Postscript

In Competition 2820 you were invited to supply a postscript to any well-known novel.
 
This challenge was suggested by a reader who drew my attention to Barbara Hardy’s neo-Victorian gem Dorothea’s Daughter and Other Nineteenth Century Postscripts, which includes afterwords to Little Dorrit and Mansfield Park. I hoped it might appeal to anyone who has ever wondered whether Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy lived happily ever after.
 
Peter Ridley, Josephine Boyle, Rob Stuart and Adrian Fry were strong runners-up. The winners pocket £25 each and this week’s top dog is D.A. Prince, who takes £30.

Ralph winced as the man, porphory-faced and fleshy, seized his hand. ‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Long time …  So, this reunion: was it your inspiration?’ The big man grinned. ‘Yup. I hunted you all down — well, got my chaps on to it — and here we all are, together again. And the barbecue was my idea.’
‘I thought so.’
‘Yes, and these new models are so easy to light. You get them going in no time. Have you had some of the pork? This little piggy’s organic: I insisted.’
‘No, I’m vegetarian. Meat somehow upsets me these days.’
‘You don’t know what you’re missing. I make my children eat up every scrap — there’s the devil to pay if they don’t. They love it, you know, living here — our own little island, cut off from the world.’
Ralph gazed round. ‘I never knew No. 10 had so much garden. So, Jack, d’you like being Prime Minister?’
D.A. Prince
 
‘Is this a dream or a nightmare? I am old and in an asylum where everyone, other than me, is mad. I want to get back to the real world. Will you show me the way?’
‘I would, but when I asked you before where you wanted to get to, you told me you didn’t much care.’
‘I was being childish then but I do care now.