Scarlett pushed away the internal whisper that said that, just possibly, she had hoped to meet Alex again before term began. He shared the squat only a few streets away from her flat. They might drink coffee and discuss Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene, Sweden’s banning of aerosol sprays, what would happen to the earth if the hole in the ozone layer kept spreading, the success of the first cochlear implants and the sequencing of the first complete genome ever with PHI 174. None of the other students got really excited by a genome.
She looked up at him: tall, dark, handsome, the most perverse cliché in the universe. She would never be such a predictable idiot again.
‘I’ll phone you from Dribble,’ she said to Hannah. ‘Enjoy the magazines.’
‘All two hundred of them,’ said Hannah dryly.
‘Only ten. Ciao.’ She pressed the start button on her wheelchair and bumped across the footpath. She had gone perhaps two metres when she discovered Alex was still beside her.
‘I need to explain.’
‘You need to go away.’ And put your head up an emu’s bum, she thought, which had been the worst insult she could think of when she was ten years old. Nancy had forbidden her Sunday ice cream for an hour after that one. It would have been longer if her foster mother hadn’t laughed.
‘I didn’t mean it the way it came out. I just meant I can’t afford tickets for a charity just now. If I was going to ask anyone, it would be you.’
‘If ifs had mass, we could climb them to the stars,’ said Scarlett.
‘Is that a saying from the weird town you come from?’
‘In a way. It’s from one of its weird residents. Me. And I know perfectly well that there is no point asking someone who can’t dance to a ball.’
‘Scarlett . . .’ The wheelchair was fast enough on the smooth paving that he had to stride to keep up with her. She zapped around a bloke limping with a cane, blessing Thompson’s Industries.
‘The real reason I can’t ask you to the ball is that I’m broke. I didn’t even have coffee back there.’
She slowed down. ‘Really?’
‘Cross my heart and hope to fracture tibia, fibula and humerus by lunchtime,’ said Alex, in that voice that willed her to believe him. ‘I can make up sayings too,’ he added. ‘In fact I have to lug my stuff on the train over to Grandmère’s — to my grandmother’s. She lives out at Parramatta, which is going to be convenient for uni. Not.’
‘So why stay there?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t get a living-away-from-home allowance because Grandmère’s place is technically in Sydney. And the builders are moving into the squat tomorrow.’
‘Where do your parents live?’
He hesitated. ‘They died.’
Oops. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Me too. Car accident when I was twelve.’
‘That’s hard.’
He nodded. ‘At least I had Grandmère. Or rather the Grand Duchess Maria-Theresa, if you want to be formal, which she usually does. How did you lose your parents?’
So he was a prince. Or whatever the grandson of a grand duchess was. Why had they never spoken of these things? she wondered.
‘I didn’t lose them. They dumped me because I couldn’t move by myself. They tried to pick me up again when they were broke and found out my adopted sister has money, but I didn’t want to be undumped.’ Scarlett shrugged. ‘End of story.’
She regarded him tentatively, the wheelchair on its slowest setting now. ‘I have a spare bedroom,’ she blurted, surprising even herself. She’d never have made the offer if she’d thought about it.
Alex considered. Finally he met her eyes. ‘Thank you. But no.’
She kept the pain from her face, but not the flush. ‘Okay. It was just an offer.’
‘Scarlett,’ he looked down at her, ‘I’m not getting involved with anyone till I’m through uni and have done my residency.’
Her flush grew hotter. ‘I just meant a place to stay for a while.’ And she had, she told herself. ‘But sure, people might misunderstand.’
‘Sorry. I’m really chewing my foot off today.’ He hesitated. ‘Can I ask a favour?’
She shrugged again. ‘You’ve only insulted me twice this afternoon, once in front of half the anatomy class. But okay.’
‘You said you were heading back to Gibber’s Creek. Could you give me a lift to Grandmère’s? It’s more or less on the way. Otherwise it’s going to mean three train trips, which is more cash than I have just now, or hitchhiking, which is not easy with your arms full of garbage bags.’
Parramatta wasn’t on the way back to Gibber’s Creek. Plus she was really worried about Jed. But this was Alex . . .
‘Okay,’ she said, thinking, Idiot, idiot, to herself. ‘Get your stuff and meet me at my place.’
Big Red was parked outside the flats: red for Scarlett, not the nice conservative white Jim Thompson had wanted the van painted; big because, much as she’d love a sports car like Jed’s, she had two wheelchairs, plus luggage, plus a friend or two, and one of those friends was Leafsong, who wanted help transporting ninety kilograms of tomatoes and fifty bunches of basil from the commune to her café, or sent letters asking her to collect a whole salmon from the Sydney Fish Market, or find some weird shop to buy filo pastry, black olives, Turkish Delight or halva, and no place like that ever had a ramp, so she had to sit at the front and call out to people who then fussed over her and gave her thick sweet coffee and baklava and almond crescents, or made her taste twenty kinds of halva before allowing her to leave — which actually was pretty good, and she had made several friends of old women with high stomachs and black dresses and hankies tied about their heads. All that meant her vehicle actually needed to be a small van, tall rather than long to make room for the mobile bars that allowed her to swing the wheelchairs up, down and in and out, as well as other stuff.
Which would have been noteworthy enough apart from Leafsong’s and Mark’s input . . .
Alex stared. ‘The boxing kangaroos on the doors are a nice touch.’
‘A Christmas present from my friend Leafsong.’
‘Purple really suits kangaroos.’
‘Leafsong thought so too.’
‘I’m not quite sure about the green ducks.’
‘Me neither. I’m beginning to wonder if she sees colours the way other people do.’ Alex glanced at her questioningly. ‘She can’t talk. Or rather, has chosen not to. But she does have some apparent asymmetry, possibly an early endocrine imbalance.’
‘She hasn’t been properly diagnosed?’
‘She doesn’t need diagnosis,’ said Scarlett shortly. ‘She is also the most fabulous cook in the universe and runs the Blue Belle Café with her partner, Mark, and is my best friend.’
Alex glanced at her. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting her.’ He grinned as he slid into the passenger’s seat, painted with the rear view of a duck. ‘I think you are going to get on just fine with Grandmère.’
Scarlett pulled expertly away from the kerb. The advantage of being taught how to drive by a terrible driver like Jed was that you learned very quickly what not to do. ‘Is she really a grand duchess?’
‘Of course not,’ said Alex patiently. ‘All Russian aristocratic titles were abolished in 1918 as part of the Communist revolution. But most of those who had Russian titles kept using them, and their kids and grandkids and great-grandkids still do sometimes. And if idiots like Barbara marry someone who might, possibly, be descended from a prince, then they push to keep the titles too.’
‘Are you descended from a prince though?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Grandmère believes it utterly. So did Grandpère. I think. Mum and Dad didn’t give two hoots, but played the part for Grandmère. Want a potted version of the family history?’
‘Please.’ She pulled up at a set of traffic lights.
‘Okay. Sometime in the early 1920s — Grandpère was always carefully vague about exactly when — a White Russian who called himsel
f the Grand Prince Michael Alexis Romanov, supposedly the youngest brother of the murdered tsar, arrived in Paris, where there was quite a colony of White Russian émigrés, mostly poor as church mice, living mainly by being invited out to dinner, lunch and even breakfast if at all possible, and holidaying in the chateaux of old friends, or the new rich who wanted to hobnob with royalty.
‘Some of them did very well, were given company directorships, where they only had to add their name and title to the business, and go on long lunches and dinners. Grandpère was one of those. Except . . .’ He paused and grinned at her.
‘Let me guess. There’s no historical record of a Grand Prince Michael?’
‘There’s no historical record of most White Russian aristocrats. The records were destroyed by the Communists. Which was convenient for the fakers who decided to become members of the Russian aristocracy.’ He shrugged again. ‘To be honest, I don’t know what is true and what isn’t. Grandpère was an actual con man . . .’
So that was where Alex inherited his charm, thought Scarlett.
‘. . . but Grandmère talks proudly of how they would leave someone’s chateau with enough francs to see them through another three years, plus a fur coat and an emerald brooch to be hocked at some later date. But then true aristocracy also probably acts as if they are entitled to francs and fur coats. There actually are a few letters in English and German archives that mention a younger brother of the tsar, but in the official family trees there’s no mention of one.’
‘How did your grandfather explain the discrepancy?’
Alex laughed. ‘He didn’t. Royalty never complains, never explains. Grandmère is French, at least twenty years younger than him. Her father was a Parisian baker, as bourgeois as they come. He loved having a grand prince as a son-in-law. He even bought them a house, almost beautiful enough for an aristocrat.
‘And then the war came, and the Boche.’ Scarlett was reasonably certain Alex hadn’t noticed that he had used the French term. ‘Grandpère joined the Free French under de Gaulle and ended up in Darwin. And before you say the dates don’t fit and he’d have been too old: I know. Grandmère says he dyed his hair and got away with it. Anyway, he had a stroke and was still in Darwin Hospital when the war ended. Grandmère was given permission to join him, with my father, and later granted residency then citizenship. Grandpère died about a year after she arrived.’
‘She didn’t want to go back to Paris?’
‘I don’t think she could afford to. Her parents had been in the Resistance, and the shop confiscated. With no money, a husband who couldn’t speak or move, a young son . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Grandmère worked as a barmaid, then as a cook. No one in Darwin was impressed by a grand duchess or princess — she changes titles as it suits her — so when Grandpère died she came to Sydney, where a title has snob value. By the time my parents were killed, she had just retired as functions manager for one of the big hotels. She has her flat, her pension and . . .’
‘And what?’
‘You’ll see,’ said Alex.
The fire consumed the dry bark, the shimmering eucalyptus oil evaporating from hot trees. Now it had heat enough to burn green leaves and sap-rich wood. For the first time smoke sifted into the air, almost too faint to see . . .
Chapter 10
JED
Jed sat on the sofa, her hands on her belly, waiting for labour pains. Shock brought on labour, didn’t it? She should have asked Scarlett to come home now. She should ring Nancy or Blue, and ask them to come over.
But if she did that, she’d have to explain. But she didn’t want to explain! Explaining would make poor scared Janet Skellowski real again. And she was upset enough to give details too, the kind she hoped no one would ever know about the woman who was now Jed McAlpine-Kelly . . .
Gradually she began to relax. No labour pains, just a couple of healthy kicks from The Bulge. Merv was hopefully crawling back to wherever he had come from.
An engine muttered down the drive. Jed felt sudden panic, then calmed down as Maxi’s tail wagged. Sam, coming home early.
She heaved herself off the sofa and waddled out to the kitchen to meet him as he took his boots off at the door. ‘You look like something the dog dragged in. Don’t you dare hug me till you’ve had a shower.’
Sam grinned. ‘You look like a beached whale. I’m not sure I could even reach your lips to kiss you.’
‘Well, don’t try till you’ve washed.’ Should she tell him?
No. Merv was gone. Gone! And Janet Skellowski was gone too. Sam had married strong, independent Jed Kelly. Janet Skellowski had no room in this marriage. But then why did she feel like a terrified fifteen-year-old again, wanting to lock every door in the house?
‘I love you!’ yelled Sam from the corridor, already stripping off his filthy shirt.
‘I love you too!’ she called back.
She was right not to tell him. Not to tell anyone. They’d have leftover stuffed lamb shoulder with salad, and she’d bake a couple of potatoes in their jackets, no, three, because Maxi liked baked potato too and she had been a good dog, exactly the kind of dog Matilda would have trained for her.
And then they’d have fruit salad and ice cream, and watch the movie on TV, and Sam would go to sleep halfway through, and it would be a good evening in a wonderful, fulfilling life . . .
. . . one that neither Merv nor Janet Skellowski had any part in.
Chapter 11
SCARLETT
The block of flats was a 1960s concrete chocolate box, rectangular, with each floor looking as if it could be pulled out to make your selection. The stairwell smelled of elderly dog and slightly ripe rubbish, but there was a glimpse of river from the car park, two canoeists and a small triangle of far-off trees.
‘What floor does she live on?’ asked Scarlett resignedly, sitting in her chair as Alex loaded her with garbage bags of clothes. She was never sure if it was a compliment or insult that people so often forgot she could not climb stairs. She would have to wait here while Alex ferried his possessions upstairs, then bade her goodbye.
‘Ground floor.’ He was already leading the way along a concrete path.
Alex knocked on the door to the second flat, then inserted his key. ‘Grandmère?’
‘Alexi? You are late.’ The voice had a decidedly French accent. Its owner was small, dressed in stylish black, from shoes to sheer stockings to a well-fitted dress, with a scarf in shades of red and grey, hair that was too perfectly white to be entirely natural — she must soak it in cloudy ammonia — and was that a tiara?
Scarlett stared at the red stones. They could not possibly be rubies. The small room was crowded with Louis XIV antiques, the paint rubbed off here and there to show the plastic underneath. Fleur-de-lis wallpaper; a samovar up on a thin black cupboard; sepia reproduction photographs in gold frames — a portrait of what she supposed was the executed Russian royal family, and another of a handsome man with slicked-down black hair, a crown and a curled moustache you could sweep a floor with.
Alex’s grandfather looked both royal and faintly amused, as if he were about to wink and say, ‘We all know this is a joke, don’t we?’ And that the joke might even be that he was not a con man at all, but genuine royalty. Or genuine ex-royalty . . .
‘Grandmère, may I present my friend Scarlett Kelly-O’Hara? Scarlett, my grandmother, the Grand Duchess Maria-Theresa.’ There was no levity or mockery at all in Alex’s voice.
The Grand Duchess Maria-Theresa held out her hand. The rings matched the tiara. Scarlett considered briefly, bowed as low as her wheelchair would allow, then kissed the scattering of age spots on the back of the extended hand. It smelled of violets and was soft, the hand of an aristocrat. Or a pastry chef, skin softened by the butter . . .
‘Welcome, Miss Kelly-O’Hara. Alexi, tea is ready.’
Alex was looking at Scarlett strangely. ‘I beg your pardon? Sorry, Grandmère, I’ve got another load to bring in.’
‘It can wait. Miss Kelly-O
’Hara, you will sit there. And may I introduce my husband, His Royal Highness Prince Michael Alexis?’
Scarlett blinked at the empty chair below the portrait. She ducked her head slowly, in a bow, carefully not meeting Alex’s eyes.
‘Excellent,’ pronounced the duchess. ‘Alexi, remove Miss Kelly-O’Hara’s chair, as she has her own.’
Tea was passed, in glasses with ivory holders, weak, with lemon. A glass was placed below the portrait. Death was no reason to banish a prince from afternoon tea. Small fluted cakes that tasted of roses; rolled pikelet things filled with cherry jam and sour cream; smoked salmon sandwiches. Scarlett ate. ‘This is wonderful!’
The duchess smiled. ‘More tea?’
‘Yes, please . . .’ Scarlett hesitated ‘. . . Your Royal Highness.’
The duchess inspected her again. ‘You may call me Grandmère.’ Scarlett heard Alex draw in his breath. ‘When you come again, I will make you a couscous. It is not French, of course, nor Russian, but it is excellent and I think that you would like it. It is good to see a woman who eats.’ She looked at Scarlett severely. ‘But it would be even more good if you wore a dress. A woman does not look truly feminine in jeans.’
‘My legs are ugly, Grandmère,’ said Scarlett, still carefully not looking at Alex. How could she tactfully tell this elegant old woman that she wasn’t Alex’s girlfriend and would probably never be back here again?
Grandmère turned to Alex. ‘Is this true?’
‘I’ve never seen much of Scarlett’s legs,’ said Alex evenly. ‘But I don’t think I could ever find Scarlett ugly.’
‘A good answer.’ Grandmère stood, her back gloriously straight, and beckoned.
Scarlett followed her into a bedroom. The bed was canopied in what looked like and probably was green velvet, the wallpaper was flocked gold and green, and the carpet was green as well. Through the window the river flowed greyly, as if all its colour had been taken for this room. Grandmère pulled out a drawer, hunted and then handed a bundle to Scarlett. ‘Try these on.’
Facing the Flame Page 5
