As a birthday treat, Alex did the washing up, not that there was much to do — two mugs, two plates, two forks, two spoons. Oh! And the cake knife, which I really must get rid of since it still has “M + J 18.12.10” engraved on the length of the blade. If Alex noticed it, he was at least kind enough not to mention it to me. It was one o’clock in the morning by then, and I was mindful that he had to be back in San Francisco by 7, washed and shaved and pressed.
“Tell me a story, clumsy boy,” I asked. “Tell me a birthday story.” He’d just tripped over the rag rug on his side of the bed (again).
“Well, Melissa. When a man and a woman love each other very much –“
“Not that story!” I laughed. He climbed in my double Murphy bed (not quite full length, and his legs dangled from the end) beside me and grabbed me around the middle. The pressure tickled me and I shrieked a little from the pleasant discomfort.
“Oh? I like that story very much. I thought you did too.”
“I want a birthday story, not a Friday and Saturday night story, thank you.” I sat up in bed and angled myself away from him, tilting my chin up, pretending to be insulted.
Alex turned out the bedside light and exhaled deeply. I slid back down beside him and stared out the skylight at a few wispy clouds passing over the waxing moon. It had rained much of the day, and I hadn’t thought I’d see the moon at all tonight.
“Alex?”
“Mmmmm. That cake was lovely, Mel.” He reached over and chucked me under my chin. “Although I could have brought one for you. I feel like a cad having you bake your own sodding birthday cake.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I had the day off anyway.” I waved my hand above me in the air dismissively. “Tell me a birthday story.”
Another long sigh. “I’m wretched at these. I could recite Kipling’s ‘If…’ if you like.”
I didn’t reply. I had a faint memory of Alex and Julian, drunk on peach schnapps at my old flat in Bristol, shouting it out together in slurred camaraderie.
“Fine. Birthday story! Hmmmm.” Another long pause. I poked him in the side. “Ow! All right then. Once upon a time — all the good stories start that way, you know. Ow!”
I had poked him again.
“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess with strawberry blonde hair. She lived in a magical, sunny kingdom with her family: her mother the queen, a healer; her father the king, a man of laws; and her sister, who could be vain at times, but still loved the little princess very, very much. And the princess had many friends in her court, little princes and princesses and dukes and duchesses, and they all loved their sunny kingdom by the sea.
“But one day, the little princess said to the king and queen, ‘I grow weary of the sun. I want to visit the Kingdom of Rain for a year and see how the people live and how they learn.’ So the little princess with the strawberry blonde hair packed two bags and travelled to the Kingdom of Rain.”
“Ooooooh,” I breathed. “‘Kingdom of Rain’ is right, isn’t it?”
“Yes. So the little princess found a little palace, just the right size for her and the Princess Araminta of Dorchester to live in. It was up on a very steep hill, and from her balcony she could see a cathedral and a port and many ships. The princess from the sunny kingdom liked to make herself cups of tea and sit on the balcony — during the hours it wasn’t raining, of course.”
“Of course.”
“The Princess Araminta welcomed the little golden princess into her own court, and soon the little princes and princesses and dukes and duchesses and assorted lords and ladies of the Kingdom of Rain got to know the little princess. Some of the Rain people found her loud and awkward and too prone to emotion, and some of them loved the warmth and kindness she brought from her sunny kingdom into the sodden and grey Kingdom of Rain.
“In particular, there were two boys who liked her very much. There was the poor but noble Alexander, a duke of an old and distinguished and totally broke house far, far north of the princess’ little palace. And there was the wealthy Lord Julian, who was far more practical and outgoing than the gloomy and overly romantic Alexander, and who could buy the little princess every cup of tea in the Kingdom of Rain and the sunny kingdom by the sea, for that matter.”
“I probably wanted scrumpy more than tea back then, you know.”
“Yes, I remember the teacups filled with scrumpy. You and Minty weren’t fooling anyone.”
Alex paused, and I rolled on my side to face him. The rain was starting up again, and it beat upon the skylight pitpitpitpitpit. He yawned and stretched one long arm above his chest. “Yes, two boys,” he continued, speaking through his yawn. “You see, Alexander and Julian were also the best of friends when they met the little princess. They knew each other better, they thought, than brothers raised in the same cot. And nothing would ever, ever come between them. But did you know they were wrong?”
I didn’t respond. Alex rubbed his eyes.
“Well, they were both very wrong, because even though they had once pricked their thumbs under a full moon — on a night when the moon wasn’t hidden by clouds, a rarity in the Kingdom of Rain — and each had smeared his own blood on the thumb of the other and proclaimed that they were the Unshakeable and the Unbreakable–“
“Ohhhhhh, that was your terrible band that never went anywhere!”
“Hush. It was perfectly cromulent and you know that.” He lightly biffed the side of my nose. “Ahem. Even though they had pledged everlasting fealty to each other, they had a big problem. A big little problem. The little princess seemed to be the balm to what ailed them both.
“Lord Julian, for all his swagger, was terrified that he was incapable of being loved. You see, his father was forever away and never around, visiting with Eastern potentates, trying to make more and more and more money, enough money that people — fancy people — would forget that he wasn’t always a lord, and the father of a little lord, and had once been very, very poor indeed. And while his mother — a fancy person herself — was very good about making a show of Lord Julian in public, doting upon his every accomplishment, back home at their manor she refused to see him. She kept herself busy with committees and charities and shopping and everything but her boy, who loved her so very much. And wanted so badly to be loved in return.”
This was so close to the bone my breath caught. “What about the little duke?” I asked, rolling closer to Alex, draping an arm across his chest.
“Alexander? Well, he should have been all right. He had a mother who loved him and kissed him and told him what a good little duke he was all the time, and a funny twin sister who was forever covered in ink and paint and running around with scissors. His father had passed away when he was very small, and he couldn’t remember his old man too well, but Alexander never missed him too much. He had his mummy and his sister, the mad little duchess Fennella, and he had so very much love from everyone.
“But Alexander was born with a little black cloud over his head, and despite his tutors and his family reminding him he was quite smart and good with numbers, he never felt worthy of the praise the others gave him. He thought: these people are liars. I’m dumb, so they must be liars, and if they’re liars, they’re not worth treating well. So Alexander was grumpy with everyone, and especially the people he liked the most.”
“Alex?” I stroked his cheek, the stubble coarse against my palm. “What happened when Alexander met the little princess?”
“I’m getting there. So when Lord Julian met the little princess with the strawberry blonde hair, he found a girl who was nearly exploding with affection and wonder and, well, pure happiness at being alive. She laughed at Julian’s stories and hugged him frequently. She told him about her family at home in the sunny kingdom by the sea, and how much she missed them even though she had come to enjoy the Kingdom of Rain. And when he told her of the coldness at home, he could see her little princess heart breaking, just a bit, at the thought of Lord Julian not knowing the same love she had always known. If he could have just a portion of all the love she sent out to the world, he’d be a happy boy at last. And he wanted the little princess to himself very, very badly.
“But Alexander also wanted the little princess. She had called him out on his tendency to cast everything in a dark bitter light. She nicknamed him ‘Stomper’ because his angry tread could be heard in the hallways before he’d even arrived in a room. She’d grab his hand and pull him into rooms at parties when he was lurking in the corner, smoking a cigarette or twelve near a potted plant.”
“Those poor plants, you were always stubbing cigarettes out into their soil.”
“They deserved it, those hideous cheese plants. You can’t kill them anyway. But the little princess helped Alexander understand he was deserving of happiness, and that not all pleasures needed to be dark and dour. Alexander knew Lord Julian wanted the beautiful princess with the strawberry blonde hair, and this made him feel very conflicted. Julian could give the princess almost everything she could ever want in terms of cups of tea and pretty frocks and flowers and pints of scrumpy.”
I poked him in the side again. “Only half pints, Al. I am a lady.”
“Fine, as many half pints of scrumpy as she could ever desire. And of course Julian was at ease in a room and never loitered near the cheese plants in the corner, chainsmoking. And like the little princess, he was fair and green-eyed, and not dark-haired like Alexander, who was too tall for her anyway. Lord Julian and the little princess looked so radiant together, matched in every way. So Alexander decided that it would be best for everyone if he didn’t challenge Julian for her hand. He could still have his blood brother if he just let Julian win, and he could learn to put the little princess from the sunny kingdom out of his mind.”
“But Alex, that’s not what happened. You were absolutely cruel to me. You said the meanest things about me, and my being American, and my breasts being nonexistent. I hated you.”
I could see, even in the dark, a wry smile turn up one corner of Alex’s mouth. “That means that the little duke’s plan worked. He thought if he made the princess think that he was just as ugly and terrible and fearsome and bad as he believed himself to be, that she would never, ever want to be near him again. For Alexander never stopped wanting the princess for himself, in spite of himself and his love for Lord Julian. In spite of the Countess Miranda, who had wooed him, sharing with Alexander the same fierce disdain for the world that had consumed him until he’d met the princess. For Alexander had now pledged if not his heart, then his body to the Countess Miranda, and she would not let him forget that he now belonged to her.
“And one night, one terrrrrrrible wonderful night, Lord Julian and the little princess had a big fight about how she was still kind and loving and open and terrific fun with everyone she met, and not just him, and Lord Julian left her alone at the ball, sipping sadly at her champagne.”
“It was Smirnoff Ice, and you know it.”
“Hush. The little princess was too classy for Smirnoff Ice. So when the Stomper saw her alone, with tears in her eyes, he shut his stupid mouth for a change and listened to her pour out her fears that she would never be good enough for Lord Julian. And the gloomy Alexander could not abide her strawberry blondeness being sad for another moment, and took her into his arms. He held her so-so-so close, and stroked her hair, and said, ‘Melissa, it will be all right.'”
“And then,” I whispered, “I kissed you.” Oh I remember that kiss, how shocked Alex was when I moved my mouth and pressed my half-open lips against his. I remember his eyes roving about the room, looking for Julian, Miranda, anyone to call us out. But no one did.
“Yes. The little princess from the sunny kingdom by the sea kissed the Stomper, and didn’t care that he was dark and grumpy and prone to loitering near plants and wearing tragic old men’s clothing bought down at the Marie Curie Charity Shop. And the Stomper felt the little black cloud turn a shade of lighter grey, and he knew he was lost forever to the princess, and he would spend the rest of his life knowing that he loved her.”
Alex stopped there, and rolled onto his side, facing away from me. I rubbed his back, long strokes from his neck to the small of his back. His muscles felt so tight to me, yet I dared not to push too hard. For all his height, Alex always seems more fragile than Julian ever was to me, even though Julian was (is) four inches shorter. I think I could push Alex over – psssssh — should I ever want to. (But I don’t, and I mustn’t.)
“Honey?” I slipped the word onto his back as I pressed my lips on his shoulder. Silence, then a low snore. He’d have a long day today, and I’d not ask more. I already knew how Lord Julian beat out the Stomper in the end for the little princess’ hand, how Alexander ended up back with the Countess Miranda, and then the Lady Amanda, and finally the Princess Araminta of Dorchester herself, who presented him nearly six years ago with the little Lady Lucy of Cadogan Square. And how the Princess Araminta took Lady Lucy with her and ran away to Dorset, never to return. And how Alexander, duke of an old and storied and impoverished line of almost-weres and might-have-beens, cried most nights for his folly.
I listened to the rain in harmony with Alex’s snores, the gibbous moon behind the clouds now. Good night, Stomper, from the strawberry blonde princess from the sunny kingdom by the sea.
meandering again 