by Kate Johnson
“Oh, no one even remembers that, babe,” said her mother, but her cheer wavered.
“No. No one did remember it. But there’s this thing called Google.” Clodagh suddenly felt terribly tired. “Soon as they got my name they looked me up.”
“It ain’t in the papers,” her mum said uncertainly.
“It’s online. It’ll be on the front page tomorrow. Gossip loves a scandal, Mum, and you’ve just handed them one.”
“Oh, yeah… but…” Sharon Walsh faltered. “Yeah, but there’s like…”
Across the table, Jamie mouthed, “Tell her you’re talking to Granny,” and winked.
“I have to go, Mum. There’s a lot to do here. I have to talk to…” She couldn’t lie, not outright, “some very important people, so we can decide how to respond to all this.”
“Ooh, well get you, all fancy,” said her mother, clearly stung. “Don’t you forget where you came from, missy.”
“Believe me, Mum, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Clodagh said, and rung off.
She dropped the phone on the table, feeling the need to wash her hands. And her ear.
Jamie hitched his chair closer and put his arm around her. “Well done. That’s the worst of it, for now.”
“I thought the worst of it was talking to your family.”
“Well, that’s why I said ‘for now’,” he said sheepishly. “Until Her Majesty decides when she wants to see us, we’re at leisure.” He tucked a bit of hair behind her ear, from whence it sprang back immediately. “What do you fancy? Nice walk in the parkland? Board game?” His eyes went warm. “Try out the bathtub?”
It was a big tub. “What if Peaseman calls when we’re in the bath?”
“I’m not intending to put him on Facetime.”
Clodagh pretended to think about it as he nuzzled her neck. “Well, if there’s nothing else to do…”
Jamie grinned, and led her upstairs.
Chapter Twenty
“And you call her…”
“Your Majesty in the first instance, and then ma’am, rhymes with jam,” Clodagh said obediently, wondering how much this was costing in data usage. The car sped smoothly down the M1, every minute bringing her a little bit closer to the most terrifying thing she’d ever had to face.
Having a baby was a fucking picnic compared to this.
Olivia nodded on the iPad screen. “Right. And only shake her hand if she offers it. Do not touch her in any other manner. Wait for her to sit before you do, and stand when she does. Wait for her to speak first. Can’t stress that enough.”
“And don’t be freaked out if I stay silent,” Jamie said. “She might only address you, which means I won’t have permission to speak. I’m not ignoring you.”
“You need permission to speak to your own grandmother?” Clodagh said, appalled.
“In formal situations, yes. She is the Queen, after all.”
“Right,” Clodagh said. She took a deep breath and let it out. She’d been doing that all day and it wasn’t helping at all. “What about the walking backwards thing? Is that just Hollywood?”
“Try not to turn your back,” Jamie said. “A couple of steps backwards, then turn to the side, that usually works.”
“For God’s sake don’t put me in heels,” Clodagh said, panicked. She hadn’t worn heels for ages and certainly not since her ankle had been broken.
“But all the outfit choices I’ve got look better with—all right, I’ll find you something flat. This would have been so much easier in the winter,” Olivia grumbled. She glanced at the rack of clothes by her desk, which all looked the same to Clodagh. “You did shave your legs and underarms?” she demanded.
“What, now my personal grooming is public knowledge?” Clodagh muttered, as Jamie said, “She did.”
A short pause, during which Clodagh felt her face burn, then Olivia said, “Very good.”
“By the way, what’s in that conditioner?” Clodagh said desperately. “The Allendale honey one?”
“I have no idea, darling. Why? Is it good or bad?”
“It’s amazing. It just says honey on it, so I was a bit leery…” but there had been no other choice at hand, without calling the housekeeper or someone to find the right stuff, “but it’s brilliant.”
“Ooh.” Olivia perked right up. “As recommended by the future Duchess of… any ideas, Jamie?”
Clodagh froze, because they’d decided not to mention their engagement to anyone yet, but Jamie just said easily, “One thing at a time, Oll.” He glanced at his watch. “Look, I think we need a bit of downtime.”
“Some Crowded House would be good around now,” admitted Clodagh.
“You see? A convert,” said Jamie, smiling warmly at her.
“You two,” said Olivia, but she said goodbye and signed off. Jamie dialled up some music and they sat quietly for a moment, holding hands. Clodagh calmed down a bit, until she remembered she was going to meet the freaking Queen, and then the panic came back again.
“You’ll be fine,” Jamie said, his thumb stroking her hand. “Just be polite, and respectful, and everything will be fine.”
“What if she asks me about…” Oh God, where to start? “My dad, and the baby, and…”
“Then be honest. She’d rather that than you lied.”
“Says someone with nothing to be ashamed of.”
Jamie was silent a moment, and then he said, “There’s stuff she doesn’t know.”
“Like?”
“Well, she wasn’t terribly pleased to find out I’d had a live-in girlfriend for weeks,” he said drily.
“Is that all?”
“Well, I don’t think Victoria has been entirely upfront about the number of miscarriages she’s had.”
Clodagh’s gaze flew to him. “Really?”
“She’s going to have some tests run, apparently. What makes it worse is all the speculation about when she’s going to start having babies.”
“Oh God. Poor thing.”
“And then there’s Ed,” he said, and his fingers tensed.
“What about him?” Clodagh asked gently. Jamie had talked about his brother a bit over the last couple of days, but mostly it had been the happier recollections.
Jamie blew out a long sigh. “He… the reason he was in Wales,” he said, and stalled.
“Visiting friends and old colleagues?” That was what the news had said.
“No. Well, yes. One particular, very special colleague,” Jamie said, rolling his head to look meaningfully at her.
Clodagh felt her eyes go wide. “No. Seriously?”
“Yep.” He hesitated again, then squeezed her hand and said, “This really goes no further, you understand? Not ever. If Annemarie chooses to make it public some day that’s one thing, but otherwise you take this to your grave, you hear?”
Clodagh nodded. “Trust me, I’m good at secrets.”
“I know you are.” He took a deep breath, then said, “Ed’s lover was a man.”
For a second Clodagh could only blink at him. “What?”
“Yep. Apparently it’d been going on for ages. Annemarie knew about it. I did not,” he added, “ask for the specifics of their relationship. She assures me the children are his.”
Clodagh stared at nothing. “Whoa.”
“Yep.”
“Your poor brother.”
Jamie looked surprised.
“Having to live a lie like that. Never being able to publicly be with the person he loved. Having to lie about it all the time. It must have been…”
“Yeah,” said Jamie shortly. She realised his eyes were damp, and squeezed his hand.
“I’m sorry. This whole thing is awful.”
“I’m never going to do that,” Jamie said fiercely.
Clodagh tried to keep her tone light. “What, take a male lover?”
“Live a lie like that. Do you know,” he said, turning to her, “after Ed died, I was so… I didn’t care. If I couldn’t have you, I didn�
��t care.”
“Jamie.” She leaned over the centre console to hug him.
“If Olivia had said she’d marry me I’d probably have said yes. And then one day it’d have been me in that helicopter, flying off to see you instead. Lying to the public, to my family, making us all unhappy. I won’t do it. It’s you and me and we’re not doing any more polite fictions. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said Clodagh, wondering what the hell she was letting herself in for.
“Oh Christ,” she muttered as they drove under the archway and into the quadrangle. Jamie had done this hundreds of times, and usually he was too busy or distracted to think about where he really was, but he looked out at the palace and realised how intimidating it must be.
The car took them to the portico where the Queen was usually filmed boarding her golden carriage for state occasions. Clodagh’s hand shook as he took it and led her inside, following a footman in his impeccable livery.
“Do you wonder if they ever spill their lunch on their uniforms?” he murmured to Clodagh, who gave a shaky laugh. That was better.
They’d gone straight to Olivia’s office, where a bewildering array of demure black dresses had awaited. Jamie had given Oll the length of time it took for him to change into the black suit and tie Vincent had brought, in order to make a decision on what Clodagh should wear. Five minutes more for a make-up girl to do something with powder and eyeliner. Clodagh never wore much make-up and he didn’t want her to feel any more overwhelmed than she already was.
To his relief they weren’t taken to the State Apartments, which were so intimidatingly grand they might have given Clodagh a heart attack, but to the private apartments where the Queen received the Prime Minister and other government officials. His parents were already there, and so were Victoria and Nick and Annemarie, every one of them still in mourning black and none of them smiling.
Jamie kept hold of Clodagh’s hand as the doors at the other end of the room opened and his grandparents entered. Everyone bowed and curtseyed, and Clodagh managed just fine at his side. Her fingers held his in a death grip.
“James,” said the Queen, unsmiling.
Well, if that was the way she was going to play it… “Your Majesty,” he said. “May I present Miss Clodagh Walsh.”
His grandmother was in her late eighties now, but her eyes had lost none of their shrewdness. She looked them over, then said, “Miss Walsh.”
It was a command. Jamie let go of her and urged her gently forward. For an awful second he thought she might not go, and then she did, stopping a few feet away as he and Olivia had coached her, and giving another little curtsey. At least Oll paid attention about the flat shoes, Jamie thought as he went to stand near his sister.
The Queen remained standing, and said nothing for an excruciatingly long time. Jamie saw Clodagh’s fingers go white as she pinched a fold of her skirt. She kept her gaze pitched low. Her breathing was rapid.
A clock ticked loudly.
“I understand you are from Harlow,” said the Queen eventually.
“Uh, yes, Your Majesty,” said Clodagh, looking up in confusion.
“Such an interesting idea, these new towns. All with some innovation. Gardens and cycleways and the like. Sculpture, I believe, in Harlow.”
“Yes, ma’am, Henry Moore,” said Clodagh, as if she couldn’t believe she was having this conversation.
“Indeed. Do you enjoy modern art?”
“Um. Well, I… to be honest ma’am, most of the time it was covered in graffiti and bits of chewing gum, so I never really… got to appreciating it.”
Her accent sounded more Essex than he’d ever heard it, or maybe that was just because Granny sounded posher than usual. Jamie was too anxious to tell.
“They used to call it Pram Town, I recall,” the Queen said. Her face gave nothing away.
“Really?” Clodagh said, in something of a strangled voice.
“Yes. On account of the baby boom after the war.”
She didn’t elaborate on that, but decided to take a seat instead, and gestured for Clodagh to take the sofa opposite. She perched there, looking terrified.
“You are the eldest of six?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And your father?”
Clodagh licked her lips. “I never knew him, ma’am.”
Jamie knew the Queen knew this. “Indeed. Perhaps that should be rectified. Or perhaps he will come forward of his own accord, given all the publicity?”
Oh God. This was horrible. Jamie forced himself to keep his expression neutral when all he wanted to do was yell, “Stop it!”
“I couldn’t say,” said Clodagh.
“No. Of course not. We are, of course, aware of several details of your past, courtesy of your mother. Is there anything you’d like to add to her story?”
Clodagh looked down, and he saw her take a couple of breaths. And just when he thought she’d say no, she lifted her head and said, “Yes. There is something. I know you probably think it’s terrible my mother sold me out like that for a few quid, but the thing is that’s more money than she’s ever seen in her whole life. It’s not greed that did it. It wasn’t greed sixteen years ago. It’s short-termism. Why think very far ahead? It’s just going to get more bleak and miserable. You grasp anything shiny with both hands whenever you can.
“Your Majesty, that kind of life is so...small, and so mean and so hopeless, you do what you can to make any of it better, even if it’s just for a minute or two. Any kind of escape you can get from the squalor of the real world, whether it’s junk food or lipstick or five minutes with a stranger in a nightclub toilet, you go for it. There’s no prospect of life ever actually getting better. You can’t get out. It’s a crab bucket.
“And I know we’re all supposed to work hard and strive to improve, but if that worked then we’d all be rich. ‘Cos the thing is, it costs money to get better, to go to a good school and get good grades and go to university, and money’s the thing none of us ever had. I have worked like a dog to even get to a point where I even have the qualifications to apply to university, and even then I have no idea how I’m actually going to afford it. And then someone comes along and offers my mum six figures, just for identifying her daughter to the press? She’d have been mad not to.”
There was a sudden silence. Nobody dared move. Jamie wasn’t sure he dared breathe.
“And the… adoption?”
Clodagh’s chin came up, as if she knew she’d blown it already. “Was a terrible period of my life and I never want to revisit it,” she said. “But since we’re here, yeah, okay. Five minutes in a nightclub with a stranger when I was fifteen, and boy did I pay the price for that particular moment of escapism. Yeah, I shouldn’t have let myself get into that situation and yeah, I’d have done it differently given half the chance, and no, I don’t regret the adoption and no, I don’t want anything to do with that kid. I hope he’s happy and that’s the end of it.”
“I see,” said the Queen after a moment. “Well, Miss Walsh.”
That was all she said, but Jamie got the feeling volumes were being spoken as she looked Clodagh over.
She inclined her head slightly in his direction. “Jamie.”
He went forward, gave her a quick head bow, and sat beside Clodagh when she gestured him to.
Defiantly, he took Clodagh’s hand in his. It was ice cold.
“This is the woman you have chosen?”
“It is, ma’am.”
She regarded the two of them for an excruciatingly long while. Everyone in the room was utterly still.
“It will not be easy, becoming part of this family,” his grandmother said to Clodagh. “You must be very, very certain this is what you want.”
“I am,” Clodagh said.
“So am I,” Jamie said, hope coursing through him.
“So I see.” The Queen rose, and so did they. “Perhaps December, for the wedding. Windsor is picturesque in the snow.”
And with that she
departed. Jamie’s grandfather, who’d stayed standing and silent throughout, winked at him and followed her.
Wedding. Wedding. Sweet Jesus.
As the doors shut behind them Clodagh turned to Jamie and kind of collapsed into his arms.“Oh my God,” she breathed.
“It’s okay. You did it.” He started smiling. A December wedding. At Windsor. That was as good as a blessing. He’d do the formal thing, of course, but she’d approved. Of course she’d approved, Clodagh was amazing. “Christ, I love you.”
Clodagh looked up, and her smile was shaky.
“Come and meet my parents.”
After that, meeting the Prince and Princess of Wales was a cinch. Clodagh had no idea what she said to them, or to the younger royals, but no one seemed to take offence so she assumed it had all been okay.
“Of course, we have weathered worse,” said Jamie’s dad, Prince Frederick, the man who was going to be king one day. “Grandpa, of course, hellbent on ruining the whole family with unsuitable women.”
“And Cousin Margaret,” said Jamie’s mother, the Princess of Wales. “Never met an unsuitable man she couldn’t fall in love with.”
“Not that Clodagh is unsuitable,” Jamie said, with warning in his voice.
“Oh no, of course. But press speculation, you know. We must close ranks.”
“The history of royalty is absorbing incomers and repackaging them as something acceptable,” said Jamie’s sister, Princess Victoria. “I think it’s marvellous,” she went on, with some determination. “We could use some fresh blood. It’s only in the last century we stopped marrying our cousins.”
Fresh blood. Oh, great. Like a vampire.
“Don’t worry, when we first met she spent the entire conversation talking about the training methods my father’s shepherds use on their sheepdogs,” said Princess Victoria’s husband Nicholas, who was actually Lord Nicholas of somewhere. He was thinning on top and had a prominent Adam’s apple, and the press liked to make a game of forgetting who he was since he wasn’t a senior member of the family. But Clodagh saw the way he and Victoria looked at each other, and liked him on sight.
