Chapter 29
‘R eady?’ Lainey says behind me as I survey myself in the mirror.
Every single strand of hair seems to be out of place; nothing I wear seems to look, fit, or feel right; and I know if I leave this chair right now my stomach will feel like it’s dropped from under me and I’ll end up with sick on my blouse anyway.
I’ve done this upwards of fifteen times: stood outside community centres up and down the country, shaken a few hands, taken a few photos. But this one, in this tiny village in a tiny corner of Scotland, is more daunting than standing in the House of Lords, asking for their backing.
‘Lainey, I can’t do it.’ My hands are too clammy to hold on to my hairbrush as I rake it through my sleek hair for the hundredth time, and it clatters against the wooden floor. My assistant looks at me with widened eyes as my stomach begins to cramp and sweat rolls down the crease of my spine like damp fingertips groping at my skin.
What if Sophie is here? Surely she will be. This is her project. This is the thing she devoted herself to. What would I say to her? Would she even want to speak to me? Even worse, what if she isn’t here? What if she feels as though I have usurped her, in donating the money, in setting up these reading schemes? What if she feels as though I have stolen her ideas, her passion?
My heartbeat throbs in my ears. I can’t hear Lainey as she paces about the room on the phone. I can hardly hold on to a breath as each one leaves me more and more breathless each time I try and suck in another. I’m clinging to the dressing table, and the whole thing shakes as I tremble against it.
‘Bottling it, aye?’ A voice so familiar manages to slice its way through my ruminations. ‘After all this time and effort, you’re just gonna let those folk down out there who have come to see your wee blonde arse?’
Sophie smiles in the doorway, a teasing kink in her brow. In a year she has hardly changed, except there’s something more grown up about her. As though she has surpassed girlhood and she isn’t quite so new and na?ve.
‘Sophie?’ I say, still trying to catch my breath.
‘Course it’s me, eejit. You forgotten me already?’ She laughs, though there’s a shyness to it, as though she too is unsure what she’s supposed to say.
Rushing to her, just as I did Callum, I have somehow, overnight, become a hugger. I pull her in tightly, and she wheezes in my ear, ‘Bloody hell, woman, you trying to kill me?’
I ease up my grip slightly, and she is able to chuckle and return my embrace. Drawing back, I still cling to her as I survey her face, double-checking it is her, and trying to catch up on all that has changed in her mien.
‘Sophie, I’m so sorry,’ I manage to squeeze out along with a collection of tears. How is it that I didn’t cry for many, many years, and now I can’t bloody stop?
Sophie only looks at me and sighs. ‘You really hurt me – you know that?’ Her tone is serious and I can feel my heart splinter within me.
‘I shouldn’t have done it. I know that. It was my messed-up way of trying to make you happy, without stopping once to think about what you might actually want.’ The tears flow freely and she shakes her head.
‘No, not that. I forgave you as soon as I walked away about the whole Fraser thingy.’ She fakes a gag and then returns to her sober tone. ‘No, Alice, you hurt me by leaving without saying goodbye. You hurt me when you went a whole year without checking in. You hurt me when you made my dream come true, and you weren’t here for us to do it together or for me to even thank you.’ I’m stunned to silence. My throat is so thick with emotion that if I try to speak now, I’m not even sure anything will come out. ‘You’re a bloody good person, Alice, but by God do you make some horrendous decisions.’
Just about able to stomach a laugh, it comes out gargled through my tears and I furiously swipe away the snot leaking from my nose. ‘That’s why I had to leave,’ I say once Sophie hands me a tissue and I regain a little of my dignity. ‘I wanted, no, needed to be better, to make better choices, to be a better person before I could truly be a good friend to you.’
‘You know that you’re allowed to make mistakes, right?’ Shaking her head, Sophie holds my hand, then grimaces a little at the slickness of it. ‘I wasn’t your friend because I thought you were some sort of perfect princess. I am your friend because you needed me, and as much as you think I am some girl with my shit together, I need you too. You might not exactly know how, or always do it in the right way, but you care. Christ, you care enough that you spent the last year pumping cash into a shitty little village hall in the arse end of nowhere just because I told you what it meant to me. You and that community centre have changed my life. Not many people can say that their best friend is their flaming fairy godmother who has made their dreams come true. The best thing of all, Alice, is that you didn’t even have to do it. You don’t realise it, but you have always been a good friend. Even good friends fuck it up sometimes. They just don’t run off and Mr Darcy the shit out of their pal’s lives instead of having a normal-people argument and then making up the next day.’
Shaking my head, I can’t control the grin on my face and the budding laugh. ‘Sorry, that’s a lovely monologue, beautiful. And I’m just going to push down the fact that I am going to cry again and also my overwhelming feeling of guilt that I should be the one saying such nice stuff to you to just circle back to the phrase “Mr Darcy the shit out of their pal’s lives” for one second.’
Sophie finally cracks up and her familiar cackle fills the room. Infectious beyond measure, soon my tears are from my laughter.
‘My lady?’ Lainey’s anxious voice draws us both back down to earth as she watches on, concerned. ‘I can’t stall much longer.’
Sophie glances at me and she soon shares Lainey’s look of panic. ‘You’re looking like shite,’ she says, as honest as ever.
‘Thanks, Soph.’ I chuckle and turn back to the mirror on the vanity and immediately her reaction is justified. My face is smeared with makeup, my eyes are puffy, a little snot has dried across my cheek and I think I’d probably look better if I just walked out of a car crash.
‘Look.’ Sophie rushes around the room, collecting a flannel and a few other bits. ‘You just need to be you. The new you, the old you, whatever. You don’t have to look perfect, or act perfect. What the public want most from their royals is humanity, the sense that you’re just like us. Sometimes you have a bad day too, and they want to see it.’
‘Yeah, so they can sell the photos to the press? You should have seen some of the stuff that came out about my cousin Theo when he had a few bad nights out.’ Shivering at the thought of it, I scrub the flannel against my face.
‘No, no. I don’t mean letting the world see you at rock bottom. I mean letting them see you just as you are. No fancy frills, no perfectly worded speeches, just you, as you come. Sit and read with us. Be one of us for the afternoon.’
Resisting the urge to tell her that I wish it could be more than just the afternoon, I do as she says. Removing all of my makeup and swapping the blouse and suit pants for jeans and a T-shirt, I feel more at home than I have for months.
‘Here, stick this on.’ Sophie hands me Fraser’s jumper and I look at her, unsure. ‘For old times’ sake?’
‘I don’t think—’ Clamming up, thoughts of Fraser return at full pelt and it’s as though the reminder has pushed me off-kilter for just a moment. She hasn’t mentioned him before now. Perhaps even she hasn’t heard from him. Would she tell me if he’d moved on? Is it even any of my business?
‘Come on, it’s not like anyone will notice. And there must be a reason you packed it.’ She winks, and pushes it against me so I have no choice but to take it.
‘Fine, but I want it known that it was packed for me. I’m not a creep.’ Reluctantly, I pull it over my head.
‘Whatever you say.’
As we walk the short distance to the Braemar Community Centre, the streets are hushed, lethargic yet tense, as though calm in preparation for a storm. Holding Sophie tightly by the hand, I try and think over and over of what to say, what to do, how to smile, but none of that matters as soon as I see it.
The overgrown gardens are pruned back to make room for a bed of wildflowers, and a lawn broad enough for a little stall to be set up in the summer sun, stacked with cakes and a steaming tea urn. The old stone schoolhouse building seems brighter. The sign has been repainted, the slate of the roof replaced, and best of all, it is teeming with life. Men and women – old, young and everything in between – bustle through the gates to steal a glance at the newly refurbished building.
‘It’s all right, ladies and gents, she’s here. We havnae scared her off just yet.’ Sophie announces my presence in a way I can’t compare to anything else I’ve experienced so far on my regional tour of community centres. All of the faces turn towards us at the sound of her voice and she bows to the attention, owning her part in making this whole thing happen and helping to fight off my imminent panic attack.
Waving shyly, I grow nervous under the many eager eyes, and even more so under the gaze of those who still appear to remain apprehensive. When a short, slightly hairy man barges forward to take a photo directly in my face, I tense again, my mind blank. All of the others meant something to me. They were an achievement; they meant something better for people who deserve it. But this time, this one matters the most. If I need to get one thing right in this new role of mine, it is opening the one place that started it all.
‘Thank you all so much for coming,’ I say a little too quietly for the chattering crowd and the second row from the front begin to ask those in front what I’ve just said.
‘Oi,’ Sophie calls out. ‘If you’d all just whisht you might be able to hear the poor lass.’ After an offended buzz, the noise from the crowd simmers out and Sophie throws the attention back to me with a smile.
‘Thank you all for coming out today for the grand opening of the newly refurbished Braemar Community Centre.’ Given a second chance to start again, I persist this time with a little more confidence. ‘Some of you may know that it was actually right here in Braemar that I decided to begin this initiative to save our community centres and village halls up and down the country. But I would be lying if I said the idea was my own.’ I cast a long glance at Sophie. ‘I have no doubt that almost all of you here know my best friend, Sophie Chorley.’ A soft cheer goes up in the crowd. ‘But what most of you may not know is that Sophie put aside her own wages, her own scarce free time to begin the process of returning this building to the people of her hometown. It was Sophie who made me truly understand the value of the people around you, the beauty of a family that doesn’t have to be blood.’
As I address the crowd, two faces catch my eye in that very moment: my parents. Mother and Father stand a little away from the gathering, the former looking me up and down, the latter surveying all those around him. Not once have they been to one of these events; in fact, since I returned to London all those months ago, we have hardly interacted. For better or worse, I’m not too sure. Trying not to choke under their scrutiny, I return my attention back to giving my friend the credit she deserves, the credit she is owed.
‘Sophie is one of the most selfless people I know, and in setting up this scheme, my main goal was to always be more like her.’ Clearing my throat, I try and hold it together. ‘When I first came to Scotland, I was self-absorbed, bored, and so, so lonely. Sophie and all of those who cared for me at Balmoral picked me up and shook me. They spoke to me like old friends, they held my hand through things I had always had to shoulder alone, and they taught me things about myself and the world around me that I had never once stopped to think about. All I had to offer in return was funding for a project that Sophie had already altruistically begun. This is my “thank you”, to all of you, and to you, Sophie, for taking me in and showing me what a family is and what a community can be. If this community centre can do even just a fraction for someone in this village that you did for me, then I know it is all more than worth it.’
Searching again for my parents in the crowd, hoping to see just a little pride in their faces, I am unsurprised when the space they once occupied is empty and they’re nowhere to be seen. Scanning desperately for another moment, hoping they’ve just slipped behind another party or have inched closer, another face comes into focus and I have to blink several times to make sure this isn’t some kind of sick mirage.
Fraser Bell is tucked within the masses. His thick red hair is covered by a tweed flat cap and his dimples are perfectly ironed flat, but no matter how much time has passed, or how much he may have changed, there will never be a day where I don’t recognise those eyes. As though I have conjured him myself, Fraser stands there, so still, so beautiful, that I must be delirious from lack of sleep.
He’s supposed to be in Edinburgh.
‘Who, Lady Alice?’ So occupied with the thoughts of him, the rest of the population melts away from my sight and mind and it is only the sound of Sophie’s voice that draws me back from my dream and I realise I have said the words aloud.
When I look again, he’s gone. Vanished into thin air like a phantom that never wished to be seen.
Staring wide-eyed at Sophie, my mouth moving and yet no words forming, my heartbeat fills my senses. It is all I can hear, all I can feel.
‘Now, enough about me,’ I announce to the muster of bodies before me, my mind absent and filled only now with him. ‘I wish to hand this over to Sophie Chorley, the one person who should have the honour of opening this community centre today. Sophie Chorley, everyone.’ Stepping aside, I gesture for Sophie to come forward and she does so with a blush.
Rushing through the crowd, I squeeze past so many people with an apology to reach the place I saw him, the place I know he stood. Why is it only now that I am desperately searching for a man in a flat cap that it seems as though I’ve stumbled onto the set of Peaky Blinders if it starred a bunch of elderly Scottish men? Tapping on shoulders, following strangers, I search and search for him.
But Fraser Bell has gone.