PETER PAN IN SCARLET
by Geraldine McCaughrean
OUP, £12.99; 320pp

THE WORD “CUTE” IS BANNED in our house as anything other than an insult. I long since forbade my daughter to use it, on the grounds that its sugar-coating might damage her teeth. I don’t like “cute”. I don’t like the way it belittles charm or beauty or appeal, and ties a pink ribbon round it.

Somewhere between 1906 and the millennium, Peter Pan became cute. If he knew, I think J. M. Barrie would squirm at it. Not for nothing did he name his boy after the woodland god who trailed pandemonium and panic in his wake. Barrie’s Peter is an anarchist. He does not greatly care about the consequences of his actions, because he lives in the present moment and readily forgets. He is the boy who steals your daughter from her bed. He is the boy who can do without his mother. Oh, and he kills people.

On the other hand, he is ready to lay down his life for his friends, and he has an Edwardian sense of honour. Barrie did not set out to write a story about “the dark side”; it’s just that he was rather good at depicting boys . . . And, of course, a complex hero like Peter has miles more potential than some anodyne imp who can perform double-toe-loops in mid-air and sheds a perpetual dandruff of sparkle and icing sugar.

When I entered the competition held by Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children to find an author for the “First Official Sequel”, my starting point was the original book. I found it much more adult than I had remembered. With its dry sense of humour and its odd asides to parents (presumably reading aloud to their children), it was far stranger — and far richer — a source than, say, an Enid Blyton.

That is not to deny Enid Blyton’s powerful sense of story. But there would be precious little fun to be got from writing a new Blyton — no chance for stylistic quirkiness; no chance to take an idea for a walk; no chance for a character-driven plot. It would be a strictly intellectual exercise. I have done jobs of work like that, but nothing I was proud of. They say an author finds out something new about herself with each book she writes . . . but that is only true when it first transports her to some interior Hall of Mirrors.

J. M. Barrie did not write a runaway bestseller for children because he was a childish man incapable of putting away childish things. He was a canny, observant, hugely successful writer. He understood what makes children (and adults and publishers) tick. But he was cursed, I think, by the cruel belief that life is assembled back-to-front, with the best coming first and nothing much to look forward to after that. And that was why he returned time and time again to the story of Peter Pan. I hope he found whatever he was looking for.

In one respect, I agree absolutely with Barrie. Neverland (that is to say, the imagination) is an Eden all children need — somewhere wild, unsullied by banality and common sense and good hygiene — somewhere a child can cross swords with an adult and stand a good chance of winning — somewhere amazement waits round every corner.

Luckily, I was not required to agree with Mr Barrie about everything, or the sequel would have turned out like some obsequious tribute band making a remix. I have a different “take” on mothers, being one myself. I have a different perspective on growing up, too — probably because I have had a happy life whereas Barrie had a sad one.

At the start of Peter Pan in Scarlet, Neverland has changed: “The sunlight was thinner and paler . . . The shadows were longer — some rocky pinnacles and pine trees had three or four all sprawling in different directions. Wendy knew they had been right to come: all was not well in Neverland.”

But that does not mean I prefer Neverland that way. If an author makes life difficult for her heroes and heroines, it is only because the harder they fall, the bigger they come.

In Peter Pan in Scarlet, people’s shadows grow with each bout of sadness. That is why the circus-owner Ravello trails behind him “a shadow like a leak from the Quink Ink factory”.

But, contrary to rumour, however much the dark knots in the human soul fascinate me, I am an entertainer first and foremost: a book as important as this one is no place for gloomy speculation. When your children read the sequel, I sincerely hope their shadows will have shrunk to nothing by the time they reach the end. Mine had.

Geraldine McCaughrean appears at THE TIMES Cheltenham Literature Festival on October 7. Call 01242 227979 www.cheltenhamfestivals.com

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