Page 75 of Always Alchemy

‘No it’s not. It’s delicious.’And you eat it every morning, so don’t fuck with me.

‘Need more honey.’

‘No you don’t. If you have too much honey now, you’ll get tired at nursery.’

Grace isn’t diabetic—thank God—but everyone knows a day at nursery is a marathon. Especially when it’s yourfirstday. And it’s never too early to learn the basics of avoiding insulin resistance.

She stares at me for a beat, as if to sayis that the best you’ve got? Interesting.Then she simply sets down her little plastic spoon, which is sticky with oats, and waits.

She’s got all the leverage, and I’ve only got one card: the fact that she’s fastened into her booster seat and can’t get down from the table unless I let her out.

Still, she waits.

We glare at each other.

‘More honey, please, Daddy,’ she says in her sweetest little voice.

I sigh and pick up the jar of honey. As I twirl the wooden dipper around, I give thanks to whoever is up there that Nat isn’t around to see this pathetic defeat. She’d never let me live it down.

We both watch as I drizzle a minimal amount of honey over the utter car crash that is her breakfast bowl. ‘You’d better eat the rest, or you’ll hurt Kamyl’s feelings,’ I tell her lamely.

She doesn’t grace that with a reply, instead taking the revolting wallpaper-paste spoon and skimming it over the top of the bowl, removing the layer of honey and almost nothing else with a dexterity that should be impressive before sucking it into her glorious little rosebud mouth.

I roll my eyes and pick up my espresso. ‘You’re a cheeky monkey, you know that?’

She really is. She’s inherited her mother’s delicate frame and heart-shaped face, a fact that thrills me. But she has my head of dark curls, and when they haven’t been tamed, she looks positively feral.

My wife has joked a couple of times that I’m a beast under layers of Italian tailoring. (I think she means it in a good way.) If that’s the case, our darling daughter is a primate disguised in an immaculate Little Wonders by Gossamer dress.

Nat brushed Grace’s curls neatly this morning and swept the baby hairs off her face with a clip featuring a tiny pale pink velvet bow. But her simian energy still runs strong as she beams at me. Her teeth are the tiniest white pearls, and they slay me.

Despite her resemblance to her beautiful mother, there’s something in the wide innocence of her smile that recalls Ellen. My baby sister would be a grown woman if she were alive today—she’s two years older than Nat, after all—but I choose to think that a tiny part of her spirit is alive in our feisty little daughter.

I have never, ever known love like it. That someone sotiny can come into my life and turn everything I know to be true upside down still staggers me. She locked down my heart from that first perfect purse of her tiny mouth as I held her, a featherlight pink bundle, in my arms.

And she gets better, and feistier, and more hilarious, every single day.

‘Cheeky monkey,’ she agrees gleefully.

‘That’s right. You are.’ I reach under her huge silicon bib, heavily streaked with porridge, to tickle her tummy. ‘The cheekiest of all the monkeys. And quite possibly the hungriest, if you don’t eat your brekkie.’

I surreptitiously check my watch. We need to get going in fifteen minutes if we’re to make it to her nursery on time. It’s a small, friendly one right by Holland Park and has its own forest school in the park itself.

Should be perfect for our resident baby monkey.

‘I’m full,’ Grace tells me with the magnanimous tone of someone who knows victory is in the bag.

I sigh and wonder for the millionth time why I insisted on doing the first nursery drop off by myself. Nat’s working like crazy on the launch of Gossamer House, a standalone villa we’ve bought in Chelsea to showcase the brand’s extensive clothing and lifestyle lines in an immersive manner.

At least I’ll have Nige with me for moral support.

‘Okay, darling,’ I say now. ‘Let’s get you cleaned up, yes?’ As I cast around the kitchen for a clean washcloth, I mentally assess the likelihood of my Loro Piana sweater escaping death by congealed porridge.

Approximately zero.

NAT

I’m so tired. Like, crawl-back-into-my-mother’s-womb tired. Maybe I’ll do a session in the flotation tank when I get home. I need something that’ll wipe my brain clean. It’s no surprise that I’m exhausted, I suppose. The first trimester is always brutal. I’d forgotten how much of a toll those few months of growing a tiny human take on you.

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