After the End

[owl]

There will never be any more Antonia Forest novels. We know she was working on an eleventh Marlow book at some point, but it's all too probable that she destroyed the manuscript. What do you think might have been in it? Here are a few unresolved plot points from Run Away Home:

Did the junior (ETA: including Giles and Rowan) Marlows cop it for the events of Run Away Home, and if so, how hard?

What happened with Ginty/Patrick? It's moderately obvious that Patrick thinks it's over, but Ginty doesn't know this. Did he end up with Nicola instead?

Where did Patrick end up doing his A-levels, and what were they? (Personally, I favour the Colebridge Grammar, because 1) Private schools were getting rarer 2) The entire Merrick family wouldn't have to dash down to Dorset every time Kingscote had a school holiday so Patrick would be in the story 3) It seems an awful waste Patrick doing languages at some tough school when what he's really interested in is English and History. Since when were they 'soft options', anyway?)

Did Nicola and Esther make it up?

What happens in the years afterwards, in your heads? What career did she chose, and did she ever sail around the world? Did she ever meet Robert Anquetil again (we seem to have a fandom opinion on this, which is why I asked it)?

What about the other Marlows?

Comments

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'd have said it was the older Marlows who needed to and were likely to cop it hardest - Giles and Rowan. They were legally adults - I actually loved the way Giles's nickname for Rowan was "Rowley", and them wandering down to the pub together - and the whole sequence of events could not have taken place without their instigation. I imagine compared to the blood for breakfast they got the share Nick, Peter and Lawrie came in for probably looked like a mere graze, for elevenses.

I can imagine Ginty's next return to Trennels being very, very nasty indeed. Given the moment at the party when Patrick sees Nick in That Dress and momentarily mistakes her for Ginty.

I hated the idea of English and History being soft, because I had to fight my own headmistress to be allowed to do them. Personally, my betting on this is that Patrick goes to tough school and does French, German and History (all good in combination) or French Latin and History and then reads History at Oxford.

Nicola and Esther; no. Just never actually acknowledged they'd quarrelled.

Me, I'm a Nick/Anquetil shipper. Patrick is a romantic first love, but bound to dedicate himself to abstractions and the ghost of Ginty would be grim, too. So I'll nail my colours to the mast and say yes, I hope so. In some seaport town, called Cannadie-I-O

[owl]

Ah, I meant 'junior' as in 'not the Captain and Mrs' although I was assuming Giles was younger than Karen now I come to think of it.

I should have loved to see Ginty returning. Schadenfreude, anyone?

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

Karen: gets divorced at 28 because Edwin refuses to have more children. Becomes civil servant in the Treasury.

Rowan: marries Ronnie Merrick. JOintly they run the Merrick and Marlow estates after Patrick joins monkdom and renounces all worldly goods.

Ann: marries a vicar. Becomes housewife.

Ginty: in fit of Thorn Birds esque pique when discovers Patrick has become a monk, she drops out of school, marries someone much older and with money after a whirlwind engagement. Gets divorced. Becomes Princess Margaret type figure - sitting round smoking, drinking gin and bitching about people.

Peter: no good in the Navy. Serves in the Falklands without glory. Becomes photojournalist taking pictures of nasty wars in dangerous places, where he is remarkably much braver than he ever was in uniform.

Nick: has brief fling with Patrick but he does a Richard Chamberlain and becomes a monk. She takes this philosophically and starts her own business on E-bay selling Navy memorabilia.

Lawrie: gets cast in a film after leaving school, but her attitude pisses off the director and all involved in the production. Ends up working on daytime TV (pays better than theatre). Occasionally seen in ads peddling Miracle Dusters (every penny counts).

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Anne: becomes vicar. Or possibly joins religious order.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I can see Ann being in a religious order more easily than being a vicar - I don't think she'd really approve of the ordination of women.

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

I always see Ann as the most PC Marlow. And doesn't she disapprove of Mrs M not going to Matins when the Vicar uses the modern prayerbook? So I think she would actually be in favour of the ordination of women - if only because I imagine AF didn't, and I never get the feeling she agrees with Ann's stance on religion.

[coughingbear]

Difficult to go for Nicola, Peter & Lawrie too badly since they were effectively left in Giles' and Rowan's charge. Do you think Patrick ever told his father? I'm guessing not. And the whole thing would have to be kept very very quiet, so the family would need to be presenting a pretty cheerful and united front to Mrs Bertie and Doris, for instance, which might put a check on the bloodletting.

The fault-lines in the family must have got rather wider as a consequence of it all; Ann, Karen and Ginty all separated in their own ways (can't imagine Ginty was too impressed that they all forgot her birthday, setting aside all the Patrick stuff).

Yes, I'm sure Nicola sailed round the world. I like to think she became a Royal Navy captain too, but in my head she's still sailing single-handed on and on with a serious kind of joy (and some good seasickness cures).

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

I don't understand - why would anyone need to know? I mean, noone was killed, one assumes that Giles and Peter were just a bit shaken up (easily blameable on falling off horses or something), and the only thing wrecked was an old boat that noone else knew about.

[coughingbear]

There's a discussion about whether they can keep it secret when it's asked 'how good is Lawrie at carrying secrets to the grave?' 'Chancy' (not a direct quote) - and Lawrie does give it away to Ann, who I can't see colluding in keeping it from their parents.

[geebengrrl.livejournal.com]

I think we would have seen Ginty in Hello! after each marriage and each divorce, getting progressively blonder.

I think Lawrie would have had one big movie, then crashed and burned, spent the 80's as a Patsy Kensit type figure - always with the band of the moment - and then regained credibility in an indie movie sometime in the 90's.

Nicola would have left Kingscote before A levels, possibly as a result of a mighty row, got herself a boat and sailed off to the Pacific for a few years. I don't think she would have joined the Navy - Nicola doesn't like being told to follow orders.

Rowan will end up the head of the Countryside Alliance and grow organic vegetables.

Ann would have a dutiful marriage to a vicar, but hopefully in middle age she'd finally get sick of being ever so helpful, chuck him, and become the first female archbishop of canterbury. Or the head of Oxfam.

I like the idea of Peter being a freelance photographer. Perhaps Nicola can go with him?

And Karen is defintely destined for the civil service and perhaps she'll write an obscure one-off book.

I don't feel I know Giles well enough to predict anything for him :)

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

heh that makes sense re Lawrie, knowing what we know about her drinking episode at the Twelfth Night Party....

I forgot Giles (!). Hm, given his comments about marriage and wives I see him as a divorced dad, in a batman suit climbing the walls of The Admiralty.

[geebengrrl.livejournal.com]

I don't think he'd ever get married - he'd be Mysterious Uncle Giles to Ann's brood, who appears in the middle of the night, distributes gifts, teases mummy, upsets daddy and disappears again.

Actually now that I think about it, I could see him becoming a modern Robert Antequiel.

[owl]

Ginty's already white-blonde. All the Marlows have very fair hair.

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

I like to think of Nicola as an Ellen Macarthur type (given a limitless supply of Kwells - or maybe she simply grew out of sea-sickness). Perhaps she doesn't get sea sick when she's in charge of the boat, like the driver not getting carsick! I don't see her ending up with Patrick - after a teenage romance I think they would end up as good friends. I don't see Patrick as a monk, though - he seems too keen on the opposite sex for that. Perhaps he follows his father into politics.

I see Lawrie much more as a stage actress than a film/TV star. And as all the actors I know have a self obsessed streak I think she would actually blend into that world rather better than Kingscote/Trennels. But then Lawrie is my favourite Marlow so I am biased. I think Ginty would be more likely to end up as a Patsy Kensit with a serial string of minor celebrities. Or perhaps even an Abi Titmuss.

I think Ann would have ultimately become a vicar, but as a second career after nursing, or social work.

Peter would have left the Navy, I'm sure; probably to make wildlife documentaries for the BBC. Or perhaps to become a boat builder (although his canoe wasn't a wild success) or a furniture maker a la David Linley - he always seems to be good with his hands.

And what about the other characters. Would Jan Scott be a Helena Kennedy? Lois Sanger obviously turned into one of those fierce PE teachers who bullies people who aren't good at games. And what did Tim do?

[liadnan]

Tim's a journalist. Hard-core foreign/war correspondent I suspect. And always meaning to write her novel.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

I think Tim becomes a CEO. She is the only true visionary among them. A sort of female Al Neuharth: sod what everyone else thinks, I see how things could/should be.

[melandraanne.livejournal.com]

As my mother is a Falkland Islander and I grew up there, I've always thought that Giles and probably Peter should be part of the Task Force ... and perhaps Peter would become fascinated by the wildlife there and stay 'down south', possibly joining the British Antartic Society ...

I think I've got two favourite scenarios - one being Miranda coming to Trennels for the next half-term after Run Away Home - as I've always found Patrick's fascination for the 'hawk angel' interesting, and I think the interaction between them would be extremely - watchable.

The other is Giles, injured in the Falklands, coming home to recuperate, and Patrick at home, studying for his maths retakes with a tutor ... I'd love to see the developing friendship between them, after that 'suddenly acquainted' moment in Run Away Home. Giles might be older, but after Patrick's friendship with Jon ... And then, how would Nicola react ?

Some day I'll get writing ...

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

Fabulous, a bitch fight! Nick v Miranda over Patrick! We know Nick fights (viz Marie over the desk in Autumn Term), and we know that Miranda has a tendency to fall in and out of friendhood with people. And there would be lots of scope for interreligious dating debates...

[(Anonymous)]

I can't remember who Anquetil is.

I think that Miranda would be Head Girl, and Nicola would be Sports.
Lawrie would go to RADA as soon as she'd got her A levels. (Could the Prosser be used for that, or would there be sufficent money, with the elders flying the nest?)
Tim - RADA too, for writing and producing?
Karen would foster or adopt more children - she's settling well into her "methren" role.
Rowan would gratefully had Trennells over to her father, who would retire from the Navy while he's still young enough to enjoy Trennells, and she'd go off to London to do a belated season.
(Hmm! Sudden doubt. Were those evening dresses court or foreign parts? And perhaps she meant (in PR) that she wanted to work in London rather than go to tea-parties dances and dinners?)
Ann - nursing - she's too pi (as opposed to devoted) to be ordained, but that might change. Possibly nursing, then ordination?
Nicola - Wrens, of course.
Ginty - early marriage, as foreseen by Patrick's mother, but not to Patrick, who would eventually do the Persuasion bit with Nicola.
Has Monica got a debs' delight brother?

[(Anonymous)]

I've thought for years that Patrick gets dragged along by his Dad, perhaps about February, to some posh MP's do in London and has to invite a guest; he invites Nick, not Ginty. This causes an almighty row between Nick and Ginty, to make the Rowan/Karen situation seem positively friendly, and results in Ginty switching bedrooms. I don't know what happens to Nick and Lawrie, but I don't see them being left in Sara Crewe.

DSR.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Why does everyone assume Lawrie would crash and burn?

The one thing Lawrie is obviously completely, bloody-mindedly professional about is her acting. Remember when Jan goes to find her in the cathedral, and Jan's convinced Lawrie will be face down in floods of tears, surrounded by comforters - so convinced that she almost doesn't see Lawrie quietly and gloomily dressing to be the partner angel - a part which she herself sees as ridiculous and pointless, insulting when she only had it in order to match Nicola, and beyond insulting when Nicola isn't even there - but which she recognises as a part which deserves the best she can give it, and the best she can give it involves not bursting into floods of tears and wailing about how unfair life is. So she doesn't.

Lawrie is a brat, and will doubtless be uncomfortable and annoying to be around in her private life. But on the job - theatre or film set - I bet she's always consumnately professional.