‘Always potching with it, I am,’ he continued to grumble. ‘More trouble than it’s worth, if you ask me.’
I was tempted to tell him not to bother, but Alex was always warning me to mind what I said to him. Soon after our arrival in the valley, Bevan had appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and had since become our handyman and fixer. His motives remained elusive, and I knew we had to be careful. Many people in Wales had proved fickle in their attachment to the nation’s cause, refusing to fight after the Aztecs had guaranteed the territorial sovereignty of Wales during the invasion. Though that sovereignty was now seen by most Welsh to be a sham, their loyalty to the Crown was far from solid.
I lingered for a moment, watching him unscrew the covering on the control panel.
‘Anything else I can do?’ I asked.
‘Want to get your hands dirty, do you?’
‘I just thought—’
‘I’ll give you a shout if I need you.’
Somewhat rebuffed, I left him to his labours, unsure whether he was being bloody-minded or just gruffly matter-of-fact. He had never actually acknowledged who we were, though he certainly knew. It was quite possible he heartily disliked all of us but relished the continued opportunity to display his resentment.
The terraced lawns once fronting the house had been turned into vegetable patches for peas, runner beans and root crops. The house was a Gothic Revival mansion built over a hundred years before by an English mine-owner. We had chosen it because it was large and partly screened by a pine plantation. It looked out over the valley, with the derelict pit directly below; both pit and mansion were called Ty Trist, the House of Sorrow. The mine-owner had been hated by the locals and was buried in a secluded graveyard with the stark inscription GOD FORGIVE HIM on his tombstone.
It was a fine September morning, the bracken on the valley slopes turning the same colour as the rusting winding tower. The pit itself was surrounded by spoil-heaps on which only a sparse grass grew. The colliery had closed down fifty years before when the first solar units were imported from Greater Mexico.
Though our life in the valley had been rugged and sometimes perilous these past three years, I knew I would miss it. The Sirhowy river which meandered its way along the shallow valley bottom was little more than a broad rocky stream. It was a word of uncertain Welsh provenance which Bevan claimed meant ‘angry water’ – a name fit for an Aztec noble.
Behind me, Bevan swore in Welsh. I turned and saw him duck as the red light of the tracking mechanism flashed on and the support framework slewed towards him, just missing his head. He delved into the base of the machine, and the movement stopped.
I retraced my steps. Bevan took a grubby handkerchief from his trousers and swabbed his brow. He looked exasperated and irritable.
‘Leave it,’ I said. ‘We can manage without it for today.’
He peered at me, his eyes shadowed by his square brow. ‘I take it you’ll be telling your sister she’s got to bath in cold water, then?’
Victoria liked a hot bath every day after rising, but she would be more preoccupied with the news about the Russian ship.
‘I don’t think she’ll mind today.’
‘Still in bed, is she?’ Bevan hoisted his trousers and sucked on his teeth. ‘She gets plenty of beauty sleep, that one.’
I spent the afternoon with Victoria, packing our few belongings into two suitcases. From the bottom drawer of a dresser, I produced the old atlas my father had given me on my tenth birthday. It had been printed in 1930, during the reign of my grandfather, and its pages gave off the odour of history both literally and metaphorically. Stiff and musty, they mapped large areas of the world in crimson, recalling a time, only sixty years ago, when the British Empire was at its height. On modern maps, the crimson was displaced by swathes of Aztec gold.
Victoria put on our mother’s wedding dress, which she had saved as a keepsake. It was an elaborate affair of white silks and French lace, unfashionably frilly and ornate. It fitted her perfectly. Our mother had died when Richard was born, and neither of us could remember her well; but from photographs I knew that Victoria resembled her strongly. Now twenty-one, she was entering the prime of her beauty, fair-skinned with hazel eyes and striking dark eyebrows.
She flounced in front of the mirror, then said, ‘I wonder what would happen if I wore this to our first reception in Moscow.’
‘You’d certainly create a stir. But you’d have to have the mothballs washed out of it first.’
‘Do you think Margaret and Mikhail will greet us when we arrive?’
‘I’m sure they will, but not formally, or in public. Russia’s technically neutral, and it wouldn’t be politic.’
‘Won’t it be marvellous to be somewhere civilized again? I’m so tired of dressing in old clothes and eating potatoes every day.’
She, more than any of us, heartily disliked the rigours of our life in the valley. And she was right to be excited at the prospect of greater comforts and freedom. I wished I could share her enthusiasm wholeheartedly, but I had always imagined that we would eventually escape to another part of the country to join an army in hiding, which would begin the reconquest of our land. A romantic fantasy, of course. For me, leaving Britain would not really be escape, but flight, an acceptance of the finality of conquest.
That evening, everyone gathered in the candle-lit hall and we feasted on our produce: roast lamb with carrots, parsnips and green beans, washed down with several bottles of claret which Alex had unearthed from somewhere. Victoria got rather drunk, but gracefully allowed Alex to escort her to bed.
We gathered on the balcony. It was a clear, moonless night, mild and still, the stars brilliant above us. A match flared in the darkness in front of Alex’s face, and he put it to the end of a cigarette.
‘Where did you get those?’ someone asked.
Alex was holding a pack of Albions. We had run out of cigarettes a year before.
Alex simply winked and offered the pack around, taking suitable satisfaction from his largesse. He was the eldest son of Lord Bewley of Norwich, and had been created Duke of Durham by my father when we married; but he had always had the common touch. Of the small retinue which had escaped with us from Marlborough, all were former staff – detectives, butlers, maids-in-waiting – but exile had broken down the barriers between us. We had each been forced to take our part in the urgent and continuing business of survival.
I tracked a bright star-like point across the sky until it was lost over the horizon. The Aztecs were reputed to have a spy satellite orbiting the Earth which could photograph a rabbit in a field from a height of one hundred miles. Alex assured me the Russian ship would know their positions and be able to avoid detection. It was almost certain the Aztecs were aware our house was inhabited, but we assumed they would have no means of knowing by whom. I sometimes wondered if Alex was right that we had continued to remain free because of the Aztec policy of leaving unconquered territorial pockets intact in regions after invasion in order to maintain their armies’ sharpness. Much of Wales and Scotland had been spared, in defiance of normal military logic.
I became aware that Bevan was present, a silent, forgotten figure on the edge of our group. He was the only one who knew nothing of our impending evacuation. I asked Alex for his cigarettes and went over to him.
‘Would you like one?’ I asked.
He took the pack, withdrew a cigarette and sniffed it, inspecting the tiny gold crowns stamped around the filter.
‘Got a light, have you?’
I lit the cigarette for him.
‘Do you know what’s happening?’ I asked.