Mrs. Queen Takes the Train (28 page)

“True,” said William simply. He was aware of having volunteered quite a lot about his own life already. He wanted to hear what Luke’s life was like, but he wanted him to tell it of his own accord.

Luke had been taught to abhor a silence at The Queen’s table, or over cocktails in anterooms of the palace. It was his job to make sure that no one felt ill at ease. Mixed with that social instinct, however, was his postwar tendency not to have entire control of his emotions and to sleep too much. He was always restraining himself from blurting out something that was more personal than the rules of palace social conduct generally allowed. So now he rushed forward, just as William hoped he would. “I mean, I’ve been in the army practically since school. I’ve never had a girlfriend. Just mates. I guess you must think that sounds pretty bizarre.”

“Not necessarily,” said William evenly. “You’re the one who matters. What do you think about it?”

“Well, I don’t really know how it feels to be otherwise. When you’re serving abroad, it’s nice to have mates you can laugh with, whom you can count on.” He looked out the window. “If they don’t let you down.” He had rushed forward with one confession, now he seemed to be teetering on the edge of another.

William thought about what Luke had said for several minutes before he said, “And did one of them let you down?”

Luke said nothing for a long time. Then he said quietly, “Well, I think I might have let him down.”

William knew that what he’d just heard was a tremendous disclosure. He thought it more tactful to pretend as if he’d fallen asleep. It would save Luke embarrassment. He closed his eyes and began breathing regularly. Luke looked over and saw William sleeping. He didn’t know whether to be hurt or relieved that the older man had not heard what he said.

T
he Queen and the blind couple and the man with piercings made their way to the restaurant, which was one half of a carriage. The dining half had a row of tables, draped with white cloths, set for four persons each. They found an empty table, and a waiter dressed in a red waistcoat came to take their orders for drinks as he passed around menus. The blind man was aware that his new train acquaintance had what he regarded as a highbrow accent out of a Nancy Mitford novel, so as he took his seat, he began by apologizing. “It’s a bit early for supper, isn’t it? Perhaps we should regard it as a meat tea?”

“No, no!” said The Queen. “Hohenzollern is starving, aren’t you, darling?” The Queen was pleasant to everyone at the table, but also held them at arm’s length with practiced politeness. Her replies were her shield. The dog she addressed with real warmth.

“Now, madam,” the blind man said, bowing in what he took to be her general direction, “what shall our railway waiter bring you to drink?”

“A martini, please,” said The Queen, smiling to herself.

“A martini?” said the waiter, thinking that she wanted a Manhattan-style cocktail made with a silver shaker. There was no way he could produce this in his minuscule kitchen.

“No, not an American one. An old-fashioned English martini: two parts Dubonnet, two parts gin, and a bit of lemon peel. All mixed up together. On ice.”

“I’m sorry, Madam, there is no space for a shaker. We don’t have one.”

“Well, bring me the bottles and a glass of ice and lemon and I’ll put it together. It doesn’t have to be shaken in the air to do the trick.”

“And you, young man?” said the blind man in his friendliest way to the man with piercings.

“Mine’s lager.”

“And gin and tonics for myself and the lady wife, please,” said the blind man, doing his best Rumpole imitation and hoping it was recognized.

The waiter saw right away this was going to be a difficult table. He skipped off, swaying down the aisle with the motion of the train to fetch the drinks.

“You’ll have to help us with the menus,” said the woman in spectacles to the young man with piercings. “The nice restaurants always have Braille menus, but . . .”

“But this is the Great North Eastern Railway, darling. We shall be lucky if they warm our baked beans on a ring,” put in her husband.

“These prices are out
rage
ous,” said The Queen, examining her menu.

“I shall be beginning my talk on the Elizabethan court before long,” said the blind man jovially. “Perhaps that will take some of the sting out of the tariff of Great North Eastern Railway.”

“Not that,” said the young man with piercings.

“Oh, please, darling, no,” said the blind man’s wife, laughing, but meaning it.

“Hohenzollern and I would be very pleased with a cheese sandwich from the buffet car.” The Queen really thought the expense was getting out of hand.

“My dog is descended from the Kaiser and he does not eat in the buffet car.”

“And looks a bit like him too.
Don’t you
?” said The Queen, grasping the dog’s velvet ear.

“Now, tell us, please, what’s for supper, and no cheese sandwiches,” said the blind man to The Queen.

“Well, there’s a steak of Aberdeen Angus. Loch Fine salmon. Lincolnshire roast duckling. Morecambe Bay prawns in a curry sauce. And look here, Welsh rarebit too! All British. A fine menu, don’t you think?” The Queen’s voice, for the first time that evening, indicated real pride.

“Where’s the Irish coffee?” muttered the young man. The blind man’s wife heard him and chuckled.

The waiter returned with their drinks and took their orders for supper. He was stacking the menus in his hand and made ready to turn on his heel when The Queen stopped him short. “Just a moment, young man.”

“Madam?”

“Hohenzollern will be dining as well,” said The Queen, nodding to the dog, who looked up expectantly from underneath the table. “You haven’t taken his order.”

“Madam, we haven’t any way of feeding dogs on the train.”

“He’ll have some minced beef. Browned quickly. Add to it some plain white rice and a little
bouillon
,” said The Queen. “That’s beef broth. Put it together in a soup bowl and he’ll be happy.”

“That’s not on the menu, madam. I can’t do that. You don’t know our chef. He can produce wonders in his kitchen. But it’s not big. We haven’t the space. We can’t do special orders.”

Under the table Hohenzollern growled.

“Then I’ll have a word with Cook.” For an old woman, The Queen was out of her seat very quickly and stalking down the aisle, the waiter following her, protesting. They both disappeared into a small door from which pans clashing against one another could be heard.

Reduced to three, the conversation resumed. The young man with piercings said, “I can’t put my finger on it, but she reminds me of someone. And not Helen Mirren, neither.”

“Well, she does have an unusual voice, doesn’t she?” agreed the woman with spectacles.

“Too old for Helen Mirren, darling.”

“No, I know. Not Helen Mirren. But she reminds me of someone else. I think this young man is right,” said the woman in spectacles.

“Judi Dench perhaps? Or Prunella Scales? An actress playing a part out of Alan Bennett certainly,” said the blind man, once again proud of the fact that he could move so swiftly between history and contemporary fiction.

“I
love
Alan Bennett,” put in his wife.

“Yes, we have his entire
oeuvre
in Braille,” said the blind man, intending to send up his wife’s reading material, though in truth he quite enjoyed Alan Bennett too. “Bennett for the Blind, it is,” said he, taking a sip of his gin and chortling.

“Did you read the one about The Queen becoming a reader?” said the woman in spectacles to the young man at her side. “I did enjoy that one. So funny. And of course, being a reader myself, I liked that side of it.”

“Thought of yourself as The Queen, did you, darling?” called out the blind man, employing the kind of low blow that long-married couples sometimes give one another.

“No, not The Queen,” said the woman in spectacles, feeling some annoyance until the right riposte occurred to her. “No more than you fancy yourself Regius Professor of History.”

The Queen reappeared at the table in the midst of this testy exchange.

“We were just discussing Alan Bennett,” said the blind man.

“Oh yes,” said The Queen reseating herself. “
The Uncommon Reader
.”

“That’s it!” said the woman in spectacles delightedly. “Did you love it? I did!”

“Didn’t read it,” said The Queen briefly. She was on such relatively friendly terms with her table companions that she forgot to concentrate on keeping up her disguise. Her focus once again shifted. “The private office prepared some briefing notes for me. I had to meet Mr Alan Bennett with some other writing chaps. A Foyle’s literary evening. One of those things. I gave out the prizes. Fancy making
me
out to be a reader. There’s imagination for you,” said The Queen, taking a sip of her drink, which she’d quickly mixed together after the waiter brought her a glass and bottles. With her other hand she tugged on Hohenzollern’s ear under the table.

The conversation ceased abruptly.

The woman in spectacles audibly drew in her breath.

The young man with piercings, who didn’t care about Alan Bennett, and was not attending to the conversation, also looked around to examine The Queen more carefully.

Only the blind man was brave enough to speak. “You? Not a reader? You gave out the prizes at Foyle’s?” And, most incredulously of all: “You
met
Alan Bennett?”

“Yes, I met him. Charming man. Kept smiling at me all the time. Rather tongue-tied.”

“But. Are you, then, The, um? Are you Her . . . ? Are you,” the blind man dropped his voice and said in a whisper, “You’re not The Queen?”

The Queen saw her error. Everything suddenly snapped back into a clearer focus. She now saw that these people were on the verge of identifying her.

“Oh, yes! Why, yes I am! Queen of all I survey,” and she laughed delightedly as if she were a little girl and not an octogenarian.

The blind couple exhaled and began laughing with her. The young man with piercings was not so easily persuaded. “You do look like her.”

“People tell me that a lot.” The Queen decided to go after him as a way of keeping him quiet. “Now, you, of course. Who do you resemble? It’s as if I’ve seen your picture a thousand times.” The Queen had no idea who he looked like, but she knew enough about people’s vanity to know that he probably had an idea of some famous figure he thought he looked like.

The young man reddened. The Queen saw this and said triumphantly. “Ah, I see. You do look like him. You’ve just turned three shades of crimson. Who is it? Tell me who it is.”

“Sometimes they say I look like Johnny Depp.”

“That’s it!” said The Queen. She had no idea who Johnny whatever was. “Mr Jonathan Depth, of course!”

“But what were you doing giving out literary prizes at Foyle’s, then?” said the blind man with renewed skepticism.

“Oh, that. They wanted The Queen of course, but couldn’t get her. Went to bed early that night, she did.” The Queen threw back her head and gave a little rehearsed laugh to show them what a good time she was having. She had to do that sort of thing often enough, to calm people’s nervousness about speaking to her. “Then they wanted the Prince of Wales, but he has a thousand things to do, now The Queen is slowing down a tiny bit. Doing all his own things, plus quite a lot of hers. So they went on down the list. And settled on Princess Michael of Kent. But she wanted ‘expenses,’ you know, and an honorarium. So they couldn’t afford her. And, well, I own a few shares in the holding company. So they said, well, she must be interested in books if she has the shares. And they had to take me,” said The Queen, holding the table now, and bending over with amusement. Her body spoke a silent invitation to laugh with her. They all did, and the moment passed. The train rocked back and forth. The four of them were reflected in the window against the dark night, moving with the motion of the train, talking and taking sips from their glasses. Hohenzollern had his bowl of minced beef under the table, and The Queen looked down to confirm that all was well with him. She whispered under the table, “
Und dir, Hohenzollern? Wir geht es meinem Kaiserchen? Reden wir lieber nicht vom Krieg, nicht wahr?
”
*

I
t became clear to Rebecca that The Queen was enjoying herself speaking with the other people at her table. She could also see there was a dog under the table whom The Queen addressed occasionally. “She’s not going anywhere.”

“What do you mean?” said Rajiv.

“If the dog’s happy, she’s happy. The dog’s had his dinner. Now he’s asleep. Under the table. She won’t want him to move.”

“God, what a crazy country. Everyone bows to The Queen, and she obeys a sleeping canine.”

“What’s wrong with keeping animals happy, then? I thought Hindus were vegetarians too. Shows a certain respect for the animal world, if you ask me.”

“I’m a long way away from all that. I grew up here. Loved burger bars when I was a kid. Went to school here too. But you want me to quote Gandhi and worship cows. That would make you happy, wouldn’t it? She wanted me to tell her about yoga.”

“Why do you lot think we’re all against you? You wear it as some kind of badge of honor. ‘They hate us.’ You might as well have it pinned to that jacket you’re wearing.”

“It’s because you think of us, you think of me, as ‘you lot’ and not as Rajiv. Also, when you’re growing up and boys corner you in an alley and call you a bastard, it tends to leave an impression.”

Rebecca didn’t have anything to say to that. He’d won that round.

Rajiv thought perhaps he was overdoing the race question. He wanted her to know he’d suffered, but he didn’t want that to be the keynote of whatever it was that was developing between them. “You were going to tell me about the man from the animal rights demo.”

“I don’t think there’s anything there, really.”

“Hang on. A minute ago you told me he was your boyfriend.”

“Well, we went out. Okay? It was my first time. None of the boys liked me in school. Then a bit later he wanted me to go to a hunt with him.”