Royals

by Emma Forrest

  ‘But I need to finish my Saint Martin’s application.’

  ‘We’ll do it on the way. It’s just a train ride!’

  I agreed, without asking how long the bloody train ride was. But she got me through the four hours with the attention and ingenuity of a party hostess, a synchronicity of old-world literary hostess and thrower of a toddler’s birthday party. She’d packed extra things I’d never seen in secret compartments of her handbag and she’d pull them out when she thought I was getting grumpy. I imagined her doing the same for her father. I imagined she’d have been a good mother. In her way.

  ‘Look. Here’s a cigarette compact that Laurence Olivier gave to Vivien Leigh when they were both still married to other people!’

  I held it in my hand. ‘It does feel scandalous. But refined.’

  ‘He was mainly queer, you know?’

  ‘He never decided, I heard.’

  ‘Of course, yes. Just like you.’

  ‘Why do you keep swinging back to it? You’re like a demented driver going in circles.’

  ‘Am I making you feel sick?’

  ‘No. It’s just quite rude.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  As if I were the first person to point out how rude she could be. Maybe I was the first person.

  ‘I just want you to be happy,’ she said, ‘and it helps to be happy if one has clarity.’

  ‘David Bowie is bisexual.’

  ‘That’s true. But he’s quite a good deal more beautiful than you, so he does have greater options. I’m just being honest!’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Look. Here’s a fan my father got me in Barcelona.’

  ‘Why doesn’t it say “Duty Free” on it?’

  ‘Let’s not go there again.’

  ‘You’re right.’ I looked in my bag. ‘This is my letter to Saint Martin’s. It’s a work in progress. Will you read it?’

  ‘Oh, brilliant! That’s my favourite thing! Let’s have a gander!’ It always amused me when she used Cockney slang, though she was the only posh person who could do it, otherwise it made me feel violent.

  ‘Dear Saint Martin’s, I want to be inside you. Love Steven.’

  I looked at her. ‘I’m joking!’ she said.

  ‘I am aware. I did write it.’

  ‘You are quite a miserable sort, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I am. Thanks for noticing. Will you read it, or shall I?’

  She went in a side pocket and put on reading glasses I’d never seen before nor heard tell of.

  ‘Do you need glasses?’

  ‘Obviously.’ She shrugged. ‘You don’t know everything about me.’

  ‘I haven’t even known you very long.’

  ‘And you’ve done very well. Better than anyone who’s come before you.’

  She sat in my lap and started reading as people walked past, looking askance or tender, depending how their own hearts were feeling or which class they were sat in. I maintained the expression of someone who always travels first class, as she read aloud:

  ‘To whom it may concern. I have been sketching and designing since I was a little boy. I didn’t know it was something you could do for a living for many years. The common thread, when I found out, was that the artists I admire went to your school. I used to be embarrassed by my family but embarrassment is silly and not very useful for design purposes. My family are big-hearted and annoying, and big-hearted and annoying are things I think a designer can work with.

  ‘There’s people in my family I hate and when I see them in front of me, I see how much they want to fade into the background with their clothes, but how, in seeking that, they still draw attention with their anger, the bland uniforms exacerbating their emotional incontinence. From growing up with the main male figure in my life, I want the clothes to be the only thing about me that’s angry, so it’s all there, and I am free to be more relaxed than what I’m wearing. That’s why I’m focusing my collection on corsets.’

  She looked up at me. ‘You fucking genius.’ There were actual tears in her eyes. It’s always so much better in a movie when a great actor almost cries but doesn’t, instead of watching an actor weep openly. She went back to the letter, telling me to read the rest. I took a deep breath through my nose and exhaled my incantation:

  ‘There’s other people in my family who want to be so like everyone else that they dress as close to their friends as they can. But the way it comes across to me is the safety of the crowd and the cruelty of the crowd. The things you can get away with when you look like everybody else. I think it’s harder to be unkind when you dress eccentrically. You can always get picked out in a crowd, so it inclines one towards better behaviour. I’ve never heard an unkind word about Quentin Crisp or Adam Ant. I’d be shocked if Kate Bush were a bully.’

  By the end, I felt like I was performing onstage at school in front of an audience and, as I looked up to see Jasmine’s response, I saw that the train had gathered to listen in.

  ‘I don’t quite understand it,’ said a man with a briefcase, ‘but I think it’s wonderful!’

  The man pushing the food cart said: ‘Add in the princess to your list of great dressers.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Which one? The princess!’ I thought he might have meant Grace of Monaco but actually I didn’t I knew who he meant and I wrote down ‘Diana’.

  ‘She’s not a very good dresser, not at all,’ I whispered.

  He looked crushed, so I adapted, ‘But you feel her kindness and her vulnerability, like she could strangle herself with all those pussy bows.’

  ‘Thatcher wears the same thing!’ said the man with the briefcase.

  ‘Yeah, but she’d be strangling you.’

  Having taken offence on behalf of both their princess and their prime minister, they went back to their previous positions. If they could have rescinded their round of applause, they would have.

  ‘I like it,’ said Jasmine. ‘It doesn’t suck up too much. You’re a good manipulator like that.’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘But then I am too. Don’t lose it. It’s a good life skill.’

  She put on her make-up from the same bag she’d had in the hospital bed. I watched her closely.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just… it seems an age ago you were doing that in the hospital.’

  ‘For ever ago.’

  ‘But it’s hardly any time at all.’

  ‘I feel completely different, don’t you?’

  ‘I feel different,’ I agreed.

  ‘Well, that’s it, we’re on a path. We’re both going to make it this year. Isn’t it wonderful to be alive? I don’t always say that after I make it. Usually I’m furious to still be here. But now, I just feel we have so much we’re going to do together in the world.’

  I kissed her gently on the lips, no tongue, the kiss of someone who hasn’t decided yet, but who wanted to express that if they had decided, it would be her, just her, only ever her.

  When we pulled apart, she blushed and put away her make-up, saying, ‘That’s Dolly Parton’s foundation. I had it tracked down and sent all the way from Nashville.’

  I loved her too much to ask: ‘Do you mean that’s the same brand she uses or is it literally hers, passed on to you?’ Or, ‘Isn’t anything just yours? Does it not hold any value if there isn’t some crazy story or auction behind it? Not just, “I went down the shop and bought myself some foundation. They were charging two for one at Superdrug so I bought two”?’

  As if hearing my thoughts (or not hearing them) she pulled out a pack of Tarot cards and said, ‘These were hand-painted by artisans in Mexico.’ The kiss had kicked in her fight or flight and her version of flight was to babble. ‘My dad brought them back from a wild fishing trip he had with Keith Richards. Neither of them remember much of what happened, only that they had the most incredible fortune read. She laid out everything, to a T, about every month of their lives to come.’

  ‘What did she say?’
<
br />   ‘They don’t remember that part.’ She gave it not another thought. ‘Now cut this in half in the middle, shuffle it, draw five cards, lay them face down. Don’t show me! And lay another five horizontal across them. Yes, I know it’s tough asking a Jew to make a crucifix, but the whole thing is occult, so you’re buggered anyway.’

  The passengers looked round. I wasn’t sure if it was for the Judaism or the Satanism, but either way, I suddenly understood why my family never talked religion, most certainly not in public. You just didn’t know who was listening or what they held in their hearts. People are crazy. Speaking of…

  ‘OH MY GOD!’

  I leapt in my seat.

  ‘This is the most wonderful card!’

  ‘It’s the death card. How is that wonderful?’

  ‘Because it means new beginnings. You’re about to have a huge change. In my readings, you’re always the Knight of Cups.’

  ‘What do you mean always? In your readings?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been reading your Tarot since the day I met you. You just weren’t there for it. But it’s how I knew we’d come back together after our fight.’

  ‘Didn’t take me very long. Your powers of prediction were confirmed pretty bloody fast.’

  ‘They usually are.’ She looked sad. ‘Anyhoo, I’m the Princess of Pentacles and my father is the Lover.’

  ‘That’s weird.’

  ‘Maybe, but it’s just how it is. I don’t get to choose; the card chooses you.’

  She even read Tarot for the family sitting across the way. They were laughing about it until they got sucked into the read. I was annoyed that she invited them to sit, but she did and they took their turn, one by one.

  We got to our stop and she packed away the Olivier–Leigh cigarette case, Barcelona fan, deck of hand-drawn Tarot cards. We took a taxi from the train station. The back of the driver’s head looked like my dad’s. She didn’t tip him enough and, looking him in the eyes, I tipped him more as she walked ahead.

  CHAPTER 17

  You could see, from the outside, that her house was actually a House, with a capital ‘H’. Its exterior was what marked it as a true country estate. You could see, from the fifteenth-century stone, the turrets and the blanket of creeping vines, that we were entering, if not a time capsule, then certainly an ecosystem.

  I ogled her bath first, because I think it’s the best place to start when you’re trying to get inside someone’s soul. What are they looking at when they’re naked and vulnerable but not sexual? What’s the view from the window? Is there even a window? A skylight, so you can feel the stars witnessing your sorrows as you soak them off. The floor had gold leaf and a mosaic of woodland animals: hares and foxes and other English creatures. The tub had claw feet and was painted dusty pink.

  Jasmine had her childhood bedroom intact. It had, neatly lined on the bed, teddy bears from all around the world. A koala bear in a Sydney T-shirt. A Dublin bear with four-leaf clovers in one paw and a beer in his other hand. A King Kong bear clutching the Empire State Building. They spread out onto the bookshelves, a party out of control. She had a lifetime supply of duty free, but to her it was irrefutable proof that he always remembered her, that she was always on his mind. Children are loyal to their parents and children are even more loyal to damaged parents.

  As I brushed my teeth, the moon pressed down through the skylight as if it longed for me. As if, like Jasmine, I was incandescently beautiful. She came in to brush her teeth alongside me and talked at me as if we were already in bed.

  ‘You’ve got to try having an orgasm on a full moon. It’s the absolute best. It might not work because you’re a man. But then it might work because you’re gay!’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet!’

  ‘You keep saying that.’

  ‘Who would I possibly have sex with, anyway?’

  ‘Yourself! I mean, if you really want to enjoy it? If you want to feel powerful instead of subjugated, really best to have sex with yourself. I can be in the next room from you, so you’re not alone.’

  ‘I don’t like that idea. At all.’

  ‘No, but you’d love it, I promise. We’d feel each other’s energy. We’d hear each other.’

  ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘That’s good! That’s going to create extra-powerful waves of pleasure.’

  I moved away from her.

  ‘When you feel that you’re close, say, “Now is the time and I am the one.” Over and over: “Now is the time and I am the one.” And whoever you’re thinking about when you come, make sure those words are a mantra in your head when it happens. Then anything and everything you want will be yours, even things you don’t know you want yet. It’s a very powerful spell.’

  I quite visibly blanched, whiting out any magic in the air.

  ‘Listen. I’m helping you out here. Trust me. If you don’t take control of this now, your first years of sex will make you feel so powerless, you’ll hover outside your body looking down on this numb person being moved into different positions. I don’t do anything I don’t want any more. I don’t go with anyone I don’t want.’

  She paused.

  ‘I’d sleep with you if you could be persuaded…’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet…’

  ‘But it would be taking advantage. Yes, you’ve said that. I’ll wait for you to come to me. But for the meantime. In the next room. Don’t forget your candle. Oh, you’ll need some carnelian. Do you have some on you?’

  ‘No, I don’t have some carnelian on me!’

  ‘I have some spare rose quartz. It’s not quite right but it’s better than nothing. You have to be careful with these things. I once put some lapis lazuli up my bum and I had the most fearful nightmares.’

  ‘Well, you would.’

  ‘But you can put rose quartz in your arse, that’s fine.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘You have to.’

  ‘I don’t have to do everything you say.’

  ‘My gosh, no. You don’t have to do anything I say. You’re a young person of entirely free will and all your decisions thus far have led you to the rich and fulfilling life you so enjoyed before I met you.’

  I sighed and put my hand out. ‘Give me the quartz.’

  CHAPTER 18

  I consider it my first sexual experience, even though there wasn’t anyone else involved. There was no one in the room, but there was something up my arse. And she was next door. I knew she could hear me when I came. I could hear her. She walked in, her cheeks flush, the skin across her throat and chest blooming.

  ‘Who were you thinking about?’

  There was some Swedish pop, with a bit of Farley Granger in Strangers on a Train, and Jasmine had been there too. It felt simplest to say, ‘ABBA.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘All of them.’

  ‘Oh, brilliant! Was that Benny or was that Bjorn? Who can say? I love to be confused by an orgasm. Did you remember to set your intention?’

  ‘It was difficult with them there.’

  ‘The beards, yes. Oh, well. Next time.’

  ‘Who were you thinking about?’

  ‘I was thinking about sun on my skin in St-Tropez. I was on a yacht and I opened my legs very slowly and felt the heat.’

  ‘And that did the job?’

  ‘My goodness, yes. I set my intention very deeply. I’d be astonished if this spell didn’t come true.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I can’t tell you or it won’t work.’

  Even though I’d known her such a short time, it upset me that she would keep something from me, even if it were a spell, even if saying it out loud would defeat its purpose.

  ‘Let’s dress for dinner.’

  She showed me a wardrobe. Well, it wasn’t a wardrobe, it was a room. ‘These are eighty years old. They have to stay in a dark, cool room to keep them at their best. Dracula dresses, gowns coming alive at night to suck your blood. Did you know the Dracula myth was rooted in
anti-Semitism?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Yes. In Victorian England, the story became very popular at a time when there was a fear of the Eastern European coming and sucking the lifeblood out of the economy. And the whole blood ritual thing, drinking the blood of Christian children. No offence.’

  ‘None taken.’ I tried to imagine what it must be like to say constantly offensive things and no one minds because you’re just so charming. I suppose that’s what it is to be upper class. I’d been taught to mock posh people, that they sneered at us, but I was transfixed by her and she’d shown me more kindness than I’d ever had in my life.

  ‘The vampire also…’

  ‘Can we stop talking about vampires?’

  Night was falling and even though I adored her, I was still a bit scared of her, like she was Kate Bush and Siouxsie Sioux put together.

  ‘The vampire also puts you in a trance…’

  It didn’t bother me when she ignored me. It wasn’t like being ignored by my family or the kids at school.

  ‘Dracula says, “If you’d only love me, as much as I love you, then I could show you my true monstrous self, which I’ve never had the courage to show anybody.”’

  She moved closer to me, holding a candelabra, fixing her eyes intently on my throat. Right when she was inches from my neck she said, ‘That reminds me. I need to buy tampons.’

  ‘Doesn’t your mum have any?’

  I wanted to kick myself.

  ‘She did leave some behind, but I’ve gone through them. I vacillated a long time before using the final one. But I was bleeding onto the tiles, so I used it. It’s always necessity that puts an end to my romantic sorrows.’

  I examined the dress before me at the front of the wardrobe. ‘Clothes have a lifespan, and I don’t mean that they go out of fashion.’

  ‘You mean like a wine?’

  ‘I don’t know about wine, but I suppose so. If you don’t wear this soon it will just disintegrate. It’s silk; it’s decaying.’

  ‘How would you wear it?’ she asked as she tried to style the straps.

  ‘I’d cut it at the thigh.’