Chapter Twenty 5 August 2023 #3
When they were both dressed, I noticed the etiquette guide lying on the bed.
I’d hesitated before sending it, imagining how it would land for two Australians, who had grown up in a place where the greatest show of respect for an authority figure was to treat them as casually as a friend.
Now they were being told never to show the monarch their back.
Shaking hands is acceptable, but only if she reaches first. “Ma’am” should always sound like “jam,” never “palm.” When dining with the Queen, one must stop eating as soon as she is done.
I looked at them, embarrassed. “Any questions about meeting her? You know how to bow?”
“How’s this?” Finn swooped his arms like a dancer and performed a full court curtsy that ended with him on the floor.
“Okay, that’s perfect for a Texas debutante, but keeping your hands by your side and nodding once from the neck will do it.”
Jack’s hand hovered at the small of my back, his fingertips grazing the bare skin there. “Seriously, we’re good—I made him practise.”
As we entered the main drawing room, murmuring voices hushed to nothing and the huddled groups turned in unison to look at us.
Richard and Demelza were by the bar waiting for their martinis.
They inspected us briefly, then turned away.
Amira was on the couch with Birdie. Granny and Jenny were chatting in the corner, the set of their brows suggesting they were discussing business, not pleasure.
While I still had the courage, I pulled Jack and Finn with me across the room.
“Granny, these are my friends,” I said. “This is Jack and Finn, from Tasmania.”
She looked at them kindly while they bowed. “Yes, of course, how nice of you to come all this way. And thank you for the wine. My grandson talked endlessly of your sparkling after he visited your vineyard.”
For her entire life, Granny had been the woman on the banknote and the portrait in the government building, but there was no one more adept at making herself a flesh-and-blood human when she encountered her subjects.
My nerves evaporated like snowmelt on the first day of spring as she asked Jack about the vineyard and its history.
A tray of martinis arrived. The candles burned.
The Clarences sat down and offered Jack and Finn limp handshakes and superior smiles.
The others were talking in intricate detail about the stag they’d been hunting for two days, so I retreated to another sofa with Jenny. “He’s doing well,” she whispered to me. “Is he… the reason for your hesitation?”
“My hesitation?” I asked.
“Well, the end of the year is five months away, and you haven’t told us if you’ve decided you’ll be staying on.”
“Oh.” I took a gulp of my drink.
The question of what I planned to do was rarely broached by anyone in the family, although it was the only thing I thought about.
There were occasions when I was determined to stay and do this—small, stirring moments I had so far kept a secret.
The way the crowd had roared for Granny when we came out on the balcony during Trooping the Colour.
The little girls waiting behind the rope line to give me their hand-picked posies and their drawings.
The day the obstetric fistula hospital in Nairobi had accepted the offer of my patronage and said they hoped this was the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship.
But whenever I thought about going to Granny, or Stewart, or Jenny, to inform them that I was ready to commit to this life, I couldn’t do it.
I’d put it off, and put it off, until the end of the year was in sight.
“Have you ever heard the saying that the most important decision a woman makes in her career is her choice of partner?” Jenny asked. “I think that’s true of women like you as well. If you intend to do this, you’ll need the right man by your side.”
I looked at Jack, sleek in his tux, talking easily with Granny. She laughed a little at something he said. I turned back to Jenny, who was watching me. She was more serious than I’d ever seen her.
“I debated telling you this, but I think we have the kind of relationship where we can be honest with each other.”
I nodded, suddenly nervous. “Of course.”
“When you invited your friends up here, Scotland Yard ran a background check—standard stuff when someone new meets the family.”
My throat felt very tight. “Did they send someone to the house in Hobart? Jack said a man’s been hanging around asking questions. I thought maybe he was a reporter, but nothing ever came of it.”
She looked at me, confused. “No, they wouldn’t need to do that. They just source documents from their Australian partners—police reports and such.”
We fell silent as a servant arrived carrying a silver tray of fresh martinis.
I took one. When he left, Jenny turned to me and spoke quietly.
“What I want to tell you is that the palace seemed very concerned by Jack’s background.
His mother is rather… radical? A republican?
And Jack himself was arrested a few years ago at a protest.”
I imagined Jack and Paula becoming grist for the tabloids, all the things they had done to keep Tasmania pristine made to look rotten and sinister, and all of it happening because I had come smashing into their lives. When Jenny saw the look on my face, she gave me her kindest smile.
“Look, none of this is a problem for me. I rather like it myself.” She grew serious again and hesitated.
“I should tell you, though, that if there were a scenario where he were to move here on a more permanent basis, it would be… difficult. I can help, of course, and if it’s what you want, it will be worth it.
But I imagine that both the Queen and the public will take some convincing.
You would have to prepare yourself—and him.
The press can be very cruel, as you know. ”
I was quiet for a long time, and she let me dwell in the silence. Finally, I spoke. “People keep telling me love isn’t enough to hold a relationship together.”
She thought for a moment and then looked at the aristocrats lounging around us. In the shadows, servants waited to attend to our every whim. “I wouldn’t know the answer to that. All I can tell you is that the right person will know who you really are, and they’ll love you anyway.”
A footman announced that dinner was served, and we moved to the dining room.
I was surprised to find that Jack was seated to Granny’s right—the place usually reserved for the guest of honour.
Finn and I were way down the other side with the Clarences.
For Richard, life was a constant, slippery struggle to be as close as possible to power.
Stuck at the kids’ end of the table, he would probably spend most of the night craning his neck, trying to listen to the conversation between the monarch and the prime minister.
“And what kind of doctor do you plan to be, Finn?” Demelza asked primly.
“Oh, well, I’ve actually just applied for the surgical program,” he said, his eyes cautiously on me as I turned to look at him between two candelabras. “So if that works out, I’ll be a surgical resident next year.”
I smiled thinly at him. “That’s great.”
The last I’d heard, he’d been planning to be a paediatrician. I would go into obstetrics and deliver the babies, and he would take over from there. It had been our joke for years. But, a quiet voice in my head reminded me, I had been the one to chuck it all in first.
“So what kind of… I mean, what part of the body would you operate on?” Birdie asked.
“I don’t want to get ahead of myself—I haven’t been accepted yet. But I like orthopaedics—bones and stuff.”
“My friend’s father is an orthopaedic surgeon,” Demelza said. “He does 250 knee replacements a year, and it’s all about to be done by robots anyway.”
“Yeah, robotic systems have revolutionised joint replacements, but there’s still a surgeon guiding the machine,” Finn said.
Richard, who had barely acknowledged us the entire meal, suddenly turned.
“Sounds like lucrative work, just pushing a few buttons,” he said to Finn, smiling. He swivelled towards the other end of the table. “And what about you, young Jack?” Everyone turned to look at Richard, whose top row of teeth gleamed. “Tell us about this vineyard of yours. Is it successful?”
“By our own standards, it is,” Jack said.
I watched the play of candlelight and shadows across his face.
“We’re a small-batch vineyard. We’re not so concerned with volume, at least not yet.
I want us to expand, but right now we hand-tend to the vines.
For us, it’s about the pinot grape. We’re just trying to capture a bit of its magic in our bottles. ”
This was not the spiel he gave at wine shows. This was how he really felt. I smiled at him across the table, and he smiled back.
“Well, that all sounds very credible, doesn’t it, Mummy?
” Richard said. “Dare I say it, almost plausible.” Whether she heard him or not, Granny gave no sign.
Richard grinned at Jack. “We’re all country folk at heart, you know.
We are honoured to serve, of course, but if it were up to us, we’d all be up here with our animals and our land. ”
“Not me,” said Amira.
“Yes, well…” Richard smirked. “You’ve always been a wild creature from the urban jungle, haven’t you?”
Amira gazed at him for a moment, then she tipped her head back and drained her wine. She rose from her chair and turned to Granny. “I have a headache coming on, so, ma’am, if it’s alright, I might turn in.”
“Of course, dear,” Granny said.
After the bagpiper marched around the table, emitting his ear-piercing whine, we returned to the drawing room for a mandatory round of parlour games. More martinis were mixed, the icy glasses placed into our hands. I texted Amira to ask if she was alright and she said she was going to bed.
“Am I dreaming or are we really playing charades with the Queen?” Finn whispered. The three of us were squeezed onto a velvet sofa as we watched Birdie flap her hands to act out the title of a literary masterpiece she’d never read. The warm, solid length of Jack was pressed against my side.
“Yes,” I said. “Though she only really observes these days.”
“Okay, good—I think I’d pass out if she got up there,” Jack whispered, and we laughed quietly.
After three rounds of charades, which Jenny and Demelza dominated, Granny retired to bed. We all stood as she glided from the room.
“For god’s sake, sit down, it’s much too late for that.” She sighed. “See you all in the morning. It’ll be a good day for fishing.”
With Granny gone, the parlour games ceased by wordless agreement, and everyone sank into their chairs and sipped their drinks.
Birdie was explaining to a blank-faced Jenny that after a few months in the movie business, she was now considering a career in the art world.
It was quite by accident that my hand slipped into Jack’s.
Between us, our fingers wove together, though we didn’t look at each other.
I pretended to concentrate on Birdie’s professional aspirations, while my stomach did a little flip.
“Well, I might head off to bed,” Finn said suddenly. “The jetlag, you know, it hits. Goodnight, all.”
“Night, mate,” Jack said, and I felt the vibration of his voice course through me, even though there were just two of us remaining on the couch.
From the doorway, Finn winked at me and then he was gone.
The conversation continued, though I barely heard a word of it.
My heart began to thud as Jack squeezed my hand.
I ran my thumb along the thin ridge of the splinter scar I had stitched up last year.
It was healing well. After a few minutes, I stood up, unthreading my fingers from his as I rose.
“I am… also heading to bed. Goodnight, everyone.”
“Yeah, good idea,” I heard Jack say as I reached the door. “I might turn in as well. Night, all.”
Ignoring the knowing smiles of my family, I left the room and began walking up the stairs towards the guest wing, past the portrait of Barbara who seemed to wink as I passed her.
Soon I could hear Jack’s footsteps behind me.
We continued through the dark halls, me a few paces ahead, not daring to look over my shoulder.
I wondered if I had chosen this dress for this moment, with its revealing back and the tie hanging loosely down my spine.
I felt oddly serene, even on the edge of something I had fought against and denied myself for seven years. I didn’t doubt he was following me.
I entered his room and by the time he came through the door, I was standing at the dark window with my back to him.
I heard the latch, and then the slide of the lock as he closed us in for the evening.
I felt as untamed as the garden outside, where the summer mists swirled under a heavy moon and the heather glowed red in its light.
Then Jack’s arms were sliding around my waist. His breath was in my hair and his warm lips against my neck.
His hands were surer this time, and when he gripped my hips, I turned in the circumference of his arms, finally ready.
That same glimmer of danger I’d felt on New Year’s Day was back, but now I knew the dangerous thing was me.
I looked at this man, with his hopeful eyes and his endless patience and all that love he offered with two open palms, and I knew that he was mine to treasure or mine to ruin.
As our mouths came together, I did not allow myself to think that this was goodbye.