Queen Camilla (12 page)

‘She loved her pizza. She’d get through three a night,’ Maddo sobbed. He recited like a litany his mother’s favourites. ‘Hawaiian, five cheeses, and pepperoni with extra onions. Every night, regular as clockwork, at nine o’clock, the pizza van would arrive. I’ve been drunk ever since.’ He was mopping his eyes now, with Charles’s handkerchief. ‘So look after your mam, and if there’s owt I can do to make sure your mam’s last few days or weeks are ’appy, then let me know.’

Charles was baffled. It was hard for him to take in. Why hadn’t his mother told him she was terminally ill? He’d believed her when she’d told him that she was suffering from toothache. Outside the shop, with the money allocated for groceries still in his pocket, he bumped into his brother, Andrew, who was arm-in-arm with a thin red-haired woman in city shorts and high heels.

Before Charles could get a word in about their mother, Andrew said, ‘Charlie, this is Marcia Boycott, or as
The News of the Screws
called her, Marcia Boy Cock.’ He nudged Charles and laughed, ‘D’you geddit?’

‘So unfair,’ said Marcia, assuming that Charles was aware of her notoriety. ‘The boy was gagging for it.’ She pushed her red mane back with a slim white hand. ‘He lied his fifteen-year-old head off in court. I got no credit for getting him through his French GCSE.’

‘Marcia’s just moved into Pedo Street,’ said Andrew.

‘You make it sound as though I had a choice,’ said Marcia bitterly. She turned her intense gaze on to Charles and, addressing him directly, asked, ‘Do
you
think it’s fair that I’ve lost my job, that I’m on a list of known
paedophiles, that I’m barred from going anywhere near a school or playground? I’ve been demonized for teaching a clumsy provincial schoolboy the art of love.’

Charles stammered, ‘It does seem a little harsh.’ He was longing to get away but Marcia continued.

‘None of the other boys I slept with complained.’

‘Quite,’ said Charles.

Andrew said, ‘The sneaky little bastard went to the police when Marcia refused to cough up for an iPod.’

‘I have my principles,’ said Marcia. ‘I will not pay for sex.’

Charles judged that this was not the moment to tell his brother that their mother was terminally ill. He could see that Andrew was eager to get Marcia somewhere he could give her a good seeing-to. As Charles hurried home to share the news with Camilla, he comforted himself with the thought that at least he wouldn’t have to be king. He thanked God that he now lived in a republic and the monarchy would never be restored. The New Cons would never win an election; Boy English had too many skeletons in his cupboard, and Charles was sure that one day they would come out dancing.

Mr Anwar told Violet Toby that the Queen was dying when Violet was in his shop looking for a butter dish. ‘It is most sad, she is a very gracious lady, only last week she was in the shop buying clothes pegs.’

Violet had been forced to sit down; she had lived next to the Queen for the past thirteen years and she’d taught her how to cook and clean and look after herself.

‘When I first met her,’ said Violet, ‘she couldn’t mash
a spud, and didn’t know you ’ad to shake a bottle of HP to get the sauce to come out.’

Anwar said, ‘She will be a great loss to our community. Most of the people here are the dregs of society.’ He looked out of the shop window to where two struck-off solicitors were arguing over a can of Kestrel lager.

‘I ’ope you’re not callin’ me a dreg,’ said Violet. ‘I’m only ’ere because of our Barry. If it weren’t for ’im I could live anywhere I pleased.’

Mr Anwar said, ‘I am also punished for my son’s behaviour. He rang the police and told them that Osama bin Laden was living in our attic. The boy was thirteen, he’d been reading
The Diary of Anne Frank
, he’d fallen under the book’s influence. It was foolish, yes, but why punish the whole family?’

‘Didn’t they find some guns in the attic, though?’ asked Violet.

‘A few Kalashnikovs,’ said Mr Anwar. ‘Souvenirs from Afghanistan.’

‘Never mind,’ said Violet, comfortingly. ‘You’d ’ave been put in ’ere anyway, because of your weight, wouldn’t you? What are you now, thirty stone?’

When Violet got home, she dumped her shopping on the kitchen table and went straight round to the Queen’s house. She was disappointed to find that the lights were out and the front door was locked. She would have to wait until the morning before hearing the clinical details of the Queen’s terminal illness.

Charles had also called at his mother’s house and, finding her out, had knocked on Violet’s door. Violet
had obviously been crying, thought Charles. Mascara had run down her cheeks, leaving dark trails as if a spider had gone for a jog after falling into black paint.

‘I ’eard about your mam,’ said Violet. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without her.’

‘I can’t understand why Mummy didn’t tell me,’ said Charles.

‘She wun’t want to worry you,’ said Violet, who wished that Barry would stop telling her about the alarming thoughts that went through his head. ‘Do your brothers and sister know?’ she asked.

‘Not yet,’ said Charles. He was dreading breaking the news to them.

Before Charles had the chance to speak to his siblings, the Queen rang him.

‘Charles,’ she said, ‘I’ve something terribly important to tell the family.’

‘Oh, Mummy, I can’t bear it,’ said Charles.

Both of them were conscious that all telephone conversations were listened to by the security police. It made them more circumspect than usual.

The Queen said, ‘Can you and Camilla come to Anne’s at eight tonight?’

‘Of course,’ said Charles. ‘But are you well enough?’

The Queen said, ‘The pain has been dreadful, but it’s out now.’

‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘Maddo Clarke told me. I do wish you’d told me yourself, Mummy.’

The Queen said, ‘I can’t be bothering you with every detail of my life.’

Charles thought, or death. He said, ‘You are
magnificently
brave, Mummy. When my turn comes I hope I shall be able to display such courage.’

The Queen said, ‘The worst bit is the waiting.’

Charles said, ‘I can imagine. It must be agony.’

‘But there’s television to watch, and magazines,’ said the Queen.

After he replaced the receiver, Charles thought, I doubt if there are televisions or magazines in Heaven, but if his mother was comforted by that belief, then who was he to disabuse her? When Charles thought about Heaven, he imagined it to be an English pastoral landscape with farmers in moleskin trousers driving horse-drawn ploughs, but he couldn’t quite decide where he fitted into this heavenly Utopia. Would there be a roped-off enclosure for VIPs or would the dead have equal rights?

The Queen had asked for the meeting to take place in the Princess Royal’s house because it was the largest private venue available. Anne’s husband, Spiggy, had knocked their living room, hall and kitchen into one large space. He’d demolished the walls one night after returning home from a karaoke night at the One-Stop Centre, where he’d bought a lump hammer from a glue sniffer desperate for a couple of quid.

When he’d finished the demolition, he’d said, looking through the thick dust at the large space he’d created, ‘Now the dog can see the bleedin’ rabbit.’ He’d had to prop the ceiling up with the odd bit of scaffolding, it was still there three years later, but Anne didn’t seem to mind.

When Spiggy let the Queen into the living room, he issued the usual warning, ‘Watch the poles, Liz.’

The room was haphazardly furnished with a mixture of garish antiques and the junk that Spiggy seemed to accumulate every time he left the house. The Queen chose to sit in a high-backed armchair, rejecting Spiggy’s offer of a footstool. She was always a little nervous with Spiggy, so she bent her head and talked to Harris and Susan, telling them to stop running in and out of the poles.

Spiggy muttered, ‘Anne’ll be down in a minute, she’s trimming her nose hairs.’

A commotion at the front door told them that Charles and Camilla had arrived and had brought their three dogs to the meeting. When Spike, Princess Anne’s Staffordshire bull terrier, thundered down the stairs to join them, there were six dogs in the room.

Leo let the smaller dogs do all the barking and was rewarded when Charles said to him, ‘Leo, you are a very good boy.’ Charles stood in front of the log-effect gas fire with its regulated blue flames and said to his mother, ‘How are you, Mummy?’

The Queen said, ‘I’m extremely tired, it’s been a horrid day.’

Charles searched his mother’s face for clues as to how she truly felt about her imminent death. He had not expected her to go to pieces, but surely she would at last, under such circumstances, show some human frailty. He longed to give her some comfort, to put his arms around her, to reassure her that he would be there at her side when the end finally came. He tried to think of some way to broach the subject, but before he could formulate the perfect sentence, Camilla had taken his mother’s hand and said, ‘Your Majesty, Charles and I are both
devastated
to hear about your illness. How long have the doctors given you?’

The Queen said, ‘I haven’t seen a doctor for three years. I’m perfectly well.’

Charles thought, poor Mummy, she’s in denial.

The Queen laughed. ‘Violet came to see me in floods of tears. Mr Anwar told her that I’d got only days to live!’

‘Maddo Clarke told me,’ said Charles.

Camilla said, ‘So we’re not gathering to hear bad news?’

The Queen said, guardedly, ‘Shall we wait for the others?’

While they waited, Spiggy tried to entertain them. ‘I ’ad a right shock this mornin’,’ he laughed. ‘I woke up. About seven, it were. An’ I were feeling a bit randy, like, so I stretched me hand out and stroked Annie’s belly. I still had me eyes closed, an’ I said, “Are you up for it, Annie? I’m up for it.” She didn’t say owt but I could hear her breathing heavy, so I took me boxers off and I were just getting ready for a nice bit of lovey-dovey when I ’eard Annie downstairs talking to the milkman. I opened me eyes an’ saw Spike lying next to me. I shot outa bed as if I’d got a firework up me arse. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a dog
on
the bed, but I draw the line at ’aving it
in
the bed, with its ’ead on the bleedin’ pillow. I ain’t been able to look the bloody dog in the eye since.’

The Queen gave a tight smile.

Later that night, Camilla said to Charles, ‘Your sister must have an extremely hairy belly.’

The next to arrive was Prince Andrew, who said he hoped the meeting wouldn’t last long because he’d left Marcia Boycott at home ‘cooking up a storm’.

‘She’s enormous fun, Mummy,’ said Andrew. ‘You’d like her. She’s a bit of an intellectual, very deep, like Charlie here. I don’t know what she sees in me, as you know I’m a… oh, what is it? A something, an animal of some kind, of very little brain.’

‘A bear,’ supplied Charles. ‘You’re a bear of very little brain, from
Winnie-the-Pooh
.’

‘Never liked Winnie-the-Pooh,’ said Andrew. ‘Thought he was a bit of a wimp, to tell you the truth. And as for that Christopher Robin, he was definitely a poofter in the making.’

Charles said earnestly, ‘But don’t you see, Andrew? All the animals in the wood represent human archetypes.’ Seeing the bafflement on Andrew’s face, he continued, ‘They, er… represent us humans.’

‘So which are you?’ asked Andrew.

While Charles was thinking, Anne came into the room and said, ‘I think Eeyore, the neurotic donkey, don’t you, Charles?’

Charles forced himself to laugh with the others.

Prince Edward and Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, arrived next. They had the misfortune to live next door to Maddo Clarke and his seven rampaging sons.

Sophie said, ‘We are totally exhausted. The Clarke rabble were up all night doing kung fu on the stairs.’

Edward said, ‘A spell in the army would do them all good.’

Anne said, ‘It didn’t do you any good, Eddy. You had a bloody nervous breakdown.’

Sophie said, ‘Edward doesn’t like to talk about his time in the Marines.’

Anne said, ‘His
brief
time.’

Edward said, ‘All your military titles were honorary, Anne. You were not woken up at midnight by a screaming sergeant major, made to run thirty miles in the rain wearing heavy boots, in full kit, with a seventy-pound pack on your back, having to wade through ice-cold water holding your rifle above your head. Then, on
your return to camp, being ordered to pick up two handfuls of mud, which you had to throw at the walls, the floor, your bed and your dress uniform. Then, weeping with exhaustion, being told that everything in the room must be cleaned, washed and pressed before inspection later in the morning. Add to that the merciless bullying I received from all and sundry.’

Andrew said, ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, get over it, Eddy.’

But Edward continued, ‘If I’d been allowed to go into the theatre after leaving school…’ His voice trailed away.

Charles said, ‘I was horribly bullied at prep school. It didn’t help that the headmaster addressed me – a little boy, eight years old – as “sir”.’

In an attempt to lighten the tense atmosphere (even Camilla was biting her nails), Spiggy started to tell the company about a fight he’d witnessed outside Grice-A-Go-Go between a pole dancer and Mrs Anwar. Thankfully his vivid narration was interrupted by the arrival of Prince William and Prince Harry and their respective dogs, Althorp, a lurcher, and Carling. Spike growled a warning, saying, ‘This is my territory.’

Charles said to William, ‘A good day at work, darling?’

William sighed and said, ‘If you count climbing a rickety ladder while carrying freezing-cold scaffolding poles in an east wind at a height of forty feet as being a good day, then yes, I suppose I did have a good day at work, Dad.’

Harry said, ‘I had a good day. I stayed in bed and watched my Puff Daddy videos.’

Spiggy was acutely aware that he was the only commoner in the room. Even the dogs had a superior air about them, he thought. He sat slightly on the edge of the family group, jiggling one crossed leg over the other. Being in the presence of the Queen always made him nervous.