Queen Camilla (25 page)

Beverley said, ‘That bleedin’ King will eat us out of ’ouse and ’ome. I’m bleedin’ sick of ’im. Still, at least we ’aven’t got your problem.’

‘Which problem is that?’ asked Camilla. ‘I have so many.’

‘Which dog you’re gonna keep and which two are for the chop,’ said Beverley, with relish.

When Beverley explained about the proposed one-dog-per-household law, it was like throwing a grenade into a house that already had a chip-pan fire. The fact that Charles had already shown his hand by singling out Leo and rubbishing her own dogs did not surprise Camilla. Charles had, after all, been brought up to play palace politics. Look how ruthless his ancestors had been.

Beverley said, ‘It’s like that film,
Sophie’s Choice
, where Meryl Streep has to choose between ’er kids.’ Beverley looked from Freddie to Tosca and back again.

Camilla remembered the film and said, ‘I wept absolute buckets, I was prostrate.’

Beverley said, ‘So, which of ’em are you goin’ to choose?’

Freddie and Susan waited nervously for her answer.

‘How can I possibly choose?’ Camilla asked. ‘Freddie
is such a marvellous little character, and Tosca is utterly adorable.’

‘And Leo?’ asked Beverley.

‘Leo’s lovely, of course. He’s a big softie.’

‘But he’s Charlie’s dog really, ain’t he?’ said Beverley, malevolently.

When Charles returned, Camilla said nothing about Beverley’s visit or that she knew about the proposed change to the dog ownership laws. She could tell that Charles was preoccupied and miserable. She knew that he was dreading telling her that they would have to choose which of the three dogs was to live, and which two were doomed to die. It was part of Camilla’s make-up that she did not confront unpleasantness head on. That would make things real, and she preferred to live in the shadowy world of self-deception.

All three dogs were exceptionally quiet, even docile. Camilla went to bed early, leaving the bedroom door open so that Freddie and Tosca could come and go as they pleased.

Charles stayed downstairs and later that evening sat at his little writing desk and wrote a reply to Nicholas Soames.

My dear old friend,

I can't tell you how delighted I was to receive your letter. One sometimes despaired of ever receivinga reply to the numerous letters I have sent to you and many other people.

Camilla and I are in staggeringly good health; we seem to thrive on adversity, though being poor is terribly time-consuming.
There's an awful lot of paperwork and bureaucratic nonsense to be got through before one can receive one's state benefits. However, I always hankered for the simple life and now I have it, so I must not complain.

Camilla is under house arrest due to several infringements of the Exclusion Zone Contract she signed. And I and my fellow residents of Hell Close are undergoing collective punishment. The poor darling feels terribly guilty and is convinced that she is reviled by all and sundry.

I confess, Nick, that I ama little concerned about the future. Mamais talking about abdication, and to be brutally honest, I view the prospect of becoming king with a mixture of alarm and despair.

William, the darling boy, has stepped forward and offered himself. However, a complication has arisen. It transpires that Camilla and I have a son, Graham Cracknall, who was born during our first love affair, in 1965. We have yet to meet him. But the documentation he enclosed with his letter looks authentic, and Camilla has confirmed that she did indeed give birth to a baby son at that time.

Nick, I know that the laws of inheritance and bastardy were changed at the time of the dissolution of the monarchy. Could you look into this with the chap at Burke's Peerage as a matter of urgency, and let me know if there is any possibility of our son, Graham, succeeding to the throne? He is older than William by seventeen years.

Did you enjoy the partridge and lark pie? I once ate such a pie when staying with the King of Spain in his villa in Mallorca. I thought it rather delicious, but William choked on a tiny beak and gave us all a fright.

There is so much I want to say, but I will restrain myself for now.

Love from your friend,

Charles

PS: Please get in touch with Camilla's children and assure them that their mother is in marvellous form.

PPS: Please continue to write to me care of Dwayne Lockhart. If this were a James Bond film, I would ask you to eat this letter, knowing you to be a man of gargantuan appetite. As it is, I ask only that you keep our correspondence confidential.

PPPS: Another postscript, if you can bear it. Alarming news about the one-dog-per-household law. What chance is there of it being implemented? You must be as worried as I am. Do you still have the four dogs?

Gin and Tonic were in the living room, sitting next to each other on the red, swirly-patterned carpet. Their eyes were fixed on Graham who was filling out an application form to obtain the Exclusion Zone Visiting Order that would enable him to visit his birth parents.

Gin growled, ‘Tonic, do you realize the implications for us if he’s accepted by his parents and joins the Royal Family?’

Tonic growled back, ‘We’ll get to travel; I’ve always wanted to see the world.’

It was Graham’s habit to turn on Radio Four before he went to work. He had been convinced by a crime-prevention leaflet pushed through the door that burglars, hearing such civilized tones issuing from the radio, would turn on their heels and rob a less-civilized household. Gin and Tonic had listened with rapt attention to a lunchtime programme about the possible return of the Royal Family.

Gin barked, ‘If the New Cons get in, we’ll have the run of Buckingham Palace, and the gardens!’

‘We’ll be celebrities, Gin, on the front page of
Dog World
,’ Tonic woofed.

The two excited dogs leapt up and ran around the living room until they were dizzy and Graham shouted, ‘Pack it in!’

He was tired of living with the dogs. They were stupid and unpredictable, and he was sick of cleaning up the mud they trailed in from the garden and the revolting turds they left on his immaculate lawn. But it had been a condition of his inheritance that he had to take care of the dogs until they died. However, he had been thrilled to be told by a colleague at work (a downtrodden man called Leonard Wolf, whose wife kept three Pekinese dogs) that the Government had announced they were to bring in tighter controls on dog ownership;
restricting each household to no more than one dog.

Leonard Wolf had said mournfully, ‘My wife is threatening to leave me and set up house with one of the dogs, farm another one out with our grown-up daughter, and leave one of them with me.’

Gin and Tonic rolled on to their backs and lay still with their legs in the air, signalling to Graham that they were under his control.

Graham knew that he could have typed under ‘Reason for visit’ something ridiculously far-fetched, such as ‘to participate in devil-worship ceremony’, or tongue-twistingly ‘to teach tadpoles to tango’.

Vulcan, the Government’s gargantuan computer that was trusted to process and issue ID cards, visiting orders, benefits, National Health Service records and a myriad other bureaucratic duties, was so inadequate to the task and had such bafflingly complicated software that no one person, civil servant or government official could understand how it worked. An investigative journalist had recently written in
The Times
about her successful attempt to be issued with six ID cards, under the names of Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Osama bin Laden, Mickey Mouse, Dr F. Rankenstein and William Shakespeare. All six of the cards had been delivered to the same address in the same post.

Graham said to Gin, ‘In my opinion, it would have been cheaper to have hired ten thousand dim-witted sixteen-year-olds to do Vulcan’s work, by hand.’

Gin yelped, ‘And it would keep them off the streets.’

Graham said, warming to his theme, ‘Pensioners
could be roped in to do the biotechnics. Any fool can take a DNA swab, photograph an iris and process a fingerprint.’

Graham imagined that Gin’s growl said, ‘It would cost a fortune in wages.’

Graham said, ‘No, it wouldn’t, Gin. You could pay the stupid teenagers just enough to cover their bus fares and call it youth training, and the OAPs would be forced to work for the Government as a condition of getting their pensions. Why should they have a life of leisure?’

Tonic growled at the back of his throat and approached Graham with his jaws open and snarled, ‘You’re a nasty piece of human shit, Graham, and it’s time for my insulin injection.’

Graham picked Tonic up and hurled him across the room, saying, ‘Why don’t you die?’

Tonic landed on his legs, and after a quick shake of the head ran up to Graham and bit his ankle.

Graham lunged across the room, grabbed Tonic by his collar and dragged him towards the back door, saying, ‘You’re for the chop, grizzle chops.’ Graham got down on his knees so that his face was level with Tonic and continued, ‘First, I’ve never liked you, second, you’re not worth the cost of the insulin that keeps you alive and third, you’re a deviant. Don’t think I don’t know about your disgusting sexual shenanigans with poor Gin.’

Gin watched anxiously as Graham opened the door and threw Tonic into the dark wet night. He went to the French windows and pressed his nose against the
glass. Tonic was standing forlornly in the rain, his coat plastered to his body.

Charles could not quite decide which religion to practice; he flirted with both Christianity and Islam. He had studied both and read whatever books were available. He’d talked to the Reverend John Edmund-Harvey in his barricaded church, St Adrian’s, and with the Imam Mohammed Akbar in the mosque, which was two ex-council houses knocked into one. Each place had its merits.

St Adrian’s had a serene atmosphere, especially at sunset when the light through the stained-glass window behind the altar cast a gentle luminescence over the damp interior that even the anti-vandal mesh could not debase. The mosque, with its expanse of traditional patterned carpet and its lines of shoes by the entrance, was always busy, and Charles enjoyed the companionship of his fellow worshippers, although he had once walked home in another man’s flip-flops after his own brogues had disappeared. The Imam had blamed the crime on the Hell Close dogs, but the shoes miraculously reappeared at the next Friday’s prayers. They’d even been polished.

When Charles wanted to be alone, he would call at the vicarage to collect the church key. He’d then sit waiting for the sun to reach the window and illuminate the agony of Christ on the cross. He felt a strong bond with Jesus; both of them had frightening fathers who had expected too much of their sons.

Today, when he had returned the key, the Reverend
Edmund-Harvey had invited him into the kitchen to take tea with him and his partner, Jerad, an Australian of aboriginal descent and an ardent Royalist. Jerad had been baking; a tray of sweet-smelling little cakes were cooling on a wire rack on the mock-granite worktop. Charles and the Reverend watched as Jerad decorated the cakes with an icing bag, covering the surface with a series of dots.

‘I’m exceedingly fond of aboriginal art,’ said Charles. ‘I find the primitive profoundly… well… profound.’

Jerad, who had a degree in fine art from St Martin’s art college scowled at this, but Charles had already switched his attention to the plump and pink Reverend Edmund-Harvey, saying, ‘Reverend, may I tax you with a theological question that has bothered me since I was a boy?’

The Reverend, slightly nervous because of Jerad’s obvious bad mood, said, ‘Gosh! Theology! I’m usually asked for advice on social-welfare matters these days, but fire away.’

Charles said, ‘One’s terribly fond of animals, y’know, dogs, horses, that sort of thing.’

Jerad snorted, ‘He knows what an
animal
is, he’s one himself behind closed doors.’

The Reverend laughed nervously.

Charles continued, ‘I’ve lost many dear friends over the years and I’ve always wondered, where do dead dogs go? To heaven? Or to a place of their own? Have they a soul?’

Before the Reverend could answer, Jerad said, ‘Only soul a dog’s got is an arse-soul, same as me an’ you.’

The Reverend took hold of Jerad’s arm – the one holding the icing bag.

His grinning mouth looked like the half-moon carved into a Hallowe’en pumpkin as he said, ‘Christ was undoubtedly an animal lover. The New Testament heaves with sheep, fish and donkeys. I don’t know if he kept a dog… it’s possible…’

Charles urged, ‘But does a dog have a soul?’

The cleric faltered. Souls were not fashionable, nor was Heaven, and even God was currently out of favour with the religious community to which the Reverend had once belonged. It was why he had been exiled to the Flowers Exclusion Zone. He was still not entirely sure why he had been sent from his comfortable parish church in Suffolk to the hellhole he now officiated over. Was it Jerad? Or perhaps it was the piece he had written in the parish magazine, where he’d suggested that, ‘If Jesus were alive today, he would probably recruit his disciples from the gay bars in Old Compton Street.’

The Reverend might have escaped Vulcan’s attention had he not gone on to compare Jack Barker to Judas Iscariot, saying, ‘Both men betrayed an ideal.’ He had expected to cause a little controversy in the peaceful Suffolk village – perhaps being snubbed in the Post Office by homophobes – but nothing had prepared him for being woken at 3 a.m. by the security police ramming the vicarage door down and swarming upstairs to pull him and Jerad from their bed and drag them, naked and terrified, downstairs and out into a vehicle where they were locked inside individual, caged compartments.