point that she feels she cannot do anything useful. Here, she now recognizes this in herself: “When did I become so pathetic? When did I lose the ability to make decisions; to solve problems? I’m better than this” (67).
This first part of Jenna’s slow and tenuous recovery process also includes finding a new profession, which she must do because Ian’s last violent episode has injured her hand so that she cannot sculpt any longer. She has been literally and figuratively disfigured by her abusive husband. Jenna’s new profession begins as an accident, illustrating again the question of chaos or fate in life’s vicissitudes; she has written her name in the sand, and steps atop a cliff to see it: “I’ll take a picture of it before the tide comes in and swallows it up, I decide, so I can capture the moment I felt brave” (63). Her pursuit of a new profession and new possibilities has her again literally and figuratively standing at a precipice. It is her new friend Bethan who urges her to take up photography as a job, insinuating that she is not in control of her fate.
The idea of writing on the beach is another well-developed motif within the book. It suggests impermanence, as does the idea of taking photographs—of one fleeting moment in time—versus creating solid, permanent sculptures the way Jenna used to. It hints at a recovery process that is slow and easily erased, but can be made solid if properly treated by human hands, as when Jenna records her work through the lens of a camera.
Back in Bristol, readers meet Tom and Lucy, Ray’s children, as well as Chief Constable Olivia Rippon. All of these minor characters play rather superficial roles in this narrative, representing certain perspectives and problems rather than being well-drawn personalities in themselves. Tom is a typical sullen teenager, while Lucy, who appears even less, is a normal girl. Olivia Rippon, who appears only slightly more in the story, is more of a presence than a person, driving action but not participating in any of it. In these chapters, she commands the end of the investigation; it doesn’t look good politically for it to continue without a conclusion.
Basically, the chief constable’s role in this story is to create tension between Ray and Kate and Ray and Mags. The actions within the CID workplace help to build respect and attraction between himself and Kate, while deepening the tension between him and his wife. He finds Kate’s passion for her work and for what’s right to be appealing; being at odds with her makes him ashamed that he is taking the “bad guy” bureaucratic role—perhaps becoming more like Olivia in some ways: “Maybe he’d lost his touch, or maybe Kate was right: maybe he did have too much of an eye on the next rank” (78).
The theme of family relationships as illustrated above plays a role in Jenna’s story as well; Ian finds Jenna by seeking out her sister Eve, while Eve has never liked Ian because he reminds her of their father, also an abuser. Thus, the subplot between Ray and the women in his life still carries linked implications with the main plotline.
