by Brigid Lowry
Mirabella rode up hill and down dale, across the wide fields spread out before her like the velvety green cloak of a giant. How she wished she could keep riding for ever; gallop away from duty and demand. But, despite her longing, Mirabella was royal through and through, and she knew that her idle wish could never come true. Where would she go and how would she live? Word of her escape would spread throughout the kingdom. She would be hunted down, found and taken back to the palace. There was nothing for it but to face her destiny.
She cantered back to the stables, handed the leather bridle to the groomsman who stood ready to brush Oak’s coat, and made her way back to her chamber. Glory was nowhere to be seen, but on the dressing table was a set of jewels. Mirabella took out the necklace. She hung the dainty tumble of sparkling diamonds and glittering emeralds around her neck; held a matching earring to her ear. They looked wonderful, even with her riding outfit. Despite her misgiving about the future, the princess was pleased that at least her outfit for the ball was enchanting, and complete.
THE WRITER
The writer has written three-quarters of her book, and finally it begins to flow. It’s like doing a big jigsaw puzzle; utterly chaotic at first, but if you keep going, tiny piece by tiny piece, at a certain point the shape emerges. You can see where the gaps are and which bits you need to fill the holes. Each morning before getting to work, the writer walks. As she walks, the jigsaw pieces arrive. It’s as if God, or the universe, or the magic pen in the sky is sending her ideas, scenes, entire dialogues, to fit into her book. Meanwhile, her own life takes place around and between Mrs Blossom’s kitchen, Mirabella’s horse riding, and Glory’s destiny. It makes the writer dreamy, to live in both worlds. She’s prone to dropping stuff, forgetting things, and wearing earrings that don’t match her cardigan.
The Reader
›I don’t know who I am anymore. Beth is a vegan, Rada plays guitar, Gerald is a rich smart-arse. I used to be Nova, the interesting girl whose dad brought cool lollies from America and a kimono from Japan, but now I’m just floating in a lonely sky of blerk. I’ve been hiding upstairs, generally wallowing in misery. When the phone rings, I can’t even be bothered answering it. I’m sick of myself, and hungry, so I go downstairs, only to find Mum on the phone, sounding agitated.
‘Everything? No way! Have you talked to the airline? Okay, right. Yeah. Okay, I’ll get onto it. Ring me back in half an hour, okay?’ She puts down the phone, face scrunched up.
‘Whassup?’
‘All your father’s luggage has gone missing. So far, the airline can’t track it; it could be anywhere between Cairo and the UK. He’s stuck in London with only the clothes he’s wearing. There’s an important meeting in the morning, and he hasn’t got a suit. I have to find some stuff, like a copy of the travel insurance. Could you get the tea, Petal? I’m starving.’
‘Yep. I’m starving, too. What’s to eat?’
‘Cold chicken and salad, and some of that nice pane de casa bread you like.’
‘No worries, Mum.’ I get out two big white plates, put beetroot, capers and olives on top of some greens, grab myself a quarter chicken, some OJ, and two slices of bread slathered with pesto. Mum’s back on the phone, so I leave her dinner on the bench and take mine upstairs on a tray. Which I nearly drop when I get into my bedroom because . . .
A CHAPTER
CONTAINING
VARIOUS EXCITING
EVENTS AND
SEVERAL
ADJECTIVES
WIRABELLA CHANGED FROM her riding costume into her most comfortable dress, a soft yellow sateen. she was halfway through writing a note to her cousin but then remembered she’d be seeing imogen at the ball. The princess felt a tiny bit of excitement. Perhaps there would be some young man who’d catch her fancy; someone worthy of her affections. But where was her maid? she must have gone on some small errand, and would shortly reappear. It was nearly noon, and Mirabella was famished after her long ride. Usually, she took her lunch in her chamber, but when Glory didn’t return the princess slipped on her white pumps embroidered with tiny daisies and went in search of sustenance. On her way down the long corridor, Arlo appeared, carrying a silver urn of sweet lilac and trailing ivy.
‘Have you seen my maid?’
‘No, I have not. May I be of any service, Your Highness?’ Arlo bowed low. The princess looked very pretty in her summery outfit. At night, Arlo dreamt about the princess, for indeed he did have a fancy for her, but he also had a fancy for Rolf, which was most confusing for him. One person Arlo did not have a fancy for was Veronica, the daughter of the baker, to whom he was betrothed, but that was another story entirely.
‘You can, actually. I’m going to the kitchen. If my maid’s not there, fetching my lunch, you must try to find her.’
Arlo hastily set the flowers on a nearby plinth and followed Mirabella to the kitchen. Elda was churning butter, and Rolf was washing pots, but Mrs Blossom was nowhere to be seen. After some chit-chat it transpired that Mrs Blossom was indisposed, and no one knew where Glory was, so Rolf got busy making lunch for the princess, while Elda and Arlo were despatched to find Glory.
‘I hope this will suffice, Your Highness?’ Rolf had set a tray with silver cutlery, a linen napkin, a goblet, and a platter containing fresh bread, a curl of creamy butter, several thick slices of beef, a saucer of walnut chutney, and a juicy, ripe peach.
‘It is not my usual fare. It resembles a ploughman’s feast, but yes, it will do well enough. However, I’m thirsty after my morning’s riding. I require some elder-flower cordial.’
‘Yes, Your Highness. I’ll fetch some from the cellar.’
The princess waited impatiently. She wanted to grab the peach and devour it, but it wasn’t very royal to stand in a kitchen eating fruit with her fingers. Once more, Mirabella longed to be a commoner. After what seemed like a very long time, Rolf reappeared.
‘I’m very sorry, Your Highness. There was no elder-flower cordial to be found, but perhaps this would be to your liking?’ He held out a tall clear bottle filled with a pale pink liquid.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a light wine made from berries. A summery drink, very tasty, so they say.’
‘Very well. I shall take my repast in the rose garden. Bring my tray, if you please, and send my maid to me as soon as she’s found. Her habit of disappearing is becoming somewhat tiresome.’
Glory sat on her bed, weeping. All her troubles had knocked her flat. Now that she’d begun to cry, she couldn’t stop. She was frightened and heart-weary. She longed for her mother, three days’ journey and another lifetime away.
Elda searched the library, the potting shed, the outhouse, the vegetable garden, the dressmaker’s studio, and the infirmary, with no success. She climbed upstairs towards the attic slowly, partly because she had a blister on her little toe and partly because she didn’t expect to find Glory there. However, she was worried that her friend had packed her suitcase and run away from the palace, so she wanted to check that Glory’s few belongings were still in their bedroom. On finding her dear chum sobbing on the bed, Elda sat down and soothed her as best she could.
‘There there, there there, my little dumpling.’ Elda’s mother had used these words, so Elda said them, even though they sounded a bit silly. Glory thought so, too. She sat up and managed a smile.
‘Little dumpling indeed.’
‘My mama used to say it when I were ill . . .’
‘I almost wish I were ill. I think it would be better than carrying on with this dreadful unknowing,’ Glory said in despair.
Elda was completely out of her depth with the enormity of the situation, but she did her best.
‘You mustn’t wish for ill health, for it might bring further bad luck upon you. It would be wiser not to dwell on your troubles, I reckon, but to get on with the day, like Miss Oleander suggested. The princess is looking for you. She came to the kitchen to fetch her own lunch.’
‘Is she angry?’
‘Not yet, but I’d wager she’s heading in that direction . . .’
‘Bless you, Elda. I shall go and attend to my duties.’
The pair hurried downstairs and dashed across the courtyard, where Arlo spotted them.
‘I’ve been looking for you two. The princess is lunching in the rose garden and she’s asking for her maid. And Mrs Blossom wants Elda back.’
‘Is Rolf in the kitchen?’ Glory wanted to ask. She suddenly longed to see him, but the life of a servant girl does not allow one to follow one’s heart when one wishes, so she made her way to the rose garden.
The Reader
› . . . because there, with her bum half out my window, is Dylan. Now I know the true meaning of the word ‘gobsmacked’.
‘Oh bugger!’ Dylan reluctantly climbs back inside. ‘I don’t suppose there’s much point doing a bunk?’
‘You bet there isn’t. What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I’m running away.’ She’s wearing a classic burglar outfit — black jeans, black sneakers and a black hoodie — and she’s clutching two supermarket bags of my stuff.
‘So you thought you’d steal my things first. Nice.’
‘I know, I know. Call the cops, tell your mother, whatever . . .’
Just then, I hear Mum calling up the stairs. ‘Nova, I have to go out to fax something. I won’t be long.’
‘Okay,’ I yell back. Then I turn to Dylan. ‘Sit. Talk. What’s going on?’ I grab the bags from her and look through them. My jeans, my two best tops, the Issey Miyake perfume Dad bought me duty-free, a Sharon Creech book, and my make-up purse. Dylan may be a thief, but she’s got good taste. She sits down on the floor, leans against the wall, and starts to cry.
‘Cut the waterworks.’ My heart is hard. This girl is bad news, for sure.
Dylan snivels a bit more, then her story tumbles out. Her parents are away for a fortnight because her father is having some new treatment at a big hospital in Melbourne. They’ve employed a housekeeper, a ditzy cow in her thirties. Dylan hates her. She can’t cope with any of it, so she decided to take off. She didn’t want the police to know what clothes she was wearing so she decided to nick some of mine. Her story tapers out, and she starts picking pathetically at that dry skin around her fingernails.
‘How do you know where I live?’
‘Phone book.’
‘Why me? I thought . . . who cares what I thought.
Why me?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not thinking straight. I just wanted to get away from that stupid woman; get away from everything. You wear cool stuff, and we’re the same size . . .’
‘What a frigging compliment.’ I’m angry with her but manage to muster a morsel of compassion. ‘You can’t outrun your troubles,’ I say, sounding way wiser than I feel. ‘Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? They’ll just find you and haul you back. Plus, your parents don’t need this kind of worry. It’s pretty selfish of you to load them with another drama to deal with, if you ask me.’
‘I didn’t ask you, actually.’
‘Well, you’re in my bedroom trying to rip me off, so I think I’ve got a right to an opinion.’
‘Fair enough,’ she admits, defeated.
‘Will the housekeeper — what’s her name, by the way — will she have rung the cops yet?’
‘Nah, she probably doesn’t even know I’ve gone. Madeleine, Maddy for short. She is kind of a maddy, actually. She can’t cook, hardly eats anything, borderline anorexia I reckon. She’s a neat freak with no discernible sense of humour. She just tidies up relentlessly, then watches crime shows and stuff like We Built a House in Tuscany But Now It’s Falling Down. She thinks I’ve gone to bed.’
‘Right, here’s what we’re going to do. You are going to go home and stay home. If she susses you’ve been out and asks where, tell her you had to pick up some homework from a friend’s place. And tomorrow, at school, you go straight to see Ms G. You have to tell her what’s happened, Dylan. You need her help, for sure.’
She looks up from her cruddy fingernails and gives me a listless smile.
‘Okay. Thanks, Nova. I’ll do it, I promise. It’s a good plan.’
‘What’s your phone number at home? I’m going to ring you in half an hour and make sure you’re there. If you’re not, I’m telling the housekeeper and my mother, and the shit will hit the fan.’
She scribbles her number on the back of an envelope that’s sticking out of my rubbish bin, and heads towards the window.
‘You can go out the door if you want,’ I say, and we walk down together. I watch her jog off down the quiet, tree-lined street. Great timing, because Mum drives up almost as soon as Dylan turns the corner onto the main road.
‘What are you doing out here?’ she asks, climbing out of the car. ‘Look, I bought ice-cream. The good stuff.’
‘Maple and pecan?’
‘Yep.’
We sit in the kitchen and hoe in; one big bowl and two spoons. Sublime. I don’t tell her I’ve still got my untouched dinner waiting for me upstairs.
‘Your father’s all sorted — well, as sorted as he can be. Hopefully, his luggage will turn up soon. I remember waiting for my lost bag in Florence. I sat in the garden of our pensione all day, wearing a big t-shirt, watching a tortoise wander around. Dad brought rolls, and tomatoes, and cheese for lunch, and red wine. In the evening, the bag turned up in a taxi. It was our most relaxing day in Europe.’
‘Cool. Mum, did you ever have a toxic friend?’
‘What do you mean by toxic?’
‘Not sure, actually. Difficult, I guess. Someone troubled but who turned out to be worth the effort?’
‘Well, there was Gillian. She turned out to be a . . . challenge.’
I remember Mum’s friend Gill. We saw a lot of her when I was little. I liked her. She wore stripes with florals with spots, and arty brooches, and big scarves. Her house was messy and colourful, and she had a collection of little elephant statues made of wood, and ivory, and china.
‘Yeah, you don’t see her any more. How come?’
‘We had heaps of fun together at uni. She was frisky and playful. We always kept in touch and enjoyed each other, over the years, but when her marriage broke up she got kind of . . . whingeing and needy, I suppose. I tried to listen and be there for her, but it got pretty draining. The oddest thing was, just when I’d plucked up courage and was going to talk to her about the state of our friendship, she sent me the most horrid email . . .’
‘Like what?’
‘A whole list of things she felt I’d done wrong over the years. Good that she got it all off her chest, but it was pretty twisted and cruel. I never wrote back, and that was that.’
‘Did you miss her?’
‘Yes and no. I missed the good old days, but not the whingeing. It was time to move on, for both of us, I guess. Why do you ask, Hon?’
‘There’s a girl at school, Dylan . . .’
‘The one who was giving you a hard time?’
‘Yeah. Things have changed a bit . . .’ I’m about to tell Mum the whole saga, but something stops me, and then the phone rings again, and the moment passes. After Mum gets off the phone, I phone Dylan. She answers straight away. ‘
I’m here. Thanks for not dobbing me in, Nova.’
‘You will go and see Ms G, won’t you?’
‘Yep, I promise.’
‘Night then.’
When I get off the phone I feel a strange mixture of emotions: anger, weariness, pity, and something almost like love.
THE WRITER
Just as she establishes a nice smooth rhythm, the writer’s work is interrupted by the coming of Christmas. It’s alarming! There are cards to send, provisions to buy, gifts to wrap, shops to avoid, people to see, emails aplenty, ten pipers piping, three frogs a’wooing, and a partridge in a pear tree. The writer has a major disaster making her Christmas cake, but that’s another story. Domestic goddess status is too hard, she decides, as she fa
ces her own holy trilogy: a book deadline, a sore back, and the rapid onset of the festive season. Her orderly life tumbles like a box of baubles. The writer worries and frets, advances and retreats, sulks and finally surrenders. She accepts that it’s possible to both love and despise this nutty time of capitalism and chaos, abandons her writing until the New Year, and wombles onwards, a piece of dark fruitcake in one hand, a bowl of cherries in the other.
CHAPTER
CONTAINING
MERRIMENT, LIFE,
AND DEATH
MIRABELLA WAS GRUMPY. At first she’d taken pleasure in the dappled sunshine, the pretty roses, and her delicious victuals, but now she was thirsty, and hot, and bothery. Try as she might, she couldn’t budge the cork in the bottle rolf had given her. she scooped a little water from the fountain to wet her lips, but the soggy leaf floating in the water gave her cause to doubt the wisdom of drinking it.
‘where is that dratted girl?’ she asked aloud.
‘I’m here,’ replied Glory, appearing through an archway in the yew hedge.
Mirabella regretted the ‘dratted’, but Glory did not seem to have taken offence.
‘I am sorry to have kept you waiting, Your Highness.’
Glory offered no explanation, but curtsied low.
Mirabella nodded her head slowly and elegantly, like a swan, as if to say I will forgive your absence if you ignore my calling you ‘dratted’.
‘Please open this, if you are able. I am parched.’ The princess held out the bottle.
Glory gave the cork a few hard tugs, and out it came with a satisfying pop. She poured some into the goblet, and the princess drank it rapidly.
‘How delectable.’ Mirabella kicked off her slippers and wriggled her toes. ‘I wanted elderflower cordial, but there was none to be found. This is a concoction made from berries,’ she said, suddenly feeling a lot more cheerful. ‘I do believe I can taste sunshine in it, as well as raspberries and a hint of rose petals. Pour me some more, if you please.’ Glory did as she was asked and sat nearby, under a hanging bough of wisteria.