Queen Camilla (19 page)

‘Is there something wrong?’ asked Camilla.

‘No,’ said the woman. ‘You put me in mind of somebody, that’s all. Prince Charles’s wife.’

‘Camilla?’ supplied Camilla.

‘Yes, that’s ’er,’ said the woman darkly. ‘She dragged the Royal Family through the mud, that one. She lives back there you know, in the Flowers Exclusion Zone.’

Camilla nodded and began to move away.

The woman said, ‘By all accounts she’s a total alcoholic. Drinks a bottle of vodka with each meal. Lies in a filthy bed all day, only gets up to feed ’er dogs. Fifteen dogs she’s got, none of ’em house-trained. It’s no wonder Prince Charles gives her a clout round the head now and then, is it?’

Camilla asked, ‘How do you know all this?’

The woman said, ‘It’s common knowledge. I’ve got a friend who’s related by marriage to Prince Charles’s next-door neighbour.’

‘Beverley Threadgold,’ said Camilla.

‘Yes,’ said the woman. ‘Poor Beverley has to put up with ’earing Prince Charles and Camilla screaming at each other all through the night. Furniture smashed, dogs barking. When they’re not trying to kill each other, they’re in the garden burning leaves and smoking the place out.’

Camilla was relieved when the woman staggered on to a number 49 bus. As she stood and waited, she noticed a few drivers looking at her curiously as they passed by. She wished now that she’d dressed less conspicuously and worn a pastel-coloured tracksuit and white trainers, like most women of her generation wore round here.

On the opposite side of the road, a man was standing on the top rung of a ladder, pasting a large poster on to a billboard. It was hard to see what the poster was advertising at first, but when the man had finished and removed himself and his ladder, Camilla saw that the poster was of a hugely enlarged black Labrador retriever’s head. The dog’s eyes were mad and its jaws were open, showing vicious teeth. There were no words. Camilla thought, but Labrador retrievers are Britain’s favourites. They are national treasures; the Alan Bennetts of the dog world. Why would anybody want to put up such a vicious poster?

The driver of the number 47 bus was baffled when Camilla asked how much it was to be taken to the countryside.

He said, ‘The nearest I go to the countryside is the out-of-town retail park. The Orchards.’

She climbed the stairs to the upper deck and sat at the front, holding on to the rail as she had been told to do when she was a child on her regular trips to their London house.

She would quarrel with her brother and sister about which was best, the town or the country. The problem was, when she was in the country she loved the country best, but when she was in the town she was seduced by its excitement and glamour. Her childhood had been one long sunny afternoon with ponies in the paddock, theatre in the town, and Mummy and Daddy and Mark and Sarah, always there. Always laughter and treats and holidays, when nobody minded if she hadn’t brushed her hair or ran around barefoot.

The bus passed over a road bridge. Below the bridge was a river and a small wood. Camilla ran down the stairs of the moving bus and asked the driver to stop.

He said, ‘I’m not a bleedin’ taxi service,’ and drove on to the next bus stop.

She ran back to the bridge and saw that a path of sorts had been made down the embankment. There were a few brambles in the way, with some rotting blackberries still hanging from the branches, but she pushed through them in her waxed coat and was soon standing on the riverbank. After a few minutes walking, she was out of earshot of the road. When it was no longer possible to walk alongside the river due to the thick tangle of vegetation, she sat down in the long grass and smoked a cigarette.

The loveliness of the birdsong overwhelmed her. She had never been good with birds, she could just
about identify a sparrow or a blackbird, and of course robins were easy. But now she understood what people like Charles were talking about when they lamented the slow demise of the English songbird. It was glorious, simply glorious, to think that nobody, not even Charlie, knew where she was. She lay back in the long grass and watched the clouds passing in the astonishingly blue sky.

On the return journey the bus was crowded with shoppers, and her preferred seat at the front of the top deck was occupied. She glanced quickly down the bus; there were only three vacant seats. She chose to sit next to an innocuous-looking middle-aged woman who was marooned by a sea of Marks and Spencer’s bags.

Camilla said, ‘May I?’

The woman moved a few of the bags so that Camilla could sit down. ‘I only went in for a loaf of bread,’ said the woman.

Camilla laughed and said, ‘My husband does that. He went out for a loaf and came back with a washing-up bowl.’

The woman looked at Camilla curiously. They were silent for a few moments, each woman assessing the other for class, status and level of attractiveness. Having decided that further conversation was possible, the woman with the bags said, ‘It’s lovely on the top of a bus, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Camilla. ‘One can see into people’s gardens and backyards.’

The woman said, ‘The buses are quite civilized since those dreadful hoodies and yobs were rounded up and
tagged. The Government will certainly get my vote at the next election.’

Camilla said, ‘Oh, if I had a vote I’d give it to Boy English. He’s a real sweetie.’

The woman said, ‘Do you not have a vote?’

Camilla was not a good liar. She stammered unconvincingly, ‘My husband doesn’t allow me to vote.’

The woman’s eyes widened. She took in Camilla’s headscarf and asked, ‘Who are you married to, a Muslim fundamentalist?’

‘No, though my husband is interested in Eastern religions,’ said Camilla and lowered her voice. ‘Do you remember Prince Charles?’

The woman said, ‘Of course. And he’s another reason why I’ll vote for the Government. I certainly don’t want the New Cons to win, not if it means bringing back those dreadful Windsors. I suppose at a pinch I could just about accept the Queen, but the thought of Prince Charles and that hideous woman, Camilla, reigning over me makes my blood run cold.’

An inspector clumped up the stairs and shouted, ‘Tickets and registration cards, please. Have them ready for inspection.’

There was an audible groan from the passengers and an anxious search through bags and purses. Wallets were taken out, pockets were patted and bumbags were unzipped.

The inspector started at the back of the bus. Camilla could hear him saying, ‘Thank you, sir; thank you, madam,’ as he moved inexorably towards her.

The bag woman next to her kept her ID card in a
burgundy leather wallet. As she held it out towards the inspector, Camilla saw a photograph of a balding man with his arms around a large smiling dog. After he had checked the woman’s documents, the inspector stood looking down expectantly at Camilla. She showed him her ticket.

He glanced at it and said, ‘ID card, please.’

Camilla said, ‘Sorry, I seem to have left it at home.’ The inspector sighed and said, ‘I’m going to have to give you an on-the-spot fine.’

Camilla said, ‘I haven’t any money.’

He took out a book of forms and said, ‘Name?’

The other passengers on the bus had fallen silent.

Camilla said, ‘I would rather not give my name.’

The inspector said, ‘I would rather you did.’

Camilla said, ‘Can’t I just get off the bus? I’ll walk the rest of the way.’

She half rose to her feet; the woman next to her was now looking studiedly out of the window, detaching herself from the scene.

The inspector said, ‘You’re not going anywhere, madam, until you give me your name.’

Camilla said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t.’

The inspector took out a small radio and spoke into it. ‘Driver, stop the bus. I’ve got a UP up here.’

The bus came to a jerky stop.

A voice from the back shouted, ‘How long we going to be? I’ve got kids to pick up from school.’

The bag woman said, ‘I’ve got a dog to let out. He’s been in the house since nine o’clock this morning. He’ll burst his bladder if I’m late.’

An old man across the aisle said, ‘I know who she is. She’s Camilla Parker Bowles, as was.’

‘She lives in an Exclusion Zone,’ said the inspector. ‘It can’t be her. She’s on the tag.’

‘I remember his first wife,’ said the old man. ‘Beautiful, she was. A saint. They say she could cure cancer.’

A sarcastic voice behind Camilla said, ‘Yeah! An’ she turned the bleedin’ water into wine.’

The inspector said, ‘I’m going to ask you again, madam, to give me your name and your full address.’

Camilla said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t.’

‘Then you give me no alternative but to inform the security police.’

When Prince Charles arrived home he was exhausted, having carried the bird-feeding table almost a mile. He wished now that he hadn’t constructed such an elaborate edifice. It was multi-levelled, each level having its own thatched roof. There were indents for bowls of water and little troughs for seeds. He lugged it through the house and out into the back garden, shouting, ‘Darling, I’m home. I’ve finished it.’

The dogs danced around him as he searched every room, looking for Camilla.

‘She can’t have gone out,’ he said to them. ‘She’s left her ID card in the little jug on the dresser.’

Leo led him into the bathroom where, to Charles’s great alarm, he found the secateurs and his wife’s ankle tag.

Camilla’s interrogation had been conducted with the utmost civility by Deputy Chief Constable Peter Manning, in his austere office in the huge, recently built Regional Police Headquarters. After a strip-search by two silent policewomen, Camilla had been taken for forensic investigation. No trace of explosives was found on her, only an unusual quantity of dog hair.

Manning would not usually have bothered himself with the questioning of terrorist suspects; he had specialist teams for that, who, by various methods, were able to extract information. But he could not resist questioning Camilla. It would be an engrossing chapter in the book he was writing about modern policing, he thought.

M: Why did you leave the Exclusion Zone?

C: I wanted to go to the countryside.

M: You were meeting somebody there?

C: No, I just wanted, you know, to
see
it.

M: You’re a member of BOMB, aren’t you?

C: BOMB? I don’t know what that is.

M: They, as you well know, are terrorists dedicated to bringing the monarchy back. BOMB, Bring Our Monarchy Back. You arranged to meet them yesterday.

C: No, I’ve never heard of them. They don’t sound like my kind of people. I’m not a political animal.

M: So, you maintain, do you, that you removed your tag… incidentally, how did you do it?

C: Secateurs.

[Manning nodded, he was a gardener himself.]

M: Not a cheap pair, obviously.

C: No, I don’t think one should economize on secateurs. A good strong pair will last a lifetime.

M: So, you removed your tag and left your ID card at home?

C: Yes.

M: That’s two offences.

C: Yes. I suppose it is.

M: How did you pass the control point? Did you have an accomplice?

C: No, I just sort of walked by. Nobody stopped me, so I carried on walking.

M: You arranged to meet somebody on the riverbank, didn’t you, Mrs Windsor? You waited for thirteen minutes, during which time you smoked a Silk Cut cigarette. But the person or persons you had arranged to meet didn’t come, did they? So you retraced your steps and were arrested on the forty-seven bus.

Camilla closed her eyes. It was as though Manning had snatched a precious crystal from her and had smashed it to smithereens. She had expected to keep those thirteen minutes of tranquillity and freedom to herself. She had planned to withdraw memories as needed, like she used to withdraw money from the bank. She would not have been extravagant with her memories. She would have remembered the flash of the sun on the river perhaps, or the angle of the reeds as they bent forwards in the
breeze like a crowd sharing a secret. But she would not have recalled the glorious singing of the birds in the woodland next to the river.

That loveliness would have been too terrible to bear.

C: I wanted to be free for a while, to be out of sight.

M: You’re a romantic, Mrs Windsor. I understand; I’m a bit that way myself. A golf course in the early morning can bring tears to my eyes.

C: What will happen to me?

M: You have broken seven laws in all, Mrs Windsor. Eight, if we prosecute you for reckless smoking. You were surrounded by dried grasses, you could have started an inferno.

C: I’m to be prosecuted, am I?

M: You’ve committed serious offences, Mrs Windsor. [Manning smiled.] By committing such offences you have forfeited your right to go to court.

C: I see.

But she didn’t
truly
see. On the other hand, Manning seemed to be a thoroughly decent chap. Not the type to muck about with civil liberties. All the same, Camilla had taken it for granted that if you broke the law you were entitled to be tried in a court of law. Wasn’t that the English way?

C: So who punishes me?

M: Ultimately, God will punish you, Mrs Windsor, but for now, contractually, I have to turn you over to Arthur Grice Security.

C: Can I telephone my husband, Inspector? He’ll be frantic with worry.

M: I’m sorry, Mrs Windsor, that privilege does not extend to terrorist suspects. Incidentally, the secateurs, which brand?

C: Wilkinson’s.

An investigation was being conducted at the Flowers Control Centre into how Camilla had managed to walk past them into the outside world. Inspector Lancer was showing CCTV footage of Camilla as she strolled past the Control Centre with her hands in her pockets.

Lancer said, ‘Note the time on the film. She passed us at precisely eleven thirty-five a.m.’ He held up the duty roster. ‘Those on duty at eleven thirty-five were police constables Julie Cutherwaite, Dwayne Lockhart and Lee Clegg, and police dogs Emperor and Judge. So, what I want to know is, what the fuck went wrong?’