Lost Autumn

by Mary-Rose MacColl

  She knew him.

  Oh God, she knew him.

  The blow—openhanded, she would write if it were a fight or a court case she was reporting on, but it wasn’t, it was her life—the blow landed on the side of her head. She could feel her ear ringing, wondered was there blood. Her brain rattled in her skull a little before she could think straight. She licked the side of her mouth.

  It was not a warning. It was a smack across the side of the head, designed to hurt. And it wasn’t the first time. The night before Diana died, and another night, a month ago.

  She knew him.

  Later she would tell herself it was the child within her, the developing fetus who had a better instinct for survival right then than Victoria herself. Later she would marvel at those few women who can see what’s coming and get out. Later she would understand courage in a way she’d never understood it before.

  But for now she was going to rely on a child, who was yet to form tiny hands, in order to get out of the way of the monster in front of her whose hands were forming into fists as her brain calculated too slowly what she should do.

  She would not cry, she decided, because whatever else he was, this monster wouldn’t like to see weakness.

  She looked up at him and forced herself to smile. “Ben, I’m so sorry. You were right. I really messed this up.” She made eye contact with him, his hand still raised for another blow, this one on the other side. She had to act quickly. “Ring Cal now. Tell him to come over and we’ll sign the contract together.”

  This was new. He was momentarily discombobulated. She had taken away his reason for anger. Would it work? She had no fucking idea. What would a three-month-old fetus know?

  He stood there, menacing.

  He stood there, ready to hit her.

  He stood there, revising himself in space.

  He didn’t strike her again.

  He sat back down. “All right,” he said. “I just love you, Tori. I couldn’t stand to see you hurt.”

  “I know,” she said. “I really do.” She had a feeling in her stomach then, the fear she would not indulge, combined with something else she couldn’t name. She squashed both down, felt the nausea that followed fear. “So call Cal and we can see him tonight.”

  He nodded, breathed in and out. Then he stood up and walked past her to the bedroom. The bulk of him as he passed made Victoria queasy again.

  Anger. The other feeling she would not indulge was anger.

  She had less than a minute.

  She grabbed her purse, ran down to the door, grabbed his keys, her own, deadlocked the door, and ran down the three flights of stairs to the street. She had no shoes on.

  She looked back up to the kitchen window of the flat. It was a mistake. There was Ben, his head and half his body out the window looking at her, not yelling, just watching her, his face. The look on his face. He’d been tricked, he knew.

  It terrified her. She thought he might jump out the window after her.

  She ran down to Brockley Road and hailed a taxi.

  The driver started singing, “Put your shoes on, Lucy . . .”

  “Huh?”

  “You okay?” the driver said.

  “Fine,” she said.

  “So where are we going?” he said.

  Where was she going?

  She gave him Claire’s address.

  Thirty-eight

  WESTERN AUSTRALIA, 1920

  We had left Pemberton that morning to head back to Perth on the train. The day before, the prince had toured a sawmill and logging camp with his cousin and Colonel Grigg. Showers had blown in through the day. I’d remained on the train. I didn’t even offer to accompany them.

  I hadn’t seen the prince on his own at all since that night in his room. It was as if everyone else was as they had always been, and I had changed fundamentally. I could never go back. I knew that much.

  By mid-afternoon, we’d reached the town of Manjimup, where the train slowed to a crawl so that people could wave to the prince. But he didn’t come out of his car, as he normally would, to the observation platform at the back of the carriage, and James signaled for the train to speed up and we went on.

  Mr. Waters and I were sitting at a table in the office going through the day’s letters together. He’d told me that morning that his pen, on the barrel of which was engraved Dear Rupert in the same lettering as the brand of the pen, Waterman, had been given to him by the prince when they’d returned from France. It made it look as if his name was Rupert Waterman. “He’s always been very generous with gifts,” Mr. Waters said, looking at the pen fondly.

  Mr. Waters had not mentioned Helen again, or Colonel Grigg, but I knew underneath his heart was broken. Everything was wrong. It was all so terribly wrong.

  It was like a spell, the way the prince affected us all. He took your wooden horse, I wanted to yell at Mr. Waters.

  The train had slowed down at several points, crawling along the tracks. It slowed again now, and then came to a complete halt. It was always unnerving, the noise of the train on the tracks suddenly quieted. I looked out the window but could see no town or settlement, just the giant trees we’d come through the day before.

  “Where’s H.R.H.?” Mr. Waters asked James, who was standing at the sideboard with his polishing cloth.

  “Resting,” James said.

  “Well, let’s hope the stop doesn’t disturb him,” Mr. Waters said.

  The prince hadn’t asked for me, hadn’t spoken to me; I was sure he would tell Mr. Waters and I would soon be dismissed, like Ruby Rivers. We were birds of a feather, Ruby and I. While I had silently judged her from the very first, we were not so different. We were curious. She was more curious. That was all.

  Earlier that morning, Dickie had come and taken the draft letters for signature to the prince. Dickie was his usual jolly self, although there was something new in his smile when he left me, a smugness I didn’t like. Perhaps I’d imagined it but I was sure he and the prince had talked about me.

  The night before, Helen had asked me again was I all right. I’d told her I was fine. But my mind could not form a coherent picture. He was a prince and yet he was no different from other men, from the fellow at Christie’s. Then I told myself it didn’t matter because it had been what I’d wanted. But that wasn’t right. I hadn’t wanted what had happened. I hadn’t wanted it at all.

  Mr. Waters turned to look at the door at the end of the office, paneled in oak, which led to the prince’s private study and chamber. We were still stationary.

  “I wonder what it is this time,” Mr. Waters said, just as a guard came into the carriage.

  “There’s a cow on the track, sir,” the guard said. “The engineer is shooing her off and we’ll be away soon.”

  Just then, the train started up again.

  “There it is,” the guard said, steadying himself as the train lurched forward. He left.

  The door leading to the study remained closed.

  “Thank goodness,” Mr. Waters said to me. “We have to be back in Perth for the reception at five. We’ll telegraph if there are further delays.” He looked at his pocket watch again, closed it, and put it in his fob pocket. “Now, as I was saying . . .” He smiled, picked up his pen again, and began reading. We were gaining speed. I could see the plume of steam sailing past in a cloud that appeared solid. It reminded me of the poem that sounds like a train, “Death and His Brother Sleep.”

  Mr. Waters was still smiling when we heard an awful noise—as if someone had screamed, I thought, or a wild animal was in pain. I felt a bump. I thought we’d hit the cow. Then a long, sad wail and the train began to slow again.

  Then I was falling.

  I grabbed an ashtray, a heavy glass thing, from the table as it began to slide to the right. It was seconds but it felt much longer. Then the shattering of crystal, warmer
than glass, the chairs tipping onto two legs, the light of the sun flashing suddenly in through the window, the smell of something—oil, grease, alcohol; a decanter for claret tipping its contents onto the carpet—and Mr. Waters, looking at the door leading to the prince’s quarters.

  And all of a sudden, as if the world had righted itself, we were back to where we were, eerily still, just the creak of metal settling into place.

  Except that we were not where we were. We were on the windows. When I looked up to the ceiling, there were the windows on the other side, and above them the sky, those enormous trees now leaning in menacingly.

  I knew immediately we had derailed. The carriage had gone over and with it the desks and tables and chairs. The office was a shambles.

  “David,” Mr. Waters said, getting up, finding his balance only slowly and heading for the back of the car, clambering over fallen furniture.

  I followed. “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Waters said. “Are you?”

  I noticed as he turned to look at me that his hair had fallen onto his face. He was breathing fast. “I’d better . . .” He pointed toward the end of the carriage. He opened the door without knocking, calling, “Sir, are you all right? Sir?”

  There was a whisper of something within, a person moving about.

  Mr. Waters half crawled through the prince’s dining room and study, everything upturned, the smell of whisky strong, the metal smell of the wheels grinding on the tracks. Hadn’t someone said something about this, the narrower gauge unable to take wide carriages? We were on one side, lurching, the slow groan of metal suggesting this carriage hadn’t quite come to rest. I could smell deep, rich earth. Water was coming from somewhere and dripping on our heads.

  Mr. Waters called the prince’s name but there was no answer.

  Oh God, I thought, where are the guards? The police?

  Mr. Waters turned to me. “James has the key,” he said. “Go and find him.” But then he moved back and kicked the door, the door he’d had the carpenters install. It held fast on the first kick but gave way on the second, flipping open. We climbed through to the prince’s private chamber.

  The prince was standing up, although he was disheveled, as if he’d fallen. He was wearing a silk dressing gown tied tightly around his slim waist, no trousers. I can still remember the sight of his skinny calves. In one hand he held a decanter of what was surely whisky and in the other a glass. “I managed to save what matters,” he said, smiling. The chamber around him was a mess, his bed overturned, books fallen from the little table, his writing desk on its end.

  He looked at me and then his eyes left me. I followed his gaze. There to our right was Helen, crouching in the far corner looking disoriented, her clothes askew, no shoes on her feet.

  “Do something will you, Waters?” the prince said. “It doesn’t look good.”

  Mr. Waters’s hand came back and found mine. I held it and tried with all my might to put kindness into that grip. I looked at him a moment and I’m sure he saw what was in my eyes for I thought he might collapse.

  He turned back to his prince before he spoke. “Maddie, you must go for help,” he said. His voice was a whisper. “I will stay here.”

  Already I could hear people outside the carriage: Are you all right, sir? Your Royal Highness?

  “Tell them he’s getting dressed,” Mr. Waters said to me quietly.

  Helen was looking at Mr. Waters, wide-eyed with fear.

  “Tell James to keep them out of here,” Mr. Waters said, his voice breaking.

  Thirty-nine

  LONDON, 1997

  It was comforting to sit on the floor with Jordan and Tony playing with Legos, to do this simple thing, to watch Claire’s gentle, useless husband loving his son. It soothed Victoria. She felt safe, she realized. She felt safe for the first time in months.

  When Claire had answered the door, Victoria only said she and Ben had fought and she’d stormed out.

  Claire had looked at her bare feet and then at her face. “He hit you,” Claire said softly, as if she were trying to calm an upset child or a frightened animal.

  Victoria nodded weakly, let Claire pull her into an embrace, sobbed.

  “He does love me, Claire,” she’d said when she regained her composure.

  Claire looked her in the eye. “Victoria, you didn’t storm out,” she said, still quietly. “You ran from danger, honey. We’re not going to talk tonight.” She smiled and her smile was full of love. “I’m going to call Ewan and he and I will sort out what to do. But tonight we’re just going to get you feeling safe. I want to call your daddy as well.”

  Victoria shook her head. “No,” she said. “Please.”

  She watched Tony and Jordan now. This was what you’d hope for, she thought, a hapless, useless husband full of love.

  Claire tucked her into bed in the room with the baby, Max. She woke a few times during the night when Max did, Tony or Claire coming in to soothe him. She heard Tony singing a lullaby in the other room at some stage, and then she slept.

  * * *

  It was the next morning now, and Ewan had turned up at Claire’s with Mac, the security guard from Knight News. Claire had telephoned Ewan after she put Victoria to bed and they’d come up with a plan.

  The four of them were sitting in Claire’s lounge, toys strewn over the floor. Tony had taken the boys for a walk to the park on Claire’s instruction.

  Victoria didn’t want to tell Ewan anything, so she just said she and Ben had argued. Already she had begun to compose herself, to explain away what had happened.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Byrd,” Mac said, “but you can’t go back there.”

  “Of course she won’t,” Ewan said. “She’s not stupid.”

  Victoria shook her head. “Please don’t worry. I’ll be fine. It’s the stress. He can’t stand what the photographers are doing to me.”

  It was Claire who spoke. “Victoria, you can’t keep giving him excuses.”

  She realized they all knew. Claire had told them. Ben had hit her. His anger wasn’t just bad temperedness, as Victoria had told herself. Claire was right. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

  But Victoria hadn’t told any of them about the baby. Last night, the baby might have given Victoria the energy to run, but today it was the baby that made her know that no matter what, she was now tied to Ben. One way or another. There was no escaping that fact. She was carrying his child.

  Claire told Victoria she couldn’t return to her flat until Ben was gone.

  “Ewan and Mac will go over tonight to tell him to leave,” Claire said. “Then we’ll organize for a locksmith to change the locks.

  Victoria listened without speaking as Claire and Ewan outlined the plans they’d made. When they finished, she said, “I’ll have to go with Ewan and Mac. He has to hear it from me or he won’t believe it. I know he won’t.”

  Her friends were right. She couldn’t stay with Ben the way he was. But she wasn’t sure she could leave either.

  Forty

  WESTERN AUSTRALIA, 1920

  We all stood there for a moment in the wreckage. Then I heard the voices of the guards who would soon find their way through the windows above us or through the door we’d broken.

  I knew the first thing we had to do was get Helen out of the prince’s bedchamber. I also knew Mr. Waters was in no state to protect anyone from anything.

  If we went out through the same door we’d come in, we couldn’t be sure there weren’t pressmen or government men.

  “Mr. Waters,” I said, “I’ll help Helen. You need to go outside, sir, with the prince. It’s the prince they’re coming for. Mr. Waters?”

  I looked at the prince then. His expression was hard to read, as if the enormity of what he’d done was still forming in his features.

  Mr. Waters was standin
g next to Helen. Oh, the look on his poor face. I couldn’t long watch him. Helen was the love of his life, and she had been with his prince.

  I looked over to the prince again. “Please, sir,” I implored him.

  “Rupert, dear chap,” the prince said quietly, not meeting anyone’s eye, “let’s you and I form a decoy. We’ll go up to meet them and give Maddie a chance to clean up. Maddie, darling, you’re a dear to lend assistance.”

  He’d managed to don his pants and shrugged out of the robe so that he was more or less dressed.

  He looked about him, grabbed the decanter of whisky he’d been holding when we walked in and his cap. He put the cap on his head and picked up some papers from the floor near the desk, then called to the guards, whose shouts from somewhere above us on the bank were quite frantic now. Soon they would be upon us.

  “We’re here!” he called out, waving the papers through the window above our heads.

  Mr. Waters did his best to secure the door leading to the back of the carriage, pushing a chest of drawers against it and nodding to me.

  With that the prince stood on the upturned sofa and put his head out the window that was now the roof of the carriage. He placed the decanter and his papers on the glass and used his arms to heave himself out of the carriage. “Here!” he called. “I’ve managed to rescue what’s important, at least.” I heard the clink of the glass decanter and relieved laughter from the men. “And finally, we’ve managed to do something that wasn’t on the bloody schedule!” More laughter.

  “Quickly,” I said to Helen, who was still crouched in the corner. “Into the bathroom. We won’t have long.”

  She still didn’t move so I put my arms under hers and began to lift her.

  She let out a sob. “Oh God, what have I done?” she said.

  “Helen,” I said gently. I could smell whisky on her breath and the prince’s cologne, which made me queasy. “You’ll have to stand for me.” This she did, still sobbing. We made our way to the bathroom. We were slow, as I had to steer her clear of any broken glass because she was not wearing shoes.