Afterwards.  There is always an afterwards, for the living.

What will they do now, these survivors?  What will they do with the rest of their lives?

Oxford

Is it all over now? Judy asks herself, as the car takes them home to Bristol, and their lives, and their afterwards.  The green fields of England flash past the windows.  Will has chosen to drive the car manually and sits hunched over the wheel, rigidly self-controlled.

Judy had felt uncomfortable and embarrassed as they stood in the Garden.  She could feel the curious eyes of the other people there looking at her.  She could almost hear their thoughts – who is this odd family?  Are they part of some weird cult religion?  Should somebody call the police?

And who was that woman sitting on the bench in the Botanic Garden?  Has Will been seeing her regularly, all these years?  They seemed to know each other.  Yet another doubt for Judy to deal with.

In the back seat, John and Mary are talking quietly about small things.  Mary's post as Professor of post-Incident physics at CERN, John's exams (he is in the middle of his A levels), new games and videos, the music Judy tries (and fails) to keep in touch with.

Judy turns to look at Will, who is concentrating hard on his driving.  Is he going to be able to recover from this blow?  Will either of them be able to make a new start now, or will the ghost of Lyra Belacqua continue to haunt them for ever?

Oxford

When the funeral is over, and the last tears have been shed and the King and Lady Boreal have departed, and all the Professors, Scholars and Exhibitioners of the University of Oxford have returned to their colleges, and the Bishop to his palace, Arthur Shire introduces Adèle Starminster and Harry Owen to Peter Joyce and his friend Jane.

'Peter has a story of his own to tell you some day, Adèle.  Strictly off the record, mind!'

They walk, Adèle on Arthur's arm and Peter and Jane holding hands, and Harry by himself (but not alone.  Nobody in this world of men and daemons is ever alone) into the centre of Oxford, to the High, and Shoe Lane, where they, at Peter's suggestion, go to the Talbot Inn for lunch.  Not in the cramped and smoky snug this time, but to the saloon bar, where prosperous-looking businessmen and middle-class shoppers drink wine and full-bodied ale, and there is a joint of beef, and lamb chops and roast potatoes and peas.

'My shout,' says Adèle, 'or, rather, the Chronicle's.  This is all on expenses!'

They find a table by the window overlooking Shoe Lane.  Food and drink are brought to them by a waiter whose manner is altogether more polite than the apprentices are used to in the snug.

When they have eaten, they talk.  Jane is feeling more than a little overwhelmed by the emotions of the day and the lavish entertainment that Adèle has provided (for her family are country folk, who live very simply) and sips her unfamiliar glass of wine quietly, while listening to the talk – wild talk, it seems, of times and places far beyond her experience.  She whispers in Peter's ear, 'You never told me half of this!' and he replies, 'I didn't know half of it myself!'

The fabled Armoured Bears of the north, and a world where the houses talk to you, and cruelty beyond her imagining – all these things Jane learns about, in the prosaic wood-panelled surroundings of the Talbot Inn, Shoe Lane, Oxford, while outside the town comes back to bustling life, content to have done its duty by Professor Belacqua and ready now to pick up the reins, get back into harness and carry on with its business.

They talk and talk and then all of a sudden it is a quarter to three, and time for Peter and Jane to return to their businesses too.  It would not be proper for the young people to display too much affection in public while standing outside James and James, Makers of Fine Clocks and Instruments, or Maison Jeannette, Modes for the Lady of Distinction, so they say their goodbyes to Harry, Arthur and Adèle and, in a small alcove just inside the entrance on the Talbot Inn, hold and kiss each other fondly.  Then they separate, promising to meet up again later when they are freed from their duties, and they return to their places of work.

I cannot say whether we shall ever see Peter or Jane again, nor is it at all likely that we shall learn how their lives will turn out – for good or ill, happy or sad, together or apart – but I trust that they, following their hearts and listening carefully to their daemons, will follow the path that seems right to them.  I do not know either what will happen to Lyra's alethiometer; whether it will revert to Jordan College, or was bequeathed to Peter Joyce in her will or, if Lyra has died intestate, be claimed by the rapacious Boreal Foundation.

I do know that Harry, Arthur and Adèle leave the Talbot Inn themselves not long afterwards; the men to catch a train to Reading, and from there to hitch a lift, or walk if there is nobody going their way, to Aldermaston, where the Maggie and the Jimmy are waiting for their return, and Adèle to return to London.

The walk down to the station and board a Paddington train, sharing a carriage until they part at Reading.  Adèle waves from the carriage window, calling out to Arthur, 'Bye!  Don't leave it so long next time!'

He turns and smiles and waves back to her, as the engine blows smoke and steam over the station footbridge and its wheels slide and grip the polished rails.  That smile, those eyes Adèle thinks, feeling, as she always feels when she says goodbye to Arthur, briefly desolated.  The train leaves Reading and passes through Twyford, Slough and Ealing, and it is late afternoon when she stands at last upon the concourse of Paddington Station and considers whether to return to the newsroom of the Chronicle, or go home to her small flat in Swiss Cottage.

In the end, she does neither, but walks three miles to the Embankment and stands there, leaning on the railings, watching the ferry-boats, barges and lighters moving up and down the river, as the hours pass by, and the sun dies in flaming glory in the west and, one by one, the lights come on all up and down the street.

Cittagazze

Giancarlo Bellini and Guilietta Reigali lift their eyes from the ground.  It is half past twelve, and in Oxford the great and the good are departing the Botanic Garden and the sexton is preparing to cover Lyra's coffin with earth.

It is not in the nature of these blessed children of a reborn world to draw out their mourning for very long; and so they have brought a picnic – in a woven basket covered by a muslin cloth – of bread and soft goat's cheese, and red wine, and sparkling water, peaches and a few dried apricots.   They eat and drink, and raise their glasses to Lyra's memory and, when they have finished, they pack everything up, leaving the crumbs for the birds, and walk hand in hand back down the hill to Cittagazze, Guilietta to return to her classroom and Giancarlo to his place on the City Council, both of them, all unknowing, advancing the cause of the Republic of Heaven.

London

Lady Elizabeth Boreal makes a last deep curtsey to the King of Brytain and returns to her car, which has been waiting for her.  She sinks into the soft cushions and sits back in comfort as it wafts her out of Oxford and onto the A40 main road back to London.  She has already decided to dismiss the driver for the inconvenience he caused her by failing to anticipate the traffic congestion they encountered on the way to Oxford, but she will leave the actual job of getting rid of the wretched man to her private secretary, whom she employs to perform this sort of unpleasant but necessary duty.

Later, in the Mayfair offices of the Boreal Foundation, she attends to those parts of the running of the business which cannot be entrusted to her underlings who, even if they call themselves executives and managers and are usually able to handle the simpler aspects of the day-to-day running of a large and complex corporation, are entirely lacking in the vision and leadership which are needed if the company is to grow and flourish.

They are all little men, obsessed with numbers, and headcounts, and costs and forecasts.  Not one of them can see, she thinks, beyond the end of his warty, pimply nose.

Elizabeth Boreal is not a woman who lacks passion.  Like Elspeth Morley, her most faithful servant, now deceased, she cares deeply for the Foundation which bears her father's name.  This is her main interest now, for the other, her desire to destroy her sister Lyra's life, has been gloriously achieved.  It is as if her father and her uncle are speaking directly to her, urging her onward.

Work!  And work! She will dedicate herself to the cause of expanding the Boreal Foundation until it is a power to rival kingdoms and empires.  She will not rest, she swears, until there is a Boreal office in every city, town and village in the whole planet.  There will be nobody anywhere who will not be a customer or employee of, or a shareholder in, her enterprise.  She will be the Queen of the world.

For the next several weeks she astonishes her friends and colleagues with her energy as she overhauls her organisation from top to bottom, ruthlessly cutting away at the dead wood and rubbish which have been blocking its progress, and poaching promising new staff from rival companies.  The Chronicle reports the revolution that is taking place within the Boreal Foundation in terms which are normally reserved for use by its more excitable sports writers.  The queues grow outside the employment agencies, but why should she care about that?  Her life is a twenty-hour-a-day whirlwind of ceaseless activity – creating, making, and building a solid business structure that will last for ever.

If anyone were to be so foolish as to ask her why she is behaving in this way, Elizabeth would be briefly nonplussed.  They are not conscious motives that are driving her, although she would, after a short pause, be able to advance many completely rational reasons for her actions.  There is a voice in her mind; speaking to her, telling her what she must do.

She dreams business.  There is no time left to her for the dreams of others.  The dream amplifier lies cold and unused in her flat on the Embankment.  She hardly ever sleeps there now anyway; there is a couch set up for her in her office suite in Mayfair.  The dust does not get a chance to settle anywhere that she is; and where she is not there are minimum-wage workers ready to clean and polish.

Eventually, it is her private secretary who calls in the doctor.  She has seen the toll that this frenetic pace has been taking on her employer and has been worrying about it.  Elizabeth has dismissed her concerns with contempt many times, but she is a conscientious and loyal servant and when, early one morning, she wakes her mistress who sits up, wild-eyed, looking for a daemon who does not appear to be there, she knows that she has, at last, gathered the evidence she needs to call for help.  They search frantically, both of them, through Elizabeth's rumpled bed, and it is only after five desperate minutes that they find Parander lying on the floor underneath it.  Almost all his colour has faded away, and he is thin and seriously underweight.

The secretary stands by Elizabeth's bed, hand on hips.  Her duty is plain – she must speak up.

'My lady!  Do I have to knock you over the head?  Or tie you up?  You must stay here – I will lock the door if you do not promise to keep still until the doctor comes.'  She is greatly daring, she knows, to speak to Lady Boreal thus, but this is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.  Elizabeth smiles weakly, and the secretary knows that she has done the right thing.

'He'd better be quick. I have a full Board meeting at seven-thirty and I've got to be in Norwich by eleven.  Tell the old quack to get his arse in gear!'

There is no full board meeting – at least, it is not chaired by Elizabeth.  Nor is there a trip to Norwich, nor a reception for the King of Suomiland.  The doctor makes it perfectly plain to her.  He holds up a hypodermic syringe.

'My lady, do you know what this is?'

'No.'

'It is a fifty percent solution of prussic acid in distilled water.  You have a choice, Lady Boreal.  You can ignore my advice, in which case I will inject you with this solution here and now, and you will die; here and now.  You will die whatever happens, whether I kill you now, or you kill yourself later by overwork.  I had much rather spare you, and everyone else, that inconvenience.

'You must, I say must, immediately delegate all your responsibilities and rest.'

'Rest?  Rest? For how long must I rest?'

'Until I permit you to resume your duties, which will not be for several months at the least.'

'But my work…  Can't you give me a tonic?  That's all I need.  I can't stop; there is far too much to do.'

'You will take no more stimulants – you have taken too many already, I think.  Your work will be performed perfectly well by the excellent people whom you have appointed to do it, such as that private secretary of yours.  She deserves a medal for what she did this morning.'

Elizabeth laughs.  'She deserves the sack!'  She pauses to reflect for a moment.  'But no, I suppose you're right.  What should I do, then?'

'Go on holiday.  Go a long way from here, but don't wear yourself out with travel.  Don't go anywhere too hot.'

'Very well, doctor.  I suppose I've no choice.'  The doctor shakes his head.  'No.  You have not.'

'I know just the place!  We'll leave this afternoon!'

'You'll leave tomorrow.  This afternoon you'll rest, my lady.'  And the doctor slips the needle into Elizabeth's arm, injecting, not the deadly poison he threatened her with, (which he has never carried), but a mild sedative.

Just the place… Elizabeth thinks, as sleep overtakes her.  She dreams of wide-open blue skies.  And seagulls.