The Royal We

by Heather Cocks

  I was thwarted on all counts. I didn’t even know where Nick was, or when he was coming back to Oxford; I was fidgety, and I could barely sleep. My solution was to stay busy. I hung out in the Pembroke JCR a lot more, doing everything from schoolwork to watching part of a three-day test match between the England cricket team and Sri Lanka, which was nearly as incomprehensible to me as Gaz’s rhyming slang, as much as he tried to explain both. I went for long runs, and this time, I actually ran. In a rare moment after one too many gins, Bea even attempted to teach me chess. Unlike cricket, I had no problem mastering the basic rules, but strategy—seeing three moves ahead in a way that forged my path to victory—was, and is, completely beyond me. Bea got so fed up after ten minutes that she dropped my king in my beer and swept out of there.

  The first week passed agonizingly slowly. During the second, I had just started to settle into a rhythm of distracting myself, when Lacey sent me a photo of the annual Thanksgiving Cake that we usually make together—neither of us likes pie, which is thoroughly un-American of us—and it hit me how much I missed my family. While they were snug at home in Iowa gorging on my mother’s biscuit stuffing, homemade Chex Mix, and several pounds of turkey, I spent Thanksgiving huddled over a table with my distinguished tutor discussing the noteworthy differences in the iconic portraits of Queen Elizabeth, and gagging on my homesickness: for the Muscatine Turkey Trot, rooting against the Dallas Cowboys with Dad, even my mother’s fussy questions about why my jeans are so ratty and whether I might put on a little lipstick. Cilla took pity and corralled me for a late lunch at one of our regular spots, The Grand Café, a thin blue building on the high street that was allegedly the first coffeehouse in England (but noteworthy to me for making a decent Bellini). Joss had insisted on meeting us there, for reasons that became clear when she blew in and pressed into my hand something she claimed was a Thanksgiving gift: a white long-sleeved T-shirt with the word heart written on the sleeve.

  “Get it? Heart on your sleeve?” she prompted. The words were stamped on crookedly. “It’s part of my submission to a fashion school in London. If I get in, I can finally blow off this place.” She nudged me. “You should wear it when Nick comes back to town.”

  “No,” Cilla said firmly.

  “You’re right. A drawing of a sleeve on a heart would—”

  “No,” Cilla said, and gestured for another round of drinks.

  When we returned to Pembroke, PPO Popeye jumped out from near the mailboxes like he’d been watching for me.

  “Steve is in Windsor,” he said, handing me a packet of what looked like instructions. “He says the castle is closed to the public tomorrow if you want a squizz.”

  I was so programmed not to expect any movement on the Nick front that I had nothing whatsoever to say in response, and PPO Popeye seemed taken aback by what he perceived as my hesitation. He hadn’t presented this excursion as merely an option. He wiggled the folder under my nose and then poked me in the arm with it.

  “Um. Of course. Thanks,” I said lamely. “Oh, and there’s something in your teeth.”

  “I know,” he said, walking away with the awkward gait of a man trying, and failing, to mask his military precision.

  Windsor Castle was favored by at least four of the eight Henrys, several Georges, the lone Elizabeth, both Victorias, and Queen Eleanor, and it’s also the royal residence that I love best. Unlike Buckingham Palace, which is protected by a large courtyard and a fence and feels rather isolated from the bustle around it, the town of Windsor directly abuts the edge of the castle grounds, like it’s merely the fanciest house on the block—which, technically, it is. But the true wonder of Windsor is that it has survived a thousand years and a fire, and is still in active use. In fact, the day I went, the Royal Standard was flying, indicating that Eleanor was staying there—and possibly looking down on me as I ate my fatty, three-quid sausage roll on the walk to the gate. I’d been up so late talking to Lacey that I slept through my alarm and almost missed the train. I’d barely had time to brush my teeth, much less my hair, and I’d thrown on the first shirt I found. I didn’t even realize until I took off my cardigan on the warm train that it was Joss’s design. She’d gotten what she wanted: I was going to Nick with a heart on my sleeve.

  The one in my chest pounded as I loped up the hill. As much as I’d been dying to see Nick, now that it was happening, all I could hear in my head was every piece of advice from last night’s well-intentioned emergency summit.

  “You need a plan, Bex.” Lacey’s voice crackled through the speakerphone. “You are not suave enough to do this without a plan.”

  “What if you show up and he acts indifferent?” Cilla said.

  “Or you blurt it out, but the magic is gone?” Lacey again.

  “Are you going to wear my heart shirt?” Joss asked.

  “Are you going to ask about India?” Lacey barreled on, ignoring her.

  “Say nothing about your feelings,” Cilla said. “Not at first. It’s been a while. Just be yourself and let any awkwardness ebb.”

  “Then jump him,” Joss offered.

  “No, then watch for a sign that it’s time to be honest with him,” Lacey said.

  “Then jump him.” Joss again.

  “No, then keep your distance. Say your piece calmly and then look him square in the eye,” Cilla said.

  “Then jump him,” Joss said. “Jumping is the whole point.”

  “But Bex can’t be trusted,” Lacey said. “She jumped Clive, and look where that got her.”

  “You guys, I’m right here.” I said. “Look, I will be careful, I promise. No jumping.”

  But while being dignified and self-possessed seemed executable at three a.m., now that I was actually at Windsor, I didn’t know how to keep the truth from hurtling out of my mouth—or even stop from jumping him. Before I knew it, I was through the entryway and Nick was loping down to greet me, his hands stuffed in the pockets of a blue hoodie that brought out his eyes. My brain clicked on and reminded me to control myself. To wait for the right time. Cordial, civil, normal, poised. These were my watchwords.

  “Hey!” I called out, walking toward him.

  “Bex! How are you?” he said, leaning toward me.

  I didn’t trust myself to hug him, so I turned away a bit, forcing Nick to stop short. Strike one for normal.

  “This is amazing,” I said quickly. “I can’t believe you have a home with an actual moat.”

  “I knew you’d love it,” he said. “Lots of history, and today, no tourists. Hope you brought your pencils.” He took my arm lightly to point me in the direction we needed to walk. “I thought you might need something to distract from the big family holiday in America.”

  “That’s really nice of you,” I said, touched.

  His eyes caught my flag pin, affixed to the collar of my coat. I smiled amiably and said nothing else. The platonic, civil, cordial Bex had to be on guard against random acts of feelings. (Although I did quickly ogle him a little. Unlike the castle around us, I was not made of stone.) We walked in silence uphill toward the castle’s giant circular turret, pausing only to admire the regrettably nonfunctioning moat that had been landscaped into what would, come spring, be a stunning garden.

  “I miss Oxford,” Nick said eventually. “I’ve been gone too much. How is everyone?”

  “Cilla and Gaz haven’t killed each other yet,” I said. “Joss thinks she has a shot at a design school, so she quit going to her tutorials. And Clive, um, started seeing someone.”

  “Oh?” Nick’s voice was even.

  “Someone named Cordelia? He said you guys met her your first year?”

  “Ah, yes, I know her well,” Nick said.

  I snickered before I could stop myself.

  He grinned. “Not that well. Here, let me show you the view.”

  He led me up to the battlements along the back of the castle, where I found myself staring down an extremely steep hill at an unruly expanse of land.

  “Willi
am the Conqueror set up a bunch of fortresses within a day’s march from each other, and picked this spot because the high hill made it quite protected from one side,” he said. “And with the Thames as a transport or supply route, the town grew up around it naturally.” He pointed into the distance. “If you squint, you can see Eton.”

  I peered across the fields and saw the spires of a cathedral in the distance. Eton was the town across the river, home to the fancy boarding school that had housed nineteen eventual prime ministers, ten iconic writers, and Nick and Freddie.

  “I loved it there,” Nick said. “We used to walk around over the bridge in our dress clothes, and we all looked the same. Nobody bothered about who I was. No one even noticed.”

  “What were you like then?” I asked.

  He leaned against the stone wall. “Much the same, I suppose,” he said. “Scrawnier. Quite sporty. Obsessed with the Wall Game.”

  “You are definitely going to have to explain that one,” I said. “It sounds like something you’d play in prison.”

  Nick laughed. “I oughtn’t be surprised news of the Wall Game didn’t make it across the pond. It’s only ever played at Eton,” he said. “See, there’s a curved wall running the length of a field that’s five meters wide and—”

  “Sorry, hang on, I still don’t speak metric,” I interrupted.

  “You nonconformists are so tiresome,” he said. “All right, it’s as wide across as Cornmarket Street, and about the length of an American football field with all the end bits.”

  “I spent this whole week learning cricket lingo and the best you can do is end bits?”

  “Is that what you get up to when I’m away? That’s not at all what I imagined,” Nick said. “Anyway, the Wall Game is incredibly hard and tactical, and vicious, like rugby. You can’t punch people, but if you’re quite sneaky, you can sort of press really, really hard on their faces with your fist.”

  “That is an amazing technicality,” I said. “But what’s the point? I mean, I get that’s fun to push someone’s face into a wall, or whatever, but is there a ball ?”

  “Indeed there is,” Nick said, warming to his subject in a way that was both boyish and endearing. “Two teams form a scrum against the wall called a bully, and you try to work the ball over to your opponent’s end of the field, but you can’t use your hands, and only your hands and feet can touch the ground. You can’t furk the ball unless you’re in the calx, obviously—”

  “Well, yeah,” I said.

  “—but when you get into the calx end, you can furk it, and you get a shy if you work the ball up on the wall with your foot and someone else touches it, which earns you one point and the right to try a nine-point goal by throwing the ball at the target, which is either a door or a tree depending on which side of the field you’re on.”

  “That is by far the most creatively pointless aggression I have ever heard of,” I said. “It’s actually almost impressive.”

  “The Economist called it ‘the world’s dullest game,’” Nick said fondly. “And as I’m saying this out loud I realize it sounds totally bonkers. I will never make fun of baseball again.”

  “You’d better not,” I said. “In fact, in exchange for all of that, I’m going to make you listen to me explain the infield fly rule.”

  Nick laughed, and I couldn’t help laughing with him, even though most of me just wanted to turn to him and say, Speaking of the infield fly rule, I love you.

  Then I saw Nick shiver. “It’s chilly out here,” he said. “Let’s start in the chapel.”

  I exhaled. Cordial, civil, normal, poised. I could wait. I think I needed to wait.

  St. George’s Chapel is at the bottom of the hill inside the castle walls, and though it is quaint compared to Westminster Abbey, I love it—the spectacular fan vaulting in the ceiling, the surprisingly intimate chapel with its wood-carved stalls, and the graves of at least ten monarchs, including that infamous cad Henry VIII (buried with his third wife, Jane Seymour, his favorite on account of her not living long enough to irritate him). It was stirring and beautiful, and Nick seemed delighted by how much time I wanted to spend lingering over the details.

  “Why is he Arthur the First, and not the Second?” I asked of the marble monument to the second Lyons king. “Does Camelot count for nothing?”

  “Rebecca, not everything from a Monty Python movie is real,” Nick said. “There is no Camelot, nor a Holy Grail. Although the bit with the killer rabbit is true.”

  “One of Bea’s ancestors, I’m guessing,” I said.

  “I won’t tell her you said that,” Nick said loftily. “Anyway, that Arthur is considered legend, and for dynastic purposes, they don’t count anyone from before William the Conqueror, anyway. Too bad for poor Sweyn Forkbeard. Perhaps I’ll revive that name with my firstborn.”

  “So Arthur the First, then,” I said. “Died of pneumonia, it says.”

  “Officially. But Great-Grandmother told me Artie actually drank himself to death because he was in love with his best friend’s wife.” Nick shook his head. “I can’t believe he gets a sculpted marble effigy, and my grandfather, who actually did die of pneumonia, just has a slab with his name on it behind an iron fence.” He pointed just ahead to the right, where a large bust sat atop a comparatively plain rectangular stand. “Even my great-granddad got better. He was Richard the Fourth. Took a boat out on holiday and fell off and drowned because he couldn’t swim, the idiot. What was he even doing on a boat?”

  “We’ve all got one,” I said. “My great-uncle died falling off a barstool. In his own bar.”

  “My great-great-great-uncle Charles was supposedly obsessed with holistic medicine, so when he got whooping cough he wrapped himself in brandy-soaked bandages as a cure,” Nick said. “Naturally, a servant dropped a candle on him and he went up in flames. Brilliant bloke, that one.”

  I laughed. Nick’s dead relatives already seemed more entertaining than his living father.

  “The Lyons women have been impressively hardy,” I said. “You’ve got a bunch of incautious men, and then two long-ruling queens.”

  Nick tapped absently on the top of Richard’s marble head. “Hardier, or at least cleverer,” he said. “I’m probably destined to trip over an ottoman and die two years in. Just as long as whatever gets me is embarrassing. I have to do my part.”

  We strolled past a short exhibit of watercolors and sketches done by the artsy members of the dynasty (I was surprised to learn Prince Richard was a capable landscape painter) and then into the main castle. Because it’s been open to the public for so long, Windsor’s halls have the patina of use about them—frayed carpets, creaky floorboards, stray scuffs and scratches—and it is as easy to imagine that a tourist from Scandinavia nicked the floor with an umbrella as it is to picture George IV taking a chunk out of it during a tantrum. Nick peppered the tour with stories that definitely aren’t on the official audio guide, like how he and Freddie used to stretch out on the floor by the Grand Staircase, snacking on cheese and onion crisps while trying to count every piece of weaponry that was fanned out on the walls and behind display cases; or the time he caught Agatha’s awful husband Julian throwing up in a sixteenth-century enamel box after a long day at Royal Ascot. Before he even got to a reenactment of playing hide-and-seek with Freddie using the old servants’ doors and hidden corridors, the castle had started to look like a home to me, too.

  Eventually, we came into a very long rectangular room, with knight statuettes in niches on the walls and an elegant wood-beamed, slanted ceiling. Nick fell quiet and seemed to need a minute to absorb the view before explaining that this was the room dedicated to the highly selective and very ancient Order of the Garter, one of the highest honors in England.

  “Those belong to everyone who’s ever been invested,” Nick said, gesturing to the thousand or so colorful shields adorning the ceiling. “The number underneath corresponds to the spot on the wall where the honoree’s name is engraved. I used to spend hours in her
e, trying to pick out the crest I liked best, imagining what mine would be.” He grinned. “Freddie preferred mooning the guardsmen through that window. Once he even left a mark behind. Imagine, this room dedicated to chivalry, and my brother’s disgusting bum print fogging up the glass.”

  I snorted, and Nick looked pleased.

  “His name will be carved in here, too, someday, like most of the rest of our ancestors, and no one else knows about that but me and the guard, and now you,” Nick said.

  His gaze flickered to a nearby section of wall, where the names had stopped after the most recent new members were inducted two years ago, including his uncle Edwin (a grudging but obligatory addition on Eleanor’s part).

  “And that’s where yours will go,” I inferred.

  He reached out and ran his finger across his father’s name. “He wants me in now,” Nick said. “I think it’s disrespectful. I haven’t done enough—no military service yet, not nearly enough charity work. But he is so anxious to get good stories into the press.”

  Nick dropped his hand. “That’s why I’m out here, actually,” he said. “To talk to Gran about it. I think Freddie and I should have our own team, and get to manage our own affairs. I’m so tired of Father putting out bollocks stories without running them past us. I once woke up and read that I’d agreed to be patron of a charity I’d never even heard of.”

  He clearly needed to vent.

  “There are worse things, I know,” Nick continued. “But the press is hard enough on its own, without him stirring the pot. And he should know better because…” Nick’s voice seized for a second; he fought to control it. “Well, he should just know better. But instead he plays puppet master, leaking farcical stories like my getting a ring for India. As if I’ll see it and decide it’s what I want. As if I can’t be trusted to find someone suitable on my own. That’s the main reason I’ve always said I won’t look for a real relationship until I’m older. Can you imagine being dragged into that?”