Mrs. Queen Takes the Train (27 page)

“Okay. I’m not saying you’re an ogre.” She stopped a moment to think. “What is an ogre, anyway? Someone out of some sort of Paki fairy tale?”

“Oooh, darlin’,” Rajiv said, putting his arm around her. “You must like me if you’re calling me that. Because you know very well you’re not allowed to say it to a black man.”

“You’re not black. Sort of cappuccino colored. Anyway, people say ‘Paki’ all the time.”

“That they do. But it’s stupid, isn’t it? Why should a short form of ‘Pakistan’ apply to all the different varieties of South Asian ethnicity? And people don’t say ‘Paki’ to my face usually. Not unless they’re about to hit me. Or unless they’re my very good friends.” He gave her a sudden nudge of his shoulder. “Oh, sorry. The rails are so uneven up here.”

She giggled contentedly, having forgotten she was annoyed with him. An announcement on the train’s public address system that York was the next station stop and would be coming up shortly dispelled the moment of accord between them.

“Okay, stop it now. There will be people coming through soon, and we’ve got to make sure no one notices her in there. Or bothers her.”

“Nothing we can do to stop that. Anyway, she’s got her disguise on. I think you were in on this from the start, weren’t you? Helping her make her escape. Loaned her your jacket so no one would ever recognize her with that hood over her head?”

“I told you. I loaned it to her because when she walked in to speak to Elizabeth she hadn’t a coat on and it was sleeting outside.”

“Hmm. What else?”

“Well, we’re proceeding on a ‘need to know’ basis, aren’t we? If you find out too much from me, you’ll have some telephoto lens trained on the horse stalls, won’t you?”

“No, I like getting my shots spur of the moment. Just as you find them. You know, before people can make up a face to meet the camera.”

“And photos of The Queen when she isn’t expecting to be photographed, that’s your service to humanity, is it?”

“People want to see her. It gives them pleasure.”

“And her? What about her pleasure?”

“Well, I think in a long life, she must’ve got used to being photographed. And it must please her to give pleasure.”

“I’m not sure she feels that way about it.”

“Okay. How does she feel about it?”

Rebecca actually had no idea. “Well, I don’t know for certain, but I guess she prefers being photographed when she can actually anticipate the camera’s being there. And doesn’t like it when she’s taken by surprise. Who likes to be taken by surprise?”

“You didn’t mind it. A minute ago. After you saw the picture.”

Rebecca did not intend rising to this bait, and in fact, the train was slowing down for the platform at York, so she didn’t have to. People were beginning to appear in the vestibule to get ready to step over them on leaving the train, so they both struggled to their feet to make way. The station stop was brief and whatever intimacy they’d managed to establish had evaporated by the time the signal had sounded, the door had been electronically locked, and the train was again rolling out of the station.

They both settled back onto the floor, but an awkward silence descended. Rebecca was uncomfortable with it. “Okay, your turn to check that she’s still there.”

“Why? She didn’t get off at York.”

“No, not through this door she didn’t. But we’ve got to make sure she’s fine. She has no police with her. We’re all there is.”

Rajiv struggled to his feet. “Then I will go and do the bidding of the representative of the Master of the Horse.”

“God, we’re not under him anymore.”

“Well, what division of Her Majesty’s Household are you, then?”

“Just go and look, okay?”

Rajiv went up to the glass door next to several aluminum racks loaded with oversized cases and bags. He looked cautiously through it into the carriage. The seats were all practically full, with the exception of the table nearest to the partition on the left. There four seats were empty except for some newspapers and coats. What looked like an aluminum dish filled with water sat underneath the table. The small woman in the hoodie, the man with the piercings, and the blind couple were all gone.

“Houston, we have a problem,” said Rajiv sliding down the wall next to Rebecca.

“What?”

“Table’s empty. Rest of the carriage full. She’s not in there.”

“Christ! This is my fault. If I hadn’t listened to all your nonsense, I’d have kept better track of her. Come. On.” She was on her feet with a snap and striding off down the central aisle of the carriage. Rajiv had to run to keep up.

At the next vestibule, he cried out. “Hang on a minute.”

“Hurry. Up.” She was impatient. She wanted no conversation.

“Look. We’ve got to have a story. I’m not supposed to be on this train. She told me to get off. I can’t just turn up next to her wherever she’s sitting now. She was already a little annoyed with me that I left the shop to put her on the train.”

“All right. Go find the guard. See if a woman in a hoodie got off at York.”

“What would she want there?”

“You fool. There’s the Minster. She’ll know the Dean and all the canons. It’s the first place she’d go. And if she did get off there we’re stuck on the train until the next stop, Darlington, which is useless.”

“If she wanted to see friends, she’d hardly walk away from the palace by herself, would she?”

“Look, I’m not arguing with you. Go and find the guard.” She was off. Rajiv could just see the soles of her riding boots, like the hooves of an antelope, disappearing into the vestibule of the next carriage.

He wasn’t sure what to do next. He was pretty certain The Queen hadn’t got off the train at York. Old ladies don’t walk longer distances than necessary, and it would have made more sense to get off using the door where he and Rebecca had been sitting than for her to walk all the way to the other end of the carriage. Further, he had an intuitive dislike of the lower levels of British officialdom. He was convinced that people with brown faces didn’t get the same treatment as others, so he wasn’t about to approach the guard with unusual questions. It was true that he’d been born in England to an educated father and rich grandparents, but in his experience, the elderly, some of the provincial working classes, and almost all of the unemployable underclass regarded him as “foreign.” He was on the alert for slights and hazards and racial prejudice of all varieties. Instead of seeking out the guard, he decided The Queen must have gone with the other passengers from her table to the carriage with the restaurant and buffet. He took his time walking there and sloped up behind Rebecca, whom he found leaning against the wall of the buffet portion of the carriage with a view down a short corridor into the dining part of the car.

“In there,” she hissed to him when she looked around behind her and found him standing there with a crooked smile.

“Thought so,” said Rajiv. “What do we do now?”

“We wait here and see where she goes.”

“Oh, well then, if she’s having her supper, it will be a little while, then. We might have a cup of coffee or something. What do you like? White or black?”

She looked around at him a little anxiously.

“Not me, love. The coffee. What kind of coffee do you like?”

W
illiam and Luke arrived at Victoria Coach Station after a fifteen-minute run. Luke had no difficulty whatsoever, but William, who exercised less and was ten years older, had to rely on adrenaline to keep up. They both jumped on a Scottish coach that was just about to leave. Before they knew it they were sitting together, shoulder to shoulder in the darkness, with only the light from the passing lamps on the motorway flashing greenly on their faces.

[© Stephen McKay]

Luke quickly made it clear, in response to William’s repeated appeals, that he was not authorizing telling anyone else about The Queen’s movements. The women would care for her in Edinburgh. There was nothing to do until they had a further bulletin either from Rebecca or Mrs MacDonald and Lady Anne. William saw there was no arguing with Luke on this. He was unreasonable about it. William could only stick with him and make sure nothing more foolish was undertaken.

There was some unease between them. They weren’t friends exactly. Too much divided them. And yet here, outside the palace, beyond their normal roles, something of the gap between them seemed to be reduced. Although Luke was the younger of the two, his instinct from his palace position was to try and kindle a conversation, to keep it going. He also knew, though he’d insisted on the plan of their telling no one else, that there was a chance he was wrong about this. He was prisoner to what he himself could recognize was the less rational half of his brain. The only thing for it was to seek some forgiveness from this older man who had, after all, expressed an interest in keeping an eye on him. The best way he could think of seeking forgiveness was by getting William to talk a bit about himself. Everyone liked talking about themselves. It was the only thing he had to offer his traveling companion.

“So you think you’ll be at the palace long after me, do you?”

“I don’t think. I know. The equerries serve for two or three years at the outside.”

“Well, um, not if they get appointed to the private office, or the Privy Purse, or um, as racing managers, now?”

William laughed shortly through his nose. “I’d wager you don’t know the first thing about racing. And even the private secretaries serve for a limited spell. They tend to have a few more qualifications than you, my darling.” This was meant as a truthful tease, and William added the “my darling” as a way of indicating it was a tease, though an affectionate one.

“And why are you content to remain there with so many temporaries about, brilliantly qualified though they may be?”

“Well, I was born in a dreary little place. The people I went to school with, when they left, if they finished, went off to live dull lives, without much color, certainly without any style. I always wanted something better than that. The palace isn’t perfection. Plenty of rivalry, politics.” William paused for a moment and thought of one of his colleagues, Reginald Brown, a butler who was senior to him at the palace. They called him “Le Brun,” or “Brunello,” or plain “Bruno” behind his back. As a tease someone told The Queen that he actually liked being called “Bruno,” so she started calling him that too. Bruno was furious and blamed William for it. One day last week Bruno had sneered into William’s ear, “I hear you’re friendly with the new equerry. Watch your step, young William. Careful you don’t trip.” William had heard the threat distinctly, though he pretended not to understand. If anyone knew how to trip him up, Bruno did.

William quickly decided that he couldn’t tell any of this to Luke. So he continued, “The pay’s not good. But the standard of service is high. And they appreciate it, as a kind of art, you know. How to appear at the elbow and disappear behind the curtain. It’s a bit like being onstage, but the best performance is the one that gets noticed the least.”

It had never occurred to Luke before to see a butler in this light. In a dozen luncheons and dinners with The Queen he could never recall having seen what precisely they were doing. Maybe this was their art.

“Everyone thinks of being a waiter, or, worse, a butler, as humiliating. They think of the butler in, what was that film?
The Remains of the Day.
He’s pathetic. Gives his whole life to serve a Nazi. The audience loves to think of what we do as sad. They all want to be on the sofa in front of the telly, serving themselves. They think we should all be out making money or a name for ourselves. But, actually, you see, service is something that takes time and effort to do well. It takes self-denial to do it right. It’s like knowing the rules of a wedding ceremony. Or how a cab driver memorizes all the backstreets of London. I know what fork goes out for oysters, where it’s placed, and which wine goes with it. Coming by that knowledge, doing it properly, all those are worthwhile things.”

“And does The Queen appreciate it?”

“She does. She performs the same sort of act, goes through similar rituals every day. If anyone knows the order of a ceremony, she does. And even if she didn’t appreciate it, even if, say, whoever’s king or queen after her doesn’t appreciate what we do, it would still be worth doing, because it’s part of life at the palace. It’s the gilt on the ceiling, the Gainsborough in the frame, the brocade on the sofa. It’s not about putting a tea bag in a mug, mate.”

“No, I see that. And what about Emma Thompson? What was she called? Miss Kenton or something? Or is it impossible to serve The Queen and have a life outside too?”

“Not impossible, no. But I haven’t put as much effort into finding my own Anthony Hopkins as I have into learning the drill. Surely it’s obvious that Emma Thompson is not really my type.”

Luke was alarmed. The conversation seemed to have taken a dangerous turn toward declaring sexual preference. Luke himself had never had a proper girlfriend, or a boyfriend either, for that matter. Confessing that lack, that total absence in his life, seemed a more damaging admission just then than saying that he was either straight or gay. Still, it also seemed rather churlish, cowardly even, to clam up at such a moment. “Well, being in the army, it means moving from place to place every few years. There’s no time for settling down with anyone. Maybe it’s been like that with you too. You’re always travelling with Her Majesty. Away from London for what must add up to some months every year, I guess, year in and year out.”