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Even though Elizabeth was in every conceivable way the embodiment of summer, the smell of roses, apple orchards, sun kissed skin and fresh honey, the soft touch of soft summer breezes and the calm magic of warm evening promenades, Henry still couldn’t help himself to think of nothing but her on rainy autumn afternoons. When the world smelled just as it had done when they walked across the cobblestones, away from the lecture hall towards the promise of a warm cup of coffee. She had been wearing her favourite pair of gloves the first time he held her hand on the way to their usual café. It was a pair of burgundy ones, leather, so worn and soft that they didn’t squeak one bit when she wrapped her fingers around his. No one had believed him, but honest to God, he hadn’t recognised her that first day of term, when he had picked the spot next to her. Back then she had just been a girl with the face of an angel. She had smiled when he asked if the seat was taken, told him her name was just "Lizzie". They had talked, laughed a bit, she was so easy to talk to, making conversation like she had done nothing else all her life. She had just finished her Bachelor’s in Peace and Conflict and gone straight onto a Master’s, where he had joined her. He had finished school years prior, leaving with a Master’s degree in economics and a promising career. Then, he had left for Brussels, wanting to be in the centre of things. “But alas, suddenly the town wasn’t as welcoming to a Brit as it had once been.” She had laughed at his remark and said that even though it wasn’t the official line of the party, she had actually voted remain herself. He had been surprised at her candid reply, asking her if she was politically active. She had looked at him strangely, and tentatively said something about having grown up in middle of it. They had sat quiet for a moment, then it dawned on him. “Oh wait, you’re Elizabeth Plantagenet, aren’t you?”. She had looked down at her notebook, a bit embarrassed perhaps, and answered that yes, she was.
And so the semester had continued. He had quickly picked up on three things. First, that every social gathering revolved around Lizzie. Second, that if you wanted to hang out with her you ended up being dragged along to all said social gatherings. And third, that if you actually wanted to get to know her, then large groups were useless. So, Henry pretty soon stopped tagging along, he had been too old for Disney themed pub crawls, anyway. Instead, they happened upon both a café and a bar to frequent. They learnt each other’s favourite drinks, and suddenly they found themselves not needing to ask if they should go grab lunch after the morning lectures or a beer after their afternoon seminars. They just did, and not before long he had taken her hand, her perpetually cold fingers clad in worn burgundy leather. What he wouldn’t do to get those day’s back. Just simply to have her hand back in his as he walked towards the small village church.
His first months in office had passed by before he had been able to blink, and suddenly he had been handed a pair of train tickets and his, already packed, weekend bags. He had been called home to Wales for All Saints and All Souls. He vaguely remembered speaking to his mother about it, but it could just as well have been last year. He was nevertheless glad to be home, even if it probably would never be just the two of them again. The bodyguard walked a few paces behind them, far enough not hear their quiet conversation, but still close enough to very obviously be there. His mother nestled her arm around his and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“I’m so happy you could make it.”
“Of course, Mum, wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
They walked on quietly for a moment.
“I know how much these day’s mean to you.” His mother didn’t answer, but nodded into his coat sleeve. The guilt hit him like a tonne of bricks, ever since he got here all he had been able to think of was Lizzie. He ought to have called home more often. They came to a stop in front of the small gravestone.
Edmund Tudor
beloved son and brother
*1960-03-11 †1986-11-03
His mother knelt and started to rake away the leaves around the stone, trying to tidy it up a bit. He swallowed, hard.
“Can’t we just get a new one?” His mother didn’t answer. “They’ve been dead for years, and I know Jasper wouldn’t mind. Mum? It’s disrespectful.” Henry jammed his hands in his pockets as a chilly wind swept by them.
“Disturbing the resting spot of the dead, is disrespectful, Harry.” His mother fiddled with the matches, irate and with shaky finger’s. “We’ve talked about this. He’s had this stone for 35 years, why change it now.”
Henry knelt down next to her, immediately regretting putting his knee to the wet ground as the water started to creep through the fabric.
“Here, give me the matches.” He managed to get the candle lit and stood up quickly, giving his mother a hand. “We don’t need to change it, we could just ad ‘fiancé and father’ or something.”
“He was neither, sadly. He died not knowing about you, like all of us. Jasper only told me your father had meant to propose when you had been placed in my arms. I still don’t know if it made the whole thing easier or more difficult. The shock of suddenly being a mother at 19 was bad enough, but then at the same time, maybe knowing you would have had a father made it somewhat easier.”
“I know, Mum. I know.” He had listened to the tale a thousand time, his father away in Northern Ireland, his mother not knowing she was pregnant and Jasper being the only one with a car she trusted enough to call. Apparently, they had all thought Jasper had been the father when they arrived in the emergency room. As a child he had often wished that Jasper had been his dad, but he had grown to understand more and more what strange a path it would have been for his mother and uncle to walk. He lingered at the grave as his mother started to walk towards the church. He had brought Lizzie with him one year, and she had remarked on the dates. He would never admit it to his mother, but he had been almost ashamed when they had visited the grave that time. As a child he had barely noticed the inscription, and when he had, it had seemed only proper. The grave had belonged to his grandparents, not him and his mother. But when he had stood where he was standing right now, three years ago, he suddenly saw very clearly how odd it was. They were the ones caring for this little plot of land. His grandparents had been dead for years now, and his uncle lived abroad for most of the year. But Lizzie hadn’t asked, maybe she had seen his pained expression, or maybe she had just understood. In any case, she had smiled, and pointed to the dates. “Shame he wasn’t eight years younger, then you would have been able to write it as a palindrome.” They had laughed. He had really been looking forward to showing her Pembrokeshire, the woods where he and his childhood friends had played day in and day out, all summer long. Fought with wooden swards against imaginary dragons and made up enemies, searching for relics and manuscripts containing deep secrets, lost to time in Arthurian legend. Lizzie had smiled at how “quaint” it all was. Sometimes he forgot what a city girl she truly was. But there was nothing quaint over the little village, quite the contrary. The woods of his childhood were endless. At least they used to be. Maybe Lizzie had been right, maybe it was awfully quaint. Lost in memories he wandered after his mother down the narrow gravel path and gave a stern nod to the bodyguard who had found a spot shielded from the chilly autumn winds close to the church doors.
*
Henry had his coat and gloves on, but his mother still lingered in the church, talking to the vicar about something. Henry sighed, some things never change. A few other ladies were chatting by the coat hangers at the back, very obviously eying him from afar, and equally obviously looking away, almost giggling like schoolgirls, when he accidentally looked their way. Something along the lines of “such a handsome young man” and “could you imagine” drifted his way. He jammed his hands further down in his pockets and studied a crack in the stone floor with fervent interest.
“Harry,” the clear tones of his mother’s voice called his attention, “come here.” He collected himself and walked back into the main church room. “I thought you could say hello to some of the Church Board. Harry, this is our Chairwoman, Mrs Hill, and Mrs Atkins and Mrs Pritchard.”
He dutifully shook their hands and smiled politely.
“Pleasure to make your acquaintances.”
“Oh, he doesn’t remember us!” Mrs Hill laughed, “you used to steal my raspberries, you know.”
“Well, I must purposefully have forgotten my trespasses, I promise you, I won’t be stealing your raspberries in the future.”
“Oh, never mind that, you’re free to pick them whenever you want–” he decidedly would not, he could see the headlines before him “Prime Minister on holiday seen picking raspberries in local parish council Chairwoman’s Garden”. “–we are so very honoured to have you home, aren’t we, Violet? Didn’t I just say to you how very proud we were back in August?”
“Oh yes, Dora, very proud,” Mrs Pritchard continued, “and just to think, Maggie’s little Harry away in London, and at 10 Downing none the less!” The ladies nodded in agreement.
“Yes, we were all rooting for you.” The ladies continued with their nodding, until Mrs Pritchard stopped to look at Mrs Atkins.
“Didn’t you vote York, Molly?”
Mrs Atkins looked offended.
“Well, what’s that got to do with it? Just because I voted for the other guy doesn’t mean that I didn’t want our Harry to win! I have always voted York, and so has everyone in my family. That is, except for my uncle Nigel, voted Lancaster all his life, he did, and never said a word about it until Grandpa George died. You see, he was afraid he’d be written out of the will.” Mrs Atkins looked meaningly at her friends, before she continued. “Can you imagine our shock? Not that it was much of a shock, really, but still? To walk around all your life thinking one thing of someone, and then, after so many years to just be told the opposite? But if you ask me, it was the right call all along. I don’t think our grandpa George would have said a word to him if he had found out, and that would surely have broken our dear nan’s heart, and then what would we have done?”
Henry looked from one lady to the next.
“Well, I surely hope we might live in a world where such petty grievances won’t tear families apart. Whomever you voted fore, or will vote for in the future, believe me, I will never think more or less of you.” The ladies now turned their attention back to him, after having listened to Mrs Atkins tale with rounded eyes.
“Oh, how eloquently he can put things, you can really hear how he could get all those suits away in Westminster to listened to him, can’t you? Maggie, you should be very proud of him, must be that expensive education Catherine paid for. No local boy ever spoke like that.”
Unbeknownst to them, the remark stung, because it was partially true. He had lost pretty much all of his Welsh accent in the now more than two decades since he had lived there. But he didn’t like the fact that people always equated it to his public school years. Well, maybe the accent had started to fade then already, but it had been his mother who had taught him to read and helped him to fall in love with it. She had been the one to read Tolkien aloud to him talk properly, told him of the Greek fables, Norse mythology and Celtic tales, and introduced him to the works of Elliot, Lessing, Kipling, Golding… He might have gotten a classical education, but it wasn’t exactly his days at boarding school that had sparked his interest in Nobel prize laureates, not in England nor France. No, that had all begun on the living room carpet next to his mother. But despite all that, he had gotten his first job thanks to an old friend from school, so in some way there were so truth to it. Disregarding his inner thoughts, the church ladies continued their chatting.
“Not even his dad. I was sitting all the while the vicar was talking, marvelling over just how alike you two are. And what a looker he was, your father. We all quite fancied him, back in the day, you know, boy, but oh no, he had eyes for none other than our Maggie here. And now you’re all grown up and look just as handsome as he did.” Mrs Hill patted him on the cheek, and for a moment he was horrified she might actually pinch it, but thankfully she dropped her hand again.
“Well, we won’t keep you two any longer, you’ll want to get home before it gets too dark, the rain makes the path down past the old mill dreadfully slippery, you must promise me to take care, Maggie. Whatever would we do if you fell one evening with no one waiting at home? Harry," Mrs Hill turned to him, “promise me to tell you mother to be careful, would you, I suspect she never listens to any of us.” The ladies once again nodded in agreement, somewhat more energetic.
Henry forced a smile and nodded.
“Of course, Mrs Hill, now have a nice evening, all of you.”
“Oh, no need to be so formal, you can call me Auntie Dora, you always used to call me Auntie Dora.”
“Of course, how forgetful of me.” He was very sure he had never had a ‘Auntie Dora’ in his life, even though he clearly remembered the garden with the large raspberry hedges. The lady who lived there had once thrown a shoe after him. She couldn’t have been more than 30 when that happened, but as he remembered it, she was already a sour old shrew. She had a daughter, maybe a year or so his junior, who had made it her sole task one summer to shoot dried peas with a slingshot whenever he passed their house. It hadn’t stopped until her mother, the very Mrs Hill they had just spoken to, had found out and told her off loud enough to hear it from a mile away. The slingshot had been meant for her brother, apparently.
They finally made it from the church and began their walk homewards. Dusk had just started to fall, and all the lights flickered faintly in the churchyard. They walked in silence for a while before Henry spoke up.
“I didn’t know you were so friendly with the other church ladies.”
“I’ve been on the board for years, Harry, you know that.”
“Yeah, of course, but I just didn’t remember you being so close.”
“Well,” his mother shrugged her shoulders, “I suppose we have gotten more friendly the last year or so.”
Henry swallowed, he hadn’t thought of it before, but he could have suspected this would have happened. These were deep rooted Lancaster grounds, and it wasn’t strange that his mother was suddenly a much more interesting person. It wasn’t that his mother hadn’t had friends, of course she had, good and close friends, but he knew her mark as the single, teenage mother had haunted her for years.
“Mrs Hill had a daughter, didn’t she? Do you know what happened to her?”
“Annika? Yes, she moved to Cardiff, ten, twelve, years ago maybe, got married and all that. Had a large town house. She came back a few months ago though, with wo little ones, six and four, something like that. Devilish little boys, but sweet in their own way. Dora often brings them with her to church, but Annika keeps to herself. She says her husband is away on business in China, but now one really believes her. Well, maybe he is, but she’ll probably stay here.”
Henry didn’t like it, but he couldn’t help but feel a bit happy that the bratty blonde who had plagued him all his childhood had come back with her tail between her legs. He felt sorry for the boys, though.
“How about yourself?” His mother continued.
“What about?” He turned to his mother.
“How’s things with Elizabeth? Last time we spoke it seemed you were reconnecting.”
Henry bit his inner cheek.
“We were, am, I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Nothing has happened since I visited last time, we haven’t lost touch per se, at least I don’t think we have. We had plans for dinner in September, or maybe it was early October, somewhere around there at least, but she had to cancel due to some work trip, and after that we haven’t found the time.”
“You want her back?”
“I–” he didn’t know what to say. Yes? Suppose he did, well of course he did. He loved her, as dearly as he had ever done, and last summer it had felt as if Lizzie had felt the same way. The problem was that neither of them had the time to fall in love again. Had they been married it wouldn’t have mattered, they would just have been in one of those stages where the other gets up before one has woken up and fallen asleep before one gets home, and suddenly years have passed but you still know you will make time to fall in love again one day when life won’t get in the way. But when there is no shared life to consider, then there is no reason to wait for each other. For all he knew she could have met someone new on one of her trips, and with no promise to him she had no reason to hesitate. “It’s complicated.”
“No, Harry. It’s complex, there is a difference. Either you want her back or you don’t, everything else may affect your feelings about the situation, not for her.”
“Then yes, of course I do. I just don’t seem to be able to make the time, and neither can she.”
“Invite her for Christmas.” He stared at his mother. “Bring her here, I would love to meet her again.”
“Mum, I’m sure Lizzie would like to spend Christmas with her family, especially since her dad’s well enough to travel now.”
“For twelfth night, then. We could use a third person for our table read.”
Henry laughed.
“Mum, I love you, but I’m sorry. Whenever I finally bring a girl home for Christmas, we won’t be doing Shakespearean table reads. That’s not a thing normal families do, you know that, don’t you?”
His mother smiled and linked her arm in his.
“But we’re not a normal family, are we Harry, we’re us? Just raspberry stealing Prime Minister and his cool rebellious Mum.”
“If you say so, Mum. And I’ll think about it, but I can’t promise you she’ll come.”
“Oh, I think she will.”