“You look well,” my mother says as she sees me by the pool. “I’ve never seen you this tanned.” She gives me a light hug, mainly because I’m covered in fresh sun tan cream. “And you smell of coconuts.”
My father smiles. He looks tired and colourless and I remember the morning when I found him unwell. Thoughts of him dying plague my waking moments at the point where sleep catches me. When he is gone, Lennox will be king. Lennox is a good man with a need to serve his people, but he isn’t my father who is discreet and subtle. My father has balance. Lennox will tip that balance.
I can’t think about my father not being there because if I do, it rips me in two. I know he’s ill, I know my mother’s shielding us from something in the hope it will be a problem that can be solved without us ever needing to worry, but something in my gut tells me that it won’t be solved.
The very idea makes me want to curl into a ball and hide because the thought of it destroys me.
“You look like you need a holiday.”
He gives me a hug and I feel his thinness when I return it. “You look good, Blair. I take it you haven’t been bored.”
“Not at all. It’s paradise here.”
He nods and smiles and retreats indoors under the premise of unpacking.
“He doesn’t look well.” I sit down next to my mother who’s presented with a copa of gin and tonic.
“He isn’t.” This is the most she’s confirmed about my father’s health. “When we return home he’s going to have to ease up on duties. We’ll have to manage the press. Lennox will need to curb his activities.”
“What’s the diagnosis?”
She’s never told me. Every time I’ve asked, she’s deferred the question somehow.
“Cancer. Of the liver.” The light has gone from her eyes and I remember that my mother never married my father for his status. She chose the man and accepted his position.
The word is a bullet. I won’t double over and start to cry because he’s my father but he’s also her husband.
“Is he going to get better?”
“No.” She sips her drink. “Franklyn can tell you more when you want to know. If you want the details.”
What she means is that there’s no point in having the details because they won’t change anything. And also she can’t bear to go through them because this could destroy her too.
“Okay.” Who knows what else to say. “What else has been going on?”
And this is how we will cope. We’ll carry on like good royals and save our mourning for our beds and our pillows.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. We shall mourn another day. Tonight I’ll lie in Ben’s arms after we’ve done unspeakable things and I’ll tell him about my father. He’ll wipe the tears away and I’ll pretend I’ve never shed them and we will carry on. Because we have to.
“Matilde Carrington has gotten engaged to Bruce Evans.” She mentions a girl Elise and I went to school with. “The wedding’s in September. Very quick.”
“She’s pregnant?”
My mother shrugs. “I’m not convinced. It would make sense if she was, but she was drinking heavily when I saw her last week.”
We go through the gossip; the affairs, the divorces, the engagements and the wooers who were being rebuffed. We don’t talk about my father and she doesn’t ask if I’m okay because she knows I’m not and I know that she’s dying inside too because he’s been her soul-mate.
“William Goldsmith’s asked after you a lot.”
I don’t groan. I haven’t thought about the Prime Minister since I’ve been here, other than when he was mentioned by Voigt and then I tuned it out.
“Lennox wants you to be at a banquet he’s arranging.”
Which translates as Lennox wants me to soften up Goldsmith and make him more open to whatever Lennox is suggesting.
“I’m not a pawn.”
She nods. “I know. But Goldsmith worries me. I think you’re best manipulating him. Be nice. Play nice. Keep him hanging.”
