Queen Camilla (16 page)

When Charles had gone out of the room to look for biscuits, Camilla said, ‘Charlie must like you, Dwayne. Not everybody gets a china cup.’

Charles said, returning with Grice’s Chinese shortcake biscuits, ‘Dwayne is a chap with fine sensibilities, Camilla. I’m going to lend him my copy of
The Heart of the Hunter
.’

‘No,’ said Dwayne, ‘I couldn’t.’

‘No! No! I absolutely
insist
,’ said Charles, pressing the book into Dwayne’s hands.

So, when Camilla whispered to Dwayne, ‘We’re experiencing a few difficulties with our correspondence lately,’ and slipped Dwayne the envelope addressed to Mr Nicholas Soames, Dwayne could not possibly refuse to post it, avoiding the censorship that all mail received, both in and out of the Flowers Exclusion Zone. He pushed the letter deep into his trouser pocket.

Camilla said to him, ‘This is so sweet of you, Dwayne. Why don’t you call round tomorrow, perhaps we could give you lunch?’

At the Arthur Grice Academy, fifteen-year-old Chanel Toby was being taught about the English kings by a nervous supply teacher called Gordon Wall. It was halfway through the lesson and so far all Chanel had written in her rough book was, ‘King Alfred was a minger with a beer’d who cun’t even watch a cake in the oven.’

As Wall droned on, Chanel had lost concentration and had allowed her thoughts to meander along familiar byways. Who should she give her virginity to? There were a few contenders; Prince William, who was nice an’ that, but he wouldn’t do it until she was sixteen; Prince Harry, who were a right laugh but were a proper ginga. Chanel didn’t mind the ethnicity of a person, or their size or shape. She was a big girl herself. She’d messed about with boys with acne and those with aggressive and delinquent personalities, but she drew the line at gingas. To be a natural redhead was to be a social pariah, a target for the happy slappy gangs who patrolled the streets.

Chantelle, Chanel’s older sister, had swapped her virginity for hair straighteners and a Grice’s food voucher, but Chanel was a romantic girl who wanted the rupturing of her hymen to take place in lovely surroundings. The loveliest place she’d ever seen was the island flower bed in the school drive that spelt out ‘Grice’s Scaffolding’ in red, white and blue flowers. Chantelle had lost her virginity in the back of a transit van parked behind Grice’s Chinese Chip Shop. She had complained that her lover had stopped halfway through her ordeal and said, ‘I really fancy a battered sausage, do you?’

Chantelle had said, ‘Oh, I thought that’s what I was getting.’

Chanel didn’t want that; she had aspirations. She was going to get five GCSEs, which would mean automatic release from the tag around her ankle. She would then be free to study floristry at the college in the town.

When she looked up, Gordon Wall was talking about a king she’d never heard of. In January 956, Edwyn the Fair was crowned King of the English at Kingston-upon-Thames. On the day of the coronation, Edwyn left the celebration banquet and was later discovered by St Dunston (later the Archbishop of Canterbury) sandwiched between two women: ‘His mistress and her mother; wallowing between the two of them in evil fashion, as if in a vile sty!’

As instructed by Gordon Wall, Chanel wrote a summation of this in her rough book.

Towards the end of the lesson, when shafts of sunlight had reached Chanel’s desk and had almost lulled
her to sleep, the classroom door opened and Arthur Grice came in with a school inspector, Ms Abigail Pike. The class rose at once to their feet and droned, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Grice.’

Grice boomed, ‘Ms Pike ’ere is ’aving a good look round to make sure we’re up to scratch, so just carry on.’ Gordon Wall’s throat tightened, he managed to stammer out that they were doing the English kings.

Ms Pike addressed the class. ‘So, what have you learnt about the English kings this afternoon?’

A few hands flew up, but it was Ms Pike’s policy to ignore the eager beavers. It was more the reluctant students in the back row she was interested in. She looked around the class and noticed Chanel playing with her hair, a look of studied indifference on her face.

She walked to Chanel’s side and said, ‘May I have a look at your work?’

Chanel closed the page of her rough book.

Grice said, ‘This is Chanel Toby. We’ve had our difficulties, ’aven’t we, Chanel? But she’s kept ’er nose clean lately, ’aven’t you?’

Chanel muttered, ‘Yes, sir.’

Ms Pike picked up Chanel’s book and read: ‘Edwyn the Fair was a filthy bastard who was found by a vicar being the meat in a fuck sandwich. The bread was his mistress and her mam. I wonder what the papers said about that in January 956!!!’

Chanel was suspended and ordered to leave the school immediately. Some say that blinded by tears she inadvertently trampled over the floral island in the school’s drive. Others say that she went out of her way
to flatten as many flowers as she could before being restrained by Arthur Grice.

Later, in Grice’s office at the school, Ms Pike asked, ‘How many students have been suspended this term, Mr Grice? Would you look the figure up for me?’

Grice said, ‘No need to look owt up, Ms Pike. I keep it all up ’ere in me ’ead.’ He tapped the side of his head. It made a hollow sound. ‘This term, we’ve ’ad to expel sixteen students. Twenty-seven ’ave been suspended, nine of them for a week or longer.’

Ms Pike murmured, ‘But if you carry on shedding students at this rate, you’ll be down to single figures, Mr Grice.’

Grice gestured towards the window that looked out over the Flowers Exclusion Zone. ‘It’s the catchment area,’ he said. ‘Our students are taken from the shallow end of the gene pool. Some of ’em arrive ’ere at the age of eleven, not knowing ’ow to tie a shoelace; they’re totally reliant on Velcro.’

‘You don’t appear to have a head teacher, Mr Grice.’

Grice frowned. The furrows in his brow resembled a freshly ploughed field. ‘We ’ave trouble ’anging on to an ’ead teacher,’ he confided. ‘So I’ve took it on myself to fill in, like.’

‘But you have no teaching qualifications, Mr Grice,’ said Ms Pike.

‘I teach basic and advanced scaffolding Tuesdays and Thursdays,’ he said.

‘But not any academic subjects?’ asked Ms Pike.

‘Listen,’ said Grice, menacingly, ‘it ain’t airy-fairy, let’s-talk-about-civilization-in-Latin bollocks what this
country needs, it’s more scaffolders. Where would your cathedrals be without scaffolding? Nowhere. ’Ow do you think the Seven Wonders of the World was built? With scaffolding!

‘If it weren’t for scaffolding, you wouldn’t ’ave no civilization. We’d still be savages living in the bleedin’ caves.’

Ms Pike stood up and gathered her bag and coat together. ‘What will happen to Chanel Toby now?’ she asked.

Grice reached for the school registration book, turned to the letter T in the index, found Toby and drew a line through Chanel Toby’s name.

‘She’s gone,’ he said to Ms Pike. ‘She’s dead meat.’

As Chanel ran home to Hell Close, she passed her grandmother and the Queen walking back from the shops.

Violet said, ‘What you doing out of school, Chanel?’

Chanel sobbed, ‘I’ve been suspended for writing the truth about that dirty bleeder Edwyn the Fair.’ She looked at the Queen accusingly. ‘One of your relatives,’ she said. ‘That ponce, Grice, has said I can’t do my GCSEs. Now I’ll never be a florist.’

Violet said, ‘We’ll see about that,’ and turned round and began to march towards the Grice Academy.

The Queen called, ‘Shall I come with you, Violet?’

Violet shouted over her shoulder, ‘No, Liz, I’m going to use language. And I know you don’t like language. Walk ’ome with our Chanel.’

The Queen was holding the loft ladder steady as William climbed up the last few rungs and clambered into the attic. He stretched out an arm and the Queen handed him a Maglite torch and said, ‘Somewhere up there is a large cardboard box marked “Glassware this way up”, next to your grandfather’s box of ceremonial swords.’

After a few moments, during which the beam of the torch flickered across the opening, William shouted, ‘Found it!’

The Queen said, ‘Splendid. Bring it down, will you?’ With some difficulty William scrambled down the ladder, carrying the heavy box. When the ladder had been retracted, the Queen and William went downstairs carrying the box between them. William had come straight from work and was still wearing his working clothes: boots with steel toecaps, ragged jeans, a plaid shirt and an orange fluorescent waistcoat. His hands and face were not entirely clean, the Queen noticed. William was impatient to find out what was inside the box. All the Queen had said to him had been, ‘There’s something in the attic I’d rather like you to see.’

The Queen took the bread knife from out of a drawer and began to cut through the parcel tape that sealed the lid. She opened the cardboard flaps and took out an object wrapped in a black plastic bin liner. She pulled
away the plastic and revealed a large dark-blue velvet casket. She said tactfully, ‘I think, perhaps, before we go any further, we should both wash our hands.’ They washed their hands at the kitchen sink. The Queen said, ‘Dry them thoroughly,’ and handed William a clean tea towel.

When she had washed and dried her own hands, the Queen lifted the lid of the casket. Inside, standing on a base of white satin was the Imperial State Crown; its jewelled magnificence made William gasp. There was only a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, but it seemed to find every facet of every precious gemstone that covered the surface of the crown.

The Queen said, ‘This is the Imperial State Crown. I hope that you will wear it one day.’

She used the corner of her apron to polish a glowing ruby. William had often watched the black and white film of his grandmother’s coronation; he and Harry had laughed at the sight of their four-year-old father in white satin knickerbockers and girly shoes. However many times William watched the film, he still felt nervous at the moment the Archbishop of Canterbury placed the crown on his grandmother’s young head. The crown looked heavy and his grandmother’s fragile neck looked as though it would snap under the weight.

‘It looks heavy,’ said William.

‘I hardly slept the week before,’ said the Queen. ‘I was terrified it would fall off, and so was the Archbishop. Would you like to try it on?’

William sat down on a kitchen chair. The Queen braced herself and hoisted the crown free of its sumptuous packing. She held it against herself for a moment,
remembering the triumphant peal of the bells and the shouts of ‘Long live the Queen’ that celebrated her crowning. As she placed the crown on William’s head, a presenter on the television in the next room said, ‘It was the first time our vet had performed a Caesarean on a mongoose.’ The crown was a little too small for William’s head; he sat very still, not daring to move.

The Queen stepped back and said, ‘It suits you. How does it feel?’

‘It feels brilliant, actually,’ said William.

The Queen said, ‘Sit very still and I’ll bring you a looking glass.’ When she had left the room, William raised his arms to imaginary cheers and patriotic shouts of, ‘Long live the King. Long live King William.’

The Queen returned with a looking glass she’d taken from a wall in the hallway. When she lifted it, and he saw his reflection, he had a pang of longing for his mother, and it was only by using rigid self-control that he was able to hide his emotions.

The Queen said, ‘I think you will be a very good king, William.’

William said, ‘Yes, but it will be a sad day for me. It will mean that Dad is dead.’

‘Not necessarily,’ murmured the Queen. ‘Your father could renounce his succession and pass it on to you. Are you prepared for that eventuality?’

William stiffened his back, as though he were on the parade ground at Sandhurst, and said, ‘I am, Your Majesty, I
have
to be the King. I promised Mum I’d do it. It was what she wanted.’

‘And you?’ asked the Queen.

‘I promised her,’ William replied.

‘I repeat, and you?’ the Queen asked again.

‘She brought me up to be a new kind of king. “King Lite”, she called it,’ said William.

‘“King Lite”?’ asked the Queen.

‘Y’know, like Coke Lite,’ said William.

‘Ah! The drink?’ asked the Queen.

‘Yeah. She thought I could, sort of, mix with the people more. Visit the homeless at their, well, not
homes
, obviously, but their doorways and hostels and things,’ said William.

‘Very noble,’ said the Queen. ‘But to what purpose?’

‘To find out about their problems,’ said William, who was getting a little exasperated with his grandmother. Why was she questioning such a noble act of charity?

‘And when you ascertain what the problems of the destitute are, what will you do?’ asked the Queen.

William said, ‘I’ll try to help them, like my mum did.’

‘Will you throw open the doors of Buckingham Palace, then?’ the Queen asked.

William said, ‘Well, not all the doors.’

The Queen said, ‘You’re a very kind boy and I’m extremely fond of you. Please think carefully before you sacrifice your life to an institution that is increasingly irrelevant. I think it’s time we thought less of the Royal and more of the Family.’

Charles was reading aloud to Camilla from
Macbeth
. He was characterizing the speeches and reading the stage directions in his own voice. His only piece of costume was a Hermeès silk scarf, which he used ingeniously to denote character. He had tried to interest his first wife in Shakespeare by performing
Richard III
to her, but she had ruined his concentration by flipping through
Cosmopolitan
and yawning.

Camilla, on the other hand, was giving every appearance of being thrilled by
Macbeth
and his performance; commenting occasionally on the action, saying, ‘How horrid!’ when Macduff’s children were killed and, ‘Mad cow!’ when Lady Macbeth/Charles was screeching during the hand-washing scene. At one point Charles’s performance grew to Donald Sinden-like proportions, causing Vince Threadgold to thump on the party wall and shout, ‘Keep the bleedin’ noise down!’