Glen St. Mary, Canada
December 2011
If they were right, I'd agree
"So, a prince, yes?"
I look up at Carl, who's standing next to the pew, and roll my eyes at him. "Yes, a prince. So?"
(I feel it's rather a witty way to turn his words back around at him, but I have a feeling it's going to go straight over his head.)
"Nothing much," Carl answers with a shrug.
(Yes, it totally did.)
He takes a step back to allow me to slide out of the pew, but stays by my side when I start walking towards the church doors. It's obviously a little more than just "nothing" after all.
I throw him a sideways glance. "What is it, Carl?"
He avoids looking at me and for a moment, I'm not sure whether he will answer, but then he bursts out, "They hunt!"
Huh?
"Who does?" I ask, hoping that I sound more patient than I feel.
"The royals. They hunt!" He's looking at me now, quite accusingly. (Really, from his look, you'd be forgiven for thinking I was the one who supplied them with guns.)
I raise both hands to fend of his accusation. "Look, I mean… I guess so?"
Carl frowns. "I guess so?" he mimics. "That's all you've got to say on the matter?"
Uh, let me think about that for a moment… "Yes."
Now, in addition to accusing, his look is also disapproving. "But these are innocent creatures. Gentle birds, just minding their own business, shot out of the sky for the amusement of some toffs!"
Okay. I really don't have the strength for this.
"And what would you have me do about it, Carl?" I enquire, feeling weary.
"I don't know." He's animated now, moving his hands as he talks. "You've got an in with them now, don't you?"
Never mind strength. I also lack the patience to deal with this right now.
"If by 'having an in with them' you mean that I'm sleeping with one of them then yes, that's correct," I confirm sarcastically as we come to a halt.
It's more honesty than Carl apparently expected, for it does the trick of shutting him up. Instead, Nan turns around to comment mildly, "You do realise we are in a church?"
"He started it," I grumble, pointing my thumb at Carl and drawing laughs from both Nan and Jerry.
"What are we waiting for anyway?" I ask quickly, before Carl has time to recover, and nod towards the church doors. Most of the other attendants have already left, but our two families have piled up in front of the doors, with no-one making any attempt to open them.
"My father and Una," answers Jerry. "They shouldn't be long."
Right. Una got her Masters of Divinity in summer and officially assisted her father during today's Christmas service. She's doing some form of temporary placement in – I think – Greater Sudbury and expects to do several more of those before getting her own congregation in two or three years. After which she will be needed there for Christmas service, of course. It might well be one of the last times we have Una here with us on PEI at Christmas Day.
(Bit odd then, that Cecilia Meredith and Fire Lily have stayed in their commune for the holidays. But then, Una always seems pointedly unconcerned about her mother's whereabouts and I'm not voluntarily entering that particular mess anyway.)
They're nowhere to be seen yet, the Reverends Meredith, and the delay seems to have been long enough for Carl to get his speech back. "Now, about the hunting –," he begins.
Jerry cuts him off. "Carl, please."
Carl's head whips around. "Please what?"
"Please can you refrain from bothering people?" elaborates Jerry, sounding tired. "Rilla doesn't want to hear it."
No. Rilla doesn't.
"Oh?" Carl narrows his eyes. "You think she'd much rather hear about how you make money from buying shares of oil companies?"
Actually, no. She doesn't want to hear about that either.
"Boys," interjects Nan weakly. "We're in a church." She looks at me for help, but I can do nothing but shrug. This is bigger than her or me.
Jerry raises an eyebrow. "That's a gross oversimplification of the matter."
"Of course you'd say that!" accuses Carl. "But Kara told me –"
But we never do learn what Kara told him, for in that moment, Reverend Meredith and Una emerge, causing a ripple of motion to go through our group. Faith, closest to the exit, reaches out to open the doors, takes a step forward – and immediately recoils, throwing the doors shut forcefully.
The sound rings loudly through the church, as we all stare at her.
"Faith?" asks Jem carefully and reaches out to lay a hand on her arm.
Faith blinks at him, looking stunned. "There are reporters out there."
A second passes, before they all turn to me as one.
Just bloody great.
(It's not even that I'm surprised, exactly. Ken warned me they might turn up. I just hoped they wouldn't.)
Feeling that I should be saying something, I offer up a weak, "sorry?" and duck my head slightly.
The moment stretches out, into three seconds, then five. Finally, it's Dad, lightly shaking his head, who asks, "How many reporters, Faith?"
"Many. Probably half a dozen," reports Faith, looking between Dad, the closed door and me.
Part of me wants to tell her that half a dozen reporters isn't a lot. It's par for the course, really. But Joy is the only one who has any idea quite how many reporters I have following me around on a bad day and there seems little to be gained from telling the others, except for upsetting some of them.
"What do we do now?" asks Nan and that seems to be the cue for everyone to spring into action.
"We need to get Rilla out of here, of course," Grandma Bertha announces decidedly.
"Unseen," adds Di with a firm nod.
"There's a back entrance through the sacristy," offers Rosemary Meredith.
"I could run ahead and get the car," suggests Dan.
"Good idea," commends Mum.
"Shouldn't we get two cars?" asks Jem. "That way, they won't know which one she's in."
"Could be a plan," muses Grandpa John.
And I stand there, listening to them strategizing and sigh softly. They're trying, but they really have no idea.
"No," I say loudly, cutting across their developing plan to throw a blanket over my head to smuggle me outside.
A beat, as everyone goes back to looking at me.
"No blanket?" asks Shirley ironically, raising his eyebrows slightly to signal that he's thought this a ridiculous idea from the beginning.
"Nothing of this," I explain, searching for words. "Look, it's… I appreciate the concern, but there's really no need."
That seems to surprise them, because it is, once again, followed by silence.
Finally, it's Una who asks cautiously, "Do you really just want to go out there and have them photograph you?"
I nod, wearily. "It's just the easiest way. If I give them what they want, they'll leave. If I start playing games, they'll play, too." I'm not doing a good job explaining this, I feel, but I don't know how to make them see. "I've tried to evade them, believe me. I've tried running. It's no use. It's easier just to let them take their picture and get this over as quickly and painlessly as possible."
Di eyes me dubiously. "Well… if you say so." She sounds less than convinced.
"She's right," confirms Joy. "I've seen it and… she's right."
(Out of all of them, Joy's the only one who gets this, I think. Maybe Shirley, too. It might have broken about four boundaries when he hacked into my social media accounts last month, but I'm not fooling myself – it was the single most helpful thing he could have done in that moment and yes, I appreciate the outcome, if perhaps not his methods.)
"If you want to, you can all wait in here. I'll just show myself outside, let them take their picture and hope that they'll be satisfied," I offer, my hand already rising to smooth out my hair.
"We're going with you," decides Dad, not hesitating for a second, and I feel grateful for it.
I mean, I'm not fooling myself. I am the story and I am the one they'll train their lenses on. But even so, it will be easier to face them as part of a group than on my own.
"How do we do this?" enquires Walter, nodding towards the church doors.
"Act naturally," I advise, drumming the tips of my fingers together, "and try not to look at them. Talk among yourself, but not so loud they can hear you. At best, it'll look like we don't even know they're there."
"Do you want us to look like we're having fun?" asks Faith, her hand already hovering above the door knob again.
I frown, thinking this over. "A reasonable amount of fun. Pleasant, but not riotous."
"We can do that," confirms Faith easily, her free hand sliding into Jem's as she pushes open the doors for the second time.
From where I'm standing, I can't see the photographers, but the clicking of their cameras is a familiar sound. Silently, I watch as the others slowly file out of the church, most of them looking away from the cameras so resolutely that there's nothing natural about it. But I know they're trying.
Nan takes Jerry's arm and they slip into position behind me, closely followed by Grandpa and Shirley. Engulfing me into the group, I realise, as best as they can. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Carl still beside me and send a quiet prayer to the heavens that he won't start talking about hunting again. Not even because it's somewhat annoying, but because the reporters will have a field day with that, if they so much as catch a word of it.
It's not the heavens that intervene but Grandmother Marilla. Instead of shuffling closer to the doors as the rest of them, she remains standing, her hand perched on the edge of a pew, and waits until I am level with her.
"Young man, please go walk with your father," she directs Carl. Then, without waiting for a response from him, "And you will walk with me, Rilla."
A quick glance at him tells me that Carl looks nonplussed, but he withdraws without further comment. He knows better than to argue with Grandmother Marilla.
(The truth is that Grandma Bertha might think Carl a delightful young man, but Grandmother Marilla has never warmed to him as much. Shirley thinks it's because she's as suspicious of vegans as she is of Catholics and I reckon he has a point. The way she sees it, if someone refuses to taste her roast, they are not to be trusted.)
I allow Grandmother Marilla to loop her arm through mine and draw me forward into direction of the door. "We cannot have you two be photographed together," she informs me quietly as we walk.
Frowning, I look at her. "Why ever not?"
"They are aware that he is your former boyfriend," she explains.
They are?
Well, this is news to me.
"I didn't know they knew," I reply. "But you're right. It would've looked bad, Carl and me together."
I've learned a lot about optics in the past few weeks and me walking by Carl's side, however innocently, wouldn't look good. The press, of course, would love it, but for all the wrong reasons.
"Quite," agrees Grandmother Marilla.
"How do you know?" I ask, as I watch Joy take a firm grip on Izzie's hand before leaving the church. "About them knowing about Carl?"
"An article was published in a newspaper a few days ago," answers Grandmother. "Did you not see it?"
Can't say I did, no.
"I try not to look at them much," I admit. "Ken said it's best to ignore what they write. He has people to keep track of everything that is written and promised to keep me in the loop about anything important, but they must not have considered this important enough to inform him."
It would be wrong to say that I don't look at any press at all, of course. But Ken advised early on not to get sucked into it and he was right. I got quite worked up over some of what published – not to mention the comments! – in the first week or two and have since tried to ignore it to the best of my ability. Not always successfully, but… I guess I'm only human and it's a hard thing to ignore completely.
"They were wrong about that," decides Grandmother Marilla, referring to Ken's staff. "I will ensure you are informed from now on. I am collecting clippings about everything written about you and John prints out articles from the computer."
I look at her, somewhat surprised, and lick my lips, not quite sure how to put this. "I… I appreciate this, but… it's not like I'm preparing for the Olympics or anything. That would warrant the collecting of clippings, but this… this is nothing to be proud of."
"Perhaps not," concedes Grandmother Marilla. "It is, however, something of which you need to be kept informed. I quite agree with His Royal Highness that you oughtn't to be the one to read what is written about you. It might upset you. Hence why John and I will do it for you and inform you when there is anything of interest."
With that, she tugs me along with her through the doors and immediately the clicking intensifies by some measure. Of course, there's no thought of continuing this conversation with half a dozen photographers just steps away from us, but I feel a wave of gratefulness for my grandparents anyway. Because if I'm being honest, that just there was the most sensible suggestion I heard all day.
In another sensible turn of events, Grandmother Marilla starts talking about her friend Rachel's latest great-grandchild once we're vaguely within earshot of the reporters, which means I have to do nothing but nod and smile politely, which really makes for the most inoffensive pictures. And, true to my prediction, once they realise it's all they're going to get, the reporters, one by one, stop following us, so that by the time we reach Ingleside, they're all gone.
It's really nothing out of the ordinary.
Except that no-one told my family.
I mean, on some level, I get it. Weeks of being followed around taught me what to expect, but to them, this is new. Sure, right at the beginning, the press found them and reported their names and professions. And yes, my parents and sisters had one or two photographers waiting for them at work for a few days back in November (whereas Jem merely got a shared photo with Dad, Shirley got his old yearbook picture re-printed and no-one seems to have gotten hold of a photo of Walter at all). But they are not the story. I am. And the level of interest I incur daily is unfamiliar to them.
It's not like they aren't trying. Trying to act like this is normal, I mean. Throughout the King's annual Christmas speech, no-one makes any comment, and even when the TV shows the royal family's arrival to church (Ken's walking with his mother this time), the most they do is sneak glances at me. But then the programme cuts to our walk from church and I guess that'd require more composure than I can ask of them.
"The royal family weren't the only ones to attend Christmas service today. In Canada, so did the Prince of Wales's new girlfriend, Rilla Blythe," informs the news presenter as a picture of Grandmother Marilla and me appears on the screen. (At least they didn't have any TV cameras.)
Immediately, all heads swivel towards me. I suppress a sigh.
"Rilla was seen walking from church with members of her family today. She is pictured here with her grandmother, whom she was named for" adds the news presenter. "What else do we know about her Christmas walk, Jennie?"
"I'm glad that you're asking, Bob," answers his co-presenter brightly, "because reliable sources say that she and her grandmother were talking about babies!" She wiggles her eyebrows at the last word and I feel the sudden urge to hit something.
Grandmother Marilla looks apologetic. "I'm sorry. I thought –"
I cut her off with a shake of my head. "So did I. It's alright." I suppose Ken would have known immediately how they would spin this, but there's just so much to get right – and it's far too easy to get wrong.
"Do you think there's anything to it, Jennie?" asks Bob on screen.
Grandma Bertha makes an audible hmpf. "This used to be a reputable news channel," she mutters disdainfully and I know she's as put out at them featuring us in their news section as she is hurt in her journalist's honour.
Dad reaches for the remote, but Mum lays a hand on his arm. "No, let's finish this," she murmurs. Truth to be told, Dad doesn't look like he agrees – and I don't think I do either – but the Jennie woman is already talking again, reclaiming everyone's attention.
"Unlikely, Bob," she tells her colleague. "According to sources, they aren't at that stage yet. Prince Ken certainly ignored all questions about Rilla when he arrived at church this morning."
"Bit rude, isn't it? Him refusing to acknowledge you?" asks Di and looks at me.
I scoff. "You've got a brain, Di. Use it."
Joy nods. "She's right, Di. If he had so much as uttered her name with a TV camera nearby, we wouldn't have six but sixty reporters camping on our veranda in two hours' time."
In reply, Di pulls the kind of face she always does when someone else is right and she doesn't want to admit it, and turns back to the TV again.
"However, Rilla is all set, should she ever need support in child rearing," continues the Jennie woman as the TV cuts to a picture of Nan and Jerry, with Shirley lurking in the background. "Her sister, Nan, works in childcare and –"
"Works in childcare?" screeches Nan. "Excuse me? I'll be starting my PhD in clinical child psychology in autumn!"
"We know that, sweetheart," Jerry quickly assures and squeezes her shoulder.
Di isn't as merciful. "It's not like they're wrong, you know," she points out, grinning widely at Nan.
Nan glowers back. "It would be like saying you work in a laboratory!"
"Technically speaking, I do work in a laboratory," Di shoots back immediately.
Opening and closing her mouth twice, Nan finally seems to decide to give up the argument. Turning away from her twin sister pointedly, she instead considers her picture on the TV screen again, grumbling, "At least my new coat looks nice."
Sure. At least there's that.
"Do you think we might be able to harness this somehow?" wonders Faith in that moment. "If we could get someone to report more about Di's work, it might raise awareness about the importance of vaccination."
Um… what?
Jem nods, tapping his chin. "Does the royal family vaccinate?" he asks me.
I blink. How would I know?
"They certainly hunt," mutters Carl and folds his arms.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes to stop myself from glaring at him.
Thankfully, I can rely on Walter's distaste of an argument to make him resolve this one before it goes any further. "Does anyone know why they pixelated the faces of Jake and Izzie, but not of Bruce?" he changes the subject, nodding towards the TV, where they now show pictures of everyone in quick succession.
"Because we wrote them letters," replies Joy, grimly satisfied. "Anyone who publishes clear pictures of my children will pay the price!"
Yeah. No doubt about that.
"We can give you the letters we sent, if you want to take action as well," Dan offers to John and Rosemary Meredith. "They have even less of a reason to show Bruce than they have with our two."
Bruce's parents are quick to agree and I'm glad for it. No need to pull the poor boy into this as well. Jake already had to endure some teasing at school, though he doesn't talk much about it, and I really don't want another kid to get dragged into this.
Over on TV, they have now settled on a picture of Mum and Dad for the time being. "…whose books have climbed the bestseller lists in recent weeks," reports Bob, evidently meaning Mum.
"Is that true, Mrs Blythe?" asks Una, looking over from where she stands by the window.
Mum smiles at her. "Oh, yes. It's marvellous."
Um, excuse me?
Is she really using me to sell books now? Isn't it enough that she based half of her books on our various childhood adventures anyway? (Come to think of it, I wonder when the press is going to figure that out…)
My indignation isn't lost on Mum. "Don't look at me like that, darling," she remarks with a laugh. "Not everything that results from this attention must be bad on principle. If it gets more children reading, that is a marvellous thing."
Oh?
I do believe Rowling had that nicely covered without needing to encroach on my privacy first.
"Right," I mutter, feeling rebellious. "For the greater good."
But Mum has already turned away, so the only one catching the reference is Shirley, who grins at me from where he stands next to Grandpa John at the back of the room.
Thankfully, the TV report is just coming to a close with a photo montage of Ken and me, put together by slicing off Grandmother Marilla from my side and the Queen from his, and I can't even argue with Jem when he points out the cheesiness of the thing.
Bob and Jennie turn towards real news now, reporting about bombings and shootings that took place in Northern Nigeria today. It's the third major terrorist attack this week, the others having taken place in Baghdad and Damascus, and the fact that they think it less newsworthy than picture of me walking from church would be laughable, if it weren't quite so sad.
Our party splits up as the proper news begins, with some settling down to watch and the others filing over towards kitchen and dining room to prepare Christmas lunch (with a hopeful Monday getting into everyone's way). I take the moment to slip away, quietly making my way upstairs and into my room. Once there, I immediately pick up my phone from the desk, but there's only a Christmas message from Chelsea.
Ken briefly called earlier today, just after I'd woken up, to wish me a Merry Christmas, and we're scheduled to speak later tonight. And yet, somehow, I find myself selecting his number anyway. I know he's busy with family stuff, like I am, and I certainly don't expect him to pick up, but –
"Hey, Ril," comes his voice after the third ring. Then, muffled, to someone else, "I'll be back in a minute."
I can hear faint voices in the background and rustling as he walks, then a door being shut, and he's back again. "Are you alright, sweetheart?"
"I'm fine," I hurry to assure. "I don't even know why I called. I didn't want to disturb you."
"You aren't disturbing anything," he replies, sounding relaxed. "We were just having dinner."
Fancy dinner, in their castle, with the entire royal family present. And I'm not disturbing it? Right.
"You should probably go back. We can speak later," I suggest, my fingers fiddling with the quilt on my bed.
Ken laughs. "It's fine, really. It's just… family. Persis is sulking because our parents bought her the wrong yearling. Chris got drunk on Great-aunt Tanya's sherry and Aunt Mary's sons might be drunk as well. It's hard to tell with them sometimes. And Aunt Mary herself got into an argument with Uncle Al's new wife about the appropriateness of Ashley's clothing, which definitely added to the Christmas cheer."
Just family. Of course.
"Ashley is their daughter, isn't she?" I ask. "Of Uncle Al and…"
"Kimberly. The new wife," confirms Ken. A beat, before he starts chuckling. "Though to be honest, she isn't even that new anymore. They've been married for nine years. Ash is eight. They just about managed to pass her off as a honeymoon baby."
I squirm slightly. "About that…"
"Yes?" encourages Ken when I break off.
I take a deep breath. "There were reporters here today. When we came back from church."
Ken sighs. "Sorry about that. I had Arlene put pressure on them to leave you alone, but you can never get everyone in line."
"No, it's fine. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, really. They took their pictures and left. Nothing to get worked up about," I reassure him.
He makes a thoughtful sound. "Then what is bothering you?"
So, he's picked up on that.
"Well, I… I walked with Grandmother Marilla when the reporters were there. She told me about her friend's great-grandchild, thinking it was an innocent subject. Only that someone overheard us and…" I trail off.
"And now they are suggesting that there's another reason for you to be talking about babies," finishes Ken.
I sigh. "Yeah. Sorry."
"Don't be," he replies, his voice sympathetic. "I am sorry that they're doing this to you. But there's no stopping those speculations, whatever you talk about. The more disreputable rags love to stir the rumour mill. Nothing to quickly shift some papers like the potential prospect of a royal bastard."
"So… we didn't mess up?" I ask quietly.
"No, Rilla. You didn't mess up," he promises. "In fact, you're doing amazing. So is your family. I can only imagine how tough it must be to have that kind of attention focused on you without warning and yet, you're all holding up admirably well."
It feels good to hear him say that. So, so good.
Searching for words, I twist my fingers around the edge of the quilt. "I'm… glad. Glad that you think so. And you're right, about my family. They're very good about this. Supportive, too. It's only…" I sigh.
"What is it, love?" Ken prompts gently.
"I don't think they're really… really getting this. Not all of them, anyway," I admit reluctantly. "I mean, they tried to be helpful and act as I told them to, but… they also seemed a bit excited. About being on TV and everything. And some seemed to think about how they could use the attention for… other purposes. Mum argues that anything that gets children to read is good and it's not that she's wrong and I know that she doesn't have any control over who buys her books anyway, but…"
"But you'd prefer if it didn't involve having your face splashed over the front pages," finishes Ken for me.
I nod. "Yeah."
He takes a moment before he answers. "I can see how that would be annoying. But you shouldn't be too hard on them. They might not totally get it, but then, this kind of attention is very new to them. They have no idea what you face every day, so they truly don't know any better. And I'm sure they don't mean to hurt you."
"No, I don't think they mean it to be hurtful," I concede, a little reluctantly, "but…"
But it hurts nonetheless.
I don't say it out loud, but Ken seems to guess it anyway. "So, tell them," he suggests. "Tell them when what they say hurts you. Tell your mother that getting children to read is a noble cause, but you'd much rather not have it happen on your back."
"I could do that," I agree slowly.
"Do. And you'll call me when there's anything else?" he asks.
I nod slightly, feeling a smile creep on my lips. "I will. Thank you."
"Anytime," he replies and I know he's smiling, too. "But I must ask you to excuse me now, because I think that Dickie and Chris are trying to climb into suits of armour and while the sight might be worth it for the pictures, someone might scold me if I don't intervene."
That actually gets me to laugh. "Go, by all means. But make sure to take that picture first."
"For your tell-all book?" he jokes. From the background sounds, I can tell he's already walking again.
"The very same," I confirm. "Now, go!"
"As the lady commands," he replies snappily. A second later, there's a tremendous crash on his side of the line, before the call is suddenly cut.
I slowly lower the phone. Looking down at it for a moment, I can't help laughing quietly.
Family, indeed.
The title of this chapter is taken from the song 'Father and Son' (written by Cat Stevens, released by him in 1970).
To wow:
Thanks for your review and for getting back with a follow up as well. You're definitely right that it's sometimes tricky to get the tone right in writing without turning a message into a smiley fest. We've all been there, so I totally understand.
I didn't read you initial message as hyper critical, either. In fact, I appreciate your thoughts, even if we will have to agree to disagree on the details. But that's alright. We are all allowed to have our own opinions, after all :).
I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the story, even though the characters might sometimes warrant the odd side-eye. I definitely have a lot of plans for this story and quite a few twists up my sleeve yet, so I hope that when Rilla's journey is over (someday far in the future), we will have arrived at a conclusion that meets your approval.
To Guest:
Thank you for sticking up for the story. I'm sure it was just a case of some nuances of tone getting lost in writing, which happens to the best of us, and that no-one meant to unduly criticise, but I appreciate that you stuck up for the story anyway. And I promise we're alright, the story and I :).
