2

I read a novel(or maybe it's a short story since it is very short) by Alan Titchmarsh called 'Rosie'. It was going well until I stuck at Chapter 4. It writes

How she had managed to be up and out of the house before him was a mystery. Nick knew she hadn't had that much to drink, but it had affected her.

The question is, is him was a mystery gramatically correct?

And how do we use hadn't had correctly and its meaning in this context?

stangdon
  • 38,966
  • 9
  • 65
  • 96
Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini
  • 8,658
  • 5
  • 33
  • 64

1 Answers1

3

It appears that you are misparsing this. Him is not the subject of the main clause X was a mystery; that subject is the entire free relative clause How ... him.

subject[How she had managed to be up and out of the house before him]  verb[was]  complement[a mystery].

Had[n't] had is an ordinary past perfect construction, indicating that her drinking occurred before the time the author is currently talking about.

StoneyB on hiatus
  • 173,630
  • 13
  • 257
  • 453