Queen Camilla (40 page)

She moaned that she was depressed but Vince thought, what’s she got to be depressed about? I only smack her one when she deserves it. King, though, he was a looker – big brown eyes, a lovely silky coat – and another thing about King, he was always smiling.

The first that Charles and Camilla knew about King’s disappearance was when Vince asked over the garden fence if either of them had, ‘Seen the dog around?’

Camilla said, ‘Vince, you look frightful.’

Vince said, ‘I ain’t slept a wink. I were lying awake listening for ’im to scratch on the door, but ’e din’t come ’ome.’

‘Has he stayed out all night before?’ asked Charles.

‘No, ’e looked ’ard but ’e were frit of the dark,’ said Vince. ‘We ’ad to leave the bedroom light on for ’im.’

Camilla said, ‘I’m sure he’ll come back, Vince.’

Vince said, bleakly, ‘I keep seein’ ’im in me mind’s eye, chasin’ motorbikes.’

When Vince went back into the house he noticed that King’s possessions, his food and water bowls, his spare collar, grooming brush and leather leash, were also missing.

‘A bleedin’ dog don’t take its stuff with it,’ he said out loud to himself. King was clever, but he hadn’t mastered the art of packing an overnight bag.

When he asked Beverley about King’s bits and pieces, Beverley cursed herself for this oversight; she’d been too anxious to remove all traces of King from the house. She said, falteringly, ‘We must ’ave ’ad the burglars. Maddo Clarke’s lads were messing about in front of the ’ouse yesterday.’

Vince always knew when Beverley lied to him; her eyes flicked from right to left, like an umpire at Wimbledon.

Vince asked, ‘When was the last time you seen King? Think carefully, Bev, ’cause if you lie to me I’ll kill you.’

Beverley walked to the back doorstep, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. She needed to think. Vince had killed before; a teenage fight in a taxi queue in the early hours of the morning.

She looked him in the eye and said, ‘I meant to tell you, Vince, but it went right out of my mind. I took King to the dog collection point, he’s going to start a new life, on a farm in Canada.’ She backed into the kitchen and, as Vince advanced on her, she shouted, ‘Dogs are dangerous, Vince! King were a nutter, you said so yourself!’

‘I liked ’im being a nutter!’ roared Vince. ‘It saved me from being one myself!’

The first blow knocked Beverley’s head against the built-in oven, activating the timer. Camilla listened to Beverley’s screams with her head in her hands. Charles was white-faced.

He said, ‘One
must
do something. Should I go round and try to reason with Vince?’

Leo barked, ‘No!’

Camilla said, ‘Better not, darling. The last time you intervened, Beverley hit
you
.’

After a while the screaming stopped, and the only sound to be heard through the wall was Vince, sobbing for his dog.

The opinion polls alarmed Jack; the Government was neck and neck with the New Cons. Just what did he have to do to lose this election? Call the electorate moronic bastards on television? Suggest the culling of girl babies? He was constantly astonished at how complacent and compliant the electorate were. Sometimes he wondered if those bastards at Porton Down were slipping something into the water supply, but there was nobody he could ask because there was nobody he
could trust. He couldn’t even discuss his thoughts with his wife.

As Jack went through the motions of electioneering, Caroline was constantly at his side wearing an ever-changing collection of outfits and smiling as they alighted from cars, coaches, helicopters and trains. The press and public seemed to like her, and the public mistook his bad temper and manner for bluff honesty. They applauded Jack’s increasingly taciturn behaviour, his rudeness to journalists.

When he warned a local television audience during an otherwise unremarkable speech in a leisure centre hall in Grimsby that if re-elected, he would raise the basic level of income tax to fifty per cent, saying, ‘If you want excellent public services, you’ll have to pay for ’em,’ the audience applauded and gave him a standing ovation of three minutes and fifteen seconds. He had left the platform scowling and shaking his fist, but, as ever, his belligerence was interpreted as passion.

A leader in
The Times
said: ‘Mr Barker has expressed some unpalatable truths about taxation. We may not want to hear them, but we ignore such fiscal realities at our peril.’ Reading the press the next day, Jack was reminded of a book by Samuel Butler he had once read,
Erewhon
, in which the world was turned upside down and inside out, convicted criminals were treated in hospitals, the sick were sent to prison.

He hardly slept and appeared at the morning press conferences pale and hollow-eyed; he ate very little and lost weight; he let his hair grow and stopped shaving as meticulously as he had previously. One day he left
Number Ten wearing an old pair of hipster jeans and a denim shirt. He became a cult figure in France, where he was called ‘Le bloke anglais’. The readers of
Heat
voted him the sexiest man in politics; even his wife began to find him attractive again.

He ignored his advisers and speechwriters and made short, off-the-cuff speeches that were frequently interrupted by wild cheering and applause. He debated with the audiences who flocked to see him. Sometimes he was fantastically indiscreet, confiding to a meeting in Hull that he missed Pat, his first wife. Caroline, sitting behind him on the stage, had no time in which to arrange her face; photographs of her angry expression appeared on most front pages the next morning.

Pat was interviewed by Jenni Murray on
Woman’s Hour
and confessed that she still cared for the Prime Minister.

‘I didn’t want to divorce him,’ Pat said in a choked voice, ‘but I didn’t want to stand in his way. He couldn’t help falling in love with somebody else.’

Jenni Murray said, sounding as though she wanted to give Pat a good shake, ‘Well, thank you, Pat Barker. Coming up next, women saxophonists, why are there so few?’

It was Roy Hattersley’s dog, Buster, famous among dogs as a wit and author, who was credited with starting the civil disobedience movement that swept through the canine population of England like a fire through a hayfield. At first, unofficial meetings were held in parks, recreation grounds and inner-city alleyways. A few of the more neurotic dogs volunteered for suicide missions, but were told by their pack leaders that martyrdom would not be necessary.

At twilight, the dogs of the Flowers Exclusion Zone met by arrangement inside the walls and padlocked gates of the long-abandoned adventure playground. Earlier in the day, a little terrier called Eddie had tunnelled an entrance sufficiently deep to allow Rocky, the tallest dog on the estate, to pass through.

Micky Toby looked round fondly. His eyes were bright and his tongue lolled out of his grinning face. He remembered when the playground had been full of dogs and children, before the health and safety laws had meant that dogs were banned, and children were forbidden to climb the trees or use a hammer and nails to knock up a rudimentary den. A risk assessment form had to be filled in before a child was allowed to play. Soon the children had stopped coming and the playground was closed.

A truce had been called between the mongrels and the pedigrees, and individuals from both classes were intermingled in the crowd. Harris, flanked by bodyguards Spike and Rocky, jumped up on a rotting climbing frame and barked for attention. A golden retriever called Nelson, who had been asleep in the front row, sat to attention and pricked up his ears. Other dogs ceased their conversations and waited for Harris to speak; a few puppies were cuffed into silence by their mothers.

‘
Mein
fellow dogs,’ Harris barked, ‘We come together as dogs, regardless of breed or breeding.’

Princess Michael’s dog, Zsa-Zsa, said, ‘But we pedigree dogs, those of us who have been carefully and expertly bred, cannot possibly associate with mongrels. We barely speak the same language.’

Harris said, ‘The anti-dog laws apply to all dogs regardless of the purity of their bloodline.’

‘But,’ continued Zsa-Zsa, ‘a mongrel has never won Best Dog at Cruft’s.’

Micky Toby barked, ‘Only because we ain’t allowed to enter.’

Rocky growled for silence and Harris continued, ‘Many of the more intelligent breeds among you will have heard about the threat posed to our canine world by this dog-hating Government. However, the more stupid dogs, and I think you know who you are,
Dummkopf
…’

There was gruff laughter; several heads turned to look at the runts of litters.

‘…and the dogs who take no interest in human
affairs, may not be aware of the implications of these draconian proposals. I will touch briefly on each.

‘One: the Government is proposing to charge our feeders five hundred pounds annually for a licence fee, for each of us.’

Britney howled, ‘That’s me out on the street. The pliers woman ain’t got that sorta money.’

Susan yapped, ‘Quiet, you slag!’

Althorp and Carling began to play-fight and were separated by Freddie, who had appointed himself as chief steward.

‘Two: only one dog is to be allowed per household.’

Leo whined, ‘I’m the youngest of three. Will it be last in, first out?’

‘Three: flat dwellers are barred from keeping a dog. Although…’ Harris said, bitterly, ‘…cats will be allowed.’

There was an outbreak of angry barking at this news. After they had quietened down, Harris resumed.

‘Four: our ablutions can only take place in designated areas, which will be sited far away from human habitation.

‘Five: any dog exercising its right to bark after ten o’clock in the evening will be taken to a government centre, and killed!’

An angry Dobermann snarled, ‘I’m a watchdog. How can I do my job if I can’t bark in the night?’

There was sustained and angry barking, which only stopped when Rocky and Spike called for order.

Harris continued, ‘Our enemy is the Cromwell Party and their supporters. For now, we do nothing but watch
and listen. We have spies in high places who have promised to keep us informed of any new developments. Are there any questions?’

Zsa-Zsa yelped, ‘I do not have a question, but I want you all to know zat I am here under duress. I was bullied into coming here tonight by the horrid dogs of Hell Close. I am not a political animal, none of the issues you are getting yourselves excited about affect me. I am an only dog, I hardly leave my garden, and I do not bark after ten o’clock at night.’

Tosca growled, ‘What about the dogs in multi-dog households? Think about our situation.’

A mongrel from the back whimpered, ‘We’re going to die, we’re going to die.’

Some of the more sensitive dogs began to howl.

Harris barked, ‘Control yourselves, we will fight back, and destroy our enemies.’

A mongrel called Scarlet, whose recent ancestor was a New Guinea singing dog, jumped gracefully on to the climbing frame and stood next to Harris. She lifted her wedge-shaped head and began to croon, and the dogs in the audience fell silent, entranced by her voice as she sang:

Dogs of England see the light,
Leave your homes and join the fight.
For too long we have slept,
Always willing to accept.
Now’s the time to show our teeth,
Hail to Harris, he’s our chief.
Humans, hear our battle cry,
We will not lie down and die.
Humans, hear our battle cry,
We will not lie down and die.

At the end of the song there was wild barking; Scarlet bowed her head modestly.

Spike growled, ‘Again, sing it again.’

The little dog raised her head once more and sang, louder and more confidently this time. Soon, thanks to the stirring melody and the simple lyric, even the most stupid of dogs were word perfect. Outside on the Flowers Estate, residents were alarmed when they heard the eerie howling emanating from the abandoned playground. Charles and Camilla turned the volume down on the radio and listened at the front door to the unearthly-sounding canine song.

‘Darling, where are the dogs?’ Charles asked Camilla.

‘They haven’t come home for their tea,’ said Camilla. ‘Should we worry?’

After the howling had stopped, Charles said, ‘Listen to that.’

Camilla said, ‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘Precisely,’ said Charles. ‘I can’t hear a single dog barking.’

They both strained their ears, but the dogs in the playground had agreed that they would travel to their homes in silence, and under cover of darkness.

When Leo, Freddie and Tosca had scratched at their front door and been let in, Camilla said, ‘You’re late for your tea, darlings.’

Leo growled, ‘So?’

‘What have you been doing?’ she asked.

Freddie snarled, ‘Nothing.’

‘Where have you been?’ she asked.

‘Nowhere,’ snapped Tosca.

All three dogs walked by Charles without greeting him, and went into the kitchen.

Charles and Camilla exchanged a worried glance: why were their dogs exhibiting such coldness towards them? What had they done to deserve such treatment? For the rest of the evening the dogs preferred to keep their own company, lying together under the kitchen table. When Charles let them out into the back garden to pee, before he went to his own bed, the dogs ran to the back fence barking. The two foxes joined them and all five sang ‘Dogs of England’ together.

On the other side of the close, the Queen turned her television down; Harris and Susan were howling in the bedroom, where they had been since coming home late for their tea.

The Queen shouted upstairs, ‘What is it, darlings? Are you hurt?’

The dogs ignored her and carried on singing until the end of the song. When the Queen went up to bed, the dogs left the bedroom without acknowledging her in any way. Without their comforting presence on the end of the bed, the Queen could not easily get to sleep. She lay awake wondering what she had done to elicit their disapproval.

Boy English and his advisers were in his office at the New Con party headquarters watching their party political broadcast, which was due to go out in a few days on all terrestrial channels simultaneously. It featured Boy’s dog, Billy, for at least a quarter of the film’s content. An adviser had said, as they watched the DVD, ‘Can we rejig the dog digitally, turn it into a cat?’