he could have a good time for twenty years.
‘Hi,’ he said and smiled and she looked even more confused. Even more adorable.
‘Matty wanted to show me your toys.’
‘Would you like a guided tour?’
She gazed round, clearly astonished. ‘It’s a workshop.’
It was. The big underground cavern had been transformed. Back in Manhattan, he’d had a workshop set apart from the normal production premises, specially set up so he could have time alone to think, to work peaceably on his latest ideas. He’d had the entire contents transported here. Anna had supervised the shift. Nothing had gone wrong, and already he had a workplace he loved.
And he had the work he loved. His father had introduced him to woodwork, and to rudimentary mechanics. The two of them had worked together when Rafael was a kid, in the slivers of time his father had been able to spare from his royal duties.
Those slivers of time had seemed like gold. They’d instilled in Rafael a love of working with his hands, and now it was the place he found peace.
Did Kelly find such peace in her books?
‘You know how Robo-Craft works?’ he asked her.
‘I’ve seen it in the shops,’ Kelly said and that was enough encouragement for Matty to gasp in shock and drag her to the table.
‘You mean you don’t even know how it works? Look, Mama. It’s very, very wonderful. Uncle Rafael invented it all by himself.’
He set a tiny mechanism on the middle of the table, then grabbed a sizeable plank, balanced it on top of the mechanism and flipped the switch.
The plank swung round like a slow ceiling fan.
‘Now look,’ Matty ordered and fiddled with the controls.
The plank swayed like a drunken ceiling fan.
‘And now…’
The mechanism lifted, rolled. Amazingly the plank stayed balanced. The whole thing started moving steadily to the side of the table.
‘Will it go up?’ Matty demanded.
‘I suspect our plank is too heavy for launch,’ Rafael said. ‘Why not make something that looks like a rocket? Make it a bit lighter than the plank. In fact, make it a lot lighter than the plank.’
Matty was already gazing round the room, looking for materials.
‘Can I use that?’ he asked, pointing to some plywood.
‘Go right ahead. Here’s a hacksaw and here’s some craft glue. Kelly, are you going to watch?’
But Kelly was gazing at the little mechanism with longing. It looked awesome.
‘Can I make a bus?’ she asked and he grinned at the wistfulness in her voice. He loved it when he caught a kid’s attention, even if that kid was twenty-nine years old.
‘Any special reason why you’d like to make a bus?’
‘It’s just that rolling action. I had to spend hours on a school bus when I was a kid and the thing bucketed just like your plank. I reckon I could make a bus to sit on it and…’
‘Go right ahead,’ he said and beamed and she was sucked in, hook, line and sinker.
What followed was peace.
It was probably the first time Rafael had felt at peace since he’d heard of Kass’s death.
He’d always found solace in his work—it had always been an escape for him—but for the past few weeks he hadn’t been able to disappear. Even when he was alone, when the demands of his new role weren’t pounding on his door, his conscience was doing its own pounding. So was his worry for the future—for the fact that he had no choice in the role he was expected to play. He worked with his hands down here but even as he worked his thoughts wriggled and twisted and tried to find an escape.
But just here…just for now…there was no need to escape. He had no wish to escape. This was great.
Kelly and Matty were totally entranced. They had the material they needed. They sat on high stools at his biggest work bench, their heads bent over their projects, deep in concentration.
He’d hardly seen the similarity between mother and son, but he saw it now. The way their brows creased together, puckering into a tiny line just above their noses. The way they focused absolutely. When they picked up the hacksaws and made their first tentative notch, then paused and held the plywood out to make sure they were doing the right thing, their actions were identical.
They looked…
Like mother and son.
More. They looked endearing. Enchanting. He was giving them both pleasure and the thought was enough to settle a deep, aching pain in his gut that had been there…maybe ever since his father had died.
A measure of the success of Robo-Craft was that it pulled people in regardless. If you could put a plain, unadorned plank on this tiny mechanism and watch it transform into something that suggested an old school bus or a spaceship—anything—and if you could see that very easily you could make such a thing and watch it work…
‘Yeah, it’s brilliant,’ Kelly said, smiling, and he grinned at her across the table.
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