trennels | Readthrough: Run Away Home, Chapters 5-8 (Reply)

Nicola and Patrick make up: the detail of his holding open the gate for her (as well as indicating Blackleg's dressage manners) is a nice touch, I think, bringing to mind him nearly treading on her the year before. The Merrick Boy's educational future is considered (this has been your regularly scheduled fic prompt), and Nicola's continued interest in attending Mass signalled. I'm amused by their slightly delicate negotiation over her possible conspicuousness. What do people think Mme Orly's sympathies in re Vatican II might be, since Patrick raises the issue? (Slightly ticklish for continuity purposes, for back on the End of Term timeline, she was attending Mass in the Merrick chapel, so he ought to know.) I reckon she's pretty trad.

I'll leave reflections on Patrick's doubts about Ginty mostly to the comments, but her decision to spend the holidays with Monica seems to have lowered her quite rapidly in his estimation: while I appreciate the reference to Ginty's hygienic separation of her most important friendships, I think (pace Nicola) that 'does [Monica] actually exist?' is a strange question (does he imagine that Ginty has holed up in Trennels and told the family to lie about her whereabouts?) and the question about whether Monica's injury is genuine suggests he's standing in rather presumptuous judgement--we know Ginty hasn't acted in the best of faith, but assuming from from her lie-by-omission about the legality of phoning that she's also invented Monica's indisposition seems a leap motivated by bruised amour propre rather than honour.

I share the Merrick Boy's horror of parties, and the thought of being forced by a parent breathing down one's neck to retract a declined invitation brings me out into a cold sweat. Sometimes it's not easy being an MP's son with a social position to maintain, I guess, though given that he'd probably be in a young offenders' institution if he wasn't, my grief is containable. 'Mangy female' is not, one reflects, the sort of language with which fair lady is won, though Nicola doesn't protest. And surely girls in the early 80s were not still hanging about waiting to be asked to dance at parties?

What happened to make Giles 'give up on' Kay? This has been your regularly scheduled &c. Forest's deleted scene in which they discuss Kay and Edwin getting a divorce presumably occurred here? I have read Celebrating Antonia Forest, but not since shortly after its publication (when there were still gaps in my reading of the series), and I don't own a copy. I like this little conversation between Giles and Rowan, their unforced, officerly rapport and shared propensity to slope off down the pub. We do get a little bit of contextualisation--though scarcely justification--for Giles's later irresponsibility: he seems to have inherited Jon's capacity for risk-taking. Much as I like the glimpse we have of Jon in Falconer's Lure, I'm with Geoff on the wisdom of taking small boys to sea in highly unsuitable craft, I think. I also like the mirrored recollections that Giles and Patrick have of one another in this chapter ('Big Brother [...] knocking around with Jon'; 'dark-haired skinny little boy with yellow eyes'.)

Mmm, whiskey mac.

The Old Shippen is, presumably, Chas and Rose's 'hide-place' when the Marlows are away at school, and it is here that the plot thickens. I wonder if it's the best environment for storing 300-year-old farm logs (even without runaways hiding on top of them)? Nicola's bemused reaction to the discovery is a treat, but Chas, Rose and Edward 'united against the outsider' is a powerful and rather upsetting image.

More discussion of Patrick's future: the Merrick boy in the army is a fairly horrifying thought.

More Dodd domesticity, with a frisson of risk in Chas stealing mince-pies for Edward. Dripping-on-toast seems slightly out-of-place in a middle-class household in the early 80s, to which Nicola's mention of that amazing invention, sliced bread, seems to draw attention. (We had dripping for chips in mine.) I'm heartened by her adolescently vast appetite, though: growth spurt, presumably.

The cast-of-thousands panto is treated with typically Forestian acerbity; its modest genesis and over-ambition perhaps chiming with certain more successful Kingscote efforts. Over-length and complexity might echo the carol service of Attic Term too. Nicola and Edwin's pas devant routine is pretty good. Karen has grown more tolerant of 'hordes of young', with her appreciation of the raven dance and so forth--here she reminds me rather of Ann, slightly ill-at-ease but nonetheless determinedly helpful and optimistic. There seem some minor signs of strain between her and Edwin, whose deprecation of the play is rather excessive. Not that it bothers Chas, who is irrepressible, or Rose, who would prefer not to. But I agree with him about the scrubbing roster: how dirty is that village hall? Glad to see that Ann pursues her brothers as well as her sisters for it, though. Nicola's sudden recollection of Edward is effective: I think one of the things the novel does do well is to contrast the (albeit sometimes unstable and difficult) domestic lives of the Marlows and Dodds with his houseless condition. Even so, Nicola is horrified at her own neglect, not at homelessness per se--which may suggest that Forest is attempting to explore motivation here: the Marlows' actions in regard to Edward perhaps being driven by an abstract sense of the honourable thing to do rather than a thinking-through of his welfare.

Lawrie's got over her horror of horror films, we see, and shares the taste with Mrs Bertie. Her showing off about the Shakespearean theatre is fun, too.

Nicola's fear of the dark is evident again here, and there's a slightly farcical quality ("not people" is good) to Nicola and Peter having independently found Edward. Edward is well characterised as wary, traumatised and silent, and the conversations afterwards among the siblings afterwards might (at a stretch?) be read as a critique of the Marlows seeing him as a Cause rather than as a fellow human. Interesting that family feeling seems to trump likelihood of silence in Peter and Nicola having no reservations over telling Lawrie, where Peter havers over telling Patrick, seeing as Lawrie's propensity to spill might exceed even the infant Dodds'. Lovely little moment of tension in Peter's wishing that Ginty was around to absorb Patrick's attention... There's a sense too of Edward as Cause in the way that Peter and Nicola decide to take over from the childish efforts of the Dodds--marking the start of a process that will see the quarterdeck members of the family involved: perhaps it's possible to read their actions as a kind of collective folly resulting from family hierarchy--older siblings compensating for the perceived incompetence of the younger without really considering the wisdom of the overall enterprise.

Patrick provides an outsider's viewpoint which is helpful in deducing what Edward's plans might be. His ignorance of Edward's situation is presumably owing to having been in London until very recently: but I wonder whether it's come to Anthony Merrick's attention? I think it's probably important that Patrick's not getting on well with his father at the moment--it strikes me that Anthony might be sympathetic to Edward's situation and prepared to use his influence to help, but the estrangement between him and Patrick means that avenue doesn't suggest itself. Peter has very definitely taken Edward on as his Project, however.

Edward's dismissal of the pantomime as 'just for children' strikes a perfect note, I think, of the odd mixture of maturity and its opposite often found in troubled kids.

Fob proves to have a Talent for Crime (an older Fob getting up to all sorts presents itself as your regularly scheduled &c.) Peter's attempt to get Edward to talk is a neat bit of characterisation of both of them, I think: the recognition that Nicola would have perceived Edward's huntedness and desisted--perhaps to better effect, where Peter bangs on regardless, is particularly telling. (Dept Marlow carelessness with their family artefacts/Trennels is a TARDIS, we have the jumbled fossil collection of a Victorian ancestor.)

A little reminder of Peter's fears in his avoidance of hunting, and also perhaps a reminder that he hasn't quite lain aside a propensity to face his terrors in rather unhelpful ways--'start letting oneself off and it could easily become a habit'--I wonder if he could be persuaded to apply that stern line of thought to washing up?

I do think the parallel between Chas's disappointment and Peter's at Edward's disappearance is masterly: different in degree, but perhaps not entirely in kind--Peter's plans are more realistic than Chas's, but they are essentially based in an idea of adventure rather than reality at this stage.

That's a bloody pile up on the M1, crikey. The revoltingly chirpy tone of the news broadcast does have the authentic note of local radio all right.

A panto so bad that even Lawrie can't be bothered with mentally improving it! The, um, dramatic irony of that will become clear, but this has also been your regularly scheduled &c.

The failure of the Lower Decks to see the New Year in continues the idea of a disrupted and untraditional holiday season. (Lawrie remembers that it's the first of the month but forgets that they didn't see in the new year: how does that work, btw?) I don't know the twelve mince pies tradition that Giles refers to--can anyone enlighten? Couldn't Giles take Nicola to the pub instead of another chilly picnic? I've never known a pub to object to children and younger teenagers who are having a meal accompanied by adults, during the daytime.

What do people make of Ann refusing to lend her bike? Is Forest nobbling her again by making her seem an just an enthusiast of all things modern rather than a genuine ecumenist? She's got a point in seeing the Merricks as the actual schismatics; rather less so in her dismay that her mother isn't keen on the Alternative Service Book? (Another dating point, I find, on reference to the wisdom of the internet, the ASB was introduced in 1980). I'm not sure how true that rings of Mrs Marlow's character: I would have seen her perhaps more pious in observance than the sometimes atheistical Rowan, but not much more interested in doctrine. Or perhaps it is just the language of the ASB services she dislikes? Peter's point on the strategy of argument here takes us back to Ann and Giles's barney in the train. Something they teach them at Dartmouth, perhaps? And ghoulish Lawrie, relishing the thought of her mother and Ann at odds over religion!

What do people make of Nicola's reaction to Mass at the Merricks'? Forest is quite conservative about conversion narratives: Miranda's curiosity about Christianity in End of Term turns, a year later in book terms, into quite a firm affirmation of Jewish identity in Attic Term. (Though she still has her taste for the improbable.) Forest was perhaps aware, writing Run Away Home, that she didn't have enough momentum left in the series to take Nicola through a conversion and hence wraps up with Nicola's feelings of a slightly uncanny sense of belonging--satisfying her own religious sentiments and identification with her protagonist, rather than producing something that's terrifically likely in terms of Nicola's character? On the other hand, that feeling of 'better not, might get hooked,' has a touch of 'from the life' about it--I wonder if it was her own initial response or that of a convert she knew.

Chilly picnic notwithstanding, Giles and Nicola seem to have a good time. I find the Mr Fitton books a bit flat compared to Forester and Patrick O'Brian and wish Nicola had found Master and Commander instead, but she'll probably like them nonetheless. Nicola seems to have returned to the idea of a naval career for herself.

Edward returns to the Marlows' life with his letter, now inevitably involving the senior siblings. Lawrie tactlessly says what everyone's thinking about Ann (I'm only disappointed that Ann doesn't retort with a vivid affirmative: profanity isn't really in character there, but Yes, and I'm bloody glad too would still be very satisfying). I always giggle at Giles's performative decision-making pose, and imagine that it is burlesqued exquisitely by the personnel of every ship he's ever served on. I don't think Forest ever fully and convincingly accounts for Giles and Rowan's participation in the exercise: but now's the time to debate that in the comments--have at it?

It's a nice narrative device to interrupt this with the Holdens' party. What do people make of Patrick's cultivation of boring Becky Martin? In this fic,

ankaret suggests a terribly plausible outcome.

Family conference! Patrick's mistake about its location underlines the extent to which this has moved out of the hands of the Lower Decks, but he reveals himself as having a logistical mind which earns Giles's approval. The plan evolves in an interestingly ramshackle way: it really is done by committee, and has all the proverbial disadvantages of such a project. Lawrie seems almost a caricature of herself here: I relish the way in which the family talk her round to impersonating Edward, but surely she can't be ignorant of how a boat is transported by road? The irony of Nicola expostulating that Giles and Rowan are insufficiently criminal, so soon after being tricked by Miss Keith's amateur interrogator's antics in Attic Term is funny, but it raises a question too: there's plenty of lip-service paid to risk and illegality in this scene, but it seems very little actual consideration of consequences (and most of what there is is left to Rowan to articulate). I'm interested that Rowan seems more concerned by the disadvantages of Surfrider than Giles is: this strikes me as a replay of arguments that Geoff and Jon, respectively, had about her. Peter's dismay at Giles considering Rowan a more competent potential crew member is a wonderfully uncomfortable moment ('I wouldn't have to wonder whether or not you'd cope'--ouch! And Rowan's acknowledgement that her qualms about Surfrider are at least partially qualms about Peter going rather than her, double ouch.) Though Peter's column-dodging is proved to have its usefulness... Ann's entrance with the tea underlines her exclusion--at first self-imposed, but then hurtfully reinforced by the family's decision to deceive her. The chapter ends with another example of Patrick's ingenuity, and the suggestion that despite their very salient differences, Giles and he might forge some sort of a friendship. Lots more to say about this, I'm sure, but I'll leave it to the comments.

All yours, folks!