Queen Camilla

  A reptilian-like male colleague, Gary, replied, ‘Yeah, but you get horny watching Mr Bean.’

  Miranda said angrily, ‘Only once! I was on a plane, I was drunk, there was turbulence, and my face was thrown across your genitals, Gary. The fact that Mr Bean was the in-flight movie was entirely coincidental.’

  Boy said, ‘Enough! So, say we had to get this guy on our side and then sell him to the electorate, what would we do?’

  ‘It’s a no-brainer,’ said Gary. ‘We send Miranda fishing, she hauls him in and then we wash, clean, fillet and fry him, dress him up with a bit of lemon and serve him up on a china plate.’

  Miranda said, ‘So I’m whoring for the party now, am I?’

  Boy said, ‘We’re all whoring for the party, Miranda. The only difference between me and a prostitute is that I work with bigger pricks.’

  Miranda asked, ‘So why is Graham the Geek so important to us?’

  Boy said, ‘That pathetic gift to the playground bully will win or lose us the election.’

  When everyone else had left the room, Miranda asked Boy, ‘Why did you assume I would agree to this Graham entrapment?’

  Boy squeezed Miranda’s small breasts and said, ‘You’re a self-proclaimed ladette, Miranda. You’ll do anything for a laugh. You’re amoral, and it’s great to have you on the team.’

  Miranda emailed Graham:

  Hello Graham,

  My name is Miranda. I’m 26, small with dark hair. I’ve got a bubbly personality and share your passion for board games. I have both my feet firmly on the property ladder, as I own my own semi-detached house.

  I’m a member of the David Jason fan club, are you? I think OFAH is the greatest television show of all time. I am looking for love and companionship

  At Gary’s insistence, Miranda finished the email:

  I am not sexually permissive, I believe in chastity before marriage. I find the ladette culture abhorrent.

  Graham received this message on his laptop in the spare room of Number Sixteen Hell Close. He cried out with delight, and Camilla shouted up the stairs to ask if he was all right. He shouted back that he was perfectly well, and tapped a reply to Miranda.

  Graham did not believe in love at first sight; it was just another urban myth, like driving home with a dead relative rolled up in a carpet and tied to the roof rack. But as soon as Miranda had appeared on the screen of his laptop, looking pretty and modest in a floaty white dress, and shielding her eyes against the sun, he knew that she was good wife material.

  He peered closely at the photograph on the screen; as far as he could tell she was not wearing red shoes. He emailed her back:

  Dear Miranda,

  Can we meet? Pressure of work keeps me busy (I am overseeing stepladder disposal), but I will be free on Sunday.

  Are you located anywhere near Ruislip? If so, I will prepare the car for a journey (check tyre pressures, brakes, etc.), or of course you could come here (not exactly here, because at the time of writing I am in the East Midlands Region, but you could come to Ruislip). There is a very nice, respectable pub in the vicinity, The Mouse and Cheese, which is frequented by a respectable crowd, from the golf club mostly. Their clubhouse was burnt down by an aggrieved ex-wife a few years ago.

  Please reply stating your preferential arrangement.

  Yours in anticipation,

  Graham C

  The reply came within minutes:

  Dear Graham,

  The Mouse and Cheese sounds lovely. One o’clock on Sunday.

  Best wishes,

  Miranda

  Graham replied:

  Dear Miranda,

  One o’clock it is!

  The dress code for The Mouse and Cheese is smart casual; most people of both sexes wear Pringle sweaters. I tell you this only to save you possible embarrassment.

  How will you get there? Do you need directions?

  Yours,

  Graham

  Miranda said to Gary, ‘Christ! Is this guy anal or what?’

  Gary said, ‘Yeah, as sure as Jesus had a hole in his bum.’

  In her new persona, Miranda wrote:

  Dear Graham,

  Please don’t worry about me getting there. But I am very shy, so would you meet me outside? I have never entered a pub on my own before.

  Warm wishes,

  Miranda

  Graham’s heart was touched. He replied:

  Dear Miranda,

  I will, of course, escort you into The Mouse and Cheese.

  With the very warmest of wishes,

  G.

  Later that night, Miranda was asked to leave a Soho nightclub after performing a lewd dance on the bar, during which one of her red high heels flew off and detached the retina of a barman called Gloria. After vomiting in the minicab on the way home, she sobered up slightly and asked the bewildered Somali driver if he knew how to play snakes and ladders.

  39

  Camilla and Charles worked together to prepare the house for their guests. As there was very little food in the pantry, Charles borrowed some money from the Threadgolds, went shopping and bought the ingredients for party snacks.

  Dwayne Lockhart was on duty outside Grice’s MiniMarket. Grice had increased the price of bread by ten pence, which meant that customers were now paying one pound for a small white sliced loaf. One of the few things that Grice remembered from his history lessons at school had been that the French Revolution had started with a similar price rise. Dwayne had been posted, together with a taser, to quell any possible uprising by the mob.

  When he saw Charles approaching with a wicker shopping basket over his arm, he said, ‘Good morning, sir. I will need to check your wife’s tag later this afternoon. Would four o’clock be convenient?’

  Charles wondered why Dwayne’s left eye was opening and closing; had the poor boy developed a nervous habit? Then he realized that Dwayne was winking.

  Charles blurted, ‘Yes, four o’clock would be a perfectly splendid time to call, couldn’t possibly be a more convenient hour.’

  *

  Graham was in the spare bedroom when Dwayne knocked on the front door at precisely four o’clock. He had laid out all the clothes that he had brought with him and was trying to decide what to wear. He had already asked the advice of his parents, but they had not been at all helpful.

  Camilla had said, ‘Wear something that you’re comfortable in.’

  Charles had said, ‘I doubt if anyone else, apart from Princess Michael of course, will dress up.’

  After trying on several ensembles, Graham opted for a pair of his dead adoptive father’s slacks. It was lucky, he thought, they had shared the same waist and inside-leg measurements; it would save him buying clothes for years, providing he didn’t put on any weight. He added a diamond-patterned golfing sweater, worn over a shirt and tie. He had only brought one pair of shoes – a pair of grey slip-ons – so he gave them a polish, and when he checked his reflection in the wardrobe mirror, he was satisfied that he looked clean and tidy.

  His adoptive mother had once said to him, ‘You’ll never be Clark Gable, Graham, but at least you can look neat and tidy.’ Graham had not known who Clark Gable was at the time, but later, watching the actor on television, he had been struck by his ears, which were remarkably like Graham’s own.

  Dwayne slipped Nicholas Soames’s letter out of his deep trouser pocket, and shoved it under a tapestry cushion in the corner of the sofa. He did more of the winking, and Charles said, ‘Ah! Splendid. I see what you… Yes. Marvellous.’

  Camilla sat down and once again they went through the charade of tag inspection. Dwayne was still down on one knee when Graham came downstairs and into the living room.

  Charles said to Dwayne, ‘Constable Lockhart, this is, er… our…’

  ‘Risk assessor,’ said Camilla.

  ‘Yes. Risk assessor,’ agreed Charles.

  Graham said, ‘We’ve already met.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dwayne. ‘How’s the assessment going???
?

  ‘All right,’ said Graham, evasively.

  Dwayne could not resist adding, to Graham’s discomfort, ‘Is it a risky business, assessing risk? I mean, what do you consider a risk?’

  Graham said, ‘The risks start in the womb; then birth itself can be a very risky procedure.’

  Dwayne said, mischievously, ‘I suppose there’s always the danger of losing contact with your mother.’

  ‘That’s a negligible risk,’ said Graham, looking at Camilla. ‘Most mothers are rather tenacious in their love for their newborn child.’

  Seeing the stricken look on Camilla’s face, Dwayne felt ashamed and excused himself by saying that he had to attend an incident in Slapper Ally. He left the house with his cheeks burning. He’d noticed that since joining Grice’s security force, there was a sadistic side to him that did not sit comfortably with his more humane side. But people like Graham seemed to invite unpleasantness. He doubted if Graham ever questioned his own self-righteous uncritical self.

  *

  Dwayne had lain awake half the night, trying to decide which book he should next take to Paris Butterworth. His mouth watered at the thought of the literary treats she had in store. Should he arouse her interest with a bit of foreplay, Jane Eyre for instance, or should he go for broke with Madame Bovary? Perhaps it would be safer to give her another Orwell; Animal Farm might appeal to her.

  He relished the day they would read Orwell’s Inside the Whale and Other Essays together. He fantasized about the scene: he and Paris were in bed, naked under the covers, Fifty-cents was sleeping in the next room. They were discussing Orwell’s Essays, perhaps having a heated debate about Orwell’s preference for plain words. Paris might argue that Orwell’s style was too workmanlike for her taste.

  In the morning, when he laid Animal Farm on the coffee table in Paris’s living room, she said, ‘I’m already reading another book. I got it from the library at the One-Stop Centre.’

  Dwayne was hurt, but he tried not to show it. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll go and fetch it,’ she said, and ran out of the room and up the stairs. He could hear the floorboards creaking as she walked across her bedroom.

  Fifty-cents had cut a few more teeth, Dwayne noticed. The kid was sitting on the plastic floor of a lobster-pot-shaped playpen, chewing on an empty plastic bottle of Calpol. Dwayne threw a few toys into the playpen, but Fifty-cents ignored them. Paris reappeared holding a paperback book. She handed it to Dwayne; it was Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less.

  ‘It’s by—’ she started.

  Dwayne interrupted her, saying savagely, ‘I know who it’s by!’

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘Pleased?’ said Dwayne. ‘I want you to read literature.’

  He felt as though she had betrayed him, going off in the night with a ne’er-do-well Jack the Lad type, who would seduce her with strong storylines but ultimately leave her unsatisfied and a little ashamed. Dwayne forgot that he and Paris had never been out together or even declared any interest in each other.

  Paris said, ‘Aren’t all books literature?’

  ‘No,’ said Dwayne. ‘That thing you’ve got in your hand is a best-seller!’

  ‘It’s good,’ said Paris defensively.

  ‘But it’s not great,’ said Dwayne. ‘Good is the enemy of great.’

  Paris sat down and picked up Animal Farm. She looked at the cover suspiciously.

  ‘What’s it about?’ she asked. ‘Pigs?’

  Dwayne said that it was an allegory about Soviet Russia.

  Paris said, ‘I might look at it when I’ve finished the other one.’

  Dwayne said gruffly, ‘I’d better check your tag while I’m here.’

  As he did so, she said, ‘I’d like to do what Julia did in Nineteen Eighty-Four, you know, go somewhere where I wasn’t being watched.’

  Dwayne said, ‘There is nowhere now.’

  Paris said, ‘Anyway, I’d only get caught and end up in Room 101.’

  Dwayne recognized that she was trying to make amends and, seizing the moment, said, ‘If you were sent to Room 101, I’d spring you before the rats got to you.’

  Paris looked outside to see which way the camera was pointing, and satisfied that it was looking the other way she whispered, ‘I’ll read Animal Farm next.’

  Then, to Dwayne’s delight, she touched his hand. This small gesture emboldened Dwayne; he took her hand and pressed it. Their fingers interlocked. Fifty-cents shouted something that sounded to Dwayne’s ears like, ‘Totalitarianism.’ But Dwayne realized that it was impossible, the kid could hardly articulate ‘mama’ or ‘doggy’. They sat quietly together for some time, watching Fifty-cents’ clumsy attempts to place one Duplo brick on top of another.

  ‘I’ll bring him some children’s books tomorrow,’ said Dwayne.

  Then he looked around the living room and decided that the two alcoves on either side of the fireplace would make excellent sites for Paris’s new bookshelves.

  Charles waited until Graham had gone back up to the spare room before opening Sir Nicholas Soames’s letter and sharing the contents with Camilla.

  My dear friend, Charles,

  First things first, your letter is residing safely in a Coutts bank vault.

  Your news about this Graham chap was a bombshell; the cove at Burke’s Peerage, Miles Furnleigh-Wood, tells me that bastards can now inherit the bloody earth!!! Gays and other deviants have as many privileges as you and I used to enjoy before the bloody Roundheads took over. Incidentally, what Oliver Cromwell would have made of the modern Cromwell Party, with its tax revenues coming from casinos and lap-dancing clubs, God only knows.

  I saw Jack Barker at a dinner the other night; he made a complete fool of himself. Debate at our table was divided between those who thought he was drunk and those who thought he was mad. Jeremy Paxman sat on my right and a chap called Rick Stein, famous for cooking fish apparently, was on my left.

  Paxman claimed that his forebears had been paupers, dependent on the parish for their daily bread. When I said that poverty was nature’s way of sorting the wheat from the chaff, Paxman called me an odious buffoon and for the rest of the dinner spoke exclusively to the person opposite, a scrawny woman with an idiosyncratic dress sense who said she worked for the BBC. I overheard her opining that there were serious misgivings at the BBC about the Government’s anti-dog propaganda.

  I shouted over Paxman, ‘It’s about time the Corporation stopped doing the Government’s dirty work for them, and stood up to Barker!’

  She told me, behind Paxman’s back, that the upper echelons of the BBC had been infiltrated by cat lovers. I can’t say I’m surprised, Charles, as it’s well known that cats are preferred by homosexualists and fancy nancy intellectuals.

  I have been in daily contact with Boy English, who is proving to be a splendid leader of our party. His dog, Billy, is constantly on the front pages of both the serious papers and the scandal rags. Boy is now neck and neck in the opinion polls. Will there need to be a photo finish and a steward’s enquiry? Or will he fall at Becher’s Brook?

  I confess that I am a little concerned about your son, Graham. I have made discreet enquiries to MI5 about the young man, and quite an unflattering picture has emerged. I suggest we keep him under wraps, as he could be an election liability.

  By the by, when you return to your rightful place I recommend that Constable Dwayne Lockhart be given an honour of some kind. He has shown amazing gallantry, and such courage should be recognized by the country he serves so well.

  I remain, my dear Charles, your affectionate friend,

  Fatty

  ‘My children are terribly laid back,’ said Camilla, ‘and they are not in line to the throne. It’s your children, Harry and Wills, that we have to worry about.’

  They started to make canapés, cutting circles of bread with a pastry cutter, brushing a little oil on their surfaces and putting them into the oven to br
own and crisp. They assembled the toppings, and worked well together, combining simple ingredients – sardines, cheese, meat paste – with slivers of vegetables from the garden.

  Charles brought a stack of white plastic chairs in from outside and distributed them around the room.

  40

  When the Royals and their pets were finally assembled, there were thirteen humans and nine dogs crammed into Charles and Camilla’s small sitting room. Graham was still upstairs, sitting on his bed with his hair neatly parted, fingering the sparse moustache he had decided to grow in the last few days. He hoped it didn’t make him look too much like Hitler; perhaps the brown shirt had been a mistake. He got up and listened from the bedroom to the commotion of overlapping conversations. The talk was almost entirely about dogs. Why weren’t they talking about him?

  It seemed to Graham that he had always come second best to dogs; his adoptive mother had squandered the family fortune on insulin for that malingering diabetic, Tonic. Graham had suggested that, given the price of insulin and the inconvenience of administering a daily injection, it would be more sensible to have Tonic put down. But his adoptive parents had been horrified at the idea. It still annoyed Graham to think about the attention given to Tonic compared to the neglect he, their own son, experienced when he was laid low by flu.

  There was a knock on the door and his mother came in. She sat on the bed next to him, took his hand and said, ‘I’m terribly nervous, are you?’

  ‘Yes, I wish now I hadn’t grown this moustache. Does it make me look like Hitler?’

  Camilla said, ‘Perhaps if you ruffle your hair a little, and undo the top button of your shirt…’

  Graham unbuttoned his shirt, but could not bring himself to mess up his hair. He’d had the same hairstyle since he was a small baby. He had a photograph of himself at six months old; he was wearing rompers and had a short back and sides with a neat side parting.