“It’ll be a punishment, really. Because when our engagement is made public, your father will be approached by publishers and journalists offering much more than that. And he won’t be able to accept it without being sued. It’ll be torture for him.”
“And what about my mother?”
“What your mother needs is to get out of that place. I mean, no offense, but living on that street would make anyone depressed. We’ll get her a cottage in the countryside.”
“A cottage?”
“We’ll rent one. In Oxfordshire. We’ll live together. All three of us. We’ll teach her how to speak properly.”
“What do you mean teach her how to speak properly?”
“You know, proper grammar and such. The Queen’s English. We’ll teach her about etiquette and how to dress and how to make polite conversation. In a few weeks’ time, we’ll have her behaving like a countess.”
“Jesus Christ, Eric. My mother is not Eliza Doolittle!”
“Come on, Joel. It’ll be fun. You’ll see. We can do this.” He jumped on the bed like an excited toddler on his birthday and started tickling me. “We’re gonna get married, you and I. You’ll see. We’ll show them.”
CHAPTER NINE
We Are Not Amused
“It’s just outside the village of Cumnor. Between Abingdon and Oxford.”
Trevor sat on his bed, watching me pack my suitcase. “How will you get to college every day?” he asked.
“We’ll drive, of course. Eric has a car, remember?”
“Is it a big cottage?”
“Not very big.”
“Is there a room for me?”
I wasn’t expecting that question. I stopped packing and turned to face him. He looked like a dog about to be abandoned by its owner.
“There are three bedrooms,” I said. “One for me and Eric, one for my mother, and one which we want to use as a study.”
“I could sleep in the study.”
“The study is for studying.”
“Well, I could sleep on the couch, then.”
“Why do you want to sleep on the couch if you’ve got a perfectly good bed here?”
“I thought we were friends.”
“We are.”
“You hardly talk to me anymore. You spend all your time with Eric.”
“Eric and I are getting married, Trevor. It’s only natural that I spend more time with him.”
“They’ll give your bed to someone else. I’ll have to share this room with a complete stranger.”
“Well, maybe you two can become friends.”
“So, we’re not friends?”
“You can have more than one friend, Trevor.”
“I’ve never had more than one friend. I’ve only ever had you.”
I sighed. Trevor’s wounded puppy routine was getting wearing. “Have you joined that LGBT student’s group yet? They’re looking for people to help organise this year’s pride.”
“I thought we were going to join together.”
“I can’t anymore. I’m too busy trying to become the next prince consort of Doggerland.”
“Maybe I can come with you to Doggerland.”
“What as? A court jester?”
It was too soon for jokes. I smiled to soften the blow, but Trevor was not amused.
“Come on, Trevor. Don’t be like that. You can come and visit us any time you like. We have a huge garden. We can have a garden party with a barbeque and a badminton net.”
“I thought you said it was a small cottage.”
“It is a small cottage, but the garden is big.”
That wasn’t true. The cottage was absolutely enormous! It had five bedrooms, but Eric and I wanted a study each, and the fifth bedroom was going to be turned into a private living room for my mother. I knew, of course, that my lie would be exposed as soon as Trevor came to visit, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it.
“What are we having for dinner today, Marjory?”
“Bangers and chips.”
“Chips again? We had chips yesterday.” Eric smiled that cheeky smile of his, but my mother had her back turned on him and didn’t see that he was jesting.
“You’ll ’ave ’em every day so long as I’m the one cooking.”
She served the bangers and chips on a tray and carried it towards the dining table. She was about to place it on the table when Eric held his hand up to stop her.
“Careful there, Marje.” He took a coaster out of a drawer and placed it on the table. “That’s a Queen Anne table.”
“Queen Anne? Who’s she, then?” She put the tray down on the coaster. “Your mother?”
“Queen Anne was a seventeenth century British monarch. This table is an antique.”
Although the cottage came furnished, additional items of furniture were needed to make it more homey. Eric spared no expense in acquiring these. He spent more on lamps, side tables, clocks, and vases than on six months’ worth of rent.
“I don’t like ’aving all them antiques around the house,” my mother said.
“Those antiques.”
“I like furniture you can use without being afraid of scratching it.” She dished out the food. “Where do you get all that money from anyway? To buy all them antiques?”
“Those antiques. I have my own private income. I own the Duchy of Skiepland.”
“What’s that then, Skipland? You rent out skips?”
“Skiep mean sheep in Doggerlandish. It’s lush pastureland on one of the northeast islands. It’s traditionally passed on to the crown prince and rented out to wealthy shepherds. I pay tax on the income, so I can do with the money whatever I want.”
My mother raised her eyebrows. “Well, it’s all right for some, ain’t it?”
“Isn’t it. Have you ever considered making rosti?”
“What’s that when it’s at home?”
“They’re like pancakes. Made out of grated potatoes.”
“Sounds disgusting.”
“It’s quite a delicacy. And healthier. It might be a refreshing change from eating chips every day.”
“There ain’t nothing wrong with eating chips every day!”
“Isn’t.”
“I’ve been eating chips every day me whole life, and there ain’t nothing wrong with me health.”
“There isn’t anything wrong with my health.”
My mother sighed and banged her fist on the table. “This is getting a bit wearing, you know. Constantly ’aving me English corrected by a bloody foreigner!”
“My English.”
The banter between Eric and my mother had become a regular morning routine. Something they both enjoyed. My mother had stopped taking her medication the day after she moved in, and her transformation was astonishing. Eric said that it was having people around her that made all the difference. Having other people to fuss over. Having other people’s problems to listen to and take her mind off her own. To be a valued member of a family again.
I felt a pang in my heart at the thought that all this time my mother’s stress and neuroses had just been symptoms of loneliness. If only I’d known this before. But it took someone like Eric to see this. Eric knew what it was like to be lonely. He knew the importance of having loving and supportive people around you.
“You wanna know a secret?” he whispered to me.
We were standing in the garden that first night after moving in. It was a clear sky, and we were looking at the stars. He stood behind me, his arms around my waist, his head resting on my shoulder. His body warmth was the only thing protecting me from the chilly breeze.
“This is what I’ve always dreamed of. To have a little home of my own. No palace, no staff, no court. Just me alone with the man I love.”
I wish that blissful honeymoon period could’ve lasted for ever. But it wasn’t to be. There was a dark cloud hanging over our merry little triad, and that cloud was my father.
“He won’t sign.”
Button-eyes had just
come back from Wales. He’d flown in the day before and stopped at our cottage in Cumnor on his way back to Doggerland.
“What do you mean he won’t sign?” I asked.
“He won’t sign!” Button-eyes pushed past me and marched towards the living room, where Eric was sitting.
I followed him. “Did he say why?”
“No. He just said he wasn’t interested and handed me back the contract.”
“Did you offer him money?”
“Of course I offered him money. I offered him two thousand pounds, same as I did with you. And when he wouldn’t take it, I increased the offer to five thousand.”
“And he wouldn’t take that either?”
“He said he wouldn’t be induced to sign that contract for all the money in the world. He said it was beneath him.”
“That doesn’t sound like my father. Are you sure you spoke to the right man?”
Button-eyes looked at me with that expression of disdain that he reserved only for me. “What this means is that he has already approached the press and he is certain that he can get more money from them. But I don’t think there’s anything to fear. I doubt very much that the British press is going to be interested in a story about an unknown prince from an obscure country. My only concern is that the Doggerland press could get hold of this story. The international paparazzi are a notoriously tight bunch.”
Button-eyes stopped speaking and looked around the house. He went towards the French windows and stared into the garden.
“I’m not sure it was wise to leave the campus. At least the grounds there were enclosed and the gates guarded. The paparazzi could easily get over the back wall of this garden.”
“So what if they do take our picture?” I said. “They’re going to know about us anyway. As soon as our engagement is made public.”
“Eric must come out in his own time,” Button-eyes said. “And of his own free will. It won’t do for him to be outed by the tabloid press. That’ll make him look weak and vulnerable and not the strong and stable head of state the Doggerlanders deserve.” He drew the curtains in front of the French windows. “I’d leave the curtains closed, if I were you. Just to be on the safe side.”
On Sunday, the twenty-third of May, three weeks after moving to Cumnor, all hell broke loose. The day started well. It was sunny and unusually warm for the time of year. My mother was excited, because she had noticed that the daffodils had started to come up.
Eric was in a good mood too, despite the bad news we’d received about my father. Nothing more had been heard from him since he rejected Button-eyes’ proposal. We assumed he’d been unsuccessful in interesting the British press in his story, and I was glad that he had missed the opportunity to make money out of my connection. Eric got up early to finally start work on his dissertation. He’d been putting it off ever since this whole romance started.
But things started going wrong when we received a surprise visit from Trevor. I was making the bed when I saw him from the bedroom window, cycling down the road with another man. My stomach turned when they stopped in front of the house and got off their bikes. He looked up. I tried to duck out of the way, but it was too late. He saw me and waved. I was forced to go downstairs and meet them.
“So, this is your little cottage then, is it?” Trevor said, surveying the house. “It’s not so little, is it?”
“It looks bigger than it is,” I mumbled.
“This is Piers Kingston-Jones, by the way.” Trevor pointed at his companion – a slim, medium-sized man with an impressive quiff of black hair and handsome blue eyes.
“How do you do,” Piers said, squeezing my hand. He spoke with the kind of posh accent that befitted his name.
“Piers is my new roommate.” There was a gleam in Trevor’s eye, and I detected a slight blush on his cheeks. “His father is the editor of The Daily Bulletin.”
“Is he?”
“Piers got me into cycling. He’s very sporty, as I’m sure you can tell.” He gestured at Piers’ body, which was rippling and bulging beneath his tight-fitting cycling outfit. “It was a sunny morning, so Piers suggested we grab the bikes. I told him you had a cottage in Cumnor, and we could have breakfast here. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not. Come in. I’ll make you something to eat.”
After I gave them the tour and introduced Piers to Eric, I went into the kitchen to make breakfast. Trevor joined me, leaving the boys chatting to each other at the dining table.
“Well? What do you think?” Trevor asked.
“About what?”
“About Piers. Don’t you think he’s fit?”
“Yes, he’s quite good looking.”
“He likes to walk around our room in nothing but his boxers. He’s got quite a package on him. I get an eyeful every morning.”
“Do you?”
“He’s reading English. Wants to become a journalist.”
“Does he?”
I was too preoccupied with the sausages in the frying pan to give Trevor the attention he was after.
“So, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“About Piers.”
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Don’t you think he’s hot? Bet you never thought I could land myself a hot boyfriend like that.”
I finally looked up at him. “Wait. Are you actually going out with him?”
“Well… not yet, but…”
“Is he even gay?”
“Would a straight guy parade in front of his roommate in nothing but his boxers?”
“That’s exactly the sort of thing a straight guy would do.”
“He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“And he shaves his chest and legs.”
“That doesn’t mean anything either.”
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe he’s bi.”
“He’s probably straight, Trevor. Ninety percent of the population is.”
“But you don’t know that for sure.”
“No, I don’t. But even if he is gay, he probably…”
I suddenly realised what I was about to say and stopped myself, but it was too late.
“He probably what?”
“Nothing.”
“He probably won’t fancy me. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”
“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“You’re not such a looker yourself, you know, Joel. And Eric still fell for you, didn’t he?”
“That’s true.”
“I think Piers likes me. I talked to him a lot about you and Eric, and he really wanted to meet you. That’s a good sign, isn’t it? That he wants to meet my friends.”
Alarm bells rang in my head.
“You haven’t told him about Eric, have you? “
“Told him what?”
“You signed a contract, remember? You could be sued.”
There was a pause before he replied.
“No, I just told him he was a friend of yours. I told him he was Swedish.”
“Are you sure?”
Trevor nodded at the frying pan. “Your sausages are burning.”
Trevor and I returned from the kitchen with the breakfast. Piers and Eric were chatting to each other about one of our mutual tutors when Eric’s phone suddenly started rattling on the breakfast table. He picked it up and looked at the screen. I craned my neck to catch a sneaky peek. It was a message from Petra, but it was in Doggerlandish, so I couldn’t understand it. Eric’s face tensed up. It looked like bad news.
“Excuse me. I just have to… um…” He got up from the table and disappeared into his study, leaving his breakfast uneaten on the plate.
Twenty minutes later, he still hadn’t come back.
Piers and Trevor looked at each other. They suspected that something was amiss.
“He’s probably working on his dissertation,” I said. “He can be absent-minded li
ke that. An idea must’ve suddenly occurred to him and he completely forgot that he had guests. I’ll go check up on him.”
I went to his study. I found him sitting at his desk, staring at his laptop screen. His face was pale and tense.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. I stood behind him and looked over his shoulder. He was watching a Doggerlandish television programme. A comedy, judging by the laughter. I couldn’t understand what was being said, but it looked like a satirical current affairs programme.
Suddenly, the cause of Eric’s unease popped up on the screen. It was a picture of us! Canoodling in the garden, staring at the stars!
“What the…” I grabbed Eric’s shoulder. “That’s the night we moved in! Somebody must’ve photographed us from the garden wall. How the hell did they do that? They must’ve used a flash. I didn’t see a flash. Did you see a flash?”
Eric didn’t answer. He remained glued to the screen. Shocked, petrified.
Other pictures now appeared on the screen. Official palace portraits of Eric. But they’d been photoshopped. Lipstick, eye shadow, fake eyelashes, and earrings had been crudely painted on. The audience laughed. Then appeared two identical pictures of the Japanese flag. Something was said by one of the comedians that caused the audience to gasp with indignation and roar with laughter.
I don’t know what was said, but whatever it was, it was too much for Eric. His face went red. His hands trembled.
“What is it?” I asked. “What did they say?”
He didn’t respond. He slammed shut his laptop, got up from the desk, and walked out.
“Where are you going?” I followed him.
Without acknowledging Piers and Trevor, Eric rushed up the stairs to his room.
“Everything all right?” Trevor asked me.
“No, it fucking isn’t!”
I couldn’t help my outburst. Seeing Eric like that caused my stomach to churn and my heart to pound. I had a horrible premonition that everything was going belly-up.
Trevor looked at me, shocked and offended, which irritated me even more. What was he doing popping over uninvited anyway? Why couldn’t he just leave me alone.
“I’m sorry,” Trevor mumbled. I could hear his voice crack. He never could stand being shouted at. “Come on, let’s go.” He and Piers shuffled out of the house.
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