Page 48 of The Heir Apparent
“Mum,” Amira said sternly, gesturing at the eggs. “Where’s the salt? You’re meant to be helping.”
Vikki put her wineglass down and went in search of the Maldon.
“Mary used to occasionally help with my styling,” Amira said to me. “You know, if you’re visiting a school or going to a concert, you need that Gen Z perspective.”
Vikki tossed a pinch of salt over the eggs and then picked up her wineglass again. “You looked perfect today, Lexi darling, very chic, a little bit daring. This family mustn’t know what’s hit them.”
Clouds seemed to gather in Amira’s face as she bent over her frittata mixture. I was conscious of two troublesome facts. One was that Amira would never, ever be able to break with tradition and wear trousers to church. Her missteps, even as mild as a skirt billowing in the wind, became week-long media catastrophes. She did not have the luxury to experiment like I did. If, like Birdie, she wore a hat shaped like a birdcage to church, it was not just meme fodder, but a symbol of her ill breeding. Worse still was the knowledge that I had taken her place in the family, consigning her to the seat behind me, the next page in the tabloid. She had once been part of the family’s shining future but was now part of its tragic past. A widow with no children, there was no modern precedent for what to do with Amira. But Granny had always liked her, and she continued to invite her to family gatherings, which Amira dutifully attended. As long as she was sanctioned by the sovereign, her place in the inner circle was assured.
“What was Richard saying to you?” Amira asked.
“He was saying they’re all coming to Scotland this summer.”
“Nightmare.”
Earlier that day at the Commonwealth service, when he sank down into the red chair between Demelza’s and mine, his body oozing into my space, I’d stiffened, but smiled brightly as Mary had instructed.
“Uncle Richard,” I crooned.
“Lovely little Lexi, aren’t you a knockout in that suit? Very KD Lang, I must say.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know who that is, but I’ll assume it’s a great compliment,” I said, laughing for the cameras. “And where is Florence this morning?”
He grinned and unbuttoned his suit jacket. “Migraine, unfortunately.”
“Oh, dear, she does have a delicate constitution, doesn’t she?”
From the corner of my eye, I could see the BBC camera operator twist his lens towards us. As the final entrants to the church, we only had to make a minute or so of small talk before Granny arrived and the service would begin. But the seconds stretched out before me like an Olympic hurdling track.
“Hi, Lexi,” Demelza breathed, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she turned towards me. She was wearing a calf-skimming pastel coat dress. “Are you bored of us all yet?”
“Impossible,” I said, leaning across Richard like he didn’t exist. “Every morning brings a new surprise, doesn’t it?”
We spoke of the weather (finally turning), their plans for the summer (Mustique, followed by the Scottish estate), and the operas chosen for Glyndebourne’s upcoming autumn season (honestly, fucking kill me), and then finally the organist’s first notes rattled our rib cages and we could be quiet.
When the service was over, Richard, Demelza and Birdie glided past Amira without acknowledging her. Outside the Abbey, they walked by a Maori kapa haka performing, not even lingering to hear their song.
“That man is truly vile,” Vikki said as she rattled around in a utensil drawer. “You know when we went to Scotland that time, he called me a cart tart?”
Amira covered her mouth to swallow her laugh.
“I don’t think I can ever go back there again,” Vikki said mournfully. “And it’s such a shame, because I really loved it there.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
2009
Even those who hated going to Scotland for the summer couldn’t help but be charmed by my grandmother’s estate. She required all her prime ministers to visit for at least one weekend a year, something the public school boys loved and most Labour leaders and female PMs dreaded. But even for those who didn’t relish the idea of spending summer shivering in long grass while trying to murder a beautiful stag, there was something about the Highlands. The scale of it humbles you. Its beauty is stark and honest. It’s a wild place that demands you be wild in it.
When Louis and I were children, our annual Scottish pilgrimage was non-negotiable. But for our sixteenth summer, Papa relented to our incessant pleas to join the Shankars in New Zealand and the Cook Islands. In exchange, we had to spend the rest of our holidays with him in Scotland.
Mum planned to spend our first summer as a broken family drifting around the globe doing charity work and lounging on acquaintances’ yachts. But she made sure to be in Edinburgh when we landed in the Highlands. Her plan was to drive three hours north to fetch us from Aberdeen Airport, make the sixty-minute journey to the estate to drop us off, and then return to the city alone.
“Mum, that’s insane—we’ll get someone from the estate to pick us up,” Louis had insisted.
But this was her tiny window in which to spend time with us before we were back at Astley for Michaelmas. Our Remove year was finally done and we were joining the ranks of the Hundred. The end of our school years felt aeons away, but I could tell that for Mum it was imminent. She was just thirty-six, had already survived a disastrous marriage and was nearly done raising two children. She was more beautiful than ever. But I sensed that the decades of life ahead of her were more frightening than inspiring. Papa was suddenly interested in enforcing the terms of the custody arrangement, and her time with us was strictly curtailed. For the first time since her childhood, she was alone. I felt a deep shame that I had negotiated with Papa to spend two weeks with my friends instead of Mum.
“Can I drive?” I asked, knowing that she loved to teach me things.
