The Green Man (Amis novel)

As the novel unfolds, Allington is beset by a number of difficulties, including his father's death by stroke at dinner one night, and a drinking problem that causes hypnagogic jactitation and hallucinations; Maurice compounds his problems by pursuing an affair with his doctor's wife, neglecting his daughter Amy (whose mother, Maurice's first wife, was killed in a road accident), and attempting to seduce both his current wife and his mistress into a ménage à trois, which backfires when the two women take an enthusiastic interest in each other and effectively shut him out of the orgy.

During this time Maurice begins to see ghosts around the inn – a red-haired woman, presumably Underhill's wife, in the hallway, a small bird floating above his bathtub, the spectre of Thomas Underhill himself in the dining room – and yet has a difficult time communicating this to his family and friends, who assume that heavy drinking and the stress of his father's death are causing him to hallucinate.

That afternoon, having left the scene of the failed orgy, Maurice suddenly finds himself in a strange time warp, as it were, in which all molecular motion outside his drawing room ceases.

By hurling the figurine back into the graveyard Maurice saps Underhill's power and destroys the green man.

Underhill's purpose had been, apparently, to have Amy killed as a sort of experiment in lieu of the sexual depredations which are now forbidden him by his lack of corporeality.

Maurice's wife leaves him (for his mistress), but his daughter proposes, and he agrees to, a plan to move away from The Green Man and get a fresh start.