Falling in Love With English Boys (24 page)

Just then the production assistant came back into my space. His name was Luke and he’d made sure I was extra comfy when we arrived. He clearly thought I was a bit of all right. He wasn’t bad, himself, with his spiky yellow hair and nerdy-cool specs. He plunked down next to me with a sigh, then took a huge gulp of his drink and promptly started to choke and splutter. I thumped him on the back a few times. It felt like twigs under a tarp. How is it that English guys can do weedy-skinny and kinda-sexy at the same time?

“Cheers,” he thanked me when he was able to breathe again. “You’d think I’d learn not to inhale Coke. This kind of Coke.” He rattled the ice in his cup, as if he really needed to clarify. “Not the other. So, enjoying yourself? You must be chuffed to see your mum in there.”

I opted for honesty. “Better than the dusty depths of the BM, sure.”

Inside, they were still talking about the difference between American and English. Yawn. I spied a MacBook just like mine on a desk nearby. There was something I’d been meaning to do for days. I just hadn’t felt up to it. Now, with weedy-but-cute Luke making eyes at me, I felt ready.

“Wireless access?” I asked, pointing to the Mac.

“Yeah.” He almost tripped over himself in his eagerness to get the thing open and in front of me. “No porno, huh? Don’t want the tech lads doing the nudge-nudge-wink-wink for the next six months.” He gave a “
just kidding”
grin. Nudge-nudge-wink-wink.

I went straight for Google. I had it up on the screen in less that ten seconds: “
No Second Troy”
by William Butler Yeats.

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

“Wow” was about all I could manage after reading through it. Wow, Will.

Luke nudged his way in. “Ah. One of his finest moments.”

“You understand this?”

“Oh, yeah. I studied literature at Durham. Critical Theory 1850 to 1950. Believe me, they serve you Yeats with a trowel.”

“So explain it to me in twenty words or less.”

I could almost see him counting. “Nope, can’t be done. But in a nutshell: it’s about a wild gorgeous Irishwoman Yeats was in love with, Maud Gonne. Like crazy in love. She didn’t feel the same way. In the poem, he doesn’t hold it against her, but can’t stop loving her. Some people think the poem is mostly about that, about his massive passion for this woman. Others think it’s more about the Irish war for independence. She was a nationalist, a rabid one. Didn’t think England had any right to be in Ireland and needed to be gotten out, whatever it took. Hence the teaching common men to fight, with sticks if they didn’t have guns.”

He paused to catch his breath. “Personally, I lean toward the love thang. Yeah, it’s about war, but it’s more about the fact that everyone wants this incredible woman, who can’t be tamed or blamed or controlled, enough to follow her into hell or battle. Enough to commit violent acts because of her. Like Menelaus did, attacking Troy to get his Helen back. Man”—Luke sighed—“how sick, how flippin’ unreal would it feel to be in love with someone like that? To even
know
someone like that?”

Pretty unreal indeed.

The perfect time, I thought, to turn my attention back to the (s)mother and her moment in the proverbial spotlight. She was reading from the battered old brown book that I knew was her first-edition copy of Mary Percival’s
The Abandoned Bride
. Not that there was a second edition. She complains about that every time she can get someone to listen.

“In later years, though few remained,
Her mind oft turned to what was gained
And lost upon that sacred altar
When his tongue amid the vows did falter.
When second sight is diamond clear,
When looking back costs the heart dear,
‘Tis harder to pretend all’s well
Or that heaven cannot turn to hell.
Our dreams: familiar, ordinary—
Whom to be, to follow, to marry?—
So quickly turn to nightmare stuff
When we realize love is not enough.”

“Autobiographical?” the interviewer asked.

“Almost certainly,” Mom answered. “And prophetic. Her marriage, by all accounts, was a love match originally that soured within a few years. Her husband was a womanizer and a gambler who loathed intellectual women.”

“Why did she marry him?”

Mom laughed a little, and rolled her eyes. “Why do any of us pick the wrong guy? She was young; he was good-looking and probably very charming. Everyone pretty much spends the first few months of a relationship pretending to be perfect, right?” That got her chuckles from around the studio. “At the turn of the nineteenth century, when Mary was young, you were already married by the time you stopped being perfect and figured out he wasn’t, either.”

“So she had an unhappy life?”

“Not at all. I think for the most part, she was probably very content. Her essays and first two novels were published to general critical success. She had a wide circle of fascinating acquaintances, including Turner, Byron, and Scott, among other writers and artists. She probably had affairs with one or more of them, although there’s no way to be certain. Unfortunate marriage aside, I think she loved well. She certainly adored her children.”

“You used the word ‘prophetic.’ How so?”

“Mary Percival died in February 1816, four months short of her forty-fifth birthday and less than a year after completing this work. She was living separately from her husband at the time.”

“Hmm. Young.” The interviewer sighed. “How did she die?”

“Well, as with her contemporary, Jane Austen, we can’t be entirely certain. Medicine at the time was far less advanced than people even imagine. Her letters and her daughter’s diary mention a long illness, with symptoms like frequent headaches, nausea, and fatigue. Just from basic research I’ve done, I suspect it might have been kidney disease. Again, like Austen. It was sadly common.”

I felt cold suddenly. Katherine’s diary was from the summer of 1815. That meant her mother was going to die in less than ten months. I watched Mom carefully turn a few pages, finding the next excerpt. I didn’t hear what it was she read. All I could think was,
She’s almost 45, exactly Mary’s age. She could die and then she would be gone and I really really don’t know what I would do without her...

And I felt absolutely sick—real sick, not slangy—that I knew now what Katherine didn’t then, that she was going to lose her mom just when she was kind of finding her. It was two hundred years in the past, but still in the future. Bizarre.

Is that what happened? Did Mary die, and without her, Katherine couldn’t fight off her father and Lord Chilham? How could she have, really? Especially if Charles wasn’t around, either. I wanted to rush back to the flat to read the rest of the diary. At the same time I kinda never wanted to touch it again.

“Hey. You okay?” I came out of my freaky funk to find Luke looking at me like I’d sprouted horns. “Can I . . . er . . . get you something? Tissue? Er . . .” He rattled his ice again. “Coke? This kind, I mean?”

“No, thanks.” I realized I was crying. Okay, so I cry at Hallmark commercials, but it’s definitely been a rocky few days, emotions-wise. “Well, maybe a tissue.” I really should start carrying Kleenex, if I’m going to be leaking all over the place.

The interview wrapped up soon after that. Mom stayed in the booth for a few minutes chatting with the interviewer. When she came out, she was all chipper and smiley. I caught Luke giving her the once-over. Horn dog. But she did look pretty great. Even I thought so.

“C’mon.” She slung a arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go have a carb fest. Fish n’ chips?” I wrinkled my nose. “Chip n’ chips?”

“Tea,” I said. She stopped walking and slapped her free hand to my forehead. “Very funny. I mean a real English Afternoon Tea. Sandwiches and scones and cakes.”

“What a fabulous idea.” We headed out of the studio. I waved over my shoulder to Luke. He waved back, but his eyes were focused on my butt. Or Mom’s. I didn’t really wanna know. “By the way, Astrid gave me a few suggestions for your birthday dinner.”

“Astrid?”

“The woman who just interviewed me.” Mom rolled her eyes and sighed. “You didn’t listen to any of it, did you?”

“I listened to
most
of it,” I informed her huffily. “It was sad. People are really named Astrid?” I thought of the hair, sweatshirt, and lack of any makeup whatsoever. “Lemme guess, Vegan Garbanzo Palace?”

“Not even close. Apparently there’s a new Kashmiri restaurant in Bloomsbury that’s so hot they turned away Victoria Beckham last week. Astrid said to let her know if we were interested; she’d get us reservations.”

I snorted. “Yeah, right. How gullible are you, Ma?”

“Nice, Catherine. Very nice. Do explain.”

“First of all,
no place
in London would turn away Victoria Beckham. Tabloid suicide. Hole One in Astrid’s brief tale. Plus, Victoria Beckham doesn’t eat, hence no turning and Hole Two. Finally, no offense to Astrid—she seemed okay—but did you
look
at her, Mom? Astrid and ‘hot’ are totally oxymoronic.”

Mom’s not a smirker, but she was definitely smirking as she waved for a taxi. The driver waved back in a very friendly and appreciative manner. As did the older man we hadn’t seen sitting in the back. “Not to blast your powers of insight or deduction, Sherlock, but it just so happens that Astrid is married to Russell Tarrant.”

“No.”

“Yup.”

Russell Tarrant who won the Best Actor Oscar this year for playing Count Dracula. Russell Tarrant who you, Kell, called “smokin’ even if he is fifty.” Russell Tarrant who happens to be on the cover of British
GQ
this month. Wow.

“Kashmiri sounds good,” I told her.

“Smart girl.” An empty cab pulled up and we got in. “The Dorchester, please,” Mom told the driver, and off we went. “When Mary Percival was alive, there was a tea shop in Berkeley Square that was famous for its sweets—”

“Gunther’s . . . Gunter’s?”

She looked at me, stunned. “How . . . ?”

“Katherine’s diary. Her mother took her there one day.” My turn to smirk. “I do pay attention.”

Mom put her arm around me again. “I would have loved to have taken you.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That would’ve been cool.”

It seems we shall communicate through puzzles now. A wink, a brush of arm against arm, a riddle. This arrived not amid flowers in a florid hand, but in bold printing, tucked into a book, fresh from the binders. It is Mr. Scott’s
Waverley
, very fetchingly bound in red leather, with a tartan ribbon sewn in to mark my page. I never thought the gift of a book would make me so happy, but I have wanted to read this one, and the knowledge that Thomas, who so scorns novels, has given me one because I might like it, brings flutters to my core.

I have not yet solved the riddle. I will. I will
not
show it to Nicholas this time. He would comprehend it in a minute, and would goad me to try harder. Mama and Miss Cameron have always said that I am an intelligent girl, but that England is fortunate that it is not I who has the crucial task of decoding enemy communiqués. They are absolutely right.

A Riddle for Miss Percival, by An Admirer

My first is in the Lanes but not the Plants.
My second is in the Song and in the Dance.
My third you’ll find at Court but not at Home.
My fourth comes when you Walk but do not Roam.
My fifth is in the Skies and in the Rain.
My six begins not Bliss, yet ends the Pain.
My seventh is in Whole but not in Part.
My eighth is in your Head but not your Heart.
When joined together, you shall surely see
Our lives have always been; So shall we be?

I believe I shall take
Waverley
with me to the Quinns’ house party tomorrow. I do not think there will be much time for reading; we will be much occupied in celebrating Henrietta’s engagement, and there is to be quite a large crowd. Still, I wish Thomas to see that his unsigned gift has been met with delight.

I must decide what to pack for my two days in Surrey. My pink dress with the roses, certainly. Any memories of its sole wearing, to Vauxhall, must be exorcised. The gold will do for the second night. Then I must take two white day dresses, my green walking dress, the yellow-sprigged muslin in case we have a garden party, two hats, and sufficient shoes to cover any occasion and weather. A spencer or perhaps two, should the days be cool, and my softest Kashmir shawl. Nights in the country are often chilly, and if Thomas and I can steal even one moonlight stroll, it shall be soft beneath his hands.

July 29

Lev Din Liv

My last day to be sixteen. I don’t feel especially sweet.

Will has been texting.

HisText#1 (the Day After the Horror in the Park): Ur friend OK?

HisText#2 (the day after that): U OK?

HisText#3 (eight hours later): >
^∧
. .
^∧
< ?

At that point, I figured I needed to respond. I mean, after all, I am not a sad sad girl who, feeling desperately sorry for herself, spent several days in orange pajamas on an orange sofa, drowning her sorrows in Club Orange,
Eastenders
, and
Hello!
(helloooo—no matter how bad things seem, there’s always Jennifer Aniston’s love life to make you feel better about yours; I mean if
Jen
is having a hard time finding It . . .) Nope, that’s not me. I am out and about, Girl About Town, happy as a clam.