First Officer Nick Chopko: Three nine nine. Thirty-six seven, and dumping.
SAM: Only differential power. You’re manoeuvring with the throttles … Slats are out?
Macmanaman: Slats? We don’t have any slats. If we can get ourselves down while we’re still horizontal, we’re going to ditch. We’re descending. Ah, now the nose is coming up. Easy. Easy.
Columbia [South Carolina] Approach: Copy your setting, one oh one heavy. The runway is ten thousand feet long.
Macmanaman: Can’t use it. And we’re not going to make Columbia. Find me a place to ditch on that setting. Nick, put the [landing] gear down.
Chopko: What?
Macmanaman: Throw it down.
Reynolds turned to the man in 2A, and she screamed. ‘What’s that?’ she said. ‘What? … I can’t hear! Take it off!’
‘A smoke-hood. Cost me two-thirty.’
‘Ladies and gentleman,’ said the exalted voice of Robynne Davis. ‘As in all emergency landings we will be evacuating as soon as the aircraft is at rest. Passengers close to the exit doors, those in seats …’
A uniformed man came out of the cockpit. He leant over 2B and whispered something.
‘Ma’am,’ said Hal Ward, in the galley, ‘would you please go to the bathroom and then quietly return to 22D. Business. Captain’s orders.’
The inter-cabin curtains were open, and by straining his neck the man in 2A saw that Mrs Traynor’s new seat was unlike his own. It was slightly narrower, and it faced the other way.
Chopko: Look at our speed.
Flight Engineer Hal Ward: The heavies aren’t designed for this. We could just come apart up here.
SAM: Captain, on your present setting you’re going to be coming in right under it.
Macmanaman: What are they saying? Thirty-three, thirty-four?
SAM: Their latest and best is an NEO altitude of twenty-one point four. Repeat, at 17.43. If you’re not yet on the ground you’re going to feel it. Heat and blast.
Macmanaman: And another thing. Watch the nose, Nick. No no no. Pull back, pull back, pull back.
6. What do princesses want?
On screen, the bathroom of the Yellow House: the passageway, the circular concavity of the tub, the mirrors, the towels on their pegs. Brendan flinched as a subtitle gave date and place. He turned. On the sofa the King stared levelly.
The Princess entered, in her tennis whites. She approached, smiling with amusement or satisfaction, and then vanished to the right. The sound of a sigh, the brisk drilling of micturation, the soft percussion of the toilet paper as it ripped. She reappeared with her shirt half-up and her skirt half-down, and limping as she kicked off her shoes. She threw on the taps. She paused for a full minute, examining a blemish on her forearm. Then she undressed carelessly, and in she climbed.
It hadn’t wavered, the watching eye, stupidly imperturbable, like a security monitor. After a while you understood that it had now begun a painfully gradual zoom.
Here came the change of the Princess’s expression – a listening face. The sound of a door opening and closing, and the audible rumour of advent. Then the white shape, still halved by shadow.
The quality of the sound, throughout, had been ticklishly distinct. And now the sudden surge of a human voice.
‘I come from your father’s bed. He sent me here to help you bathe.’ It was He, it was He … He removed her robe, and held out a hand in such a way that the Princess must rise to receive it. He stepped in … The kissed neck and throat, the sponged breasts. The two bodies, one brown and full of gravity, one pale and light. And the two faces: one with its young astonishment and horror, the other with its ancient inclemency.
Brendan turned again. Henry had his arms up on the sofa’s shoulders and his head was bent to one side. Moisture had had time to sink in around his closed eyes.
Some minutes later Brendan said, ‘Sir? I think you …’
Henry sat up and stared. A different scene, now, gloom, luxury, a half-dressed He Zizhen attending to his own naked body, which looked utterly helpless, like a baby waiting to be changed.
‘If it’s any comfort to you, sir, I think we can say this of Miss Zizhen. She was our Enemy’s Enemy.’
‘It is some comfort, surprisingly enough, Bugger. This is over now. Oughtred at one end and the PM at the other. What remains is for us, or for me, to divine what the Princess wants. What do princesses want?’
7. Simon Finger
His crutch was of the sort that went all the way up the arm. Joseph Andrews leant it against the side of his desk and, after some bitter tottering, crashed down into his swivel chair.
‘Sime,’ he said when he was able.
He addressed a small middle-aged man in a chalkstriped suit and with foul eyes, pale round the poster-blue pupil: Simon Finger.
‘Sime, mate. It’s all bollocks, that: me threat. I’m a monarchist, mate. Always have been. And what I got on that lot’d make the royal family disappear. And I couldn’t live with meself with that on me conscience. Knowing I’d done that, I couldn’t rest easy in me grave. They nick me tomorrow, then I’ll take me secret with me. Though Cora always have it, lest need be.’
In his ripe drawl – posher than the King – Simon Finger said, ‘I couldn’t agree more, Jo. It’s a fine institution.’
‘Where are we? Yeah, we’ll be obliging Tony Tobin, Yocker Fitzmaurice, Kev Had and Nolberto Drago. You can do what you want with them other slags, but I want to be there for Nobby Drago.’
For a while Joseph Andrews unsystematically sifted through the papers on his desk. He held up a clipping.
‘Calls me a mad prick. In print. Names me. Places me. As for what he said here the other night: no respect whatsoever. And he would’ve walked away if I’d’ve let him! Wouldn’t stand. He wouldn’t stand. Called me a … Me own son. Well I’m not having that. Her,’ he said.
‘Her? Isn’t that rather …?’
‘Yeah. See. Cora’ve made me promise I won’t hurt him. So I want you to hurt her, Simon. The wife. Because it’s not gone away. And I’m owed. I want you to mark her, Simon. I want you to cut her face.’
‘No. That’s uh, incommensurate. I think that would undoubtedly be un peu trop.’
‘… I don’t understand you, Simon Finger. You got arsehole to spare. If a raging bull come at you, you’d stand. You’d stick your head in a fucking cement-mixer, you would. If you considered it the correct thing to do. I’ve just asked you to top four villains and you’ve barely shrugged. And you won’t even … Uh all right. All right. Will you knock her about – will you do that at least?’
‘What are we talking about here, Jo? A bloody nose and a black eye? … A handful of hair or two and a couple of teeth?’
He leant forward and spread his hands all-solvingly. ‘Exactly. Just like any normal husband’d give her.’
Then Simon Finger helped Joseph Andrews down the stairs to join their friends for the little going-away party, Manfred, Rodney and Dominic, Cora Susan and Burl Rhody, Tori Fate, Captain Mate, and He Zizhen.
8. The vestal follow
They were all there for the midday meeting: Clint, Supermaniam, Strite, Mackelyne, Woyno, Donna Strange. Clint had just had a conversation with Donna Strange about Dork Bogarde. It was remarkably similar to the conversation he had had with Dork Bogarde about Donna Strange: she couldn’t remember him either. Chemistry not quite right, thought Clint. Nevertheless he took this sophisticated exchange as a good omen for his rendezvous with Kate, now only hours away. He could see himself parking the Avenger and strolling across the road. Having a quiet wander across the road …
Supermaniam said, ‘Ainsley Car reckons Durham’s the best dryout centre he’s ever been to. Course he’s treated like a god in there. And Ainsley and Beryl are going to get married for the third time in the prison chapel. Could do a piece on that.’
Crinkling his nose, Desmond Heaf said, ‘So you see some things turn out for the best.’
‘Yeah. You know,’ said Cli
nt: ‘“The faded and disgraced football legend gave a wry smile as he added his own slops to the bucket of filth outside his cell. His wedding day had begun.”’
‘Oh I imagined something a bit softer in tone. Though point taken: football is the religion of our … Now,’ said Heaf with a glance at his watch. ‘It doesn’t happen often – oh no – but every now and then, every now and then, in a publishing lifetime, you encounter an instance of the journalist’s craft that simply takes your breath away … Yesterday morning I said to Clint here, “Clint? I’ve had a personal communication from the Palace via the FPA.” ‘Heaf briefly waved a flyer-like sheet of paper in the air. ‘It says that the tacit embargo on the Princess is now officially lapsed, but that they do respectfully ask that we maintain a certain tact and distance at this very sensitive time, following the demise of Queen Pamela. Explaining this, I said, “Clint? How about a little piece on Vicky? Something for the op-ed page. And not Yellow Dog, mind! More like your earlier light-hearted style. Now that all the scandal’s blown over, and with her sixteenth birthday not that far off. To go with this nice new photograph. Lovely to see her laughing again, isn’t it? … A turning of the page – the start of a fresh chapter.” This morning I happened to open my Lark at the breakfast table, in the company of my wife and six daughters. Would you all now turn to page thirty-three. “Vicky With Nobs On”.
‘“Hi, men!”’ Heaf recited. ‘“With these words Princess Vicky kissed goodbye to her catflap – and nun too soon says the Lark. Gore blimey, it was virgin on the ridiculous. These days British minge is spreading the butcher’s apron aged 12 or 13. So high time Vicky had herself deflowered (what in carnation did you expect?) and jumped aboard the cherrygoround. We’ve had a Virgin Queen – Liz I. So loosen your belts for the Goer Princess.
‘“Who’s the (p)lucky boy then? Porking the Heir Suggestive is still a topping offence so this must have come from on high. Did she do a Blessed Mary and let the Lord God giveth her one? Or was it an inside job in at least two senses? We all knew that Vick’s first pash would have to be posh. And it’s well known that her Pop hasn’t popped for more than two year. Maybe she said, ‘Dad? I need a nob. Let’s keep it in the (royal) family.’ And he said, ‘What the Hal?’
‘“So out with the crown jewels, lads, and start dreaming. Now that one bloke’s got his leg over, the vestal surely follow. After all those years of Queen Pam, known to every motorist as the Buckingham Turnoff (RIP), here’s a royal to tauten the todge. Look across the page, lads, and raise your rifles. Ready, aim – and let Britannia drool the waves!”
‘… I never thought I’d ever hear myself say this, Clint. But you’re fired.’
Mattock Estate, NW2. Homeless John and And New were sitting on the pavement.
‘It ain’t a bad patch, this,’ said Homeless John. ‘You can help people with their cars. Say, “Eh up, mate. You got a ticket. Tried to stop her but the cow give you one.”’
‘How’s that help?’ asked And.
‘Well, prepare them. Warn them. Where you been then?’
‘On an oil-rig. In the fucking North Sea.’
‘Eh. Mega money.’
‘If you’re a driller, yeah. Not if you’re licking out the fucking pie-warmer it ain’t.’
The black Avenger crept up, with Clint’s head in it like the hump of a camel.
Still seated, Homeless John made a series of unreadable gestures till Clint lowered the passenger window.
‘Not there, mate. It’s Residents’ up to ten-thirty. Back up a bit and it’s Pay and Display. Just beyond the yellow line. Beyond the yellow.’
Clint backed up, then climbed down, holding the two bottles of champagne by their necks in his left hand and the pigskin hamper in his right. ‘Yeah cheers lads,’ he said.
‘Eh up then,’ said Homeless John. ‘I’m off home.’
And Clint started across the road. Nice to get going early: love in the afternoon. Roaming across the road, ambling, sort of happy-go-lucky. A loon, a wander. Pressure? There was no pressure, not with Kate. And he was prepared for every contingency: when shaken, his pockets sounded like a pair of maracas. Conversation? Okay: the new royal sensation, breaking as we speak. (Well out of that. Let them other mugs do it.) Or amuse her with the story of the two nights he had served in a Lovetown jail for smoking in his room. Every sprinkler in the whole hotel …
He admitted to himself that she had her little mannerisms. Like her paltry ingenuities on the keyboard. Some of her abbreviations saved her but one touch, and none at all when they included the use of the tab. And punctuation as visual pun: ‘i must—’; ‘orl&o’s, of red hair’; and, of course, ‘a 2nd 9-hour operation on his:’. And 6 for sex kept making him think she came from bleeding New Zealand. Unconsciously, too, of course, Clint was suffering from a proliferation of doubts in new areas: innovatory uncertainties. He had the sense that he was missing something – and not a detail. And he had already suspected, many times, and not just unconsciously, that she wasn’t quite right in the head.
He pushed the button marked k8. Time passed. I bet that lamb felt it, he thought insensately, when I come up on it. The house opened out with a soft laugh and the smell of hot greens, and closed again.
9. February 14 (4.37 p.m.): 101 Heavy
Captain John Macmanaman: I’ve got a little more feel here. I don’t know. Maybe the gear is giving us just a little bit of rudder, or maybe the air – it’s lower, it’s thicker.
Flight Engineer Hal Ward: What you got you got.
Macmanaman: How are you doing there, Nick?
First Officer Nick Chopko: … The numbers say drop the nose.
Reynolds knew why the Captain wanted her in a seat facing aft. You quickly intuited that you had a large piece of fixed furniture to cushion you, rather than the slender section of strapping enjoyed, for example, by the man in 2A. On the other hand there were unfamiliar sensations to be accommodated. When the plane met with resistance, in the shuddering clouds, it felt to her spine like acceleration. And the obverse: when the nose went down and they started to dive, it felt to her spine like reverse thrust.
But they didn’t have reverse thrust.
Four hundred people gulped, as the plane jerked wildly to the left. So sudden, so sharp. She thought of the scrap of tissue paper in the steel toilet bowl, an hour or more ago, sucked sideways with the sound of a sneeze. As sharp as that.
People were no longer wailing, even at the most terrible drops and lurches. Except for some of the couples, people were no longer touching or talking but staring straight ahead. People had stopped saying that word, which they nearly all said and which was fuck. People travelling alone were no longer saying goodbye to their loved ones on their mobile phones. People were no longer saying goodbye to their loved ones, in their heads. People were saying goodbye to themselves.
LAST CHAPTER
1. Courtly love
Earlier in the morning of Valentine’s Day, Brendan had breakfasted with the Princess, and they had had words.
‘What do you want, ma’am?’
‘… I want to be a part of the umma.’
‘The umma, ma’am?’
‘The body of Islam. That’s why they pray five times a day. Shorooq, sunrise, zhur, noon, asr, mid-afternoon, maghreb, sunset, and isha, night. To recommit themselves to the body of Islam. For the act of prostration, the knees first, and then the hands. Brow, nose, both hands, both knees, and the underside of all your toes must touch the ground, and the fingers and toes must point towards Mecca. The conformity is an expression of the oneness of Islam. The umma.’
‘… If you’ll excuse me, ma’am.’
‘You’re off on your hike. Daddy doesn’t have hikes. Or even walks.’
Her tone, he noted, was softer than it had been. More fond – or at least more proprietorial.
‘Daddy takes strolls. No. Daddy takes turns.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, clutching his gloves, ‘I hope to reach Gelding’s Mere.’
Bren
dan headed north from the Greater House. He was surprised, in a way, by the devoutness of his secularism. Because he feared that his love could not survive it – a truly pious Princess. He could imagine his increasingly formal and detached response. He could imagine falling out of it: falling out of love. Love isn’t blind, then, he thought. Or mine isn’t. And what next, when love was gone? … Brendan sought to calm himself by looking at it practically. He didn’t care which faith it was she turned to; but the immediate task, for political puposes, would be to steer her off towards (say) Buddhism.
The unbroken cloud was thick and grey and low, like under-felt. And he felt beneath, below, under – under the underfelt.
Hal Nine – he found out what this princess wanted.
They were taking a turn, arm in arm, along the trout stream (Henry was a great subliminal believer in the curative power of flowing water). Victoria was in any case much improved – after his epic abjections concerning He Zizhen.
‘If I found out what you wanted and gave it to you, how would you change?’
‘Well I’d stop all this religious stuff for a start.’
He looked at her eagerly, not because the possible outcome was attractive but because this voice, with its forthright calculation, was the voice he knew.
‘Then I must find it out.’
‘You won’t. And even if you do, you won’t do it. Knowing you.’
‘Oh, if I find it out I will most certainly do it. Because then you’ll have to come back to me.’
In the lull before lunch they took to the low table in the library for a couple of rubbers of Vanishing Whist.
‘This is another thing you’ll have to give up,’ he said. ‘No more piggy for breakfast either … Oof. Three. No, four. At least.’ And he fanned them out, the court cards, the kings and the queens.
‘None,’ she said.
And abruptly he folded his hand, and slipped from the stool to his knees, and came round to her saying, ‘Yes of course. Yes of course, yes of course, my dearest.’