The Queen and I (8 page)

PC Ludlow was now in the centre of the little mob of shouting, shrieking women. If he wasn’t careful, he would be knocked off his feet. He hung onto the sleeve of the pregnant woman, whom he now believed to be called Marilyn, according to the shouts of the other members of the mob. Even as he was swayed this way and that, he rehearsed what he would write in his report, because this had now become an “incident”. Reams of paper stretched ahead of him.

Charles stood on the edge of the group. Should he intervene? He had a reputation for his conciliatory skills. He was convinced that, given the chance, he could have ended the miners’ strike. He had wanted to join the University Labour Club at Cambridge, but had been advised against it by Rab Butler. Charles saw Beverley Threadgold slam her front door and race across the road. Her white lycra top, red miniskirt and bare, blue legs gave her the look of a voluptuous union flag.

She ploughed into the group, shouting, “Leave our Marilyn alone, you cowin’ pig.”

PC Ludlow now saw himself in court giving evidence, because Beverley was grappling with him, had him down on the ground. His face was pressed into the pavement, which stank of dogs and cats and nicotine. She was sitting on his back. He could hardly breathe; she was a big woman. With a mighty effort he threw her off. He heard her head hit the ground, then her cry of pain.

“Then, your honour,” said the running commentary in his brain, “I was aware of a further weight on my back, a man whom I now know to be the former Prince of Wales. This man seemed to be making a frenzied attack on my regulation police overcoat. When asked to stop, he said words to the effect of – ‘I stood by during the miners’ strike, this is for Orgreve.’ At that point, your honour, Inspector Holyland arrived with reinforcements and several people were arrested, including the former Prince of Wales. The riot was eventually stopped at eighteen hundred hours.”

During the riot, the remaining contents of the box van were stolen by Warren Deacon and his small brother, Hussein. The Gainsboroughs, Constables and assorted sporting oils were sold to the landlord of the local pub, the Yuri Gagarin, for a pound each. Mine host was refurbishing the smoke room, turning it Olde Worlde. The paintings would look all right next to the warming pans and horns of plenty stuffed with dried flowers.

Later, the Queen tried to comfort her mother on her loss by saying, “I’ve got a nice Rembrandt; you can have that. It would look nice over the fireplace; shall I fetch it, Mummy?”

“No, don’t leave me, Lilibet. I can’t be left; I’ve never been alone.” The Queen Mother clutched her elder daughter’s hand.

Night had long since fallen. The Queen was tired, she craved the oblivion of sleep. It had taken forever to undress her mother and prepare her for bed and there was still so much to
do
. Ring the police station, comfort Diana, prepare a meal for Philip and herself. She longed to see Anne. Anne was a bulwark.

She could hear inane studio audience laughter through the wall. Perhaps the next-door neighbour would stay with her mother until she went to sleep? She gently withdrew her mother’s hand and, under the guise of giving Susan a bowl of Go-dog in the kitchen, she quietly let herself out of the bungalow and went next door and rang the bell.

Philomena answered the door wearing her coat, hat, scarf and gloves.

“Oh,” said the Queen. “Are you going out?”

“No, I just come in,” lied Philomena, shocked to see the Queen of England and the Commonwealth at the door. The Queen explained her dilemma, stressing her mother’s great age.

“I’ll help you outta’ your trouble, woman. I see your son bein’ took by the police, bringin’ shame on his family.”

The Queen, humbled, muttered her thanks and went to break the news to her mother that she would not be spending the night alone; Mrs Philomena Toussaint, former hospital cleaner, teetotaller and Episcopalian, would be sitting by the gas fire in the living room next door; but there were four conditions. While she was in the house, there was to be no drinking, gambling, drug taking or blasphemy. The Queen Mother agreed to these conditions and the two old women were introduced.

“We met before, in Jamaica,” said Philomena. “I was wearing a red dress and wavin’ a little flag.”

The Queen Mother played for time. “Ah now, what year would that be?” she said.

Philomena rummaged about in her memory. The ticking of the Sèvres clock on the dressing table served to accentuate the distance and the time that the two old women were trying to bridge.

“1927?” said the Queen Mother, vaguely remembering a West Indian Tour.

“So you remember me?” Philomena was pleased. “Your husband, what’s ’s name?”

“George.”

“Yes, that’s the one, George. I was sorry when he was took by God.”

“Yes, so was I,” admitted the Queen Mother. “I was rather cross with God at the time.”

“When God took my husband away, I stopped goin’ to church,” admitted Philomena. “The man beat me and took me money for drink, but I missed him. Did George beat you?” The Queen Mother said no, that George had never beaten her, that, having been beaten himself as a child, he hated violence. He was a dear, sweet man and he hadn’t particularly enjoyed being King.

“See,” said Philomena, “that’s why the Lord took him; to give the man some peace.”

The Queen Mother settled back onto the fine linen pillowcases and closed her eyes, and Philomena took off her outdoor clothing and sat by the fire on a fine gilt armchair, relishing the free heat.

Charles was allowed to make one phone call. Diana was emulsioning the kitchen walls when the phone rang. A constipated voice said, “Mrs Teck? Tulip Road Police Station here. Your husband is on the line.” She heard Charles’s voice, “Listen, I’m awfully sorry about all this.”

Diana said, “Charles, I couldn’t
believe
it when Wilf Toby came round and said you’d been fighting in the street. I was painting the bathroom. Aqua Green looks
stupendous
, by the way – I’m going to try and get a matching shower curtain. Anyway, I had my Sony on and missed all the excitement. You being arrested, thrown in the black maria; but I let the boys stay up and watch the rest of the riot. Oh, that boy Warren came round with the video. I paid him fifty quid.”

Charles said, “But
I
paid him fifty quid.”

Diana carried on as though he hadn’t spoken, he had never heard her so animated.

“It works beautifully. I’m going to watch
Casablanca
before I go to bed.”

Charles said, “Listen, darling, it’s frightfully important, could you phone our solicitor for me? I’m about to be charged with affray.”

Diana heard a voice say, “That’s enough, Teck, back to your cell.”

11 Knob

Charles was sharing a cell with a tall thin youth called Lee Christmas. When Charles entered the cell, Lee turned his lugubrious face, stared at Charles and said, “You Prince Charles?”

Charles said, “No, I’m Charlie Teck.”

Lee said, “Watcha in for?”

Charles said, “Affray and assaulting a police officer.”

“Yeah? Bit posh for that, ain’t yer?”

Charles diverted this uncomfortable line of questioning and asked, “You are er … in for?”

“I stole a knob.”

“Stole a knob?” Charles pondered on this. Was it a piece of arcane criminal jargon? Had Mr Christmas committed some unsavoury type of sexual offence? If so, it was disgraceful that he, Charlie, was being forced to share a cell with him. Charles pressed against the cell door. He kept his eye on the buzzer.

“There was this car, right? Bin in our street over free months; tyres an’ stereo went first night. Then everythin’ went, ’cludin’ engine. ’S a shell, right?”

Charles nodded, he could see the wreck in his mind’s eye. There was one just like it in Hell Close. William and Harry played in it. “Any road up,” continued Lee. “It’s a Renault, right? An’ I got one the same. More or less the same year – so, I’m walkin’ by, right? An’ there’s kids playin’ in this wreck ’tendin’ to be Cinderella on their way to the – wassa place?”

“Ball?” offered Charles.

“Dance, disco,” corrected Lee. “Any road, I tell ’em to fuck off an’ I get in the front – seats are gone – an’ I’m jus’ pullin’ this knob off the top of the gear lever, right? ’Cos the knob’s missin’ off mine, see? So I want it, OK?” Charles grasped the point Lee was making.

“When ’oo d’ ya think grabs me arm through the winder?” Lee waited. Charles stammered, “Without knowing your circumstances, Mr Christmas, your family, friends or acquaintances, it’s frightfully difficult to guess who may have …”

“The
bogus beasts
” shouted Lee indignantly. “Two coppers in plain clothes,” he explained, looking at Charles’s baffled expression. “An’ I’m arrested for thieving from this piece of
shrapnel
. A knob, a bleedin’ knob. Worth thirty-seven cowin’ pee.”

Charles was appalled, “But that’s simply appalling,” he said.

“Worse thing ’s ever ’appened to me,” said Lee. “’Cludin the dog gettin’ run over. I’m a joke in our family. When I get out of ’ere I’ll ’ave ter do summat big. Post Office or summat like that. ’Less I do, I’ll never be able to ’old me ’ead up in the Close again.”

“Where do you live?” asked Charles.

“Hell Close,” said Lee Christmas. “Your sister’s gonna be our nex’ door neighbour. We ’ad a letter tellin’ us not to curtsey ’n’ stuff.”

“No, no, you mustn’t,” insisted Charles. “We’re ordinary citizens now.”

“All the same, our mam’s ’avin’ a perm at the hairdressers, an’ she’s goin’ mad, cleanin’ an’ stuff. She’s a lazy cow, normal. She’s like your mum – never does no ’ousework.”

There was a jangle of keys and the cell door opened and a policeman came in with a tray. He handed Lee a plate of sandwiches covered in clingfilm, saying, “’Ere Christmas, get that down your neck.”

To Charles he said, “Tricky stuff that clingfilm, sir, allow me to remove it.”

Before he left the cell he had addressed Charles as “sir” six times and had also wished him “a good night’s sleep” and had slipped him a mini pack of Jaffa cakes.

Lee Christmas said, “’S true then?”

“What’s true?” asked Charles, his mouth full of bread, cheese and pickle.

“’S one law for the cowin’ rich and one for the cowin’ poor.”

“Sorry,” said Charles, and he gave Lee a Jaffa cake.

At eleven o’clock, Radio Two burst into the cell and filled the small space. Charles and Lee covered their ears against the earsplitting volume. Charles pressed the buzzer repeatedly, but nobody came, not even the deferential policeman for the tray.

Lee bellowed, “Turn it down!” through the slot in the door. They could hear other prisoners shouting for mercy. “This is torture,” shouted Charles over “Shrimp Boats Are A Comin’”. But there was worse to come. Some unseen person adjusted the tuning knob and the radio blared out, “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands” even louder, complete with piercing static, and in the background what sounded like a Serbo-Croatian phone-in.

Charles had often wondered how he would stand up to torture. Now he knew. Given five minutes of such audio hell, he would crack and turn his own sons over to the authorities. He tried mind over matter and went through the Kings and Queens of England since the year 802: Egbert, Ethelwulf, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, Ethelred, Alfred the Great, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmund I, Edred, Edwy, Edgar, Edward II the Martyr – but he gave up on the Saxons and Danes, unable to remember whether Harold Harefoot ruled alone or jointly with Hardicanute in 1037. When he reached the House of Plantagenet – Edward I, Longshanks – he drifted off to sleep wondering how tall
exactly
Longshanks was. But Shirley Bassey woke him with “Diamonds Are Forever”, and he continued his list: House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha: Edward VII, then sped through the House of Windsor – George V; Edward VIII; George VI; Elizabeth II – until he came to an empty space. At some time in the future, after his mother’s death, it would have been him: captive in quite a different prison.

Meanwhile Lee Christmas slept, clutching his shoulders with his thin hands, his knees drawn up to his concave belly, his humiliation forgotten. His Renault car on the road, pristine, gleaming, a girl at his side, his hand on the fatal knob, about to change gear.

The Queen lay awake, worrying about her son. She had once inadvertently watched a BBC2 Bristol documentary about hooliganism (she had expected it to be about wild animals). A famous vet had drawn a connection between maternal deprivation and violence. Was that why Charles had started fighting in the street? Was it her fault? She hadn’t wanted to go on those world tours and leave Charles behind, but in those days she had believed her advisers when they assured her that the British export trade would collapse without her support. Well, it had collapsed anyway, she thought bitterly. She might just as well have stayed at home with the dogs and seen Charles for a couple of hours a day.

Another problem was keeping the Queen awake: she was running out of money. Somebody from the Department of Social Security was supposed to call and bring her some more, but hadn’t turned up. How was she supposed to get to the Magistrates’ Court in the morning without a car or taxi fare?

After searching Philip’s trouser pockets and finding nothing, she had called on her relatives and asked for a loan of ten pounds. But the Queen Mother couldn’t find her purse. Princess Margaret pretended not to be in, though the Queen distinctly saw her shadow behind the frosted glass of the front door, and Diana had spent her initial emergency payment on paint and a video machine apparently.

The Queen couldn’t understand where her own money had all gone. How did one
manage
? She turned the bedside light on and, using paper and a pencil, tried to tot up her expenses since moving into Hell Close. She got as far as: “Mr Spiggy – £50” before the light went out. The electricity meter needed feeding, but having nothing to feed it with, the Queen settled for darkness.

Crawfie spoke to her. “C’mon now, Lilibet, hat and coat and gloves on, we’re going to ride on the Underground.” She and Margaret and Crawfie had once travelled from Piccadilly Circus to Tottenham Court Road, changing at Leicester Square. Thrillingly, the lights in the carriage had gone out several times during the journey. She had reported this to her parents as being the most exciting part of the excursion, but her parents had not shared her pleasure. To them, darkness represented danger and Crawfie was forbidden to repeat the experiment of taking the young princesses into the real world of imperfect people, who wore drab clothes and spoke another language.