England, England
They crossed the coast near Selsey and routed south-west over the English Channel. ‘Precious jewel set in a silver sea, eh?’ murmured the King.
‘Indeed it is, Sir.’ The co-pilot nodded as if His Majesty regularly turned such phrases.
The little squadron flew on across the waves. It always made the King a little melancholy to realize how quickly you reached the sea, and how small his realm was compared to that which his ancestors had once ruled. Only a few generations back and his great-however-many-times-granny had presided over a third of the globe. At the Palace, when they had judged his juvenile self-esteem a bit wonky, they used to dig out foxed atlases to show him how pink the world had once been, and how thumpingly important his lineage. Now it was mostly gone, all that justice and majesty and peace and power and being Bloody Number One, gone, all gone, thank you very much Johnnie Foreigner. Nowadays the place was so small you could hardly swing a cat; shrunk back to the size it had been when Old King Alfred burnt the cakes. He used to tell Denise that if the country didn’t stir itself the two of them would be back to home baking, like in Alfie’s time.
He was barely concentrating; there were long stretches when this plane almost seemed to fly itself. Then his ears were tickled with a burst of static and crackle.
‘Bandits three o’clock, Sir.’
The King looked where his co-pilot was pointing. A small plane was heading across their bows, towing a long banner. SANDY DEXTER AND THE DAILY PAPER GREET HIS MAJ, he read.
‘Bloody bollocks,’ muttered the King. He turned, and shouted through the open cockpit door, ‘Hey, Denise, come and look at this bollocks.’
The Queen picked up her Scrabble pieces because she could never quite trust her lady-in-waiting not to cheat, and put her head into the cockpit.
‘Bollocks,’ said the Queen. ‘Bloody bollocks.’
Neither of them had any time for Sandy Dexter. In the opinion of both King and Queen, Dexter was a slimeball and the Daily Paper not even fit for the outside bog. Of course they each separately read it, just to see what filth and lies their loyal subjects were being asked to swallow. That was how Queen Denise learned of her husband’s regular visits to that bitch from hell who got her tits in America, Daphne Lowestoft. She’d need a lot more cosmetic improvement if she ever stepped foot in the Palace when Denise was around. The Daily Paper was also where the King discovered that his wife’s recent and laudable interest in saving dolphins was also shared by someone in a wet-suit he could not even bear to name. Odd how wet-suits made everything stick out, like in an advertisement.
Now, as they watched, Dexter’s little Apache turned and started heading back across their bows in the opposite direction. The King could imagine the creep chortling away and telling the photographer where to point the snout of his long lens. They probably had a shot of the royal cockpit already.
‘Kingy-Thingy,’ said the Queen. ‘Do something.’
‘Bloody bollocks,’ repeated the King. ‘How on earth can we get rid of this slimeball?’
‘Roger, Sir.’
Wing-Commander ‘Johnnie’ Johnson climbed away from the royal jet and set course to intercept. He closed on the Apache with its trailing provocation. A little game of chicken, why not? Then he thought, what about giving the blighter a bit more of a scare? The wing cannon would still have a few rounds left after yesterday’s Battle of Britain rehearsal. Put a squirt up his bum and make the fellow pee his pants. Bloody journalists.
The Hurricane closed further. With a cry to the intercom of ‘This one’s mine!’ Johnson lined up the target in his gunsight, pressed the tit, and felt the airframe shudder as he got off two eight-second bursts. He pulled the kite up into a sharp climb, just as the manual told him to do, and was chuckling to himself when he heard the unmistakable voice of ‘Ginger’ Baker break radio silence. ‘Jesus fuck,’ were his unambiguous words.
The Wing-Commander looked back. At first, all he could see was an expanding patch of fire. Slowly, it turned into a trail of vertical wreckage, strung lightly together, with the banner curling free and floating away unharmed. No parachutes emerged. Time slowed. Radio silence returned. Those aboard the royal squadron watched until the remnants of the light plane bounced briefly on the surface of the distant water and disappeared.
‘Johnnie’ Johnson took up his position in line astern again. The eastern cliffs of the Island came slowly into focus. Then Flight-Lieutenant ‘Chalky’ White gave his call sign. ‘Log report, skipper,’ he said. ‘Looked like engine failure to me.’
‘Jerry is inclined to sit on his own bomb,’ added ‘Ginger’ Baker.
There was a long pause. Finally the King, having thought the matter over, came on the intercom. ‘Congratulations, Wing-Commander. I’d say, bandits discouraged.’ Queen Denise borrowed three letters from her lady-in-waiting and clattered down the word SLIMEBALL.
‘Piece of cake, Sir,’ replied ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, remembering his line from the Battle’s end.
‘But I’d say that, on the whole, mum’s the word,’ added the King.
‘Mum’s the word, Sir.’
The squadron began its descent into Ventnor, and was cleared for landing. As the jet’s door was opened and a brass band struck up his theme tune, the King tried to recall what exactly he’d said to make the Wingco go completely apeshit and blow Sandy Dexter into the middle of the English Channel. That was the trouble with being in the public eye: one’s least words did get so frightfully misunderstood. The Wing-Commander, meanwhile, was wondering who could have replaced his blank ammunition with live.
A TROOP of hefty skydivers, crinolines spread and rubber eggs securely glued to their wicker baskets, descended from a windless sky towards the village green in front of Buckingham Palace.
‘Heavens to Betsy!’ roared Sir Jack from the reviewing stand.
The King, standing beside him, felt tired. It was a hot afternoon, and part of him was still feeling a touch guilty about yesterday’s downing of Sandy Dexter. Denise had held herself together jolly well: she was a real best mate, Denise. Secretly, he’d been a trifle sickened at the idea of frying journalists, and he’d made enquiry of his ADC about an anonymous contribution for Dexter’s widow. The ADC had consulted the press officer, who’d reported that Dexter was not known to be a man of domestic habit – indeed, quite the contrary – and this, in a way, had been a solace.
Then there had been the official welcome, and for all the novelty of the Island, being greeted by Sir Jack Pitman wasn’t all that different from being greeted by a few heads of state he could mention, except that at least Pitman didn’t try and kiss him on both cheeks. The helicopter tour of the Island – well, that at least had been rather a lark. A sort of fast-forward version of England: one minute it was Big Ben, the next Anne Hathaway’s cottage, then the White Cliffs of Dover, Wembley Stadium, Stonehenge, one’s own Palace, and Sherwood Forest. They had buzzed Robin Hood and his Band, who had responded by shooting arrows up at them.
‘Rogues and rascals,’ Pitman had shouted, ‘can’t do a thing with them.’
The King had led the laughter, and to show his famous royal nervelessness, had quipped back, ‘Lucky you didn’t arm them with ground-to-air missiles.’
Then there had been the endless line of handshakes, all sorts of odds and bods, Shakespeare, Francis Drake, Muffin the Mule, Chelsea Pensioners, a whole team of footballers, Dr Johnson, who seemed a pretty alarming cove, Nell Gwynn, Boadicea, and more than a hundred bloody Dalmatians. Gave a chap quite a turn to shake hands with his own great-however-many-times-granny, especially if you couldn’t get a laugh out of her and she kept pretending she was the Queen Empress. He wasn’t sure they should have introduced him to Oliver Cromwell, for that matter. Bad taste, really. Still, that Nell Gwynn had been a top girl, he thought, with her low-cut thingy and, you know, oranges. But something about the way Denise had said, ‘Are they real, do you think?’ had made his ardour diminish. She could be a real bitch at times, Denise; a best mate, but a real bitc
h. If only she didn’t have such an infallible eye for cosmetic adjustment – and His Majesty was old-fashioned enough to like cosmetic adjustment only if he wasn’t aware that it had happened. He could just picture the scene: a little horsing around, the oranges rolling under the bed, old Kingy-Thingy claiming, what was that Froggy phrase, droit de seigneur – and then, just at the wrong moment, Denise’s words, ‘Are they real, do you think?’ popping into his head. A real downer, that would be.
Lunch. There was always lunch, this time with rather too many glasses of that Adgestone wine of which the Island was in his opinion overproud. Then hours on the reviewing stand in the hot sun. He’d seen a march past of guardsmen and a parade of London taxis (which frankly was a bit too much like standing at the window of Buck House), pageants of history and floatfuls of myth. He’d seen Beefeaters and six-foot robins doing a coordinated dance on snow that declined to melt in the summer heat. He’d listened to brass bands, symphony orchestras, rock groups, and opera stars all synthesized before him in cyberspace. Lady Godiva had come by on her horse, and just to make sure she wasn’t in cyberspace he hoisted a pair of binox to his peepers. Feeling a stir to his left, he’d raised a regal palm to still his Queen. In public at least Denise knew her place, and this time there were no subversive little remarks about cellulite or tucks. She’d been quite a stunner, that Lady Godiva.
‘Lucky old horse,’ he’d murmured to the Pitman fellow on his right.
‘Quite so, Sir. Though I must add, I’m a family man myself.’ Gawd, why did everyone seem to have it in for him today? Like this morning, on the tour of the Island, there’d been a special diversion to overfly some sort of Memorial Pool. Just a village pond with a few ducks and some weeping willows, but it had made his fat host go all misty-eyed and start prating on like the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Now these SAS men, or whatever they were, all dressed up in women’s clothing, and carrying baskets of eggs, were parachuting down in front of his eyes to some patriotic soundtrack. He’d quite lost the plot as to who they were in the programme. One minute it was Royal Tournament stuff, the next a real dog’s breakfast. For all he knew the whole of the human race, plus all the animal kingdom and a million people dressed up as plants were going to march past him one by one, and he was going to have to salute, shake hands, and hang a gong on every last blighter of them. The Adgestone swilled in his stomach, and the music blared.
But he didn’t have the Windsor genes for nothing. His ancestors had passed on a few tricks of the trade. Always pee beforehand, that was rule Number One. Rule Number Two: stand on one foot more than the other, and switch feet after a while. Rule Number Three was Denise’s: always admire things you wouldn’t mind being given later on. And Rule Number Four was his very own: just when the whole bloody thing is getting unbearable and you’re being bored witless, you turn to your host, as he now did to Pitman, and say, loud enough to be overheard by those around, ‘Damn fine show.’
‘Thank you, Sir.’
Compliments paid, the King lowered his voice. ‘And damn fine Lady Godiva, if I may make so bold. Top girl.’
Sir Jack remained gazing down at the SAS transvestites stowing their chutes. Anyone would have thought he was commenting on them when he murmured, ‘She’s a great admirer of yours, Sir, if I may make so bold.’
Ker-pow! The old hypocrite. Still, maybe the day could be saved. Maybe Denise would have to fly back early.
‘Absolutely no speeches,’ Sir Jack continued, still in an undertone. Bloody bollocks! The old bugger seemed to be reading one’s thoughts. ‘Not unless you want to. No taxes. No tabloid press. Occasional exhibiting of the Royal Person, though very good replicas will shoulder most of the burden. No dreary heads of state coming to call. Unless you want them: I understand the pull of family commitment. And, of course, strictly no bicycles.’
The King had been warned against any direct negotiating with Pitman, who was held to be a tricky cove, so he contented himself with saying, ‘There can be something jolly undignified about a bike, you know. The way one’s knees stick out.’
‘Double-glazing,’ said Sir Jack, nodding towards Buckingham Palace. Somehow it looked better in the half-size version. ‘Satellite, cable, and digital TV. Freephone facilities worldwide.’
‘So?’ The King thought this last remark presumptuous. It was in his view all too direct a reference to the enforced installation of pay-phones at Buck House after the last censure motion in the House of Commons. Really, he’d had it with the heat and this pushy host and this bloody wine. ‘What makes you think I give a toss about the effing phone bill?’
‘I’m sure you don’t, Sir, I’m sure you don’t. All I was thinking is, it’s not entirely handy if you have to go to the pay-phone every time you want to call up an airstrike. If you catch my drift.’
The King showed him a cool royal profile and twiddled his signet ring. If you catch my drift. Not much chance of missing it, was there? Like being downwind when one of Denise’s mastiffs farted.
‘Ah. Talk of the devil.’
The King wondered if this bugger Pitman had had some tip-off, or whether it was just luck. But here, as if on cue, came two Spitfires and a Hurricane, piloted, the public address system confirmed, by Flight-Lieutenant ‘Chalky’ White, Squadron-Leader ‘Ginger’ Baker, and Wing-Commander ‘Johnnie’ Johnson. They flew over low, buzzed the reviewing stand, waggled their wings, did slow rolls, looped the loop, fired blank ammo, and laid red, white, and blue smoke.
‘Just out of interest,’ said the King, ‘and without prejudice, as my learned advisers are constantly putting it. Back at HQ I have a whole bloody army, navy, and airforce ready to defend me if things get hot. Here you’ve got these three old museum pieces with peashooters attached. Not exactly going to make Johnnie Foreigner crap his pants, are they?’
Sir Jack, who was having their conversation recorded, was pleased with what could, if circumstances required, be turned into another royal gaffe. For the moment, he merely noted it, along with the King’s boredom, querulousness, alcohol intake, and lust. ‘And equally without prejudice, Sir,’ he replied, ‘although I had intended to leave such discussions until my next meeting with your learned advisers, you would be surprised to learn how cheaply it is possible to acquire nuclear capability in this modern world of ours.’
Queen Denise returned to the mainland the next day to continue her charitable duties. The King cancelled a regimental luncheon after deciding that his personal presence was required as the Talks About Talks looked like developing into Talks. Lady Godiva turned out not to have cellulite, or tucks, as far as he could tell, and to be a whopping patriot.
According to The Times of London, now published from Ryde, four separate log reports described in matching detail the appearance, three days earlier, of an unidentified light aircraft ten miles south of Selsey Bill. All spoke of a sudden loss of control. There had been no possibility of survivors. The Times confirmed the loss of a widely-read tabloid journalist, also of a star photographer, albeit one known for run-ins with the glitterati. Sir Jack’s office put out a statement confirming that the plane’s wreckage had sunk inside the Island’s territorial waters, and that the graves would be respected in perpetuity. Two days later, as the Talks ended satisfactorily, Sir Jack Pitman flew over the crash site in a Pitco helicopter. Beaming broadly, he dropped a generous wreath.
SIR JACK’S SIXTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY had been chosen as the appropriate date for action. In his replica double-cube snuggery at Island HQ, Sir Jack wore his Palace of Westminster braces with defiance. What did he care if he was finally rendering himself unavailable for the House of Lords? The various fools and dunderheads of various parties to whom he had made more than generous donations over the decades had missed their chance of draping him in ermine. Well, so be it. Small men always tried to drag down greater; hypocrites would have their day. Just because, a while back, some wet-eared Department of Trade and Industry inspector unversed in modern commercial practices chose to seek advanceme
nt through a piece of cheap phrase-making. To say of Sir Jack Pitman that he was as honourable as Taras Bulba was a shabby racial slur. The phrase ‘unfit to run a whelk stall’ particularly rankled. At the time, he’d had a hundredweight of whelks delivered to the inspector’s modest Reigate residence with a full band of paparazzi in attendance to record the humiliation; but he wasn’t sure the ploy hadn’t been too subtle. Somehow the inspector had managed to turn things so that the whelks looked like an inducement. It had all got out of hand, and Sir Jack’s pleasantry about the molluscs coming from his offshore fund had been quite misread.
Well, today was the day when those tinpot MPs, self-serving ministers, hypocrites, and small men would realize exactly who they’d been dealing with. Soon, he could pin-cushion himself with medals, if he so desired, could create any number of titles for himself. What, for instance, had happened to the Fortuibus lineage? That could surely be revived. First Baron Fortuibus of Bembridge? And yet Sir Jack felt that, deep within him, there was always a fundamental simplicity, even an austerity. Of course you had to keep up appearances – what use would the Good Samaritan have been if he couldn’t afford to pay the innkeeper? – but you should never lose touch with your essential humanity. No, perhaps it was better, more appropriate, for him to remain simple Sir Jack.
All company assets had been moved offshore, beyond the reach of Westminster’s petulant revenge. The lease on Pitman House (I) had only a few months to run, and the freeholders were being stalled. A few goods and chattels would be transferred in due course, unless they were impounded by the British Government. Sir Jack rather hoped they would be: then he could take the hypocrites and small men to the International Court. In any case, he had been informed that it was time to update most of the equipment. Pretty much the same went for the human matériel too.
His more timid aides had argued for not striking in all directions at the same time. They claimed it would dilute the coverage. Sir Jack begged to disagree: this was Big Bang time; this was not just the day’s lead item, but a rolling story. In any case, how did you do it? You did it by doing it. The events of that day would therefore unroll in swift succession at Reigate, Ventnor, The Hague, and Brussels. Sir Jack would keep a small part of his mind, and a double spread in one of his newspapers, for Reigate. That DTI inspector, who seemed to have been doing so well lately, would be puzzled, over the breakfast table which he shared with his delightful wife, to find that his mail contained several registered envelopes bearing South American stamps and addressed in handwriting remarkably similar to his own. Only a few minutes would separate the visits to his front door of the amiable postman and the considerably more puritanical representatives of HM Customs and Excise. The latter had gratifyingly ferocious powers of entry and search, and also felt very strongly – the more so after a recent campaign in certain newspapers – about the filthy traffic in life-destroying drugs conducted by seemingly respectable front-men whose perverted greed dragged the nation’s children into a spiral of hell.