Category: my favourite books

Chapter Nine: Right Way Round

The narrative point of view in this book is all over the place, in a way that would exasperate most of the editors I’ve worked with. While the story is mostly told from Nicola’s perspective, it’s not uncommon for the reader to find herself suddenly inside the head of a completely different character for a single paragraph (for example, look at the end of Chapter One, when there’s an abrupt and unnecessary change to Ann’s point of view, before it swaps back to Nicola for the final two paragraphs). But I think Antonia Forest chose well when she decided the Nativity Play should be seen (mostly) through Patrick’s eyes. He knows enough about the people in this chapter (those on-stage and off-stage) that it’s not too confusing for him, but we get extra insight into them from his outsider’s perspective. He also understands more about the religious story than many of the participants – certainly more than Lawrie, and even many readers (for instance, I had only the vaguest notion about St Stephen before reading this).

Anyway, this chapter starts with the Merrick family arriving at the Minster to watch the play. Daks has been rescued from Esther’s house and is curled up happily in their car, waiting to be transferred to the Marlows. The Merricks sit up the front of the packed Minster (Three thousand people! No wonder Esther was terrified!) beside Mrs Marlow, Madame Orly, Karen and Rowan. Patrick is shocked when the exquisite voice leading the choir procession turns out to belong to Nicola, although not half as shocked as Nicola’s grandmother (“Surely not”, she keeps muttering, even when Nicola’s walking right past her). Patrick’s also impressed by the Reading Angel, until he realises it’s Evil Lois and then he thinks:

“…how queer it was that what people were like had no connection whatever with what they could actually do. Like Coleridge: like Mozart: and now here was this dire twerp of a Lois Sanger…”

At this point, Rowan and Patrick chivalrously give up their seats to some querulous old women, but luckily find their way to the empty gallery, where they can look down the central aisle to the whole scene and give us a lovely description of what’s going on. Patrick is impressed by Miranda, an unmoving falcon-angel who reminds him of Regina, and by Ann’s serenity, and by the sight of dear idiotic little Sprog being carried in by the King’s page.

But it’s Lawrie who steals the show playing the youngest shepherd, forced by his brothers to guard the sheep instead of visiting the infant Christ, then rescued by the Archangel Gabriel and sent off to the stable, where he gives his only possession, his shepherd’s crook, to the baby, “Lest He too, one day, should be a shepherd”. Lawrie’s performance has lots of clever links back to real-life scenes in the book, most clearly when Lawrie decides not to weep noisily in disappointment as the stage directions say, but to use the “pit-bottomed blackness” she’d felt when she discovered Nicola was to be Shepherd Boy:

“But she knew how she’d behaved: she remembered perfectly how she’d put her hands over her face; she’d rehearsed it quite often in her bath cubicle.”

Even Rowan gets choked up at this scene. Of course, being Lawrie, she’s completely aware of how good she is in the role, running up to see Patrick and Rowan when she’s not on stage and gloating about Esther’s absence and how it’s “maddening I didn’t know in time to invite Ellen Holroyd”, her theatrical mentor. As Rowan says, Lawrie really is a ghastly child.

We get some glimpses of Nicola’s viewpoint – her relief that Sprog is behaving himself on stage, her sudden terror when the entire congregation rises to its feet in place of applause, then her deep breath as she prepares to sing her final solo:

“Try to sing it with regret,” Dr Herrick had said. “Once in Royal David’s City. Not now, you see. Now we have only been pretending. But once, long ago, if only we’d had the luck to be there, once, just once, this thing really happened.”

Nicola, for the first time, manages to do it as he asked, and there’s a lovely description from Patrick of her “immaculate succession of notes, lifting and drifting among the soaring pillars and arches as he had seen thistledown lift and drift one evening in the watermeadows, floating away at last above the trees”. Patrick watches her silent, brief conversation with Miranda and muses how different people can be in different situations, “as if everyone had a spoonful of chameleon blood and changed colour a little, depending on their companions.”

Chapter Ten: And After

Afterwards Mrs Marlow does the usual Marlow thing, refusing to acknowledge how amazing her daughters were, but fortunately Mrs Merrick is there to praise Ginty’s beauty, Ann’s sincerity, Lawrie’s acting skills and Nicola’s singing. Mr Merrick reminds Mrs Marlow he has a puppy for her and Mrs Marlow has quite a lot to say about Nicola’s “frightful impudence” in asking him to collect Daks. Mr Merrick kindly points out that Nicola asked for a favour, rather than ordered him, and it was all to help Esther. None of the adults are very impressed with Esther’s “neglectful mother” (there is no mention of Esther’s even more neglectful father). Finally, Mrs Merrick asks if Madame Orly, who’s been strangely silent, is all right and Mrs Marlow explains that it’s just that her mother is in shock that her “grand-daughters could be anything but a grubby nuisance”.

Meanwhile, Nicola and Miranda are discussing how the play went as they walk back through the silent, snowy grounds. They think Lawrie was excellent (“Of course, Lawrie is frightened of lots of things. I suppose that’s how she knew.”) and Miranda says she enjoyed being in the play, once she got over her initial terror, but that the whole Christmas story seemed so unbelievable:

“And then it seemed so queer, that p’raps that was the reason people believed it … I mean, it’s either complete nonsense, or else it’s so unlikely, it would have to be true.”

I don’t see why things being extremely unlikely make them more believable, but then, that’s why I’m a sceptic and an atheist. Earlier Miranda had explained her family wasn’t Orthodox, but even if she’s from a Reform Jewish background, presumably she does believe in a God and follows some ‘God-ordained’ rules. Hopefully there’ll be more about this in future books, because Miranda’s such an interesting character.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and a furious Miss Keith is waiting for them. She thanks Miranda for her help but “shall, of course, be writing to your father to explain” (why not Miranda’s mother?) and orders them all to see her in her office on Monday. Blood for breakfast! But Nicola’s natural optimism comes to the rescue:

“…after all, Monday was a long way off, and Thursday and end-of-term, by some curious converse, really quite near. And after that came Christmas. So it couldn’t be too awful.”

THE END.

And a big happy sigh from me. This has been my favourite Marlow book so far. I liked the first school book, but this took it to a new level, with such clever plotting and complex characterisation and thoughtful observations on life and lots of humour. Now I just have to wait for Girls Gone By to publish the next book.

You might also be interested in reading:

‘End of Term’ by Antonia Forest
‘End of Term, Part Two
‘End of Term’, Part Three
‘End of Term’, Part Four
‘End of Term’, Part Five
‘End of Term’, Part Six

Chapter Eight: As It Turned Out

The play looms and there’s further discussion about it in the art room. Miranda says it’s odd they’re all so unreligious about the play and Lawrie makes an unexpected contribution:

“I should have thought,” said Lawrie decidedly, “that it was more important to make the audience feel religious than be it yourself.”

When Miranda asks if that’s possible, if you yourself don’t feel religious, Lawrie says that of course you can – that’s acting. Lawrie has the occasional thoughtful observation, but it has to fight its way through the tangle of ridiculousness that fills her head. No wonder she drives her teachers round the bend. I bet there are lots of priests and vicars and pastors who have given up believing what they preach, but have to fake sincerity each Sunday at the pulpit because leaving their career would be too much of an upheaval in their lives.

Lawrie’s observation only deepens the “chilly sense of inadequacy” Nicola feels in her Shepherd Boy role, especially as even Bunty, the Second Former carrying Sprog in the play, says Nicola and Lawrie should swap roles. But then on the morning of the play – major drama! Esther gets a letter from her terrible mother saying they’re moving to a new flat which doesn’t allow pets, so not only does Esther have to stay at school for the first part of the holidays during the move, but Daks will be sent “to the kennels”, which Esther interprets as the poor puppy being killed (not an unreasonable notion, given the way her parents have behaved so far). This is just too much for Esther on top of everything else, and when neither Miranda nor Nicola can console her, she’s taken off to the san by Matron, who for once, sounds “quite kind” because Esther is so obviously distraught.

I have to say, as someone who was sent off to board when I was ten, LEAVING MY DOG BEHIND, I am having ALL THE FEELINGS about Esther right now.

Anyway, Miranda and Nicola come up with a clever plan. Miranda will invite Esther to her house for the first part of the holidays (Nicola can’t because of Grandmother) and Nicola will buy Daks and then Laurie can bring him to school next term as her pet. They’ll have to phone various parents to organise this, though, and Nicola’s mother loathes the phone, especially phoning strangers, so Nicola has the good idea to call Mr Merrick. The only thing is, he might be at work and “if you telephoned the House of Commons the person who answered would, obviously, be Mr. Churchill”. (I could just picture Churchill, sitting alone at a desk in the foyer, answering phone calls in a fog of cigar smoke.)

Luckily, Miss Kempe spots her two most “sensible, reliable” pupils and sends them into town to shop for last-minute play requirements, so they can call from a phone box. (So much easier to create plot complications when no one has a mobile phone.) Nicola then learns more about Miranda’s life – that she lives at a very grand address and must be “really rich”, but also that “very, very occasionally you get people who don’t like being friends with Jews”, including a girl in IV B who “talks about Jew girls” and “Marie Dobson would like to”. Nicola is shocked and horrified:

“She had a muddled feeling she ought to apologize for the stupidity and bad manners of her countrymen, only, since they were Miranda’s too, it would sound pretty silly.”

Given Miranda is one of the chief bullies of Marie, I wonder what’s cause and what’s effect. Does Miranda bully Marie unmercifully because Marie is anti-Semitic or does Marie use (or think, as she doesn’t seem to do it aloud) anti-Semitic abuse against Miranda in retaliation for the bullying, or are the bullying and the anti-Semitism unrelated? (Miranda also refers to the IV B girl as “that common little soul with the perm and the Jaguar”.) These characters are all so complex, with complicated motivations – even the admirable ones (and Miranda is mostly admirable) are far from perfect.

It also turns out Miranda’s family is Polish and her real family name is some long, unspellable Polish name. I wonder if that’s why Antonia Forest used the example of Polish Catholics being persecuted earlier?

Mr Merrick, by the way, agrees to collect Daks from Esther’s mother and deliver the pup to the Marlow house, even saying he’ll adopt Daks if Nicola’s mother won’t. Mr Merrick is pretty much the only kind, sensitive and sensible adult in this entire series.

Back at school, the girls try to tell Esther they’ve started sorting things out, but Matron refuses to let them disturb Esther or even give her a message. Then there’s a great bit when Val the Head Girl comes in, in utter disbelief, to tell Nicola “Your Member of Parliament wants to speak to you” and hooray, it’s all sorted with Mr Merrick! But when they try to find Esther to tell her, they discover she’s run away home, leaving a note for Miranda! Should they tell the teachers? Will this get Esther into terrible trouble? What if Esther manages to make it back in time for the play?

Then Nicola has her brainwave. She gathers Lawrie and Tim and tells them the news, astutely leaving it to Tim to put it all together and say it out loud. With Esther away, Nicola and Lawrie can swap. Lawrie will be Shepherd Boy, Nicola will go back to singing her solos, and Miranda will be Candle Angel instead of Esther. But they can’t tell the teachers, otherwise they’ll use “ghastly drip Helen Bagshawe”, the official Shepherd Boy understudy.

Miranda would love to be in the play, but worries everyone else will mind, with her being Jewish. She tosses a coin to decide, “tails I don’t”, then when it comes down tails, decides to do it anyway. They make it to the Minster all right, but are pulled up outside the changing rooms by the teachers, including Miss Cromwell, who’s just spoken with Esther’s mother. Then it all comes out. Tim is in big trouble for lying that Esther was on the other bus. Then Lawrie puts her foot in it when she realises they won’t let her be Shepherd Boy after all:

“But I must. It’s why I let Nick play in the match. I made a bargain. I said if I let Nick have one match, They’d got to let me do the Shepherd Boy –”

Miss Cromwell asks with whom Lawrie made this bargain and Lawrie “waved her hand vaguely at the ceiling”, presumably at Athene and Jupiter and St Luke and Zeus and St Therese, and Miss Cromwell nearly explodes. Blood for breakfast! All is lost!

Except, no, here comes Dr Herrick, who explains that Esther’s understudy is Nicola, so of course, Nicola must sing and no, of course, Helen can’t be the Shepherd Boy, she’s hopeless. So it’s sorted, except who will be Nicola’s Candle Angel partner? Miranda is the only logical choice, but Miss Kempe worries that “some people would take great exception” to a Jewish angel in the Minster and anyway, what would Miranda’s father think about his daughter “being shanghai’d into a Nativity Play”? Janice is again the soul of reason, pointing out that outsiders won’t know and a Jewish angel is hardly like “the Oberammergau Christ turning out to be the district’s leading Nazi”. (I forgot to say earlier that Grandmother’s Christ figurine in her bedroom is an Oberammergau Christ, and I wondered at the time if that might be a subtle hint at her Nazi-sympathising.)

Miss Kempe moans that she “can’t start arguing the metaphysics of the case” (you should probably be in a different book series, then, Miss Kempe), but helplessly agrees to go along with it as long as Miranda’s father won’t object. So Nicola finds Miranda, who’s furious about being snubbed earlier, but Nicola manages to convince Miranda that they were only worried about her father. Miranda says he won’t mind:

“I mean, it’s only a play to me. It’s not as if – well, as if I was going to believe anything different, or anyone wanted me to, or anything.”

But as they’re waiting in the Minster for the play to start, a small child is mesmerised by Miranda’s convincing angel-impression and Nicola starts to feel a bit overwhelmed by the responsibility of re-enacting the first Christmas.

Next, Chapter Nine: Right Way Round

Chapter Six: A Change of Cast

Miranda has been watching the play rehearsals secretly, so she’s there to witness Miss Kempe’s frustration with Jess’s terrible rendition of Shepherd Boy, Dr Herrick making Ginty the Archangel Gabriel, and Tim giving an impertinent but useful suggestion about stage direction. Then, what a surprise, Jess suddenly can’t do Shepherd Boy! Her father has to fly to South Africa to investigate I.D.B (which I think is Illegal Diamond Buying) and is taking his whole family with him! (As if expats working in the colonies didn’t always put their children in English boarding school. Personally, I would have given Jess a broken leg or glandular fever or something else a bit more plausible.) Miss Kempe tries to convince Miss Keith that Lawrie should have the part, but the best she can manage is being allowed to have Nicola.

Nicola is very happy when she’s told, about not having to sing a solo, although surely having a lead acting role would be just as stressful? But then Lawrie bursts in, convinced she has the role. They race off to the noticeboard to check, and yes, it’s Nicola.

“Look, Lal” (Nicola used the baby name she hadn’t used for years), “I’m most awfully sorry. Truly I am.” Which was true. The pleasure of being Shepherd Boy was gone for ever.

Nicola is much more gracious about it than Lawrie would ever be. Lawrie tells Nicola she hates her and to get away and fetch Tim, which Nicola obediently does. Tim’s reaction is even worse:

“Why didn’t you say you wouldn’t do it? You knew how Lawrie would feel.”
“But – Yes, I know, but –”
“You really are the end,” said Tim, eyeing her with an angry, hostile look. “Honestly, there are times when I could hit you, you’re so stupid.”

Nicola has no control over the play’s casting, as Tim knows perfectly well, but the really awful thing is Tim’s presumption that she understands Lawrie better than Lawrie’s identical twin. Lawrie, literally sick with disappointment, goes off to the san with Tim, while Nicola contemplates her ex-friendship with Tim, remembering all their quarrels and that Tim had only written to Lawrie in the holidays:

“[Nicola] took it for granted that people liked her better than Lawrie. Only Tim didn’t. Tim liked Lawrie best … And then she was ashamed – a cold, squirming apprehension that probably she’d butted in, often, when she wasn’t really wanted.”

Poor Nicola! At least she has Miranda as a friend now. As well as Esther and Sally and Elizabeth and nearly everyone else, because Nicola is simply a nicer person and better friend than Lawrie. I can see why Tim would find Nicola’s Moral Uprightness a bit much, but I can’t see why Tim puts up with Lawrie’s self-centredness and immaturity. Unless Tim likes being the Superior One in their friendship, always knowing more than Lawrie? Or thinks Lawrie is going to be a superstar in the future and Tim likes the idea of being the best friend of a celebrity … except I don’t think Tim cares that much about social status.

Chapter Seven: A Change of Team

The next day, Tim has the nerve to try to pretend nothing’s happened, and then when Nicola doesn’t respond to her cheery greeting, says, “What’s up with you? Still sulking?” Lawrie is also Not-Talking to Nicola, so everything’s a bit strained. It all blows up in art class when they’re drawing the play and they realise Miranda has been watching rehearsals. Nicola, worried about her performance as Shepherd Boy, quietly asks Miranda for her opinion, but Lawrie butts in to say Nicola is “pretty awful”. Miranda loses it and it is GLORIOUS:

“The trouble with you is, you’re a spoilt brat … If everything doesn’t go the way she wants it, she yells the place down. Bellow, bellow, bellow. Anyone’d think she was six.”

Miranda also points out that Nicola wanted to be in the netball team just as much as Lawrie wanted to be Shepherd Boy, without making the same fuss, and they’d actually be winning their games if Nicola was in the team. And Miranda blames Tim:

“…if you weren’t always telling her, Lawrie, I mean, how madly brilliant she is, she mightn’t be such an ass.”

But the best bit is when she turns to shy, conflict-averse Esther to back her up and Esther immediately, unequivocally agrees that Lawrie is an ass. This silences even Tim! It’s great.

But poor Esther is otherwise having a miserable time. She’s been forced to take on Nicola’s soloist singing duties in the play, even though she has debilitating stage-fright, and she knows she can’t even run away because she doesn’t have a proper home to run to anymore. It’s a good thing she has Nicola and Miranda as friends, because the adults in her life are being actively harmful.

The netball team loses yet another game and Lawrie injures her leg in gym just before the final game of the term. This presents a moral dilemma, because she was planning on playing brilliantly in the final game and gaining colours:

“…she’d be almost as good as the people in books who played with broken bones and sprained ankles and no one knew till they’d fainted at the end – and she’d always wanted to do that.”

But even Lawrie concedes that with a hurt leg, it’s going to be difficult to play as well as she usually does, let alone better (“People in books must have different types of bones or something”). During an illegally-long hot bath, she contemplates (in a side-long, Lawrie-ish way) the things Miranda said about her and wonders if she, Lawrie, might have been cast as Shepherd Boy if she wasn’t so babyish and spoilt. Then she comes up with a plan. She’ll let Nicola play in her place (instead of Sally, the official sub). This, she decides, is such a nice thing to do for Nick that somehow, as a reward, Lawrie will end up being Shepherd Boy. Also, if they get found out about the netball swap, Nicola will be in so much trouble, she won’t be allowed to be Shepherd Boy, and Lawrie can revel in schadenfreude.

The plan goes surprisingly smoothly the next morning, as they manage to fool Ann, Ginty and Matron. Lawrie stays in bed being Sick-Nicola, while Nicola messes up her hair and goes down to tell the netball team. They all think it’s an excellent idea, and agree not to tell anyone, “specially not Marie Dobson”. Tim needs some convincing and Nicola thinks:

“It was queer and difficult being friends with someone who disliked you so much. At least she supposed they were friends and she supposed it was dislike, though neither seemed quite the right word.”

Let me assist, Nicola. Yes, Tim dislikes you. You’re free to dislike her back. No, you’re not friends. There, sorted.

There are some amusing bits where neat, precise Nicola is forced to be messy and disorganised in order to be a convincing Lawrie. They take the train to the school where they’re playing their netball matches, telling Marie to walk with the Seniors, then ordering her out of their train carriage. (The teachers don’t seem to notice this blatant bullying, which presumably happens at every away-game, so I don’t think Nicola should have any concern about them noticing the twin-swap.)

Now, I don’t even like netball (typical Wing Defence), but this game is pretty exciting. Everyone plays well, especially Nicola – so well that Lois and Janice, watching the game, realise it’s not Lawrie playing. Janice says, “Lois, do have the sense to let it alone. You shouldn’t have got Nicola out in the first place.” Lois hotly denies this and prattles on about prefects having to do their duty, while Janice is coolly amused and dismissive, pointing out that Lawrie will get into just as much trouble as Nicola if Lois decides to report them. When Miss Craven comes over, Janice wickedly says, “Lawrie played particularly well. Didn’t Lawrie play well, Lois?” and Lois reluctantly agrees that Lawrie deserves her colours. I’m liking Janice more and more.

On the way back, Marie manages to squirm into the carriage with the rest of the triumphant team and then gloats that she knows a secret. Except then she finds out that everyone else knew about the twin-swap and didn’t tell her because they knew she’d sneak to Craven or Lois. So Marie bursts into tears, exclaiming it’s not fair that Nicola told everyone about Guides last year. Even though Nicola hasn’t told anyone. Marie is so pathetically awful – it’s completely understandable that the other girls don’t like her. If only a teacher or an older girl would take Marie under her wing and teach her some social skills, then work out what she’s good at and let her have some success and responsibilities in that. Or they could have left her in the B class with her friend Pomona. Instead, they throw her into the netball team, when she can’t play, and ignore it when the others exclude her from everything. At least Nicola realises “we’ll have to be a bit careful … she has feelings same like the rest of you”, although Lawrie “who never really believed anyone but herself had any, remained unconvinced”.

Next, Chapter Eight: As It Turned Out