Queen Camilla (32 page)

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 brown 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.

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.

Graham followed Camilla down the stairs; a small part of him was looking forward to the attention he would receive. This was the one occasion when he could be sure that every human eye in the room would be on him. One of the mantras repeated by his adoptive mother came to him: ‘If you’re wearing clean socks and underpants, you’re the equal of any person, in any circumstance.’ Graham had often questioned this advice. After all, there were, presumably, serial killers who had meticulous personal hygiene. But now, about to pass through a doorway from commoner to aristocrat, he was comforted by the words.

When Camilla led Graham into the room, everybody turned to stare. The dogs began to howl; they had been informed about Graham by Freddie, who had warned them that Graham was second in line to the throne, putting their own status in jeopardy. Althorp, Prince William’s dog, was particularly vocal. He howled the loudest and was the last to stop when Charles appealed to the dogs, ‘Please! One can’t hear oneself
think
!’

Taking advantage of the dogs’ silence, Charles added hurriedly, ‘There is something my wife would like to
tell you… It’s, er… frightfully important. This young man is, er… Graham Cracknall.’

Graham fingered his moustache nervously; there was an expectant silence.

When Charles seemed to have difficulty finding words to continue, Camilla said, ‘Graham is my son; he was born when I was eighteen.’

There was another silence.

Andrew said, ‘No worries, Cam. We’ve all got skeletons in the cupboard.’

‘Yes,’ said William, magnanimously. ‘It’s cool, Camilla. This is the twenty-first century.’

Harry agreed, ‘Yeah, it’s
fierce
.’

The Queen directed a meaningful look at Charles, willing him to explain Graham’s exact status in the family.

Charles cleared his throat, and fiddled with his cufflinks, before saying, ‘Yes, so Camilla is Graham’s mother, and I… well, the simple truth is that, er… um,
I
am Graham’s father.’

The Queen said, ‘I think it might be pertinent if you gave the assembled company Graham’s date of birth.’

Camilla said, ‘He was born at half past five on the morning of the 21st July 1965. I was just eighteen, Charles was sixteen…’

Andrew shouted, ‘Way to go, bro!’

Camilla continued, ‘It was on the last night of the Horse of the Year Show, we were both very young but terribly in love.’

Charles manoeuvred around the humans and the dogs and went to Camilla’s side. The Queen watched
William’s face darken as the realization dawned on him that he was no longer second in line to the throne.

Spiggy said, ‘Well, I’ll be buggered! Welcome to the family, Graham.’ He pushed through the crowded room and shook Graham’s hand.

Harry whispered to William, ‘Dorkface is our half-brother.’

William whispered back, ‘More importantly, he’s our
elder
brother.’

Princess Michael drawled, ‘So, what is your title, Graham? Do you have one?’

‘Not at present,’ said Graham, ‘but I was thinking along the lines of Prince Graham of Watford. I was brought up in Ruislip, but Watford is a more prestigious town.’

Princess Michael said, ‘Prince Graham of Watford? That makes a mockery of the whole thing.’

Anne snapped, ‘Another bloody nail in our coffin!’ She appealed to the room, ‘Let’s renounce the monarchy tonight and put an end to the whole bloody charade.’

Prince Andrew said, ‘Steady on, old girl. Speak for yourself. I’m rather keen to make Marcia here my wife; and I was kind of hoping that she would become a lady-of-the-bedchamber.’