The Queen and I (24 page)

Princess Margaret arrived, draped in a black veil and said, “People are putting horrid bunches of cheap flowers on Mummy’s lawn.”

The Queen went outside just as Mrs Christmas was laying a bunch of cornflowers onto the grass. A note attached said:

“With grate sympathy from Mr & Mrs Christmas and the boys.”

Other Hell Close residents milled around reading the floral tributes. There was one from Inspector Holyland, a traditionally shaped wreath in red, white and blue carnations. On the florist’s card he had written:

“God bless you, Ma’am, from Inspector Holyland and the lads at the barrier.”

But the largest and most beautiful display was being carried across the road by Fitzroy Toussaint. Two dozen fragrant lilies surrounded by a cloud of gypsophila. A florist’s van pulled up and more flowers and wreaths were placed on the grass by eager Hell Close volunteers. Tony Threadgold had picked lilac from the scabby tree in his back garden.

At 8.30 precisely, Gilbert trotted up outside the Queen Mother’s bungalow, pulling the cart which had been transformed into a thing of beauty. The purple and black paintwork sparkled, the wheels had touches of gold inside the rims and the initials “Q.M.” had been stencilled in her favourite colour, periwinkle blue, all around the edges of the cart itself.

Gilbert’s bridle had been cleaned and polished, and his coat gleamed. New shoes had been bought for him to mark the occasion and he stepped out proudly, lifting each foot as though he were used to taking a central role in royal ceremonies. A hush fell over the crowd of Hell Close residents as Anne and Spiggy got down from the cart and entered the bungalow. Gilbert bent his head and started to munch on Inspector Holyland’s wreath before Wilf Toby took the reins and jerked Gilbert’s head upright.

A police car containing Mr Pike, the prison officer, and Charles entered Hell Close with a police driver at the wheel. Charles was wearing a dark suit with a black tie and a pink shirt. His pony tail was tied at the back in its now customary red towelling band. On his right hand he was wearing a handcuff. Mr Pike wore his prison uniform and a handcuff on his left hand. Charles had thought, why couldn’t Diana follow the simplest of instructions? I asked for a
white
shirt in my letter. The car stopped and Charles and Mr Pike, joined at the wrist, got out and went into the bungalow. The Queen was disappointed when she saw Charles. She had hoped that he would, by now, have had a regulation prison haircut. And why was he wearing a
pink
shirt of all things, was it a symbol of his growing anarchy?

The coffin bearers assembled in the Queen Mother’s bedroom. Tony Threadgold, Spiggy, George Beresford, Mr Christmas, Wilf Toby and Prince Charles, temporarily released from Mr Pike. Spiggy was nervous. He was a good eight inches shorter than the other men; would his arms reach the coffin or would he be left looking ridiculous, with his hands grasping fresh air? George checked the screws on the coffin lid and, watched by the principal mourners, the men heaved the coffin onto their shoulders. Spiggy was forced to stretch, but to his great relief the tips of his fingers made contact with the wood. The coffin was manoeuvred carefully through the small rooms and out into the street.

The crowd watched in silence as the men went to the back of the cart and slid the coffin along until it was perfectly placed and secured by its own weight. The Queen asked that a small posy of sweet peas be placed on top of the coffin and then the other flowers and wreaths were passed up until the cart resembled a flower stall in a market. Anne jumped to the front of the cart and took the reins and Gilbert moved off at a suitably funereal pace. Philomena stood inside the closed front door of the bungalow, waiting. When she heard the crowd move away and the clip clop of Gilbert’s hooves receding in the distance, she opened the curtains wide to let in the sunshine. She then flung the front door open to let out the spirit of the Queen Mother.

The horse and cart and the mourners passed through the barrier. Inspector Holyland saluted smartly and avoided eye contact with Charles. The procession was followed at a distance by the coachload of policemen, who were ready to repel representatives of the media, should any be foolhardy enough to challenge the ban on their presence. It was only half a mile to the church and the adjoining graveyard, but Diana wished she hadn’t worn her highest black court shoes, though once again she was on public display, if only to the people outside their houses watching silently as the procession passed by.

Victor Berryman came out of Food-U-R accompanied by his check-out women and an adolescent youth, a shelf-filler, wearing a back-to-front baseball cap. As the cart trundled by, Victor snatched the cap from the youth’s head and gave him a mini-lecture on showing respect for the dead. Mrs Berryman, marooned by agoraphobia, watched sadly from an upstairs window.

The last stage of the journey lay ahead. Cowslip Hill, where the little church was situated. Gilbert strained within the shafts of the cart and adjusted himself to the incline. A gang of men and women were planting trees at the side of the road and they laid down their spades as the procession went by.

“Trees,” exclaimed the Queen.

“Marvellous, isn’t it?” said Charles. “I heard it on Radio Four. Jack Barker has ordered a massive tree planting operation. I hope they’ve prepared the planting holes properly,” he said, looking back anxiously.

Diana was stumbling now and Fitzroy Toussaint, dazzling in his dark suit, took her arm solicitously. This was a woman who needed support, he thought, and he was the man to give it to her, he added, to himself. Though he knew in his heart that this woman was strong enough to survive alone one day, when she’d recovered her self respect.

Anne said, “Ay oop,” as she’d been taught by Spiggy and Gilbert came to a stop outside the churchyard. The crowd of mourners filed into the church and became a congregation and when they were all in place the coffin was brought in and placed at the altar. The Queen had chosen “All Things Bright and Beautiful” for the first hymn and “Amazing Grace” for the second. The Hell Close congregation sang along with gusto. They knew the words and enjoyed the singing. Sing-songs in the pub started easily and did not usually stop until brought to an end by the landlord. The Royal mourners sang in a more restrained fashion, apart from the Queen, who felt strangely invigorated, almost released. She heard Crawfie say, “Sing up girrl, open your lungs!” and she did, startling Margaret and Charles, who stood at either side of her.

At the end of the funeral service the vicar said, “Before we move on to the churchyard I’d like you to join me in a prayer of thanksgiving.”

“Vicar’s won the pools,” said Mr Christmas to his wife.

“Shurrup!” hissed Mrs Christmas. “Show some bleedin’ respect. You’re in church.”

The vicar waited, then went on, “Yesterday an attempt was made on the life of our beloved Prime Minister. Fortunately, thanks to God’s intervention all ended well.”

Princess Margaret said
sotto voce
, “Fortunately for whom?”

But the Queen shot her a death ray look which silenced her.

The vicar continued, though his patience was wearing thin, “Almighty God, thank you for sparing the life of thy servant, Jack Barker. Our small community has already benefited from his wise leadership. Our school is to get a new roof, there are plans to renovate our run-down houses …”

“I got me giro on time!” interrupted a man called Giro Johnson from the back of the church.

“And I got a job!” shouted George Beresford, flourishing a letter from the new Ministry of Emergency House Building.

Other people called out their experiences of Jack’s munificence. Philomena Toussaint began speaking in tongues and Mr Pike, carried away by the emotional atmosphere, confided that his dream for Castle Prison was to see flushing lavatories installed in every cell. “We shall overcome!” he shouted.

The vicar thought, really, this is turning into a revivalist meeting. He had disapproved of the charismatic church ever since his wife had told him, during a quarrel, that he lacked charisma. After Charles had sung out that he thought the tree-planting scheme was “proof of Mr Barker’s care for the environment”, the vicar decided enough was enough and ordered the congregation to kneel and put their hands together in silent prayer.

The moment when the coffin was lowered into the open grave was hard to bear for the Queen and she held her hands out to her two eldest children before she threw a handful of earth onto the coffin. Margaret’s face hidden behind her veil showed disapproval; the Queen was showing her emotions – it was bad form, like peeling a sticking plaster away and displaying a wound. Charles grieved. Anne clutched at him and the Queen turned to both of them and tried to comfort them. Margaret watched with increasing alarm as Royal protocol was breached by Hell Close residents who, one by one, went up to the Queen and hugged her. And what was Diana doing in the arms of Fitzroy Toussaint? Why was Anne bent down and crying on that little fat man’s shoulder? Margaret shuddered and turned away and began to walk back down the hill.

The funeral reception went on until late in the afternoon. The Queen talked happily about memories she had of her mother and circulated among her guests with an unforced informality. Meanwhile, Philomena Toussaint sat next door in her kitchen, listening to the sounds of jollity next door. She couldn’t stay in a house where alcohol was being served. She took a chair, stood on it and started to rearrange all the tins and packets and cartons in her high cupboard. All the empty tins, the empty packets, the empty cartons, which represented an old woman’s pride and a pauper’s pension.

At the same time as the funeral reception was breaking up, Prince Philip, fortified by liquid food, sat up in bed and assured a contract nurse new to the ward that he was indeed the Duke of Edinburgh. He was married to the Queen, father of the Prince of Wales, and user of the Royal yacht
Britannia
, which cost £30,000 a day to run.

“Sure you are,” the nurse said in her lilting accent, looking closely at the wide-eyed lunatic. “Sure you are.” She turned from Philip’s bedside towards the patient next to him, who said loudly, “I am the new Messiah!”

“Sure you are,” she said. “Sure you are.”

Prince Charles begged Mr Pike to be allowed to see his garden and Pike, mellowed by two tins of extra strength lager, relented, saying, “One minute, while I have a pee.”

Pike went into the upstairs lavatory and Charles whispered to Diana, “Quick, find my shell suit and trainers.”

Diana did as she was told, whilst Charles looked in horror at the dehydrated devastation that had once been his garden. The lavatory flushed and they heard Pike go into the bathroom to wash his hands. Diana watched as her husband threw off his funeral clothes and changed into the shell suit and training shoes. When she realised the significance of his actions, she ran to get her purse. She took out a twenty pound note and said, “Good luck, darling, I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

Charles was running as Mr Pike dried his hands upstairs and he had leapt over the back garden fence as Pike opened the bathroom cabinet for a snoop; and he was on his way to freedom and the North, as Pike, his curiosity satisfied, closed the cabinet and headed downstairs to take the prisoner under escort back to prison.

June

45 Near Miss

Jack Barker was entertaining a delegation from the Mothers’ Union, who were petitioning for the legislation of licensed brothels. They were in the drawing room at Number Ten, eating little hot snacks and talking about flagellation and colonic irrigation. Jack was trying very hard to show that he wasn’t at all shocked by the conversation of these respectable-looking middle-aged women.

“But,” said Jack to Mrs Butterworth the leader of the delegation. “You wouldn’t want a brothel next door to
you
, would you?”

Mrs Butterworth snatched a piece of crispy seaweed from a tray carried by a passing waitress and said, “But I’ve
got
a brothel next door to me. The brothel keeper is a charming woman and the girls are as good as gold. Their garden is beautifully kept.”

Jack had a mental image of scantily dressed tarts whipping the borders into shape.

“So unfair,” said Mrs Butterworth, “that they should live under the threat of prosecution.”

Jack nodded in agreement but his mind was on other matters. He was due to make a statement to Parliament in half an hour. He was dreading facing that angry bear pit and explaining how he was proposing to repay the Japanese loan. Rosetta Higgins, Jack’s personal private secretary, came into the room and signalled that it was time to leave. Jack shook Mrs Butterworth’s hand, promised to “address this most important matter”, waved goodbye to the other women and left. Just before the door closed he heard Mrs Butterworth say to a cluster of women: “
Divine
eyes, nice bum, pity about the dandruff.”

As he came out of Number Ten, Jack brushed the shoulders of his dark jacket and thought, you fat old cow, I’ll find out where you live and I’ll have that knocking shop busted. He immediately regretted this vengeful thought. What was happening to him? He turned to Rosetta sitting next to him in the official car and said, “Get me some Head and Shoulders later, will you?”

“Get your own,” she said. “I’m working a sixteen-hour day as it is. When do
I
have time to shop?”

“Well I can’t go into a shop, can I?” whined Jack.

The driver said, “I’ll get the bleedin’ shampoo. There’s a shop on the corner of Trafalgar Square. What kinda hair you got Jack? Greasy? Dry? Normal?”

Jack turned to Rosetta and asked, “What kind of hair have I got?”

“Sparse,” she said.

Jack’s hair clogged the drain of the shower in the mornings. As he rushed from meeting room to official engagement to Commons he left behind tangible reminders of himself. The hairs on his head detached themselves and floated away, looking for somewhere to settle. They no longer felt secure, or attached to Jack’s head.