Chapter Five 1991 #2
At the time, Vikki’s project was Genevieve Lambert, the Marchioness of Northampton.
The Northamptons were the only true aristocratic family at Amira’s junior school.
Genevieve rarely did the drop-off herself, but on the rare occasion she breezed into the courtyard in a perfect Stella McCartney poncho, Vikki made a point of trying to talk to her.
To Vikki’s great delight, Amira had struck up a friendship with little Lady Sophie Northampton that year.
Enrolling her in the same ballet class had paid off splendidly.
Vikki used these rare opportunities to offer to buy two candy-pink leotards necessary for an upcoming recital—the girls so loved to be dressed the same.
Or there’d be an exhibition at the British Museum, to which Vikki would be more than happy to chaperone the children.
Genevieve never removed her oversized sunglasses for these conversations, not once.
Vikki couldn’t quite tell if she was even looking at her behind those inscrutable shades.
But she would take Vikki up on her grovelling offers about forty per cent of the time.
It didn’t seem as if the frequency was increasing, but Vikki was prepared to put in the work.
One day in 2006, the conversation turned to boarding school, as it always did for the mothers of twelve-year-olds.
“Kris is happy at Whitmer Hall,” Vikki said. “Madhav wanted him to go to that awful Scottish school that Prince Frederick went to, but I said absolutely not.”
Genevieve smiled and said nothing.
“I suppose the royals will send Prince Louis there, poor lamb,” Vikki added.
She knew full well that Frederick and Isla would do no such thing.
She read the tabloids as often as anyone else did.
But feigning ignorance in front of a person who believed herself to be a natural authority on all things was one of Vikki’s old tricks.
The only way a friendship would blossom with Genevieve was if the marchioness saw Vikki as desperately in need of her guidance.
They could never be equals, but Vikki might be a fun fixer-upper—if only Genevieve chose to take her on.
Genevieve sighed a laugh. Her mother had been a bridesmaid at the Queen’s wedding.
Her husband was the Lord Great Chamberlain, a hereditary role that required him to walk backwards in front of Queen Eleanor at the State Opening of parliament each year.
Vikki had seen the Northamptons in paparazzi shots of Frederick and Isla’s summer trip to Capri a few months back.
“She would never let them go,” Genevieve said smugly.
“You mean Isla?”
“Of course. I’m not sure how she’ll cope with the children at boarding school at all. She’s got no life beyond them.”
Vikki swallowed the dozens of questions brimming in her throat and made a sound she hoped would register as bored sympathy.
“She does seem a bit… vulnerable,” she said.
“Miserable, more like it. She’ll want them close to London. He’ll acquiesce so she doesn’t completely lose it,” Genevieve said.
She looked down at her watch, a Tank Louis Cartier on a crocodile band that made Vikki’s beloved Rolex suddenly seem mortifyingly tacky.
“I’ve got to run, lovely to chat,” Genevieve breathed and walked away.
That night, Vikki went online and found a map of all the best boarding schools near London. There weren’t many. The whole point was to get children into the countryside where they had space to play and run free.
Eton, just forty minutes from the palace, still seemed like a good bet.
But something told Vikki that if Isla were as precious and demanding as Genevieve implied, she would want the twins together.
That way she could drop them off and fetch them in one trip.
Needy women, like Vikki’s own mother, romanticised everything.
She wondered if Isla was the type to believe that being separated from their mother was traumatic.
She would insist the twins not be torn apart as well.
If her hunch was correct, it left only one option: Astley College.
It was co-ed, breathtakingly expensive and just forty-five minutes from the palace.
With its emphasis on tiny class sizes, “academic experimentation” and scholarship pathways for the underprivileged, it was not a place Vikki had even considered before.
It was a place where filmmakers and artists sent their children.
It even let the girls wear trousers as part of their uniform if they wished.
But something told her this was the place Isla would enrol the twins. Everyone knew she had spurned hired help and did all the child rearing herself. She refused to go on international tours longer than a fortnight.
This was the place. Vikki knew it.
By the next week, Amira and Kris were enrolled in Astley to begin in the Michaelmas term of 2007.
Kris, who had already spent a year at Whitmer, was incensed.
His mother would not listen to his entreaties, his bargains or his tantrums. He was going to Astley with his sister.
Madhav was concerned, but after thirteen years of marriage, he respected his wife’s slightly witchy sense of the future.
She would have made a great day trader, he often thought.
Six months before the term was due to start, the school asked the Shankars if they’d be willing to submit to a background check. They offered no more detail than this, but Vikki knew her gamble had paid off. She bought herself a Tank Louis on a gold and diamond bezel band to celebrate.
In September 2007, Louis and I stood at Astley’s school gates in our stiff new uniforms, smiling for the cameras.
My skirt was long and itchy, but Mum had assured me I could change into the trousers she’d bought once the photographers were gone.
Louis stood between Mum and Papa, aware they’d spent most of the morning locked in one of the bitter arguments that never seemed to cease these days.
The headmistress suggested we divide into two groups—one parent and one twin—so we could go see our new boarding houses, which were on opposite ends of a grand quadrangle.
Papa took my suitcase, engaging in a little vaudeville display for the cameras by pretending it was so heavy he simply couldn’t budge it. I slapped his arm playfully.
I didn’t meet Amira that day in Old Court. She was in the suite opposite mine, sharing with three other “Shells,” as we first years were known. We would meet three days later during a treasure hunt that was designed to acquaint Shells with the 200-acre campus.
Across the quad in Bishop’s Quarters, Princess Isla and Prince Louis walked into the two-bed suite where the heir was to spend the next five years.
Inside was the boy handpicked to be his suitemate.
The palace had been intimately involved in the choice, finally settling on a slightly older boy of Indian descent.
It was thought by several aides that a bit of diversity would play well with the British public, who were paying ￡82,000 a year for the two of us to attend this school.
It was also considered a bonus that he was from Mayfair, and therefore was perhaps more inclined to honour the code of silence that governed the upper classes.
“Louis, please meet your suitemate for the year,” said the headmistress. “This is Kris Shankar.”
The boys shook hands. They made eye contact as their fathers had taught them. They were both tall for their age, made confident by money and privilege and their adoring mothers.
“And ma’am, this is Kris’s mother, Victoria Shankar.”
From the ancient stone bay window, Vikki stepped forward and curtsied.
She was in a black Chanel skirt suit for the occasion, her hair twisted into a low chignon.
It had taken her fifteen years to reach this place.
She had no idea that beyond the casual meeting she had orchestrated, there were still miles and miles left for us all to travel together.
She had no clue how much she would be willing to sacrifice to reach the summit of her ambitions.
“Your Royal Highness,” she said smoothly, just as she’d practised. “I’m so glad our boys will be here to look after each other.”