Two Weeks with the Queen (12 page)

He looked at Aunty Iris biting her lip and Uncle Bah staring at the floor and Alistair staring at the ceiling.

He tried desperately to think of something to say.

It was no good, he wasn't in the mood for conversation either. He felt all tight and hollow inside, like he needed a good cry.

He'd been trying to cry half the night, thinking of Mum and Dad and their faces when they saw him get off the plane with no doctor and no little jewelled bottle.

No tears had come.

‘What do you do for a crust, Ted?' asked Uncle Bob.

‘I'm unemployed,' said Ted.

Silence again.

Aunty Iris suddenly got up. She went to the sideboard, opened a cupboard and took out the fruit bowl.

Alistair and Uncle Bob stared. Colin was surprised too.

Aunty Iris only got the fruit bowl out on very special occasions.

She held it out to Ted.

‘Here, love,' she said, ‘have one of these. Take your mind off things.'

Colin saw that inside the bowl were five tangerines.

Ted took one, and slowly his face began to crumple. Great sobs shook his body.

Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob and Alistair stared in horror. Then Aunty Iris nudged Uncle Bob and Uncle Bob hurried Alistair out of the room.

‘Would you like another cup of tea now?' asked Aunty Iris.

Ted opened his mouth to try and answer but he couldn't, so massive and heartfelt were his sobs.

Colin tried to answer for him.

No good.

Colin felt his own body shudder and his own face crumple and his own tears spill out of his eyes.

Not anger this time, but grief

And as he wept, grief and sadness running out of him in bucketfuls, and as he watched Ted doing the same, it wasn't Mum and Dad he was thinking of, or himself

It was Luke.

Chapter Sixteen

Next morning at breakfast Colin told them.

Aunty Iris froze in the middle of requesting Alistair not to pick his pimples at the table.

Uncle Bob froze just as he was about to ask Alistair if he'd heard what his mother had just said.

Colin told them again.

‘I want to go home and be with Luke.'

Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob looked at each other.

‘You can't, love,' said Aunty Iris gently.

‘You don't really want to go back to all that, do you?' said Uncle Bob.

‘Yes,' said Colin.

‘He does,' said Alistair.

‘Alistair, eat your breakfast,' said Aunty Iris. ‘Love, your Mum and Dad want you to be here. They think it's best for you.'

‘I've got to go, Aunty Iris.'

‘See.'

‘Shut up, Alistair.'

‘Please, Uncle Bob.'

‘Let him.'

‘You heard what your mother said, Alistair.'

Alistair slammed his fist onto the table. Cups, saucers and both his parents jumped into the air.

‘He's going,' said Alistair, looking steadily at his mother and father, ‘and that's final.'

Colin stared at Alistair, amazed.

Uncle Bob and Aunty Iris stared at Alistair, dumbfounded.

Alistair, breathless, grinned proudly at Colin.

There was a long silence in which Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob opened their mouths several times to speak to Alistair and then closed them again.

‘Listen to me, Colin,' said Aunty Iris finally. ‘You're not going to Australia and that's that. And just in case you've got any notions of going to the airport, don't waste your time. They won't let you on the plane without us to sign the forms.'

The morning after that, just before breakfast, Colin went to the airport.

He woke early, packed, said goodbye to Alistair, wrote down directions when Alistair said he was coming to Australia as soon as he'd figured how to get the new lock off the back door, left Alistair the screwdriver, crept downstairs while Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob were in the bathroom, left a note in the hall (‘Gone for a walk. Cricket training. Be a while.') and slipped out the front door which Uncle Bob had unlocked to get the paper.

At the end of the street he felt a hand on his shoulder.

He froze.

Then he turned round.

It was the postman, smiling cheerily.

‘You Colin Mudford from number 86?' he asked.

Colin nodded, heart pounding.

The postman handed him a letter.

‘Friends in high places, eh?' said the postman, walking off.

The letter was from Buckingham Palace.

Colin stuffed it into his pocket. He'd read it later. He had a plane to catch.

Ted was waiting for him at Heathrow airport.

‘Just as well you rang when you did,' said Ted, ‘I'm off to Wales for the funeral later today.'

Colin was about to put his bag on the conveyor belt at the check-in counter.

He stopped.

‘I should really come with you,' he said.

Ted put the bag onto the conveyor belt.

‘You should go where you're going,' he said.

The man at the counter checked Colin's ticket and Ted signed the forms to allow Colin to get on the plane without an adult accompanying him.

‘What relationship are you to the traveller?' the man at the counter asked Ted.

‘Mate,' said Colin.

‘Friend,' said Ted.

‘Guardian?' asked the man.

‘That's right,' said Colin.

Just before they parted at customs, Colin gave Ted his present. A scarf He'd bought it from a stall at the underground station. It was pink.

‘My favourite colour,' said Ted, putting it on.

Colin grinned. He'd always liked pink but blokes didn't wear it where he came from.

He decided not to make a meal of saying goodbye.

Just a hug and a grin, and Ted flipped the scarf over his shoulder and was gone.

‘Bloody queen,' said a man behind Colin.

Colin turned and looked the man right in the eyes.

‘He's not,' he said, ‘but he should be.'

Over Yugoslavia Colin opened the letter from the person who was.

Dear My Mudford, it said,. Her Majesty's sympathies are with all who suffer through illness. May I, on her behalf, wish your brother a speedy recovery.

It was signed by a Palace Liaison Officer.

Colin left it in the ashtray.

Colin stopped outside Luke's room and took a deep breath.

He looked in through the glass panel in the door.

There was Luke, in bed, surrounded by hospital equipment. He looked smaller than Colin remembered, and very pale. His hair was sort of wispy.

There were Mum and Dad sitting on either side of the bed talking to Luke. They looked pale as well. And tired.

Colin took another deep breath and walked in.

He didn't even look at Mum and Dad, and barely heard their amazed gasps.

Plenty of time for that later.

He just looked at Luke, who was staring at him in delight, sitting up in bed, flinging his arms round his neck, squealing his name joyously, hugging him as if he'd never let go.

Colin felt the tears pouring down his cheeks and he didn't even try to stop them.

There wasn't a person in the world he would have changed places with at that moment, not even the Queen of England.