Page 54 of The Heir Apparent
Demelza and I had spent the past five months pretending the other didn’t exist. If I passed her in the Cumberland quadrangle, she would nod at me, her gaze landing somewhere left of my face. Sometimes I would arrive at the palace for an audience with Granny only to find Demelza and Richard by her side, teacups perched on their knees and smirks on their lips. Mary was convinced they somehow knew my schedule and were inserting themselves into Granny’s calendar in the hope their social calls would roll into our official business. They were rarely invited to stay on for our meetings, but the tabloids were always told otherwise.
“Oh, come on,” Colin said. “It’ll be fun.”
“Yes, you should come,” Demelza said, suddenly turning the corner and appearing before us. She looked me up and down. “Everyone’s invited, especially my dear cousin.”
I gave in and nodded. My days were spent in the presence of greying courtiers, most of whom seemed to disapprove of me. I wore pantyhose and drank tea. I saw London from the window of a speeding town car. The idea of some mindless conversation and a few drinks with people my own age was appealing.
We had our driver meet us at the back entrance so we could avoid the photographers waiting at the gates. How ridiculous we must have looked—three girls in tiaras and a boy in tails squeezing into the back of a Rolls-Royce.
“Oh, shit, we forgot Birdie!” Demelza screeched as the car approached the gates of Cumberland.
“Shall I turn back, ma’am?” the driver asked, alarmed.
“No, she’ll sort herself out. Onwards, driver.”
Demelza’s cottage was among a cluster of buildings on the outer edge of Cumberland Palace. With three bedrooms, it was considered one of the humbler abodes available to family members, but it had the best view of the gardens and could be accessed without passing through the inner quadrangle, meaning that, unlike Amira and me, Demelza avoided the older relatives who watched our every move. The house had clearly been styled by an interior designer, with antiques borrowed from the Royal Collection Trust interspersed among the trendy pieces ubiquitous on every rich girl’s Instagram. But the place was a mess, with piles of clothes everywhere, tea bags mouldering on saucers and three mismatched stilettos on a stained marble coffee table. A baby-pink Ultrafragola mirror was badly in need of a spray and wipe.
“Jesus, Demi, get a cleaner in here, would you?” Colin said, pulling bottles of Bollinger from the fridge.
She stuck her tongue out at him as she tossed her heels and flopped onto her couch. The doorbell kept ringing as all the young people from the banquet arrived, still dressed in their gowns and tails. Had there been a group chat? Had Colin and Demelza whispered the plan in the ear of every guest who looked under thirty-five? Birdie was the last to arrive, dressed in her big blousy Erdem gown, which looked like an old lady’s floral bedsheet on her.
“Youforgotme,” she wailed. “I had to get a lift with a staffer from Number 10. I was wearing a ballgown in a Ford Focus.”
Demelza, now half in the lap of a man on the couch, tried to hide her laughter. “Sorry, darling, it was utter chaos, and I thought you’d want to go home with Daddy.”
As people came to say hello to me, I realised I had met most of them at one time or another. Whether it was from Pony Clubor parties at Elton Park, nearly every name and face resurrected a long-forgotten memory.
Soon Colin came over with two glasses of champagne. “How are you doing?” he asked. “You’re looking a little overwhelmed.”
“No, I’m fine. It’s just I can’t believe how many of these people I know.”
Amira was crouched by an open window with a cigarette between her lips, chatting to two women I recognised from Astley.
“Ours is a tight circle,” he said and sipped his drink. “All our parents know each other. We all went to school together, and we’ve all shagged each other—or assaulted each other during an innocent game of croquet.”
“I’m still waiting for my apology. The kids called me Frilly Knickers for about a year after that.”
He laughed. “No, look, I am sorry. I think I was just trying to get your attention. If it’s any consolation, Lou stole my clothes during swimming practice a few days after that, and I had to wander around school in my Speedos trying to find them.”
A wave of loss rushed up around me. In spite of myself, my eyes became wet. Colin looked into my face and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“Sorry, it must still be raw.”
“I actually love hearing things like that—stories about him I’ve never heard before. We weren’t really in touch for the last couple of years. I don’t even really know if he was happy at the end.”
He nodded. “He seemed good. Though it was difficult to tell with him, you know? He always made me think of a mosquito flying over water, just kind of brushing the surface.”
I thought of my brother’s unfathomable depths, the secrets he had been drowning in.
“Growing up as the heir… I think that was hard for him,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “And now it’s you.”
I shook my head and looked at the crowd, feeling like I was sinking into something I couldn’t name. “It was meant to be him.”
I drained my champagne flute, immediately regretting my words. I was confiding in a man I hardly knew, who was close to the one person who wanted nothing more than for me to board the first Qantas flight out of here: Demelza. TheDaily Posthad an entire team of reporters dedicated to covering my every move, and here I was, at a party where people were spending a suspiciously long time in the bathroom.
“Sorry. Don’t tell anyone I said that.”
