Page 87 of The Heir Apparent

The smell of boat fuel rose up, and the engines shuddered to life. Then Davide was waving to us from the dock as we pulled into the night. I sat on the narrow couch in the cockpit and wrapped myself in one of the blankets Mum had brought with us. She stood at the helm, looking out at the water, and I lay down on the white leather. I don’t think I really slept. I just dozed as the boat churned across the glossy surface of the Ligurian Sea. By the time Mum killed the engine, I was unsure how much time had passed. I sat up and looked starboard and saw the lights of the Italian Riviera blinking like distant stars.

“Are we kind of far out?” I asked.

She turned to me, surprised. “Oh, you’re awake. No, not that far. See that lighthouse over there? That’s the very tip of Portofino. As long as we don’t go past that point, we’re still in the gulf.”

I squinted into the dark and saw a pulse of silvery light. Mum dug through the tote bag she’d brought with us and pulled out a bottle of champagne.

“I just thought, why not? You’re practically eighteen and this is our last summer together,” she said, pulling off the foil from its neck.

We moved to the leather lounging area and lay down, huddled under the blanket. I was groggy with sleep and didn’t much feel like champagne, but I took a sip every time she passed me the bottle. It was cosy lying together under the stars. The water sloshed gently against the boat’s hull, and I pulled the blanket tightly around myself.

“Are you alright, Mum?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “I’m going to watch the sunrise with my girl. What more could I want?”

I hesitated. The lighthouse flickered faintly again in the distance. “I know, but… are you okay?”

She was quiet. Then she took a long draw of the champagne bottle and passed it to me. “I worry about your brother. I worry about you, too. But it’s your brother who worries me the most.”

“He was just in a bad mood tonight,” I said. “He didn’t mean it.”

“I’m not talking about tonight.” She was lying beside me on the lounge, our feet tangled together, looking so young with her bare face and her unkempt hair that she could have passed for my sister. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“No, I don’t.”

She smiled. “Dearest, do you really think I don’t know about Louis and Kris?”

I froze, trying to recall a time when they might have given themselves away in her presence. Once Mum and Papa hadseparated, Louis and I didn’t burden her so much with our own problems, but I wondered now what she had quietly observed.

“Did Louis say something?” I asked.

“No.”

“How do you know then?”

“Because I’m his mother. I’ve always known.”

I lay back and looked up at the cold stars scattered over our heads, thinking of my brother. I sometimes worried that as we got older I was losing him to Papa and Granny. They were three people bound by fate, and an invisible curtain separated them from the rest of us. Louis was disappearing behind it more and more as he grew up, even though it meant whole parts of himself had to remain concealed. But they were the parts that Mum and I loved, the parts that made him Louis.

“He and Kris really love each other,” I said.

“I’m glad.”

I rolled over. “I’m sorry I kept it a secret from you.”

She smiled again. “I understand the honour code between twins. I haven’t brought it up with him because I know he’s not ready to talk about it, but I’m glad he has you. You two must always be brother and sister first, you know. You must always take care of him.”

“I know,” I paused. “Why are you worried about me?”

Her eyes were roaming my face with so much love, it clenched my heart.

“Because,” she said, “you never want anyone to worry about you.”

I was surprised that tears pricked my eyes. I thought again of my brother vanishing behind the curtain, leaving me alone in this world, even though we had arrived here together.

“Sometimes I wonder,” I whispered, “what’s the point of me?”

“Oh, dearest,” she cried softly and brushed my wet cheeks with her fingers. She took my face in her hands. “You are my brilliant, kind, funny girl. You are here for no other reason than to be yourself. I don’t want you to ever make the same mistake I did.”