Page 61 of The Heir Apparent
Now it was time for my first balcony appearance in three years, and when a footman pushed the doors open, the wind tumbled through the sheer curtains, bringing with it the murmur of a thousand voices below. Granny led us into the light. As my eyes adjusted, I saw them all before us, a huge mass of people just beyond the gates, climbing up onto Barbara’s marble lap for a better view, filling the parks and the roads, the horde accumulating so far down The Mall that I could hardly see where it ended. Everyone was always happy to see Granny. But the roar of this crowd rolled in like thunder, so loud I could feel their voices echo in my chest. Startled, I glanced at Richard who was standing on the other side of Granny. I wondered if perhaps everyone had become far more vocal in the years I’d been gone, but I saw surprise on his face as well. Demelza and Birdie beside him looked astonished.
There were Union Jacks fluttering in people’s hands and tears in their eyes, and I understood that they were enveloping us in their love, as they would any family who had lost all we had lost. Amira was standing to my left. When she took my hand, our eyes met, and I saw that tears were tracing down her cheeks. The summer solstice was approaching, the Earth’s relentless grind around the sun almost halfway done. We’d made it to the tipping point of the year without Louis and Papa, fumbling through it, fighting and reconciling, trying every day to be better. I squeezed her fingers hard and smiled through my own tears.
Later, the press said that while Granny was clearly moved by the outpouring of support from her subjects, unlike the rest of us, she refrained from crying. But I was standing by her side that day, and I saw the tear caught in her lashes, the bobbing of her throat as her subjects shouted her name. For the first time, perhaps in my entire life, I saw what she meant to these people, and what they meant to her. I understood why she could never possibly be suffocated by their love.
When the parade was finally done, a light lunch was served in the drawing room, but I slipped outside for a moment alone and headed straight across the lawn for the sunken garden. Hidden from view by hedges on all sides, I stepped within its whispering green walls and took off my heels, wandering along the terraces that descended to a stretch of chamomile lawn, satin soft under my bare feet.
It was midafternoon in London, which meant it was creeping past 1 a.m. in Hobart. Jack had texted to say that he was out late with Finn, but I doubted he was still awake. The yearly vintage had just been completed, which always left him exhausted. He would now be spending all his time in the winery, crushing, pressing and fermenting grapes, somehow turning those enormous vats of fruit into something special.
I pulled my phone from my skirt and dialled his number.
“Hey,” he said in a sleep-roughened voice.
“I woke you up.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Sorry, I thought you might still be awake. Go back to sleep. I’ll talk to you later.”
I heard the rustling of blankets. “I was going to watch you do the balcony thing, but I must have fallen asleep. How did it go?”
I sat on the grass. “Usually I hate doing it, but it was nice, actually. Emotional.”
“Let’s switch to FaceTime, I want to see you.”
“No, I have hat hair.”
But he had already sent the video chat request, and I found that I wanted to see him too, so I tapped the accept button. He was lying shirtless in bed, with sleepy eyes and his messy tumble of hair, and I tried to ignore the flush that started in my stomach and seemed to drift downwards. We smiled at each other like idiots.
“I haven’t seen you in so long,” I said.
“I see you everywhere. I go to buy groceries and your face is on every single magazine at the checkout. Go on, show me your dress.”
I stood up, leaned my phone against a pot of lavender and stepped back so he could see me in my white skirt suit, with my hair ironed so flat I barely recognised myself.
“I look silly.”
“You look good. Different, but good.”
I scooped up the phone so I could have him gathered in my hands again. “I’m the same old person.”
We looked at each other for a while in the light pools of our screens, and it was almost like I was curled up in the bed beside him. I so rarely went into his room that I was unfailingly curious about it. Whenever I found myself in there, I quietly inhaled as many details as possible. I had an odd temptation to rifle through his drawers until I uncovered all of his secrets.
“Where did you and Finn go tonight?” I asked.
“Just to Poobah for a bit.”
“Youat the Grand Poobah?”
He smiled, adjusting the bare arm folded behind his head, distracting me. “Well, what else am I supposed to do when you’re not around?”
It occurred to me that he might meet someone on these nights out with Finn, that he could be talking to other girls already. He had every right to do so, even if it caused a hot bubble of jealousy to rise up in my gut.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” he said. “What’s your approval rating at now?”
“I don’t know, forty something,” I said, as if I didn’t know it was precisely 48.8 per cent. How I ached for it to reach fifty, the moment the British people were officially split on my character.
“Well, get the people doing the survey to call me next time, and I’ll give you full marks. That’s sure to bump you up a percentage point.”
