Page 63 of The Heir Apparent
I was tempted to ask that he leave the line open while he slept, so that whenever I wanted to see him, I’d pull my phoneout of my pocket and find him there, steeped in shadows, his eyelashes fanned against his cheek.
“I should let you go,” I said finally. “It’s late.”
“Okay.”
“I miss you,” I said softly, and then realised the truth had slipped out. “And Finn. And Ragu. I miss you guys. Is the cottage a complete frat house without me?”
He smiled. “We’re doing okay, but it’s not the same. We miss you too, Lex.”
Reluctantly, we said goodbye, and I was alone again in the sunken garden. I ran my fingers through the daisy-studded grass. The UK’s maternal death rate was the highest it had been in twenty years. Pregnancy was four times deadlier for Black Britons than white. Up to 100,000 people worldwide suffered an obstetric fistula during childbirth every year. I might never help deliver a baby again, but there were other things I could do with my time.
Maybe.
I needed time to examine it from every angle, like a jewel placed on my palm.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
12 July 2023
I stood on the sun-warmed deck at the Hampstead Heath ladies’ pond and yawned. It was still early, just after 7 a.m., and there were only a few women in the water. A family of ducks glided through the light shards scattered across the surface. You weren’t really meant to take pictures but, when the lifeguard wasn’t looking, I snapped a photo of the scene and texted it to Jack. Then I strode to the edge and tried to decide what was the order of the day—lowering myself slowly by the ladder or jumping straight in. I was feeling bold, so I leapt from the deck. The ponds were never particularly warm, even in July, and I had become addicted to the clean slap the water gave me, the tiny victory of plunging myself into unknowable depths.
Once I was in, my heart steadied and my blood seemed to cool, and I rolled onto my back and drifted towards the centre of the pond. My new protection officer, Rita, lingered on the deck with her thermos of tea. Scotland Yard had been slightly annoyed by my recent ritual because it meant they had to find a female officer to come with me. But they managed to rustle up Rita, who didn’t seem to mind the assignment too much.
“Beautiful day,” I heard a voice say behind me.
I turned to see a woman paddling by, her white hair tied in a knot at the crown of her head. She had blue eyes and a marvellously lined face. She was radiant in the way only older women could be. Age enriched her beauty.
“It’s perfect, isn’t it,” I said.
Like all women-only spaces, the pond had a convivial atmosphere, and it wasn’t unusual for people to chat to me. With wet hair and no makeup, I was barely recognisable anyway.
“I started coming here in 1978,” she said, treading water.
“That’s amazing. Has it changed much?”
She shook her head. “The trees are a bit taller, the swimming costumes are skimpier, the water’s not quite so cold in the winter, but not really.”
“I imagine that consistency is nice.”
She smiled at me like she had a secret. “You know, your mum used to come here now and then. I don’t think anyone realised it was her. You look so much like her, I got quite the shock the first time you swam past me, I must say.”
I looked at her in surprise. My memories of Mum were like papery flowers pressed in the pages of a book, and suddenly here was a decadently scented, dew-dropped rose picked fresh from the garden. She must have come out here after the divorce, when she was occasionally forced by the custody arrangement to spend time without us. She was still the little girl who’d wandered into the scullery of Kilchurn Castle and charmed the kitchen staff into letting her sit by the warm oven and chat to them.
“Thank you,” I said, as I always did when someone told me something I had never heard about Mum before.
The woman winked at me. “Don’t worry. I never told anyone about your mum coming here, and I won’t tell them about you.”
I smiled at her, and then she kicked her legs through the water with the grace of a frog and was gone. I floated for a bit longer, feeling the sun on my face. The pond was formed by the headwater springs of the River Fleet, a secret waterway thatflows underneath the city. The water that had buoyed Mum was long gone, seeping into the River Thames and out to the raging North Sea. But I couldn’t stop imagining that the same water she had swum in now cradled me too.
Then I remembered how she had died. Stinking, rotting sargassum had wound through her hair like a crown, while scavenging sea creatures nibbled on her hands and feet. The springwater surrounding me suddenly gave way to the stinging brine of the Ligurian Sea. My skin was no longer clean gooseflesh, but swollen and blood-flecked from a thousand sandfly bites. The friendly mallards weren’t ducks at all, but gulls prepared to pluck out my vacant eyes.
I was overcome by the desperate urge to get out of the pond, and I made my way back to the deck with efficient strokes.
“Are you alright, ma’am?” asked Rita as I climbed the ladder.
“Yep, fine! I’ve just got a busy day.”
It was the Wimbledon women’s semifinals and I was due in the Royal Box to watch the match at noon. If I was late for the makeup artist, who was likely arriving at the house within the hour, Mary would be annoyed at me. But Rita’s father had been a cabbie for forty years, so she knew how to get us anywhere in London in thirty minutes. When I opened the door at Cumberland 1, I was greeted only by Chino’s galloping paws and the whirr of Amira’s hairdryer coming from her bedroom. Mary was leaning over the kitchen island, tapping on her phone, and hardly looked up.
