King and Joker Read online

  Theale grunted. While she was speaking Louise had been watching a grossly fat small boy trying to catch a pigeon; his mother/nurse/au pair was busy with an endless kiss with a young man on a bench. Theale’s unexpectedly informal reply made her think that she had touched some sort of a sore point with him, but then she’d decided that she must have offended him by her attitude to the whole princessing scene.

  “You have to joke about it some of the time,” she said, “or you’d go mad.”

  “There’s jokes and jokes, Ma’am,” he said. “The Prince is a great joker, and none of us mind that. It makes for a bit of brightness in our lives sometimes. But, now, you take this customer who’s been playing tricks in the Palace—I don’t go for that at all. It’s not just that they’re a nuisance, and bad for morale, and that. To me whoever’s doing them is no better than that feller back there who tried to commit a gross indecency in front of you. That’s what this joker in the Palace is doing—committing a series of gross indecencies. I hope it’s going to be me as catches him, that’s all.”

  Louise decided he was genuinely angry, though she could never have told it from his tone. As always the speech ended on a slight lilt that was almost a chuckle.

  “Do you like working in the Palace, Mr Theale? I mean, it’s a bit of a backwater, isn’t it?”

  “It’s an honour, Ma’am.”

  “That doesn’t stop it being a backwater. I expect a lot of honours are, really. Suppose you could choose your next posting, when it happened and where, how much longer would you like to stay?”

  “Just under two years,” he said promptly. “That’s one good thing about the job, the hours are pretty regular, which you can’t say of a lot of other police work. Makes it a whole sight easier to study for my next go of exams.”

  “Are you looking forward to them?”

  “You bet, Ma’am.”

  “So’m I. I’ll be doing my O-levels almost the same time. We must remember to wish each other luck. What’s the time—I don’t carry a watch?”

  “Getting on half past four.”

  “My grandmother ought to have finished practising now. Thank you for the walk.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am.”

  As Louise changed out of her jeans into the deliberately “sweet” frock which she’d dumped at Granny’s on the way to school, she thought about Theale. Until he’d mentioned the joker she’d clean forgotten Albert’s suggestion that it might be somebody from the security office, Theale himself even. No, she decided, not him. It wasn’t just his being a stickler—the joker might well be like that—you’d need to have a bit of an obsession with Palace ritual to want to muck it around. But it was hard to think of anyone so keen on his own career running the risks with it that the joker ran, and there was his voice, with that curious chuckle in it—Louise instinctively felt that somebody who talked like that without noticing it must have no sense of humour at all, and the joker’s jokes had been pretty funny, in their way. Besides, Theale’s reaction to the joker had been so like his reaction to the poor man outside the embassies that she almost felt that if Theale was the joker he’d have had to have hired the man to go there and jump out at her. No, not Theale. It would be impossible to explain to Sir Sam, and difficult even to Albert …

  Louise brushed her hair, slipped into her special Granny-visiting low-heeled shoes and went out into the hall. Upstairs Granny’s harp was still sending its acid tinklings

  into the musty, mourning air, so there was time for her to shut herself into the dotty old mahogany phone-box in the hall, ring home and ask for the Press Office.

  “Hello, is that Katie? It’s me. Yes. Have you had anybody ringing up asking for lurid stories? Oh, good—only a bloke jumped out at me on my way back from school—I don’t think he thought I was anyone special, just a passing girl, poor man. No, Sergeant Theale arrested him and handed him over to a couple of bobbies from the embassies. I just thought I’d better warn you. Yes, quite all right, just sad for him. Look, Katie, can you ask the Commander to see if he can fix it so the man doesn’t get charged? That’d be marvellous. No, he was quite young—it was sad. Thanks—see you.”

  Somehow that exorcised the spectre of the red-headed man and made Louise feel quite light-hearted as she trotted up the stairs towards the harp-music. She opened one leaf of the big double door and tip-toed into the music-room. There bright day streamed through tall windows, twinkled off veneered wood and polished brass, but still seemed somehow to leave shreds of ancient gloom floating between the sun-shafts. It was the same with all those polished surfaces—no doubt every one of them was speckless, but still the room felt as though the dust had gathered in it undisturbed since the night the news came of Grandfather’s drowning.

  Granny had her back to the door and seemed not to have noticed its movement. She crouched at the harp with her head pressed close against the frame as though she were listening to whispered messages beneath the notes. Her bare, scrawny arms made angular shapes as they reached for the strings. She was wearing her music-clothes, shapeless swathes of black and grey lawn which made her look (Albert said) as though she’d got half way through the Dance of the Seven Hundred Veils and then given up. Her hair was a brighter orange than last time.

  Louise simply waited, listening to the notes without understanding them. It’s a twangling instrument, she thought. That’s what. Hey! I bet Shakespeare had a tin ear, like me. Everybody keeps saying how musical he must have been, but then you get a word like “twangling” which gives it away. And what about that corny old duke—or was he a prince?—no, only a duke—asking for a bit of music all over again? And then being surprised when it didn’t come off? If you were musical you wouldn’t muck around like that, and you wouldn’t be surprised when it didn’t work. It’s only that old Shakes knew the sort of things he was expected to say and said them better than anyone else … something about a cat’s guts—that shows he knew what it was like not to be musical, so think again, everybody … but it’s funny how even if you’ve got a tin ear you can tell that it’s almost over … any minute now … she knows I’m here of course …

  Ping. Twangle. Plockity-plock. Punggg. Head flops. Arms flop. Count five. Swing to audience. Smile.

  Sure enough the Dowager Princess of Wales swung round on her music stool like a harbour crane. The deep maquillage of her cheeks was all tunnelled with tears which were still streaming from the corners of her jade-green eyes. She rose groggily and stood blinking at the intruder. Then she pretended to realise who it was, shrugged her pointy shoulders and produced a bitter little smile.

  “And now I have ruined my face,” she said.

  “At least it means I can kiss you properly without spoiling anything,” said Louise as, with slight gritting of the will—as if forcing herself to eat her unfavourite prawn cocktail at a public meal, and smile while doing so—she hugged Granny tight and kissed her on both cheeks. The films of veiling made it feel as though she were clutching a cocoon of cobwebs. Granny chuckled through her tears and pushed her away. She looked pleased though.

  “Was it because the music was so beautiful?” said Louise. “I wish I could understand about music.”

  “No, no, little owl, the music was nothing, a mere exercise, pooh, pretty little scales, chords, tinsel, you can play it without thinking, without feeling, which you see leaves you time to think stupid thoughts … no, no, I am not going to bore you with tales of your poor Grandfather (but what a king I should have made of him!) that is not why you come to this old harridan is it, little swan, of course not. No. I was thinking how soul-tragic it is for me that I shall never know—nobody will ever know—whether I am a great harpist (which I think I am, to be sure—but how can I be sure? That is the soul-tragedy). But you are my perfect audience, little sparrow, because you cannot hear it and have no need to lie to me!”

  This was a much more typical snatch of Granny’s talk than her opening remark
had been.

  “But everybody says you’re terribly good,” said Louise, quite truthfully.

  “I am a horse!” cried Granny, throwing her arms wide and looking considerably more like an orange-crested vulture of some sort. “A horse with flashing eyes and a long white mane and diamonds all over my bridle—also I play the harp. So everybody says I play the harp very well—for a horse. Even myself, sometimes I think I am playing with hooves!”

  She clenched her many-ringed fingers into fists and made pawing motions in the air.

  “Ah, but for my destiny I should have known, the world should have known, that here is a great human soul that speaks through music! Neeeeeeeaaagh!”

  The whinny echoed among the twinkling objects and seemed to stir the harp-strings into unheard murmurs.

  “You’re a great actress too,” said Louise. “I’d love to see you on the telly.”

  “You must never mock at a soul-tragedy,” said Granny, still clearly pleased. “Especially you, who will know the same soul-tragedy.”

  “Me!”

  “You will never know whether you are beautiful, little gosling,” said Granny sharply. “I will make a new face and then we shall have tea and I shall send stupid Beatrice away so that she will not interrupt our talk. Will you wait for me in the little sitting-room?”

  “Fine,” said Louise, bobbing into a small curtsey as she held the door for her. It was quite unnecessary, and probably not even protocol, but Granny had a rather Hollywood attitude to things like that.

  Every three months the Gazette listed a change of lady-in-waiting to HRH the Dowager Princess, but no matter who got her name into print it was always Beatrice, Lady Surbiton, who did the job. Louise found Aunt Bea (she was no relation—it was just a courtesy title) in the clutter of the drawing-room, looking as always hopelessly out of place among the rugs and icons. Aunt Bea was a dear old thing, Large and white with tiny pudgy hands, always dressed in a rasping tweed skirt, dark green twin-set and double row of pearls. She was very short-sighted and tended to knock things over if they had been moved from their usual place—Granny sometimes rearranged the room for the pleasure of seeing this happen and then scolding her. Her voice was so soft that she made everything sound like a wicked secret. Louise was glad that she wasn’t staying for tea because it was uncomfortable to listen to Granny using her as a pincushion (though according to Albert Aunt Bea had tried to commit suicide a couple of years back when Mother and Aunt Anne had conspired to relieve her of the role. Albert said she’d jumped out of a ground-floor window and twisted her ankle.)

  “Hello, Aunt Bea. How’s life?”

  “Who is that? Oh, Your Highness, you did give me a start. I almost dropped this … er … this … only luckily I must have put it down somewhere before you came in. Life? Much as usual. Very quiet. Very, very quiet. Except, oh yes, the most extraordinary thing, a lot of grand pianos arrived this morning. Eight or nine. I was quite at a loss to tell the men where to put them until HRH woke up and sent them all away again. Apparently it was some sort of joke. But I must say, my dear, that your Grandmother is perfectly capable of ordering nine pianos and forgetting to tell one about it, but of course she refused to see it that way, though she insisted on trying them all out and was quite tempted to keep two. You know, it made me feel quite uneasy. Jokes. Oh dear.”

  Louise too felt a faint shiver of unease, like a creeping draught that seems to permeate an apparently cosy room. It was as though the jokes were a disease, and, now it was spreading.

  “Poor Aunt Bea,” she said. “Let’s talk about something else. How’s Mike getting on in Canada?”

  Aunt Bea launched into one of her long, sighing accounts of the great interest in her life, her delinquent grandson, heir to the Surbiton title, who seemed only to have to attend a pot-smoking party to make sure it was raided, only to have to borrow a friend’s car without permission to run down a Lady Mayoress in it, only to have to go for a quiet Sunday walk in the country to disappear and emerge in the small hours of Wednesday morning blind drunk, stark naked, hammering on the door of some night-club performer’s Mayfair flat. She hadn’t really got round to describing the effect of Canada on him, and vice versa, when Granny’s butler, Mr Forster, came in with the first of the cake-stands and handed her a note written on bright green paper. She put on her pebble glasses and peered her way through it.

  “Oh dear,” she whispered. “It seems I’m not to have tea with you after all. Well, I’ve a lot of letters to write, I expect, so if Your Highness will excuse me …”

  Poor Aunt Bea, thought Louise. What a bitch Granny can be. She’d have made a pretty grisly sort of Queen, too. I wonder if Sir Sam and the Palace machine could have kept her battened down. She’d have silvered his hair for him OK.

  Granny had invented a tea-ceremony to suit her own personality. It involved a number of cake-stands and very tiny tea-cups, so that her guests spent most of their time levering themselves out of deep-cushioned­ chairs to fetch each other stamp-sized sandwiches and mini-cakes and fresh thimblefuls of tea. Albert used to bring his own whole-wheat sandwich and flask of apple juice so that Granny couldn’t use him to treat Aunt Bea like a yo-yo. He wasn’t often invited.

  But today Granny came sweeping in in a black trouser-suit a-glitter with diamonds and glared at these arrangements. Instantly she rang the bell.

  “I cannot think why Beatrice insists on using these ridiculous little cups,” she snapped. “Ah, Forster, please take these cups away and bring us two of the big breakfast ones. Now, little owl, take one of these tiresome stands and fill it up with everything you need—tip the rest on the tray—then you can settle into your nest and chirp away. When my children were small I used to steal off to the Nursery to have a proper English tea—that is the only civilised invention of this nation, nursery tea. Durdon understood about tea. There were crumpets, always, toasted on the gas fire. What are you smiling at, little swan? You must be careful how you mock me. I have an uncertain temper. Everybody knows that.”

  “I had crumpets with Durdy yesterday.”

  “What! Is she still alive? Absurd!”

  “She can’t move and she can’t feel but she’s still more alive than anybody.”

  “Without that woman this country would have been a republic by now. How I longed to dismiss her—don’t look so shocked, little wren, of course it was impossible, as if I were to suggest blowing up the Tower of London like Sir Guy Faux …”

  “The Houses of Parliament, Granny.”

  “What does it matter? This country has no history. How many Kings have you assassinated? One! And you did that by committee. It simply shows that your Kings have no meaning for you, except as a peep-show. Seriously, little wren, suppose my father-in-law, that abominable King Victor, had died in youth, as he nearly did. Suppose my mother-in-law, Queen Mary, had married Georgie York, who was secretly very fond of her—only he could not show it, being so English. Why, then you would have had a quite different Royal Family from the one you have now. But do you suppose anything else would have been the smallest bit different? Pooh!”

  “But that means even if you’d become Queen things would be just the same, Granny!”

  “You must not be too clever with your Grandmother, little owl. For you are wrong. I would have been the meteor of change. Your poor Grandfather! By now—supposing Lord Halifax had not arranged for his so convenient drowning—by now I would be either in noble exile or gloriously reigning. I would have made him a true monarch. Think of it! With Oswald Mosley at our side—no Hitler war, no strikes, no communism, all Europe peaceful and disciplined, and at home respect for the social order and the arts! I had such plans for the arts in this nation of philistines!”

  When Granny said shocking things it was important to look a bit shocked or she got huffy. Louise knew about Mosley from a Sunday paper article which Father had made her read, but had only the dimmest ideas about the o
ther bloke. She let her eyes widen and waited for a pause.

  “But that’s thrilling!” she said. “How did you find out about Lord Halifax? Why doesn’t everybody know?”

  Delicately Granny picked the icing off a little yellow cake, ate it and threw the cake itself into the fireplace.

  “I have always known,” she said. “It was a conspiracy of nonentities who did not dare let me become Queen. But until this day I have told nobody—I resigned myself to the dignity of defeat and my music. It is important to have secrets, and to keep them … and since you are so sweet to come and have tea with your tiresome old Granny I will tell you a little secret about yourself. Do you know how you were born?”

  “Oh, yes. The doctors said Mother had to have peace and quiet so Father took her up to Glas-allt Shiel and I was born a fortnight premature and Father delivered me and Durdy helped and there was the most frightful fuss because you aren’t supposed to be born without a lot of witnesses to prove that you haven’t been smuggled in in a bedpan. I’m afraid I know that already, Granny.”

  “Ah, but what you do not know is that you were not born prematurely. It was your wicked Father, wanting to do it all himself without the proper fuss and protocol … oh, he persuaded himself that it was for your poor Mother’s sake … she is not a good bearer of children, dear Isabella—not like me—she cannot feel what a godlike act it is to give birth to a Prince—a little pain, pooh!—I smiled, I laughed with triumph, I gave birth like a cat, purring, I wished to do it before all the world, in Westminster Abbey, yes, and Ted Elgar should write me a birth-anthem for those sweet little choirboys to sing, with many many trumpets, so that the child should know that he had truly been born a Prince. And there would be public holidays and the bakers should bake loaves of a special shape—oh! … but dear Isabella, who is afraid of nothing else, wishes to creep away and give birth in secret, because she is afraid of that. But of course it was your wicked Father who put her up to it so that he could play at being a doctor. Premature? Pooh! You were a nine-month child if ever I saw one.”