The Summer Isles (25 page)

The guests wander out through pillared archways into the afternoon’s gracious warmth. There’s a stir when the silver trays of sweet Merrydown Wine emerge for the royal toast—it’s better than the stuff I tasted on Midsummer Night, but still not a patch on my college’s champagne—another when the shadow of
The Queen Of Air and Darkness
drifts over our heads; hired today by the BBC as a part of their live outside broadcast. The gardens as I explore them still feel a little like Green Park of old. The stepped orchards and monumental statues don’t quite fit. The roses that amazingly still bud and flower on the trellises in this bright October sunlight look too red, too raw. You can almost smell the paint, and hear the bellowing voice of the Queen of Hearts.
No! No! Sentence first
—
verdict afterwards.

Much of what happened after John Arthur became Prime Minister seemed so
traditional
that at first even the skeptics were reassured: the marches, the brass bands, the jamborees, the re-planting of public parks, the resumption of longer pub opening hours, the improvement of the roads and the railways. Economic prosperity, although it didn’t arrive immediately, already seemed to be on its way.

The arrests certainly came. The few remaining communist and socialist MPs were immediately deprived of their seats—after the years of riots, strikes and disturbances, that only seemed like a sensible precaution. Left wing newspapers like the
Manchester Guardian
were the subject of firebomb attacks, and bookshops and news vendors soon took the hint that it was better not to stock them. The Jews and the Irish were the subject of intimidation. Homosexuals were still routinely beaten up. In fact, in many ways, little had changed. At this early stage in the dream of Greater Britain, it was often the groups John Arthur was soon to eradicate who pleaded loudest for his protection.

At this time, Britain was still supposedly a democracy. There were debates in Parliament, and for a while even a Cabinet of sorts. But John Arthur plainly had little time for the fripperies of a discredited political system. He was too busy actually governing the country. In his first weeks in power, he passed by acclamation—the few more bothersome MPs who might have voted according to their conscience being conveniently ill or missing—a short Enabling Bill that built upon the foundation of Chamberlain’s Emergency Powers Act to the extent that he could rule by decree. Legally, nothing had changed; the courts still continued to translate the law. In a country without any written constitution, John Arthur took a cautious and legalistic route towards dictatorship.

For a while, people still talked about a time when they might choose not to vote for John Arthur and give the Tories or even Labour another bash. But a series of convenient events arose to secure Modernist power more deeply. In India, a scandal-embroiled Gandhi was arrested and soon after supposedly committed suicide in his cell. As they had been in the previous century, concentration camps were established there, then in Southern Africa and many other colonies. In Britain, it was a time of whispers, for re-examining one’s friends and neighbours. In schools, there was generally at least one committed Modernist master who would report any colleagues he perceived to be pedalling
decadent
or
inaccurate
teaching to the EA-dominated Local Education Authorities. Anxious to keep our jobs, the rest of us readily towed the line and amended our syllabuses in accordance with the new nationally coordinated instructions; we never quite seemed to cross the line of realising that we were peddling Modernist lies.

Despite the thrill of the fresh new vision that was gripping the country, there was an atmosphere of almost perpetual crisis. A plot to kill John Arthur by a bomb was narrowly averted, and at the trial several famous names from the political past were implicated, although Churchill himself had left for America by the time the police arrived at Chartwell to question him. The climax of it all, now commemorated in nursery-rhyme, song and pier-end tableau, took place on the night of 23 June 1933, just before an ailing King George and Queen Mary were due to head north from Old Buckingham Palace to Balmoral. A series of virtually simultaneous fire-bomb explosions crackled across the palace at ten o-clock that evening. Much older inside than out, conveniently stacked with draughty passages, plaster ceilings and ancient furniture, the vast building went up like a torch, lighting the overcast skies as far off as Kingston and Bromley with a baleful glow. In the atmosphere of permanent national crisis and suspicion, the fire and the Westminster Fire Brigade’s abysmally slow response came as less of a surprise than it should have done. It seemed only to prove that there was much that was deeply wrong with our nation, much that still needed to be done. Even the discovery of the charred bodies of King George and Queen Mary amid the glowing ruins seemed more emblematic than real; like a tragedy that took place long ago in some half-forgotten land.

There were many arrests, many strong measures, many disappearances after the fire, but the expected trial of the guilty parties never came, although by common consent they were Irish. It was as if this event was too large to be dragged into the dull glare of a specific reality and blamed on one particular group of men. In the classrooms, in back rooms, in the barbers and the chip shops, in the official files, on the EA posters, in our mistrust of strangers and our continued need for aggressive security, the fire at Old Buckingham Palace has currency to this day. Am I the only person who is convinced that it was done with the connivance of the Empire Alliance? No, of course not. But I imagine that the EA probably
did
find some Irishmen who wanted to score a point against a neighbouring country which openly supported Loyalist terrorists in their own north. With a gate left open, an easy passage through customs, things would just seem to fall into their laps. So much easier to get someone else to do your dirty work for you. It’s the Modernist way.

Edward VIII was crowned King, and toasted warmly in Westminster’s Great Hall by Mussolini, and Old Buckingham Palace in ruins remained at least as big a draw as it had been standing. Soon, sightseers began to clamber over the railings, searching for souvenir scraps of plaster as they wandered amid the blackened hallways and fallen beams. Of course, this was incredibly dangerous, but John Arthur captured the national mood when he suggested that, rather than have the old Place restored or demolished, the remains should be shored up and re-landscaped as a public park so that we could all go there. Few people had any affection for the drab acres of Green Park just across Resolution-nee-Constitution Hill, anyway. It would be the perfect site for a new palace.

For all its aspirational spires, towers and glittering domes, New Buckingham Palace looks rather like an immense greenhouse. Within a couple of years of its construction, it was overlooked by the Victory Spire at the corner of Park Lane. With London and the shining Thames spreading below and the certainties of Modernism filling their hearts, day trippers on the viewing platform could peer down at the Palace through penny telescopes to see if they could see the King, or perhaps Queen Wallis. And they could wonder out loud why he had to marry
her
when she was, let’s face it, used goods, and he could have had any fancy tart in the world for the asking.

Looking around for something more filling than smoked salmon sandwiches, light-headed as my belly growls and premonitions of pain begin to dance around me, I recognise a famous face as I make my way between the pools and fountains.

“Personally, I can’t stand fiddling around with plates and standing up at the same time,” he says affably. “Strikes me as a foreign habit.”

I nod. Deputy Prime Minister Arkwright looks small and ordinary in the flesh, almost exactly like his pictures, even without the pipe and the Homburg. In fact, he really hasn’t changed that much from the man I glimpsed standing with John Arthur all those years ago at the Cottage Spring. He was probably born cherubically plump, going-on-fifty.

“Hmm. Oxford,” he says when I tell him who I am. “You know, I still wish I’d had a University education. And you know John from way back?”

“I taught him briefly when he was a child,” I reply, conscious of the rainbowed sun gleaming through the fountain spray on Arkwright’s blood-threaded cheeks, the strange intensity of his gaze, even as he chomps a handful of cocktail sausages. William Arkwright’s the EA’s comic turn, shouldering the blame for fiascos like the Cyprus Adventure that go so badly wrong they can’t be hushed up. He’s frequently seen on the arms of busty actresses. But he’s Deputy Prime Minister
and
Home Secretary. He’s the second most famous face in the country, even if he trails the first by a long way. He can hardly have come this far by accident.

“That’s interesting,” he says. “John’s always so quiet about his past. When you get to meet him, you make sure you remind him of that. I keep telling him he should stop all those dreadful books being written about him.” Another handful of sausages. Arkwright chews them, waving the greasy sticks. “Of course, no one gives a bugger about
my
upbringing. It’s called charisma, I suppose. Some us have to make do with hard work.”

“Did you ever think you’d get this far?”

Arkwright tilts his head as the water clatters over the green copper dolphins behind us. From the way he studies my lips, I realise he’s slightly deaf. “What was it Cromwell said about those who don’t know where they’re going rising the furthest?”

“It was something like that.”

“Well, he was right. I’m permanently lost, Mr. Brook. Permanently amazed. Although I know I don’t look it…”

I nod. I’d never realised how oddly difficult it is to talk to someone famous, that sense of knowing them even though you don’t, and the way Arkwright’s looking at me as if there really is something shared between us… Then I realise what’s happening—and immediately wish I hadn’t. It’s there in his eyes. It’s in that smile of his and the way he studies me. After all these years, I’ve finally met someone else who knows the truth about John Arthur.

We gaze at each other. I swallow a sudden mouthful of saliva.

“What do you think of John Arthur, Mr. Brook?”

“What?”

“What do
you
think of John Arthur. I know it’s been a long time, but do you like him personally?”

“He has my… admiration.”

“Admiration.” He slurps his wine and savours the word, then points the rim of the glass towards my face. “I suppose that’s about as much as any of us can hope for…”

Deputy Prime Minister William Arkwright smiles at me. Then he pretends to see someone else he recognises over my shoulder, and waddles away through the rainbowed haze.

Still wandering half an hour later, re-fortified by tablets and what food I could find, grimly determined to make the most of these last days before dissolution or trial or public shame or private agony or whatever else awaits me, I come across Father Phelan standing alone in a long chilly room inside the Palace where the pillars are entwined with wrought-iron ivy. He catches the click of my new shoes on the tiled floor before I can head off in another direction.

“The Professor!” he calls, waving a bottle of Johnnie Walker. “Would you care for one? A wee sip? Sorry I’m without any glasses.”

I shake my head and stand looking at him as he sways mirrored amid glass cases containing the relics of Empire; rifles, claymores and assegai, torn and bloodstained flags that men once gave their lives for.

“A fine fella, the King—but smaller in the flesh, don’t you think, Professor? Can’t say that I much admire his choice in women, either.”

I nod, and make to turn away.

“Don’t go yet, Professor! Don’t go! I’ve been meaning to ask you. Did you
really
know John Arthur?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“But without the crap? The lies?”

“The facts have got twisted about since, but yes, I did once know him.”

“Thing is…” Father Phelan’s eyes roll back in his head and his chin glistens as he glugs down another inch of whisky. “Thing is, I never knew the bugger at all. Will you fucking credit that?”

“Does that really matter? Everyone seems to think you did…”

“What do they know? It’s right I was working in the East End about 1920, helping lads with the boxing. Terrible times, but a sweet church, a busy little congregation. Worked there for a few years before I got moved on after I had a bit of a bash up with the Bishop. Over this basically…” He waves the bottle, then plonks it down on the long low case he’s standing beside, hands making rainbows smears across the glass. Inside, there’s an antique cannon dredged up from the
Marie Rose.
“Then John Arthur takes over from that bastard Churchill, and it seems he spent some time boxing in the East End. You know how it is—you tell stories on Friday evening you can’t even remember on Saturday. You think, what the fuck? That sounds good enough to be true. Who cares? Almost came to believe it myself, I did. Got my name and my face in the local paper…”

I nod. Faintly distorted, echoing along the crystal corridors, comes the thump of martial music.

“But it gets a bit scary. I’m expecting, you know, some kind of visit. When it comes, it’s this fella from the KSG says he wants a quiet chat. Of course, I’m shitting myself, but I come out straight and tell him it’s all a load of crap, I never even
saw
John Arthur let alone taught him boxing. But this fella is all understanding like. Says that it really doesn’t matter. And then he starts to tell me about the times when I used to help them poor lads in the East End. About me touching those sweet lads like I’m Jesus some kind of pervert…

“But the fella tells me all soft and kind like he’s only just letting me know. Not that he believes it. Not that he gives a flying fuck either way. The deal is that I just have to keep spinning the same crap about having helped John Arthur at my boxing club. Basically do what I’m doing now…” He attempts to make an ironic bow. His hand slips on the glass case. He staggers. “Right here in front of the bloody King of fucking England.”