I am wondering what "until she passes the five-year mark, Dad’s record to date" means in the following sentences:
Séverine, Dad’s latest wife – French, not far off my age, one part
décolletage and three parts liquid eyeliner – slinks in behind him,
tossing her long mane of red hair.‘Well,’ I say to Dad, ignoring Séverine (I can’t be bothered to spend
much time on her until she passes the five-year mark, Dad’s record to
date). ‘You’ve made it . . . at last.’ I’d known they were scheduled
to arrive about now – I had to ask Aoife to arrange the boat. But even
then I’d wondered if there might be some excuse, some delay that meant
they couldn’t make tonight. It wouldn’t be the first time.
- Lucy Foley, The Guest List, Chapter 14
This is a thriller novel published in 2020 in the United Kingdom. One hundred and fifty guests would be gathering at some remote and deserted fictional islet called Inis an Amplóra off the coast of the island of Ireland to celebrate the wedding between Jules (a self-made woman running an online magazine called The Download) and Will (a celebrity appearing in a TV show program called Survive the Night). The day before the actual wedding day, to attend the rehearsal dinner, Jules' dad comes to the island. But Jules doesn't care about Séverine, accompanying her dad as his newest wife, unless "she passes the five-year mark, Dad’s record to date."
In this part, I am finding it difficult to understand (1) what "mark" means, and (2) what "dad's record to date" means.
(1) Is it perhaps, the "mark" here is the highest standard ever for her dad in dating, meaning he dated women only up to 5 years and no more until this time? But then, as far as I can guess, Jules seems to be saying that the "mark" here is the least standard that would make her regard Séverine as the proper Dad's partner, so I am confused. Is the "mark" perhaps like a score, as in "I got a good mark in English"? Or perhaps like a criterion, as in "Unemployment has passed the four million mark"?
(2) And I also wonder whether "record to date" means that "Dad has a record in dating," or that "Dad has a record up until this time."
Best Answer
I'll break the passage up into two parts to address your two questions.
The narrator is using mark here to mean
So the “five-year mark” is a goal of having been her father's wife for five full years. Note, Séverine almost certainly doesn't know about this goal; there is no general notion of a five-year mark as anything special. Which brings us to
This is an appositive, so the phrase is describing the previous phrase (“five-year mark”). Here the narrator is using record to mean
and to date to mean
The narrator is explaining why she chose five years in particular: because that is the length of her father's current longest marriage. But she is also commenting on her father's relatively short marriages. One would usually use the word “record” to refer to something extraordinary or impressive — e.g., the Guinness Book of World Records — but of course five years of marriage isn't particularly extraordinary.
Putting the the parts back together, the narrator is saying she can't be bothered with Séverine until she and her father have been married at least as long as his previous longest marriage. But I get the sense that this is really just sarcasm; the narrator is giving a hurtful and dismissive reason to ignore someone she doesn't really like, while also remarking on her father's serial monogamy.