Much Ado ABout Sandcastles VI (and last)

[the_shrubbery]

‘Uh, that didn’t go too well, eh?’ Emma said.

‘Why?’ Georgiana said. ‘I think she heard exactly what I would’ve wanted her to overhear, and now nobody has to have any scruples about whether or not we should lay a trap for her or not.’

‘She didn’t seem very impressed,’ Jane said.

‘She’ll come round,’ Georgiana assured her. ‘How much deeper do we have to dig?’

‘I think Anne intends to hide in the moat,’ Elizabeth said. ‘So, deeper.’

‘We should organise a romantic date for them,’ Emma said. ‘Wait, what am I doing? I said I wouldn’t meddle anymore.’

‘A romantic date, yes,’ Georgiana said. ‘Any suggestions for a first date?’

‘Charles took me to see a movie on our first date,’ Jane said. ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I thought that was very nice.’

‘Yes, because you have a crush on Sean Connery,’ Elizabeth said.

‘Lizzy’s right, we need a better movie suggestion,’ Georgiana said. ‘A more romantic movie perhaps -’

Elizabeth made a dismissive sound.

‘Fitzwilliam took me to see When Harry Met Sally on our first date,’ she said. ‘It was the worst date I’ve ever had.’

Georgiana dropped the bucket and sat upright.

‘I’ve never heard that story,’ she said. ‘Spill.’

‘There’s not much to tell,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I was in New York, for work reasons, and I ran into your brother one day. I didn’t know many people there, so when he suggested that we go to the movies together, I agreed. I didn’t even know it was supposed to be a date, I thought we were just two legal aliens spending a night together missing dear old Blighty. Well, Fitzwilliam picked When Harry Met Sally, which had just come out, because someone had told him it was a perfect relationship movie -’

‘Well, it is not bad,’ Emma said.

‘Shh!’ Georgiana interrupted her.

‘I even might have liked it,’ Elizabeth continued, ‘but the fact was, by the time Fitzwilliam came to pick me up, I was furious with him. I’d found out some things about him that, well – not nice things, anyway, and while I was still contemplating whether I should just confront him with them or not, somehow we were on our way and in the cinema and I didn’t want to make a scene, so I decided just to go along with it and leave as soon as I could. Fitzwilliam went the whole way, bought me popcorn and all, and just when I was about to change my mind and think that maybe, just maybe, I had misunderstood Col- that is, the colleague I’d spoken with – just then, Fitzwilliam, well -’

‘Well what?’ Georgiana cried.

‘He proposed to me!’ Elizabeth exclaimed. ‘In a dingy New York street, out of the blue, the idiot had the guts to propose to me on what I now realised was our first date. And, what is more, he did not even use his own words.’

‘Whose words?’ Emma asked eagerly.

‘Billy Crystal’s,’ Elizabeth said. ‘He actually was presumptuous enough to give me the whole Billy Crystal speech, you know, that whole nonsense about the rest of your life, almost verbatim, and expected me to be delighted by his advances!’

She shuddered.

‘Thank goodness he pulled his act together,’ she said. ‘If he were still the same man as then – mind you, I had come to some very false conclusions about his character, so that reality check helped us both in the end, but still. Well, our second first date was nice enough, and very memorable, so we prefer to only think of that one.’

Jane shot her sister a meaningful glance.

‘Was that the one where -’

‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth with an indignant expression.

‘Oh, the one on -’

‘Yes, Georgiana, the very one,’ Elizabeth said.

‘You make me curious,’ said Emma.

‘Me too,’ Georgiana added. ‘I’ve never heard the full story. Please, Elizabeth – and I promise, I’ll make this the deepest moat mankind has ever seen.’

Elizabeth sighed in defeat.

‘Oh, very well then,’ she said.

Emma clapped her hands in anticipation.

‘No clapping,’ Georgiana said. ‘Dig, or she won’t tell the story.’

‘Shh,’ Jane said. ‘This is good. I want to hear it.’

‘So, then,’ Elizabeth said. ‘This was a couple of months after that first date in New York. We were both back home and, well, a lot of things had happened. Fitz had realised he’d been behaving like a complete idiot, and I had realised he wasn’t a complete idiot – but anyway. We’d just recently met again because he needed me to go over some contracts with him – or I had asked him about some contracts, I don’t quite recall – anyway, there were some papers we needed to look at together.’

‘Get to the point,’ Georgiana said. ‘I mean, the actual meeting.’

‘Dig faster then,’ Elizabeth said. ‘As I said, we wanted to look at some papers together and for some reason or other, we agreed that he’d come by Jane’s and my place after work. Now, I knew that Jane would be out that evening with her new boyfriend -’

For some reason, Jane grinned.

‘- and I really, really wanted Fitz to stay for as long as possible, without actually telling him so,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I wasn’t sure whether this was an actual date or not, or what it was -’

‘Oh, it was a date, definitely,’ Georgiana said. ‘You should’ve seen him beforehand. He got home from work early and shaved and changed his shirt thrice and then kept asking if I thought he should’ve gone to the hairdresser’s. I ended up shoving him out of the door and locking it behind him so he couldn’t come back and change his shirt again.’

‘Yes, but I couldn’t know that, could I?’ Elizabeth said. ‘All I knew was that he might want to get this done with as quickly as possible. So I got some curry from the take-out and heated that in the kitchen; I set the table and everything and waited. And waited.’

‘Because Fitz was still busy fretting about whether to wear a bow-tie or not,’ Georgiana said.

‘As I said, I couldn’t know,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I was worried I’d misunderstood, or that maybe he had stood me up because he wasn’t interested anymore, and so I went into the other room and switched on the telly, when finally, he rang the door.’

‘Gee, I was almost worried myself now that he wouldn’t come,’ Emma said. ‘What happened then? Did you talk?’

‘Not at first, no,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Well, we talked, but we didn’t talk. We ate the curry and made small-talk over that – horribly stilted, that was, and we ended up talking about nothing but the weather, really. Then we had a look at whatever documents they were and did whatever it was we needed to do with them and suddenly, out of the blue, Fitz asked me if I’d like to go and see a movie.’

‘Oh, what movie did you see?’ Emma asked.

‘None,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I agreed of course and grabbed my coat and my handbag and we were just about to leave when I noticed that in the other room, the telly was still running.’

‘So?’ Emma asked.

‘Ah, Lizzy’s been withholding crucial information,’ Georgiana said. ‘Emma can’t know what happened next without it.’

‘What then?’ Emma asked. ‘What information?’

‘It wasn’t just any old Thursday in November,’ Georgiana said.

‘It’s my story, I tell it,’ Elizabeth said. ‘You dig.’

‘What next?’ Emma asked. ‘I’m on tenterhooks here!’

‘As Georgiana said, it wasn’t just any old Thursday in November. It was the ninth of November,’ Elizabeth said. ‘1989.’

‘Oh!’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Elizabeth said. ‘When I came into the living-room, there was live footage from Berlin on the telly. I was so shocked, I even forgot about Fitz for a moment, I just stood there, watching what was happening. Fitz followed me to see what was keeping me – probably thought I was getting cold feet by then – and also needed just one look at the telly to be silent. Then we sort of ended up sitting next to each other in the sofa, both still wearing our coats, gaping at the telly with open mouths. I still couldn’t believe it, but somehow, it came to me just what this meant, just how incredibly this was and -’

‘- you started crying like a baby,’ Jane finished for her.

‘I didn’t!’ Elizabeth said. ‘Well, a little perhaps. A very little.’

‘And then Fitz comforted you,’ Jane said.

‘No!’ Elizabeth exclaimed. ‘Well, yes. He did. Sort of. Somehow. Anyway, we ended up kissing rather violently and err – well, eventually I needed to breathe again and I just looked at him and said something like, ‘what the hell was that?’ and we began discussing just what it was and that it was a good thing and we wanted it to continue and that sort of thing, and then, we, err, kissed some more and, uh, eventually discarded the coats and, uh, more, until -’

‘- until the door burst open,’ Jane said.

‘Yeah, until the door burst open,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And someone shouted -’

‘Someone shouted, ‘switch on the telly, Lizzy, you’ll never believe what just happened!’’ Jane finished.

Both sisters began to giggle.

‘So that was you then?’ Emma asked.

‘Yes, and Charles as well,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Storming into our flat like a herd of elephants, when Fitz and I were not entirely dressed for company and -’

‘Well, we had no idea of knowing that,’ Jane said. ‘You never told me he was coming over, or I’d have rung the bell before.’

‘I didn’t want to tell you!’ Elizabeth said. ‘I had no idea if it was a date or what it was, and I didn’t want to jinx it.’

‘Anyway, it was so funny,’ Jane said. ‘Lizzy went red all over, not just her face, and Fitz made a noise like an over-excited rabbit, and Charles just stood there, gawking at the two of them, and all the time, the telly was still blasting live pictures from Berlin -’

---

‘If this were Much Ado About Nothing, now would be the time for Claudio to accuse Hero of being unfaithful,’ Georgiana said to her sister-in-law when they were cleaning the dishes. ‘The stage is laid out, they both know how the other feels – now they’ve got to act!’

‘You will, if you please, not instill some fanciful notion about me within my husband,’ Elizabeth said.

‘I hadn’t meant to!’ Georgiana said hastily. ‘I’m sorry, Lizzy, if I gave that impression -’

Elizabeth laughed.

‘I believe that Fitz’ and my relationship is healthier than that,’ she said. ‘However, my dear, I also believe that there is nothing you can do right now – nor anything you should.’

‘But it’s so frustrating!’

‘Georgiana, if the pitiful beginnings of my romance with Fitz tell us anything, it’s that these things will happen in their own time,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Can’t you find something else to obsess about?’

Georgiana frowned.

‘There’s this book that Emma lent me,’ she said. ‘Something about an orphaned wizard in a wizarding school? She said it was just newly out and she picked it up because she thought it was a picture book, only it wasn’t, and then she stayed up half the night reading it and couldn’t put it down at all.’

‘Well, then,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Why don’t you read that?’

‘But didn’t you see how Caroline blushed to the roots of her hair when Colin asked her for the salt?’

‘I did,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I also saw how Colin upended the sugar bowl when Caroline accidentally touched his shoulder, and I saw how Caroline accidentally stirred jam into her coffee this morning when Colin entered the room.’

‘So can’t we -’

‘I’m not going to meddle anymore,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And I’d ask you to do the same, please, Georgiana. Trust me.’

‘Right then,’ Georgiana said. ‘I’ll read that stupid wizarding book. But I don’t think I shall like it.’

‘Join us outside for coffee when you’re done pouting,’ Elizabeth said.

---

‘Any news from your father?’ Elizabeth asked Emma, who was just flipping her phone shut.

‘Indeed,’ Emma said and groaned. ‘He can’t come tomorrow, he forgot to return some library books. But he’s certain he shall be coming the day after.’

‘Right,’ George said. ‘I’m all anticipation. What is my son doing there?’

‘He’s getting his nails done, I believe,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Ever since Caroline let the girls paint their thumb-nails, they’ve been playing manicure, and now your son’s their latest victim.’

‘They’re not using actual nail polish, are they?’

‘Just crayons,’ Jane assured him. ‘And I see your son’s chosen a dark blue, so no need to fear about his masculinity.’

‘A Splügen on that!’ George said and raised his glass.

‘A Splügen on what?’ Caroline asked, coming out on the patio. ‘Colin not here?’

‘Ah, he’s digging for his contacts prescription in his suitcase,’ Charles said. ‘But he said he left that book you’d been wanting to read on your bed, in case you were still interested.’

‘He also asked if you really didn’t want that after-sun lotion,’ Georgiana added. ‘He said it’s in the bathroom if you wanted it.’

‘Oh, how can he -’ Caroline wheezed and rushed back inside.

---

She found Colin in the room he shared with James, bent low over a suitcase in which he was rummaging.

‘How dare you?’ she cried.

‘How dare I what?’ Colin said and stood up.

‘You know!’ Caroline exclaimed. ‘All this! Being nice to me! That’s not – that’s not right -’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know being nice was a crime!’

‘It is, when you have these kind of feelings for me!’

‘I can’t help having whatever feelings I have for you!’

‘Oh, yes, you can,’ Caroline said. ‘You can.’

‘Then tell me why I should,’ Colin said. ‘Maybe I’m happy the way I feel.’

‘You have no right to that!’

‘I don’t?’

‘No,’ Caroline shouted. ‘None at all! Because if you did care about me – if you really cared about me – you wouldn’t have not showed up and then shoved that stupid letter under my door!’

‘I did show up!’

‘Ha!’ Caroline exclaimed. ‘When was that, in your dreams?’

‘No, that very evening!’ Colin shouted. ‘I admit, I was a bit late, but I was there. I knocked on your door for hours, but you wouldn’t open, and the reception said they couldn’t phone you because you’d told them you didn’t want to be disturbed.’

‘Yeah, of course I didn’t want to be disturbed,’ Caroline said. ‘I was expecting you, wasn’t I? Only you weren’t there! I waited for hours, but you didn’t come!’

‘So maybe I was a bit late then!’ Colin said. ‘So maybe I’d gone to have a drink before, just to calm myself.’

‘Was the prospect of being me so very frightening then?’

‘You have no idea how frightening – I mean, Caroline, I’d known you for ages, and suddenly, you were so completely different and -’

‘Do you think it wasn’t frightening for me?’ Caroline shouted. ‘Because it bloody was! I mean, I wouldn’t have emptied the whole mini-bar otherwise, would I, and slept on the bathroom rug, would I?’

‘Why on earth did you do that?’

‘Because I love you, you complete idiot!’

‘You love me?’

‘Yes, and I don’t care if you like it or not!’

‘Fine then!’ Colin shouted. ‘I love you too, you nonsensical shrew!’

He took a step towards her and she one towards him. They were now standing so close their noses where almost touching.

‘Fine then,’ Caroline said. ‘And now?’

She leaned a little forward so that her nose was brushing his. Colin reached for one of her curls and tugged at it.

‘I believe that after such declarations, it is customary to, eh -’

‘Well then,’ Caroline muttered and leaned her forehead into his. ‘Wouldn’t want to go against tradition, would we?’

‘No, we wouldn’t,’ Colin breathed against her cheek. ‘Hysterical hag.’

‘Insensitive git,’ Caroline whispered before her lips touched his.

---

James stood in the door of the patio and looked at his parents.

‘What’s the matter, young man?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘I want to go to bed,’ James said.

‘Teeth brushed?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘Face washed?’

James nodded.

‘Then into your jammies and off to bed with you,’ Elizabeth said. ‘If you’re quick, I’ll come and read you a story before you sleep.’

‘Can’t,’ James muttered.

‘Why not?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘Uncle Colin’s tie is tied to the door,’ James said.

‘His what?’ Elizabeth said, thinking she had misheard.

‘His tie,’ James said and pointed in the general direction of his bedroom.

Elizabeth got up and went inside, followed by everyone else still on the patio. Just as James had said, there was a striped tie fixed to the doorhandle of the room he was sharing with Colin.

‘Well, then, Jamie,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I think this means you’ll sleep in Aunt Caro’s bed tonight.’

‘And Aunt Caro?’

‘I don’t believe she’ll need her bed tonight, Jamie,’ Georgiana said.

The End