by Sue Townsend
Camilla and I are in staggeringly good health; we seem to thrive on adversity, though being poor is terribly time-consuming. There's an awful lot of paperwork and bureaucratic nonsense to be got through before one can receive one's state benefits. However, I always hankered for the simple life and now I have it, so I must not complain.
Camilla is under house arrest due to several infringements of the Exclusion Zone Contract she signed. And I and my fellow residents of Hell Close are undergoing collective punishment. The poor darling feels terribly guilty and is convinced that she is reviled by all and sundry.
I confess, Nick, that I ama little concerned about the future. Mamais talking about abdication, and to be brutally honest, I view the prospect of becoming king with a mixture of alarm and despair.
William, the darling boy, has stepped forward and offered himself. However, a complication has arisen. It transpires that Camilla and I have a son, Graham Cracknall, who was born during our first love affair, in 1965. We have yet to meet him. But the documentation he enclosed with his letter looks authentic, and Camilla has confirmed that she did indeed give birth to a baby son at that time.
Nick, I know that the laws of inheritance and bastardy were changed at the time of the dissolution of the monarchy. Could you look into this with the chap at Burke's Peerage as a matter of urgency, and let me know if there is any possibility of our son, Graham, succeeding to the throne? He is older than William by seventeen years.
Did you enjoy the partridge and lark pie? I once ate such a pie when staying with the King of Spain in his villa in Mallorca. I thought it rather delicious, but William choked on a tiny beak and gave us all a fright.
There is so much I want to say, but I will restrain myself for now.
Love from your friend,
Charles
PS: Please get in touch with Camilla's children and assure them that their mother is in marvellous form.
PPS: Please continue to write to me care of Dwayne Lockhart. If this were a James Bond film, I would ask you to eat this letter, knowing you to be a man of gargantuan appetite. As it is, I ask only that you keep our correspondence confidential.
PPPS: Another postscript, if you can bear it. Alarming news about the one-dog-per-household law. What chance is there of it being implemented? You must be as worried as I am. Do you still have the four dogs?
31
Gin and Tonic were in the living room, sitting next to each other on the red, swirly-patterned carpet. Their eyes were fixed on Graham who was filling out an application form to obtain the Exclusion Zone Visiting Order that would enable him to visit his birth parents.
APPLICATION FOR VISITING ORDER
(EXCLUSION ZONE)
Name: Graham Cracknall
Address: ‘The Cuckoos’, 17 Hanging Boy Gardens, Ruislip HA4
Date of birth: 21.07.65
ID number: C7494304
Occupation: Health and safety inspector
Name(s) of person(s) to be visited: Charles Windsor and Mrs
C. Windsor
Address: 16 Hellebore Close, Flowers Exclusion Zone, EZ 951,
East Midlands Region
Duration of visit: 4 days
Reason for visit: Professional. To assess risk of fire, flood, acts
of God on premises.
Gin growled, ‘Tonic, do you realize the implications for us if he’s accepted by his parents and joins the Royal Family?’
Tonic growled back, ‘We’ll get to travel; I’ve always wanted to see the world.’
It was Graham’s habit to turn on Radio Four before he went to work. He had been convinced by a crime-prevention leaflet pushed through the door that burglars, hearing such civilized tones issuing from the radio, would turn on their heels and rob a less-civilized household. Gin and Tonic had listened with rapt attention to a lunchtime programme about the possible return of the Royal Family.
Gin barked, ‘If the New Cons get in, we’ll have the run of Buckingham Palace, and the gardens!’
‘We’ll be celebrities, Gin, on the front page of Dog World,’ Tonic woofed.
The two excited dogs leapt up and ran around the living room until they were dizzy and Graham shouted, ‘Pack it in!’
He was tired of living with the dogs. They were stupid and unpredictable, and he was sick of cleaning up the mud they trailed in from the garden and the revolting turds they left on his immaculate lawn. But it had been a condition of his inheritance that he had to take care of the dogs until they died. However, he had been thrilled to be told by a colleague at work (a downtrodden man called Leonard Wolf, whose wife kept three Pekinese dogs) that the Government had announced they were to bring in tighter controls on dog ownership; restricting each household to no more than one dog.
Leonard Wolf had said mournfully, ‘My wife is threatening to leave me and set up house with one of the dogs, farm another one out with our grown-up daughter, and leave one of them with me.’
Gin and Tonic rolled on to their backs and lay still with their legs in the air, signalling to Graham that they were under his control.
Graham knew that he could have typed under ‘Reason for visit’ something ridiculously far-fetched, such as ‘to participate in devil-worship ceremony’, or tongue-twistingly ‘to teach tadpoles to tango’.
Vulcan, the Government’s gargantuan computer that was trusted to process and issue ID cards, visiting orders, benefits, National Health Service records and a myriad other bureaucratic duties, was so inadequate to the task and had such bafflingly complicated software that no one person, civil servant or government official could understand how it worked. An investigative journalist had recently written in The Times about her successful attempt to be issued with six ID cards, under the names of Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Osama bin Laden, Mickey Mouse, Dr F. Rankenstein and William Shakespeare. All six of the cards had been delivered to the same address in the same post.
Graham said to Gin, ‘In my opinion, it would have been cheaper to have hired ten thousand dim-witted sixteen-year-olds to do Vulcan’s work, by hand.’
Gin yelped, ‘And it would keep them off the streets.’
Graham said, warming to his theme, ‘Pensioners could be roped in to do the biotechnics. Any fool can take a DNA swab, photograph an iris and process a fingerprint.’
Graham imagined that Gin’s growl said, ‘It would cost a fortune in wages.’
Graham said, ‘No, it wouldn’t, Gin. You could pay the stupid teenagers just enough to cover their bus fares and call it youth training, and the OAPs would be forced to work for the Government as a condition of getting their pensions. Why should they have a life of leisure?’
Tonic growled at the back of his throat and approached Graham with his jaws open and snarled, ‘You’re a nasty piece of human shit, Graham, and it’s time for my insulin injection.’
Graham picked Tonic up and hurled him across the room, saying, ‘Why don’t you die?’
Tonic landed on his legs, and after a quick shake of the head ran up to Graham and bit his ankle.
Graham lunged across the room, grabbed Tonic by his collar and dragged him towards the back door, saying, ‘You’re for the chop, grizzle chops.’ Graham got down on his knees so that his face was level with Tonic and continued, ‘First, I’ve never liked you, second, you’re not worth the cost of the insulin that keeps you alive and third, you’re a deviant. Don’t think I don’t know about your disgusting sexual shenanigans with poor Gin.’
Gin watched anxiously as Graham opened the door and threw Tonic into the dark wet night. He went to the French windows and pressed his nose against the glass. Tonic was standing forlornly in the rain, his coat plastered to his body.
Charles could not quite decide which religion to practice; he flirted with both Christianity and Islam. He had studied both and read whatever books were available. He’d talked to the Reverend John Edmund-Harvey in his barricaded church, St Adrian’s, and with the Imam Mohammed Akbar in the mosque, which was two ex-council houses kn
ocked into one. Each place had its merits.
St Adrian’s had a serene atmosphere, especially at sunset when the light through the stained-glass window behind the altar cast a gentle luminescence over the damp interior that even the anti-vandal mesh could not debase. The mosque, with its expanse of traditional patterned carpet and its lines of shoes by the entrance, was always busy, and Charles enjoyed the companionship of his fellow worshippers, although he had once walked home in another man’s flip-flops after his own brogues had disappeared. The Imam had blamed the crime on the Hell Close dogs, but the shoes miraculously reappeared at the next Friday’s prayers. They’d even been polished.
When Charles wanted to be alone, he would call at the vicarage to collect the church key. He’d then sit waiting for the sun to reach the window and illuminate the agony of Christ on the cross. He felt a strong bond with Jesus; both of them had frightening fathers who had expected too much of their sons.
Today, when he had returned the key, the Reverend Edmund-Harvey had invited him into the kitchen to take tea with him and his partner, Jerad, an Australian of aboriginal descent and an ardent Royalist. Jerad had been baking; a tray of sweet-smelling little cakes were cooling on a wire rack on the mock-granite worktop. Charles and the Reverend watched as Jerad decorated the cakes with an icing bag, covering the surface with a series of dots.
‘I’m exceedingly fond of aboriginal art,’ said Charles. ‘I find the primitive profoundly… well… profound.’
Jerad, who had a degree in fine art from St Martin’s art college scowled at this, but Charles had already switched his attention to the plump and pink Reverend Edmund-Harvey, saying, ‘Reverend, may I tax you with a theological question that has bothered me since I was a boy?’
The Reverend, slightly nervous because of Jerad’s obvious bad mood, said, ‘Gosh! Theology! I’m usually asked for advice on social-welfare matters these days, but fire away.’
Charles said, ‘One’s terribly fond of animals, y’know, dogs, horses, that sort of thing.’
Jerad snorted, ‘He knows what an animal is, he’s one himself behind closed doors.’
The Reverend laughed nervously.
Charles continued, ‘I’ve lost many dear friends over the years and I’ve always wondered, where do dead dogs go? To heaven? Or to a place of their own? Have they a soul?’
Before the Reverend could answer, Jerad said, ‘Only soul a dog’s got is an arse-soul, same as me an’ you.’
The Reverend took hold of Jerad’s arm – the one holding the icing bag.
His grinning mouth looked like the half-moon carved into a Hallowe’en pumpkin as he said, ‘Christ was undoubtedly an animal lover. The New Testament heaves with sheep, fish and donkeys. I don’t know if he kept a dog… it’s possible…’
Charles urged, ‘But does a dog have a soul?’
The cleric faltered. Souls were not fashionable, nor was Heaven, and even God was currently out of favour with the religious community to which the Reverend had once belonged. It was why he had been exiled to the Flowers Exclusion Zone. He was still not entirely sure why he had been sent from his comfortable parish church in Suffolk to the hellhole he now officiated over. Was it Jerad? Or perhaps it was the piece he had written in the parish magazine, where he’d suggested that, ‘If Jesus were alive today, he would probably recruit his disciples from the gay bars in Old Compton Street.’
The Reverend might have escaped Vulcan’s attention had he not gone on to compare Jack Barker to Judas Iscariot, saying, ‘Both men betrayed an ideal.’ He had expected to cause a little controversy in the peaceful Suffolk village – perhaps being snubbed in the Post Office by homophobes – but nothing had prepared him for being woken at 3 a.m. by the security police ramming the vicarage door down and swarming upstairs to pull him and Jerad from their bed and drag them, naked and terrified, downstairs and out into a vehicle where they were locked inside individual, caged compartments.
As they were driven to Bungay for questioning, the security police had serenaded them with, ‘Tie me kangaroo down sport.’
Caroline, the Prime Minister’s current wife, was sitting on the lavatory with the lid down, soaking her feet in the adjacent bidet. She was watching her husband as he shaved for the third time that day. He was the reluctant guest of honour at a dinner to be held by the Parliamentary Fly Fishing Association. Caroline had bullied him into accepting the invitation. Her mother owned a salmon river in the north of Scotland, and liked nothing better than to stand up to her thighs in ice-cold water with a fishing rod and a gillie standing by.
She pulled the plug out of the bidet and said, ‘And don’t go on about cruelty to fish in your speech tonight. You’ve already antagonized dog lovers; my sodding phone hasn’t stopped ringing for two days. Do you realize, Jack, that the movers and shakers in this country have at least two dogs each? When was the last time you saw Sir Alan Sugar stroking a pussy? You can’t afford to lose the fishing vote, Jack.’
Jack said, ‘How would you like to be hauled out of your natural element with a hook in your soft palate? Don’t tell me that’s not painful.’
Caroline raised her voice and said, ‘What are you, a fucking Buddhist? It’s a bloody fish.’
‘A fish is a sentient being,’ said Jack.
‘Hardly,’ said Caroline. ‘Does a fish have feelings? Does it feel jealousy or remorse? I think not.’
‘It’s still cruel,’ said Jack.
‘So what are you going to legislate against next? Fishing? Slug pellets? Ant poison? Where does it stop, Jack?’ asked Caroline. ‘This anti-dog legislation is madness. If you base your manifesto on it, you’ll lose the election.’
Jack rinsed his face clean of shaving cream and said, ‘I know what I’m doing.’
The Fly Fishing Association dinner took place upstairs in the banqueting room at the National Portrait Gallery. Jack sat in the centre at a long table with Caroline on his right and Jeremy Paxman on his left. During the first course of mackerel pâté and thin curls of toast, Jack chatted to Paxman about strictly non-political subjects. But as they were eating a baked turbot, Jack remarked that under his Government the rivers had been cleaned up, and consequently fish were now more plentiful.
Paxman snarled, ‘Come off it, Prime Minister. I was fishing the River Dove recently, and the only thing I caught in three days was a trout that was decidedly on its last legs.’
When Jack rose to speak, he was still simmering with resentment. His conversation with Paxman had deteriorated from a sotto voce row about England’s polluted rivers into a shouting match about the erosion of English civil liberties.
After formally thanking the Fly Fishing Association, he launched into an attack on cruel sports, saying in part of his speech, ‘I’m no Christian, but to my recollection Jesus disapproved of fishing, and returned the fish to the sea, making it clear that fishing was a heathen activity. Wait, I hear you say, didn’t Jesus feed the five thousand with bread and fishes, thus validating fish? But you would be wrong. An eminent Biblical authority, Professor Elias Moncrieff, wrote in the Catholic Herald that the deconstruction of the fish and loaves parable showed that the word “fish” has been misinterpreted, and in old Hebrew, the words “fish” and “oil” were almost identical, so it is entirely possible, ladies and gentlemen, that the five thousand were actually fed on bread and oil.’
He heard Jeremy Paxman mutter, ‘That’s absolute bollocks.’
Jack continued, ‘And didn’t Jesus urge Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to renounce their livelihood, which was catching fish, and become his disciples and start fishing for men?’
On the way home in the official car, Caroline said, ‘You’ve lost the election, Jack.’
‘I know,’ said Jack, and he smiled in the dark.
32
On Saturday morning Charles dug up some of his root vegetables: potatoes, turnips and parsnips. He gave a basketful to Beverley Threadgold, who had complained, over the fence, that the only thing she had in her cupboard was a
red Oxo cube and a bit of salt and pepper. She recoiled at Charles’s gift at first, saying, ‘Ugh! What are they? They’re covered in fuckin’ mud.’
Charles had explained that underneath the dirt were vegetables, and that if Beverley washed, peeled and chopped them up and added the stock from an Oxo cube she could make enough soup to keep herself and Vince going until they were allowed to go to the shops again.
Beverley looked at the vegetables suspiciously, and said, ‘But it ain’t hygienic.’
Charles said, ‘But, Beverley, mankind has eaten produce grown in the earth for centuries.’
Beverley said, ‘Well, generations of Threadgolds ’ave bought their vegetables from the Co-op in tins and packets.’
However, Beverley took Charles’s produce inside and an hour later astounded Vince by presenting him with a bowl of vegetable soup, with only a little muddy sediment.
*
On Saturday afternoon, Dwayne Lockhart called at Charles and Camilla’s house under the pretext of checking the effectiveness of the new tag on Camilla’s ankle. During the examination, he fumbled a Jiffy bag out of his baton pocket and slid it under the sofa. When Dwayne had gone, Camilla retrieved the package.
‘It’s from Graham,’ she said. ‘I’d know that crabbed handwriting anywhere.’
She opened the package and found a letter addressed to ‘My mother and father’, and a video labelled ‘Graham Cracknall!’ with another of his exclamation marks.
Dear Mother and Father,
It was wonderful to get your letter! I can’t tell you how excited I am at the prospect of meeting my father, my brothers William and Harry, and being reunited with you, Mother!
As you can see, I have enclosed a video I made some months ago! It is part of my life plan to be married by the time I am forty-five! However, in the past I have been very unlucky in love! So I decided to cast my net wider and join a dating agency in the hope of catching a suitable fish!