NOBODY'S FAULT

Can intelligent, amusing writing transcend soap opera sites and sounds? That's the question that Mervyn Jones (John and Mary, Pursuit of Happiness) continues to pose, now with a London triangle occupied by inevitably pretty, tough-helpless Tamsin and her overlapping, round-robin obsessions, Keith and Brian. We start with today--Tamsin's married to Keith (rich, pushy publisher of Group, Disc, and Rock) and afternooning platonically with poor, semi-failed poet Brian--and flash back to yesteryear (married to Brian, sleeping with Keith) and the years before that (Brian's girlfriend, then Keith's for a while). In between are a disastrous idyll in the Highlands (Brian), fertility problems (Keith), an abortion (Brian), and jobs in publishing and social work. Keith calls her ""sweetie-honey-bunny"" and plays ""Rape!"" in bed, Brian passively takes her money, but Tamsin is ""very diminished when I'm alone"" and needs both entanglements--whatever ""transfer terms"" may be involved. All moments are stretched, explained, and tweaked with maximum grace and minimum urgency, leaving behind a few vivid tableaus of these goodlooking, contemporary neurotics and a rising so-what in the gorge.