Queen Camilla (35 page)

Sandra stood in front of the cheval mirror.

Princess Michael said, ‘No, you still look common. It’s these enormous breasts of yours.’

Sandra said, ‘I look common, because I
am
common.’

She climbed out of the beige suit and handed it back to Princess Michael. Beverley Threadgold, who was looking out of her front bedroom windows and wondering why Sandra Grice’s car was parked outside Princess Michael’s house, was agog when she saw Sandra ‘flaunting herself’ in a leopard-skin bra and matching thong in Princess Michael’s bedroom. Also enjoying the show was Inspector Lancer who, after Sandra had roared off in her car, had entered ‘active lesbian’ in Sandra’s file.

Chanel told both of the grandmothers that she was pregnant before she told Harry. Violet and the Queen were watching
Emmerdale
in the Queen’s living room when Chanel walked in after knocking on the back door and shouting, ‘It’s only me.’

The two women moved their eyes away from the screen reluctantly. They had been about to discover who in the village had been stealing tractor wheels.

‘I’ve got sommat to tell you both,’ said Chanel.

‘You’ve been chucked out of school again,’ said Violet resignedly.

‘No, I think I’m pregnant!’ said Chanel excitedly.

‘Oh, my duck!’ said Violet. ‘That’s smashin’!’

The Queen was amazed that pregnancy was always a cause for celebration in Hell Close, however young the girl or however unsuitable the father of the child might be.

‘Do I know the father?’ asked Violet.

‘You both know the father,’ said Chanel. ‘It’s ’Arry.’

‘Ari?’ questioned the Queen. As far as she knew, she was not acquainted with a Greek person called Ari.

‘Harry!’ said Chanel, making a great effort to sound the aspirant.

‘What, the Queen’s ’Arry?’ said Violet delightedly.

‘Yes,’ said Chanel. ‘I know it’s ’Arry’s cos I ’aven’t bin with nobody else.’

‘Come and give your grandma a kiss, you little beauty,’ said Violet, staggering to her feet.

The Queen rose from her armchair and waited until Violet released Chanel from a tight embrace. She kissed Chanel on both cheeks and said, ‘It’s time we had some new blood. Congratulations, Chanel dear.’

When Chanel had gone to break the news to the father and the rest of the family, Violet said, ‘We’re related now, Liz. It’s the Tobys and the Windsors, eh?’

They waited until the
Emmerdale
tractor-tyre thief had been unmasked – a drug fiend, newly arrived from the city, who was swapping tyres for crack cocaine – then they put on their coats, checked that they had their registration cards, and headed to Frank Bruno House to tell Prince Philip that he was about to become a great-grandfather.

He couldn’t grasp that Harry and Chanel Toby were expecting a baby. He kept referring to the time he had shot a baby elephant while on safari in Africa.

Violet shouted, trying to cheer him up, ‘We’re related now, Phil! Ain’t it lovely?’

The Queen said, ‘Oh, my poor darling, you look so unhappy.’

‘I miss the dressing-up,’ he said bleakly. ‘I miss my medals and my gold braid. Where are my lovely uniforms, Lilibet?’

The Queen said, ‘Hush, darling, you’ll wake Mr Bunion.’

Bunion was noisily asleep in his wheelchair. His snoring was awfully irritating, thought the Queen, but infinitely preferable to him waking up and starting one
of his interminable anecdotes about the wildcat strikes he had led in the 1970s.

On the way home the two old ladies talked about Harry and Chanel’s wedding. There would
have
to be a wedding.

When Sandra got home from Princess Michael’s, she found Arthur staring morbidly at the accumulated rubbish in the stream under the glass floor.

‘Look, there’s a bleedin’ dead rat down there now,’ he said. ‘I’ve been on to Rentokil, but they reckon they ain’t got frogmen on the staff.’

Sandra looked through the floor at the decomposing rat lying among the stacked-up rubbish, and had the melancholy thought that it wouldn’t matter how much money and status she and Arthur accumulated, there would always be a rat under the floor.

‘Anyroad up,’ said Arthur, turning to look at her, ‘’ow did you get on with Princess Michael?’

‘It was a waste of my time an’ your money,’ said Sandra. ‘She told me to buy a string of pearls, keep my tits covered up, drop my hems and keep my legs together when I’m sitting down.’

Arthur sighed and looked down again through the floor. The rat was waving its dead paw at him. He knew it was the flow of the water that was manipulating the dead beast, but he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind that the rat was somehow taking the piss.

On the last night of Graham’s visit, Camilla went into the kitchen to feed the dogs and found Graham at the
window staring disapprovingly at the chickens at the end of the garden.

Later that night, seeing him writing, Camilla made one last effort to engage with him and asked, ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m filling in a risk assessment sheet for this place,’ he said without lifting his head.

Charles looked up from his book and said, ‘Might we be party to your, er… conclusions?’

Graham said, ‘I’m afraid not. It would be more than my job’s worth to breach the laws of commercial confidentiality.’

When Charles and Camilla were washing up in the kitchen together, she whispered, ‘It’s bound to take time to get to actually
love
him, isn’t it?’

Charles said, ‘That’s what Nanny said to me about my dislike of cod liver oil, but I still can’t stand it.’ He shuddered. Camilla was not sure what had caused this response – the memory of cod liver oil or Graham – but she was determined to be positive.

She tried to fall asleep that night by counting Graham’s good points. He had lovely handwriting, he could whistle in tune, he lowered the seat after using the lavatory, his shoes were always polished, he didn’t swear… but the list was not long enough. She lay awake worrying until Charles’s deep breathing lulled her to sleep.

The next morning Charles and Camilla walked in hazy sunshine with Graham as he trundled his suitcase to the security checkpoint, where he had arranged for a taxi to take him to the station. All three of them were privately pleased that Graham was going home. He was not an easy person to live with; every piece of food he put in his mouth was subject to an almost forensic investigation, both its provenance and wholesomeness being questioned. Only that morning Graham had interrogated Charles on the precise age of the rashers of bacon on his plate. There were other things about him that unsettled his parents: the way he shouted, ‘Help! Help!’ in his sleep; his habit of walking into a room and saying, ‘Ha!’ before walking out again.

To compensate for not loving her son, Camilla held on to Graham for an uncomfortably long time. It was Charles who said, ‘Let him go, darling. The taxi is waiting.’

Charles hesitated; should he embrace his son or offer him his hand? He need not have worried. Graham passed his ID card to Peter Penny, who was on duty at the checkpoint, and was ushered through to the outside world. He gave a brief wave and was gone.

As they retraced their steps towards Hell Close, Freddie, Tosca and Leo ran to met them, united in their happiness at Graham’s departure.

Camilla said, ‘The dogs look terribly happy.’

‘Why shouldn’t they?’ said Charles. ‘They know nothing about the proposed dog laws, poor empty-headed things. They live an ideal life.’

‘And what is your ideal life?’ asked Camilla.

‘In my ideal life,’ said Charles, ‘we would live very simply in a tiny shack in a wilderness somewhere. We would keep warm and cook over an open fire. We would have very few possessions, a few rough cooking pots, a plate, cup and bowl each. A knife, fork and spoon.’

‘A bed?’ prompted Camilla.

‘A plank bed, covered in animal skins.’ Charles sighed happily, imagining himself and Camilla making love in the firelight with the wind howling outside.

‘And where would this shack be?’ asked Camilla.

‘Oh, I don’t know, darling. Scotland, perhaps… Rannoch Moor,’ said Charles.

Camilla said, ‘It will be terribly cold in the winter, darling. What will we do during the long dark days and nights?’

‘We’d
survive
, darling,’ said Charles. ‘We’d collect wood and hunt for our food, and make our own clothes and boots.’

‘Would we?’ said Camilla.

‘We’d have to, darling,’ he said. ‘We’d be beyond Harrod’s delivery zone.’

Camilla saw that he wasn’t joking and said, hesitantly, ‘I think I’d like to be a little closer to London, darling.’

‘Where?’ asked Charles.

‘Gloucestershire has some terribly wild places,’ said Camilla.

Charles said censoriously, ‘Yes, Gloucester city centre on a Friday night is horribly wild.’

Camilla said, ‘Oh please don’t sulk, Charlie. I’m sure we’d be terribly happy in a shack on Rannoch Moor, but I’d be equally happy in a lovely old house with the dogs and a few horses, within driving distance of a Marks and Spencer’s chilled food cabinet. It’s being together that counts.’

There was a long silence, during which time Charles checked Leo’s back paws for stones.

Camilla said, ‘You ought to tell your mother that you’ve decided.’

‘Decided what?’ asked Charles.

‘Decided you don’t want to be king,’ said Camilla.

Although Gin and Tonic were on different floors of the Excelsior Dog Hotel, they kept in touch by barking to each other at frequent intervals. Tonic was inclined to panic when the hour for his injection passed without any sign of a member of staff. At such times, Gin urged Tonic to howl for attention and continue until somebody came.

The hotel boasted in its promotional literature that the dogs received ‘five-star attention, two mouthwatering home-cooked meals a day, long walks and a fun and games hour’. Tonic, who was in the cheaper annexe, expected nothing, but Gin was bitterly disappointed. The two mouth-watering home-cooked meals proved to be a portion of cow’s hide which had simmered in a bucket on top of a filthy stove in the kennel kitchen. The long walk was a quick trip on a
lead with the owner to the off-licence and back. The fun and games hour consisted of the owner’s teenage son throwing a rubber bone in a desultory fashion in a concrete compound.

When Graham came to pick up the dogs, he said, ‘Did you have a lovely time, Gin? Did you? Did you?’

Gin barked, ‘You were ripped off, Graham. The owner’s a drunk and her son is a tormenting brute.’

When Tonic was let out of his cage, Graham did not acknowledge his existence. But Gin rushed up to greet his companion and lover, and the two dogs rubbed heads and exchanged smells.

‘We’ll never spend another day or night apart,’ barked Gin, who was alarmed at Tonic’s condition. ‘Look at you; your eyes are glazed, you’ve lost weight and your nose is dry.’

‘I’m so thirsty,’ rasped Tonic.

‘You need insulin,’ diagnosed Gin.

When they arrived at the Ruislip bungalow, Graham had to carry Tonic from the car into the kitchen. Gin watched anxiously as the exhausted Tonic was almost thrown into his basket.

Gin barked, ‘Give him his insulin, Graham.’

But Graham was tired after his long journey; he was also emotionally drained.

After living in the Fez, Graham found the bungalow unnervingly quiet; the only sound came from the ticking of the cuckoo clock and Tonic’s ragged breathing. At precisely the same time that a drunken and stoned Miranda was trying, and failing, to fit her key into the
lock of her front door, Graham was woken by Gin frantically barking and scratching at the kitchen door. Graham stumbled out of bed and injected Tonic with painful haste.

Before Graham fell asleep again, he wondered how Miranda would react when he told her that he was second in line to the throne. The beautiful Chantelle had not seemed particularly impressed. He decided that he would wait until he found out what Miranda’s political affiliations were. For all he knew, she could be an ardent Cromwellian – there had to be something wrong with Miranda. His adoptive father had warned him that all women were unstable and harboured dark secrets. It might be safer if he didn’t put all of his eggs in the same basket, but kept a couple back in their cardboard carton, in a high cupboard, behind a locked door.

Miranda’s entrapment of Graham Cracknall was accomplished within ten minutes of their first sitting down together at an alcove table for two in the golf-themed lounge of The Mouse and Cheese. Miranda was wearing a white, full-skirted dress with a Peter Pan collar. She had made her face up skilfully so that it looked as though she was wearing no make-up.

Miranda had studied ‘The Psychological and Physiological Triggers in Male Reproduction’ at the De Montfort University, and she knew what men liked and what left them cold. So she let Graham do most of the talking and agreed with everything he said. She lowered her voice and laughed at his jokes. She looked at him with rapt attention and glanced away shyly when he paid her a clumsy compliment. She endured his re-enactment of tiddlywink competitions in which he had triumphed, without showing the slightest sign of boredom. She even begged him to repeat some of his tiddlywink strategies, saying, ‘Graham, tell me again how you managed to tiddle the yellow wink into the cup by bypassing the red and green.’

Graham illustrated his past triumphs by using pieces of beer mat he had torn up before eventually being loudly reprimanded from behind the bar by the surly landlord. Graham shouted from the alcove, ‘I’m a health
and safety inspector and your pork pies should be stored in a chill cabinet. They should not be
flaunted
on top of the bar.’

Miranda forced herself to ignore the waves of hatred emanating from the golf-sweatered customers and kept her eyes on Graham, who had told her he was wearing his father’s Sunday best clothes. She had nodded enthusiastically when he said, ‘It would have been stupid to throw them away, there’s years of wear in them yet.’

Over glasses of orange juice Miranda told her sad, fictional, life story. Orphaned in a train crash, brought up by a cruel aunt, sent to a convent school, befriended by a saintly nun, Sister Anastasia, who made the young Miranda sign a pledge that she would be chaste until marriage.