Paul McGill’s unresolved marriage to Constance

Paul McGill’s unresolved marriage to Constance McGill is the legal and emotional obstacle that prevents him from marrying Emma Harte, even after his first marriage has long ceased to function as a partnership. The situation is not merely a lingering formality: Constance’s decline, her opposition to divorce, and the religious barrier Paul identifies all shape the household he and Emma create and his continuing struggle for freedom.

A marriage that has already ended in practice

When Paul explains his circumstances to Emma, he describes a marriage broken by Constance’s heavy drinking, which had begun before the war. By the time he returned to Sydney, he regarded her as beyond his help. He placed her in a nursing home, but she escaped soon after he had buried his father. It took Paul five weeks to find her again, in a condition he describes as physically debilitated and mentally deranged. His need to locate and settle her, he explains, was why he could not travel to England when he had wanted to.

Paul presents his exhaustion as the result of years of unsuccessful effort, not a sudden abandonment. He says he tried to help Constance, but that she would not help herself; his patience and pity had both run out long before the present crisis. He does not pretend that this makes the situation painless or uncomplicated. His account combines the practical demands of caring for someone unable to manage independently with anger at being bound to a marriage he considers over. He says that it had not been a marriage for twenty-seven years, making the legal bond seem increasingly detached from the life it governs.

The barriers to divorce

Constance remains in the nursing home after staff have helped her stop drinking, but she is still weak and unable to care for herself or function normally. Paul expects that she will need permanent institutional care. Her condition makes the prospect of divorce morally and practically fraught, while her own opposition blocks the resolution he wants. He tells Emma that Constance will not agree to a divorce, despite his wish to obtain one and his belief that their marriage has been broken for years.

Religion adds another impediment. Paul explains that Constance is Roman Catholic, and that this makes divorce more difficult. The novel presents no completed legal remedy at this point: Paul still hopes that he might one day gain his freedom, but that hope depends on circumstances he has not been able to change. The difference between wanting to end a marriage and being able to do so is central to the state. His wealth and public power cannot simply dissolve a private legal constraint, and his desire to make a settled life with Emma does not itself confer the status of a husband.

The effect on Emma and their household

The unresolved marriage shapes Paul and Emma’s shared life even after they become inseparable. They live together discreetly, with Emma particularly reluctant to expose the relationship to her children or to disregard the proprieties. Paul sees a contradiction in her: she is fearless in business and unconcerned with much of the world’s judgment, yet sensitive about what people may think of her personal conduct. Her caution is connected to her earlier experiences, and the continuing uncertainty over Paul’s marriage gives that caution an immediate, practical context.

The relationship is nonetheless substantial and publicly intertwined with their lives. Paul provides for Emma and Daisy McGill, and he legally adopts Daisy; he also longs to marry Emma and put their lives in order. Their affection is not presented as a substitute for the marriage he cannot obtain: the absence of legal resolution remains the one circumstance that mars his happiness. Emma, by contrast, becomes more secure in their relationship and tries to quiet his anxiety, reassuring him of her love and of her own contentment. Her confidence does not remove the obstacle, but it changes how the couple bears it.

The arrangement also affects the family around them. Emma and Paul keep their life together circumspect, especially in front of the children, while Paul gradually assumes the role of the household’s father figure. His strength and gentleness earn the children’s respect and affection. The home thus develops a durable family structure without the formal marriage Paul wants. This contrast makes the unresolved bond more than a private dispute between spouses: it leaves Emma and Paul’s household emotionally established but legally irregular.

Renewed determination and the lasting impasse

Paul’s wish for divorce intensifies rather than fades. In the episode immediately before his car crash, he leaves the nursing home in a violent rage after seeing Constance. He is appalled by the strength of his anger and has had to restrain himself from striking her. On the drive away, he decides that he will speak to his solicitor and search for a legal loophole that might release him from the marriage. He attributes the collapse of his love to Constance’s drinking and promiscuity, and sees freedom as something he needs for Emma and Daisy as well as for himself.

That renewed resolve gives the marriage’s unresolved status a sharp, forward-driving edge: Paul is no longer merely resigned to a barrier he has lived with for years, but determined to challenge it. Yet the account offers no divorce or reconciliation before the crash. His intention to act remains an intention, and the marriage continues to stand between his chosen family and the legal recognition he wants. The unresolved bond therefore gathers together the novel’s concerns with intimate loyalty, care, religious constraint, and the difference between personal commitment and legal freedom.