Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp (7 page)

One day, thought Amelia, there wouldn’t be room down the back of the garden to stack all the old sculptures. Not if her mother kept going from one phase into another so frequently and refused to let any of them be taken out of the garden.

Amelia thought about what she was going to say to the Princess. The awful anxiety she felt when she imagined actually facing up to the old lady hadn’t gone away, and she had tried not to think about it. Now that the moment was so close, she almost wanted to run away and hide. She tried to imagine what she would say at the start. She could just say hello. That seemed a bit bare. Eugenie had said she would have to say
Your
Highness.
After every sentence. ‘Hello, Your Highness.’ Maybe she would start with ‘Good Morning, Your Highness’. That’s what Eugenie would say, probably, and she would do one of her flamboyant curtsies. Or five. Amelia didn’t know if she wanted to curtsy. She had thought about that and she couldn’t decide. Maybe she should bow. But she didn’t know whether she wanted to bow, either.

And what was she going to say then? Something about being sorry for spying on the Princess in Mr Vishwanath’s studio.
Your Highness.
And what would the old lady say to that? Amelia didn’t even want to think about it. It would be a lot easier if she really did run away and hide. There was still time.

Amelia saw her father come out of the shed at the bottom of the garden. He was almost at the verandah before he noticed her.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘How long have you been sitting there?’

‘Twelve minutes,’ said Amelia, although she didn’t really know, and it could have been thirteen minutes, or eleven. Or eight, for that matter, or sixteen.

‘Didn’t hear an explosion, did you?’ said her father. ‘Where?’ asked Amelia.

‘Down there.’ Her father pointed to the shed.

Amelia shook her head.

‘No, neither did I.’ Her father frowned. ‘Odd. I was expecting one.’

He crossed his arms, and gazed thoughtfully at the shed.

Suddenly there was a loud pop. Purple smoke poured out of the shed’s windows.

Amelia’s father beamed. ‘There we are! Perfect!’

They both watched the shed. Eventually the smoke stopped coming out of the windows. Only a few purple wisps hung around the roof.

From the sculpture room above them, they heard a bang. And then a shout of frustration.

Amelia’s father grinned. ‘We’ll have to move the sculptures soon. I’ve made improvements to the machine.’

‘Oh,’ said Amelia. ‘It was working pretty well before.’

‘Now it’ll work better!’

Amelia looked at him doubtfully.

‘You can’t just stand on the spot, Amelia! You should never be satisfied. Things can always be improved. Remember that. If people didn’t try to improve things, we’d still be in the Stone Age.’

‘Yes,’ said Amelia.

Her father nodded. Then he frowned slightly. ‘Are you waiting for something?’

‘Not really,’ said Amelia.

‘What have you been doing this morning? Reading?’ ‘Yes,’ said Amelia. ‘Kind of . . .’

‘Always reading, Amelia.’

Amelia shrugged.

‘What’s that you’re holding?’

‘Nothing.’ Amelia folded her arms, hiding the pages in her hand against her chest.

Her father didn’t say anything.

‘It’s nothing.’

Her father looked at her questioningly for a moment longer. Then he nodded. ‘Alright. Well, best be getting back, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ said Amelia.

‘There might be another explosion. Don’t be concerned.’

‘No,’ said Amelia.

Her father headed back to the shed.

Amelia watched him go. He picked his way through the white sculptures, then stopped near one and looked at it. He cocked his head thoughtfully. An idea was going through his mind, Amelia could see. Probably about yet another improvement he could make to the statue-stacker. He was always having ideas, that was one of the things Amelia loved most about her father. Almost all of them were rubbish, which was one of the things she loved least. Although, in a funny way, she loved that as well.

He turned around and kept going, and a moment later the shed door closed behind him.

Amelia thought about the Princess again. It couldn’t be much longer now. Her stomach knotted. After she had apologised, she didn’t know what she was going to say to the Princess. Or what the Princess would say to her. She looked at the pages she was holding. It was one thing to have written them. She wondered if she really did have the courage to show them.

Maybe she should just get up and go while she still had the chance. Mr Vishwanath would understand.

‘Amelia.’

Amelia jumped.

Mr Vishwanath was behind her. ‘Amelia, the Princess is ready for you now.’

CHAPTER 9

The Princess was sitting at a small table in a corner of Mr Vishwanath’s yoga room, draped in her fur coat. She was staring at the sheet-covered window, and made no movement to show that she knew anyone was there. Amelia stopped. Whatever she had thought about saying, and doing, went out of her mind.

‘Go on, Amelia,’ murmured Mr Vishwanath.

Amelia went closer. Finally the Princess looked around.

‘Hello,’ said Amelia.

The Princess’s eyes narrowed. Her dark eyebrows contracted slightly. That was all.

‘Sit down, Amelia,’ whispered Mr Vishwanath.

Amelia hesitated for a moment, then sat down at the table opposite the Princess. The Princess continued to watch her with a sharp, hawk-like gaze, as if measuring her, as if Amelia was some kind of species of creature unlike the Princess herself, and liable to act in the most unpredictable fashion.

‘You are Amelia,’ said the Princess at last. Her voice was low, and she had an accent that Amelia couldn’t identify. When she said her name, she said ‘Ehmeeelieh’.

Amelia nodded.

‘I am the Princess Parvin Kha-Douri,’ said the Princess. ‘You may not say my name when you speak to me. You must say “Your Serenity”.’

Not
Your Highness
. So much for Eugenie and her supposed royal expertise, thought Amelia.

‘Only someone of my rank or above may say my name.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Amelia. ‘Someone of your rank or above?’

‘Someone who is a princess or more than a princess,’ replied the Princess stiffly.

Amelia glanced at Mr Vishwanath.

‘The maestro may say my name,’ said the Princess. ‘He is my teacher. That is a kind of rank. An honorary rank. You are not my teacher, I think!’

Amelia shook her head.

‘No,’ said the Princess coldly. ‘I do not think so.’

Amelia glanced at Mr Vishwanath again. He nodded reassuringly. Then he sat on the floor and adopted one of his yoga poses, legs crossed, arms outstretched, wrists turned upwards, as if the conversation between Amelia and the Princess was a matter for them alone, and none of his business. He closed his eyes. Already, Amelia could see, his mind was far away from what was happening in this room.

‘I do not normally meet children,’ said the Princess.

Amelia looked back at her.

‘It was only because the maestro requested it. Normally I would not meet such a child as you.’

Amelia glanced at Mr Vishwanath. There was nothing on his face – not a flicker, not a glance – to show that he had heard.

‘Do you know why?’ said the Princess.

Amelia silently shook her head.

‘Because children behave disgracefully. Last time, you behaved disgracefully. I suppose now you wish to apologise to me for this.’

‘Yes,’ said Amelia. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘What?’

‘What I did.’

‘Is that an apology?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then say sorry,’ said the Princess. ‘In an apology, in your language, one must say sorry, I think. Otherwise it is not a proper apology.’

‘Sorry,’ said Amelia.

The Princess continued to stare at her, one black eyebrow raised expectantly.

‘Your Serenity,’ mumbled Amelia.

‘Good,’ said the Princess. But there was no warmth or pleasure or satisfaction in the way she had said it. Her gaze was as stern as before.

There was silence.

Amelia had the feeling the Princess didn’t care about her at all, didn’t want to know anything about her, had absolutely no interest in her. All she cared about was receiving an apology, a ‘proper’ apology, and that wasn’t because she cared about Amelia, but because she cared about herself. About her rank. About how important she was.

‘What is that you are holding?’ asked the Princess.

Amelia glanced at the pages in her hand. They were getting crumpled, she was gripping them so tight.

‘Well?’

‘It’s just . . . It doesn’t matter,’ muttered Amelia.

‘What? What is it?’

Amelia frowned. ‘It’s a story.’

‘Did you write it?’ said the Princess. ‘For me?’

Amelia wished she had never brought the pages with her. She wished she had never even written them. Mr Vishwanath was wrong, there wasn’t anything nice about the old lady, there was no beauty within her. She was harsh, horrible. Amelia didn’t want to show her the story she had written. Suddenly the story seemed like a soft, fragile little creature, and if she showed it to her, the old lady with her angry gaze and her haughty tone was just going to stomp all over it.

‘Well?’ said the Princess.

Reluctantly, almost trembling, Amelia held out the crumpled pages.

But the Princess made no movement to take them. ‘Read it to me.’

Amelia stared.

‘Read,’ said the Princess, and then she looked away at the sheet-covered window again, and gave a little sigh, as if she didn’t really care about Amelia’s story, except in the sense that it was something that had been done because she was a princess, and since people always want to do things for a princess, a princess is obliged to pretend that she’s interested. But not too interested. In fact, rather bored.

Amelia hesitated. But the Princess remained impassive, waiting for her to commence.

Amelia looked down at the first page. ‘There was a princess once . . .’

‘Louder,’ said the Princess. ‘I can’t hear you. If you want to read the story you wrote for me, speak so I can hear you.’

Amelia took a deep breath. ‘There was a princess once . . .’ she began again, more loudly. ‘She lived in a palace with all kinds of marvellous things, gold and jewels and beautiful clothes and lovely furniture, but the thing she loved most was the lamp in her room. They didn’t have electricity in those days, so they had to light oil in the lamp each day and put it out each night. The lamp was made of bronze, and it had six sides and a top and a bottom, and the metalwork of the lamp was very rich, with all kinds of rare and wonderful animals carved in it with such skill and such cleverness you could barely see them unless you looked very closely. There was a tiger, and an eagle, and a rhinoceros, and monkeys chasing each other around the light and one of them had the face of a person. And the bottom of the lamp was made up of a pair of magnificent peacocks. To light the lamp, there was a little door . . .’

Amelia read. She gazed strictly at the page, concentrated wholly on the words, as if by doing that, and forgetting about the Princess, she could protect her story from the withering harshness of the lady who sat opposite her. So she didn’t see the Princess turn her head as she spoke. She didn’t see the look on the Princess’s face as she described the lamp. She didn’t see the Princess’s hand go to her mouth, and her eyes go wide, nor hear her stifled gasp at the mention of the monkey with the face of the man, or her second gasp at the mention of the two peacocks on the bottom of the lamp. And she didn’t see the way the Princess looked at her after that, without any hint of practised boredom, but with a kind of stunned disbelief.

Amelia didn’t see any of that. And after a while she did forget about the Princess, losing herself in the words she had written, the images she had created, the flow of the story of the princess and the lamp, how the princess would light the lamp each night, and how it wasn’t lit when she was kept away from the man she loved, and how they were reunited at the end and the lamp came alight for one last night. It wasn’t one of the bloodcurdling versions, with the ghost of the princess and phantom beasts coming to life and lots of blood everywhere, but it wasn’t the soppiest version either. It was the one, in truth, that was Amelia’s own favourite.

When she was finished, she put the pages down, and only then did she remember where she was, and why she was reading it, and who she was reading it to.

The Princess didn’t say anything. She was staring at Amelia blankly, as if not seeing her at all.

‘That’s it,’ whispered Amelia.

The Princess gave a little jerk. Her expression became severe again, impatient, dismissive.

‘Hm! It is a silly story. A fancy!’ She said the word contemptuously, in her heavy accent. A
fenceeee
. Amelia winced.

‘Life is not like this. Why did you write such a story?’

‘I just thought . . . I thought you’d like it.’

‘It is a stupid story. Stupid! Do you hear me?’

Amelia stared. It was the first story she had ever written – apart from the ones she was forced to write at school – that she had showed to anyone. And it wasn’t just any story, it was about the lamp – the lamp which had almost killed her, yet had also saved her life, the lamp about which she knew so little, and yet contained so many stories – and of all these stories, it was the one she loved most. For years, she had carried it in her head, thinking about it, developing it, perfecting it. It was the most precious story she had! And she had wasted it on this Princess. Amelia could feel tears coming to her eyes. But she wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not in front of this awful, awful lady.

‘Do you think this is what life is like to be a princess?’ The Princess laughed bitterly. ‘Do you think it is so simple? No, it is hard, harder than any other life.’

‘Why?’ said Amelia. ‘Why is it so complicated? You have everything. You’ve got palaces, and people to look after you, and—’

‘Stupid story! Why do you write about this lamp?’

Amelia shook her head, not sure what to say.