by Kate Johnson
One day, a letter came telling him he’d been approved for a Medal of Valor, to be presented at the White House by the President.
He threw it in the trash.
Eliza swam laps.
There had been a long period where getting out of bed had been an impossible goal. Days that merged into each other, curtains drawn and duvet pulled over her head. Her mother had found any pretext to pop in and see how she was doing, and eventually dropped the pretence and begged her to get out of bed. Her father moved back in to his old suite of rooms, as if she were ill and needed him at close proximity in case she died. Drina left well-meaning books and pamphlets about post-natal depression and memorial walls.
There were lots of flowers, and for some reason teddy bears. Eliza couldn’t think of a crueller thing to send someone who’d lost a baby than a toy the child would never play with.
“Why not send baby clothes, or a rattle or a pack of nappies?” she screamed when Drina came rushing into see what all the noise was. Her sister collected the gifts, along with the flowers, and assured Eliza they’d been sent somewhere appropriate.
Therapists and counsellors were brought round, but Eliza didn’t want to talk to them. She didn’t know how. Royals didn’t show emotion, and they sure as hell never talked about their feelings to strangers. “Never explain, never complain, never apologise,” she told them, and was met with patronising smiles. One person told her to write down her feelings in a diary, but she ended up scribbling black ink all over the pages and throwing it against the wall.
The anger that flared at the teddy bears burnt out, nothing to fuel it. There was no point in being angry. Hadn’t she always been told that? It was just mood swings. Hormones. Eliza crawled back into bed and lay like a corpse at the bottom of the river.
Even Granny had been kind, sending condolences, although Eliza noticed she didn’t actually visit. Probably relieved as hell the problem had been taken out of her hands.
Jamie and Clodagh came round, all cocked heads and sympathy. “He seemed so nice,” they kept saying, mystified by Xavier’s deception.
“Never trust a pretty face,” Eliza said, wondering how long they were going to stay, because she had a duvet to go and hide under. They’d come to her private sitting room, because Eliza didn’t have the energy to go any further, and they hadn’t said anything about her pyjamas or unwashed hair.
“You should at least talk to him,” Clodagh urged. “There’s got to be another side to the story.”
“If he’s so eager to tell it, I’m sure the tabloids will listen,” Eliza said.
“I’m sure he has more scruples than—”
“Really? The man who abandoned his child? Scruples?” The anger flared briefly inside her. “Okay, let’s say he has so many scruples. Pretty damn eager to get on that plane and go home, wasn’t he?”
A short silence, during which neither of them reminded her she’d more or less ordered him to leave.
“Or come back! If he’s so eager to tell me how innocent he is, why hasn’t he come here?”
“What, apart from you telling him not to?” murmured Jamie.
“Um, do you know how much transatlantic plane tickets cost?” Clodagh said. “It’s high season. He’s a demoted cop. Not everyone can afford to just drop everything and fly across the Atlantic to see someone who has effectively banned them from her presence, Eliza.”
Jamie shushed her, but Eliza’s hormones were rising. “Well I’m sure it won’t be long before he finds a rich woman to bankroll him. Look at that face! Who cares if he’s a bastard? He’ll probably swan up to Ascot in a gold bloody carriage on the arm of a Kardashian,” she yelled, tears burning her eyes.
“Maybe you should have a rest,” said Jamie awkwardly.
“I don’t want to rest,” Eliza sobbed, even though she did, because everything was so exhausting. She wanted Xavier back, her Xavier, the man who’d held her and loved her and told her she was beautiful. But he was gone, and in his place was a lying, grasping deadbeat.
I liked not being a princess with you. That hadn’t worked out so great, had it?
Even her bed, the one place she could hide and be alone, that was tainted by him too. Those nights they’d spent in it, those memories of passion and tenderness were all spoilt and rotten now. She had the sheets washed, changed the pillows, bought new bedlinen, and still couldn’t rid the place of him.
She had a visit from her cousin Victoria, who had largely kept her own fertility problems to herself and only now begun to talk about them. Eliza supposed she appreciated the solidarity, but Victoria kept talking about how great a support her husband had been, then breaking off when she realised what she was doing.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, um,” she trailed away.
“That’s okay. You’re lucky. Although I will stab you in the eyeball if you do it again,” Eliza said, and it was apparent from Victoria’s nervous giggle that she wasn’t sure if Eliza was actually being serious.
She was dimly aware that every lifestyle show, magazine, website and outlet for anything aimed at women had now staged think-pieces about miscarriage, and a few of them had dropped a few royal pregnancies-gone-wrong articles into the mix too. Such as gory stories about Jane Seymour dying of puerperal fever, or Queen Anne enduring at least seventeen pregnancies but dying without issue.
Drina let slip that her mother’s press office had been fending off interview requests. “As if they expected you to talk about that sort of thing,” she said. She was right. Royals didn’t talk about emotions. Didn’t even have them. Didn’t get angry, or depressed, or so lonely and miserable they cried for hours.
Speculation on her mental state was rife. Absolutely no one called her stupid any more. Funny how tragedy could excuse past behaviour. But Eliza knew she was stupid. She definitely knew she’d been stupid.
One day, her mother casually, carefully, dropped into the conversation that she was having the pool cleaned.
The pool where Xavier had admired her swimming, had teased her and touched her and made love to her. Ugh. Everything in this house had been fouled by him. “I don’t want to swim,” she said. She couldn’t swim. She’d been underwater all this time.
“The exercise might,” began her mother, then stopped herself with a visible effort. “All right. But it’s there.”
Eliza turned back to the boxsets on her laptop and tried to put the thought from her head. But it nagged at the back of her mind like a headache.
She used to swim when she was angry as a child. When Nanny scolded her for making a mess, drawing her letters backwards and never remembering if it was I before E or after it, she’d run down to the pool and attack the water. The water didn’t fight back. The water didn’t tell her she was stupid. The water was her friend.
Her swimsuit still fit. Well, of course it did. It was made of elastic. She just tried it on one day to see.
Then another day, an ordinary day, she put her clothes on over the top of it and went downstairs.
The immediate wall of sympathy and support repelled her. Eliza scuttled back upstairs and tried again at night time.
There were security staff around, of course, but they didn’t tilt their heads and ask how she was doing. They didn’t congratulate her on simply getting out of bed and walking downstairs, like she was a feeble-minded idiot. They didn’t tell her she looked well, and then consider her in a way she found frankly invasive.
The evening was warm. She wasn’t sure what month it was right now. The security light lit up as she made her way across the yard. The lights came on in the barn all at once, the water shimmering blue and inviting. Like liquid crystals, beckoning her on.
The door opened and closed behind her, and Eliza spun round guiltily. But it was just one of the PPO’s, nodding to her silently and staring into the distance. Probably been told to make sure I don’t drown myself, Eliza thought as she stripped off her outer layers and dived into the cool, welcoming water.
I don’t wan
t to drown myself. That thought emerged as soon as her head went underwater. A few weeks ago she’d noticed the removal from her bedroom of anything that could be considered dangerous, and vaguely thought she could probably kill herself with something innocuous if she really wanted. She’d survived a desert island with nothing but some coconut shells and old plastic. She could make an instrument of death out of hair ties and eyebrow tweezers if she wanted to.
But she didn’t want to.
The water welcomed her back like an old friend. Once, when she was a small child, she’d leapt with joyful abandon into a lake and her father had said, “I’ve heard of someone being in their element but I’ve never seen anything like that.”
He used to joke she had secret gills, or fins. At bathtime she’d be in shrieks of laughter as he pretended to look for them. He’d sing funny songs to her about being a fish.
Eliza hit the far side of the pool, out of breath. Too much lying about, eating junk and feeling sorry for herself. She executed a terrible tumble-turn and started on the return lap.
Grandpa had once told her his sister caused a scandal when she was young by appearing on a beach in a bikini. Her family forced her into loose bathing suits after that, but she’d put on her bikini underneath and strip off the ugly suit when they weren’t watching.
Lap three. Eliza had driven her mother mad as a child by insisting on jumping in the muddy lakes and ponds with the dogs when they were out being exercised.
Lap four. She’d come second in a swimming gala because someone had invaded her lane and kicked her ankle, and Daddy had given her one of his medals to wear as a consolation prize.
Lap five. Walking past the sports centre at university and inhaling the scent of chlorine, she’d been physically unable to stop herself going in.
Lap six. A racing driver had once told her the smell of petrol still excited him. She felt the same about chlorine.
Lap seven. Being told by the coach of the university team that she had great shoulders, when her mother’s stylists had despaired of them for so long.
Lap eight. “When are you going to tell me how you became such a good swimmer?” and that grin—
She came up, spluttering.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m okay. Just swallowed a mouthful.” She coughed and wiped at her eyes, treading water.
She’d done a life-saving course once. The instructor had explained that when someone was drowning, they didn’t scream and thrash like people in movies did. They went still, low in the water, unable to speak because they had no breath, unable to move because they had no energy, just quietly sinking.
It had been weeks now, weeks of quietly drowning in her own emotions. Of anger that flared every now and then, subsiding because she didn’t have the energy. Because she’d always been told to keep it inside. Because she had no idea, not really, how to express the anger that had been slowly, quietly, trying to get noticed inside her.
I think it’s time to scream and thrash now.
Her shoulders and thighs burned from the unaccustomed exercise. Her chest heaved, lungs desperate to keep up. The scar on her back pulled and ached.
She did it again the next night.
Chapter Sixteen
“When are you leaving for Ascot?”
It was a simple enough question, but everyone at the table stared at Eliza like she’d grown another head.
“We, ah, weren’t planning on it this year,” said her mother.
Eliza reached for more toast. “Really? The forecast looks nice, and we have a few runners, don’t we?”
“Yes, but…”
“I had some hats on order from earlier in the year. I assume they’re still extant. And there’s probably something in the wardrobe I can wear to go with them. A couple were fairly neutral colours.”
Silence fell as she buttered her toast. Eliza’s hands trembled a little.
“Or maybe I’ll do some shopping.”
“Darling, you’ve hardly been outside—”
“I have, I’ve been on plenty of walks and I’ve been using the pool, too, did the PPO’s tell you?”
They hesitated before every sentence. “Yes, but—”
“I want to go to Ascot,” Eliza said, looking up. “I want to wear nice clothes and talk to people in the sunshine and see the horses and make bets on the races. I want to be a normal person again.” I want to scream and thrash.
“Are you… sure you’re strong enough?”
“Yes. I did sub thirty all last week.” It had felt crawlingly slow when she used to be able to do a 50m lap in 25 seconds, but it was progress.
“I don’t mean physically, darling,” said her mother.
She’d embraced it now, the anger. It kept her warm at night and fuelled her swimming like a furnace. She was honestly amazed they couldn’t see it, burning like magma under her skin.
“What will you wear, Drina? It’s important we don’t clash. Daddy, are you coming?”
Her parents exchanged a look. It was frankly weird to have them both here like this.
“If you really want to, then we will,” he said eventually.
“I had pink for the procession,” Drina said quietly.
“What sort of pink? I don’t want to look too matchy-matchy.”
They joined in the conversation, stilted and awkward. Throughout the day, each member of her family asked her if she wouldn’t be happier resting, and maybe making her re-entry into society somewhere a little less… world-famous.
But I want it to be world-famous. I want him to see. I want him to know he hasn’t broken me.
“Perhaps we should start somewhere quieter…” began her mother.
“Has Granny said something?” Eliza finally snapped. “Am I persona non grata now?”
“No, of course not! She’s very worried about you. We all are.”
“Well, I’m fine. Totally physically fine. The doctor said. And I’m feeling much better in my head now too. I need to get back to…”
“To what?” asked her mother softly.
Work? That was a joke. The auction house had told her she could have indefinite leave, and were probably operating much more efficiently in her absence. Friends? She’d never had a lot of close friends, and if she saw Melissa again she’d push her in a pile of horse dung.
Me. I need to be me again. And a me I don’t hate. I’ve got someone else for that.
“Life,” Eliza said. “I need to get back to life.”
To: Clodagh Cambridge
From: Anita Rivera Garcia
Dear Your Royal Highness,
Thank you so much for writing to me! And for your concern about my brother. To put it simply he has been a mess ever since he came back from England. I saw those pictures of him with Princess Eliza, he looked so happy, and they were so in love. I can’t believe it ended like it did. He’s been devastated. But you know men, he won’t talk about it.
You are right that there’s a lot that ‘needed to be said’ but I can’t get him to say it. I told him to go to the papers but he said they’ll just misrepresent him and he’s probably right, and besides, he should have this conversation with Princess Eliza in person. But she won’t take his calls and he won’t make them anyway. I’m sure you’re right and it was a misunderstanding that had him sent back to Florida, but he’s taken that as a pretty clear signal she doesn’t want him in England ever again. And I can’t see why she’d come to Miami.
How do we get them together? Do you have any ideas?
“Oh look, honey, here’s your girl,” said Anita, holding up a magazine.
“Not my girl,” Xavier muttered automatically. He tried to keep his attention on the TV, where the Dolphins were taking a hammering, but his head turned of its own accord.
He didn’t see her at first. There were a bunch of photos of women in really stupid hats, and a load of men in carriages—horse drawn carriages!—wearing the kind of outfit Eliza had called ‘morning dress’, complete with striped trousers and top
hats. The Royal women wore restrained outfits and hats that looked almost sensible compared to the rest, but there was one knockout in a red dress—
“Holy shit.”
The knockout was Eliza. Hot red dress, her beautiful shoulders rising pale above the sweep of fabric. A top hat in severe black, with feathers and a net veil, perched to the left. Her lipstick was red.
“It says here, the dress is a bodycon, on-the-shoulder style, because at Royal Ascot they have to have shoulder straps at least an inch wide. Like, do they go around measuring them? And the hat has raven feathers. Ooh, are they from the Tower of London?”
His sister peered at the picture as if it would answer her question.
The dress was on-the-shoulder, all right, and only covered the top couple of inches of Eliza’s arms. The skirt was knee-length but rode up as she stepped from the carriage, the moment preserved by photographers eager to focus on the scars on her arm and leg.
“Not even trying to hide the scars on her face and body from hitting a coral reef when she was kidnapped earlier this year,” Anita read on, “Princess Elizabeth was defiant in pillarbox red on the first day of Ascot. The following day she was in hot pink with a white hat,” she showed him a smaller picture of Eliza with a hat like a giant saucer, again tilted to the left so the full scar on her cheekbone and ear could be seen, “and a little black dress with a peacock feathered hat for day three. The Royals usually dress with restraint at these events but this year Eliza looks like a knockout in body-con dresses that display her gorgeous figure. We can’t wait to see what she wears next!”
“She was always a knockout,” Xavier said, transfixed. She’d cut her hair, the blonde waves falling in a loose choppy style around her neck. Rapunzel has left the tower.
Anita peered at the captions. “It’s like they’re trying to see if she’s put on weight,” she said. “Look, Mom, at Xavier’s girl!”
“Not my girl,” he said, and resumed staring at the TV. The magazine sucked at his attention all through the game. He couldn’t have said who won if his life depended on it.
