by Mark Helprin
Quite so. His entrance upon the Mammal Balcony had the all-consuming character of a Fredericka entrance. The assemblage was startled. The last time such a thing had happened was at a remote village in Brazil, where he had been mistaken for the Pope. The strobes went crazy, like a shower of shooting stars, just as they did whenever Fredericka turned her head or smiled. How did they know in advance what was going to happen? Was it just the bone necklaces? Perhaps it was his aura.
“Freddy?” Fredericka asked, obviously rattled. “What are you wearing?”
Unaware of the bow tie on his head, the effect of the bandage and sling, his coiffure, and the Schweppes banner, Freddy said, “You’re not the only one who can dazzle.”
“Freddy, that sounds so unlike you.”
Flapping his arms like someone imitating a chicken, so the bones would clink, he said loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Sometimes I shake my bones, too. I can shake my fat fanny. And I will shake my fat fanny!” This was a line from American music, that he had picked up completely unawares from his recent correspondence with the president of the United States, former senator and governor August Self. Freddy was an accomplished bassoonist, a brilliant theorist, and such a superb singer that had he not been, as he liked to say, “an accident of birth,” he might have been famous upon the stage. But of jazz, rock and roll, the blues, anything North American, he knew absolutely nothing.
“Freddy, I’ve never seen you like this. Are you all right?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he replied, supremely confident.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go home and change?” she asked conspiratorially.
“Why?” he asked, looking himself over as far as he could. “It’s glorious.” Then they were seated.
She was wearing a gold lamé gown, a sunshine-coloured, snake-like thing of chain mail that stopped dead at her sternum. The guests of the RHS were given a choice between this and the attire of the prince, and even though they were mostly male, they could not choose between sex and astonishment. To those seated on the dais the audience looked like spectators at a tennis match, with eyes that went tightly back and forth as if tracking the movements of a metronome, though, absent a ball, they were unsynchronised.
After the customary pap, some words of mourning, and a short introduction by Freddy—“I cannot wait to hear the princess’s remarks on Pepys, of whom she has been a serious student all her life”—Fredericka stood to a lengthy ovation, and Freddy leant back, one hand clasped behind his head, ready to savour the results of his tutorial.
She had it down, and would not depart from the line he had supplied. In fact, he would be astounded at how faithfully she reproduced it. And she was by now a perfectly polished speaker of brief orations, who knew how to exploit to the fullest the public perception that she was new to the game.
“No one is more appreciative than am I,” she began, “of the efforts made by Sir Samuel Peppies, who sacrificed himself for his native Australia, for its women, for its men, and for the twin causes of Acute Reticular Self Esteem Syndrome—ARSES—education, Aboriginal art, and Gandhian self-violence and masturbation. One might have expected Sir Samuel as a person to have been deeply concerned with ARSES, but it is all the more remarkable that he, a disciple of Gandhi, rejected the path of self-violence and chose selflessly to inflict violence upon others in his famous armed raid upon the Australian Parliament. And it is only the more remarkable to us, the privileged and safe, that he was concerned to spread the message among his own people, the Aborigines of Northern Australia, where ARSES do not even exist.
“Not even one documented case! And yet, Sir Samuel carried his message undaunted to each woman and man across the face of Australia. Plagued since birth by an aversion to land travel, Sir Samuel devised an ingenious method of bringing to each Aboriginal woman and man the essential message. In the blimp Compassion he floated over the Outback and—like some great princess dazzling the people—would frequently surprise Aboriginal women and men by appearing over their campfires.
“What tragedy that Compassion was directly in the path of the piece of flaming Jovian moon that hit the Earth last summer and destroyed the town of Alice Springs. Never again will Sir Samuel be able to work compassionately, as I have, for ARSES education. Never again will he work compassionately, as I have, for Aboriginal art. Never again, to paraphrase the words of Joseph Biden (who?), have so many owed so little to so few.
“May God bless you, Sir Samuel, and each compassionate person who would live the life of a Peppie. God save the Queen.”
The prince had been listening as if from an opium dream. Her earnestness of delivery, her passion, her eloquence of expression, her heartfeltness, and her complete faith to his briefing, made it that much more pleasurable for him. He waited for the deluge to engulf her, and it did, but it was a deluge of applause. Never had he seen more thunderous a reception for anyone or any words, and as the thunder echoed through the museum the mammals shook on their posts.
Not only did retired officer types (the kind who had spent decades guiding little survey ships through ice fields in Antarctica or operating heliographs on purple mountaintops in Nyasaland) jump to their feet and call out, “Bravo! Bravo!” but they turned to each other as they stood, and embraced. From the pit of his shock, Freddy could only wonder what had happened to England.
To make matters worse, the carpet did match Fredericka’s eyes perfectly, and the press photographs would be spectacular, though not of Freddy. He discovered the bow on top of his head only as he was eating a piece of poached snake and listening to a nude woman scream obscenities about Claude Monet and Golda Meir, who, in her view, were linked in a monstrous conspiracy. The next morning, the leader in The Times read: “Princess of Wales Delivers Heartfelt Speech As Prince Looks On in Bizarre Attire: Palace Refuses Comment.” The Guardian: “Fredericka Attempts to Speak to Oppressed While from Sidelines Freddy Mocks Poor.” And the tabloids: “Freddy Mad with Jealousy, Fredericka Brilliant,” “Freddy’s Bananas and Fredericka’s a Peach,” and “Prince Really Quite Insane.” By evening the television commentators had joined in questioning his sanity, though no one said a word about her speech except to praise it, and to note that she was the most compassionate royal ever to have graced the monarchy.
“DEAR FREDDY,” wrote the Duke of Belfast from what he refused to call by anything but its old name, Basutoland.
Returning from a well spent morning watching rhinos, your mother and I found yesterday’s papers brought to us by courier. It used to be that when we were far from home we had the news only on the wireless. Now it is entirely different, and it is not only advantageous but sometimes, unfortunately, unpleasant, as today has proved.
You are the heir to the throne, our son, and a married man entering middle age. Your behaviour is a disgrace, and so, might I add, is Fredericka’s: she shows entirely too much bosom. The Princess of Wales is not an aspiring starlet at Cannes. We find the subject so embarrassing that we are not able to discuss it with her, but you must.
Quite frankly, it appears that she is trying to overshadow the queen. We do not know why. Perhaps she simply enjoys it. Perhaps it is a result of problems with you. There is no use speculating, but the effects are grave and rapidly worsening. If our surmise is correct, and you donned the beatnik costume to compete with her for the attentions of the press, you know not how dangerous a road you have chosen. First of all, it is, sans phrase, beneath your dignity. In the contest for turning heads, she must always win, but, remember, Schönheit vergeht, Tugend besteht; beauty fades, virtue stays.
Even the tabloids in Capetown were full of stories about the two of you, hinting of a rift. Several items concerned Lady Boylingehotte. I have always warned you about what for you are the two great dangers: Phoebe Boylingehotte and rocky road ice cream. If you are still polishing your torpedo below her decks you had better stop immediately. And you must never touch rocky road ice cream, as you cannot eat a spoonful without going on to a gallon. Meat,
Freddy, eat more meat.
Your mother is extremely distressed. Not about your weight—you know that she loves you even though you’re a butterball—but because she senses that Fredericka wants to upstage not merely her but the monarchy, and not merely to upstage the monarchy but to destroy it. She says she has not felt such a sense of peril since the war or, as a child, during the crisis of abdication. All this may be premature, but I think not, as I trust her instincts. As you know, they are extraordinary.
Listen to me, Freddy. I have come by this, as it were, per vias rectas. You must straighten things out, and you must do so quickly. If when we return nothing has changed for the better, or, God help us, the situation has worsened, we will have to take some drastic steps of which you have no idea, as you have never been told of all the options available to the sovereign. They are not in your history books, having been carefully kept out. Of all people living, only your mother and Mr Neil know the remedies, and I dare say she has kept some even from me. If things are as bad as your mother feels, she will be forced to turn to Mr Neil, something that in all her reign she has never done. Though you have now been informed of his existence, you must not mention it to anyone. Save a threat to king or country, you were not supposed to know until your coronation.
You are doubtless familiar with the charming story of how, after being crowned, the young Queen Victoria rushed home to bathe her dog. All clever disinformation. She rushed home to . . . well, I’m getting ahead of myself. Perhaps all this, orando laborando, will disappear. You must have a talk with Fredericka. Although she may sometime have to learn of Mr Neil, do not tell her now, but let her know that she will not enjoy the consequences if as a result of her present course she unleashes a power that the queen of England during almost half a century on the throne has not wished to employ. Take Fredericka to Moocock, and make sure she understands.
And Freddy, remember that embonpoint does not suit a prince. In this world you must be lean and strong. I have always been ready for combat, and my body has always been as hard as steel (metaphorically, of course). Try to turn your attention away from delicious foods—here in Basutoland I have been surviving solely on warm water and raw rhinoceros chops—according to the theory that the worst pig eats the best acorn. Freddy, eat the worst acorn, and be the best pig.
Very best, Da
Freddy let the letter drift from his hands to the surface of his desk, a wood of splendid and daily polish. Having shed the sling and head bandage, he looked his old self, and having beaten his fencing master several hours earlier, he was tired and content. He picked up the phone and ordered a helicopter to Kensington. As his father had made it plain that this business needed attention, he would fly Fredericka to Moocock. He rang her up.
“What’s that noise?” he asked.
“It’s a hair dryer. Demeter and Dimitri are doing my hair. Freddy, I bought some dresses today. They were too beautiful for anyone else to have.”
“Good.”
“You don’t object?”
“No,” he said, distractedly. “How much were they?”
“Each was thirty-four thousand pounds and a bit over. I bought three and a handbag.”
“The helicopter will touch down on the lawn at three-thirty. We’re going to Moocock, alone. We need to talk.”
“Why can’t we talk here?”
“Things will be more relaxed at Moocock.”
“Moocock is always so boring, Freddy.”
“That may be, but this is important.”
“Ow! Dimitri!” came over the phone. “Not the hot pack, the cold pack!”
“Fredericka?”
“Yes, Freddy?”
“It will be just the two of us. No guests.” He thought for a moment. “No hairdressers. No coaches.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll even bring a book. Lord Louey sent me a book on compassion that I have to read because he wants me to be the author. I’ll be ready.”
Upon hanging up the phone, she turned to Demeter and Dimitri. “Can you imagine, Demeter and Dimitri, I’m going to have to spend a weekend in the country, with insects and weeds.”
“Oooooo!” they said, horrified.
“And I’m going to have to read a whole book.”
“Oooooo!”
“And I’m going to have to be alone.”
“Oooooo!”
“With Freddy.”
In his offices at St James’s, Freddy walked to and fro, brows knit, with what one of the guards who glanced in the window took to be a monastic prayer bumble-beeing from his lips. It wasn’t a prayer. He was saying, “Who the hell is Mr Neil? Who the hell is Mr Neil?”
FREDERICKA HAD COME to dislike Moocock, and it was difficult to get her there, but the surest way to do it was by air. Not only did flying cut the travel time by three-quarters, but she loved the vibrations of the helicopter engines as they swept through her, and even likened them to therapy. Then, again, she likened everything to therapy.
“Very interesting,” said Freddy. “I suppose that’s the secret of organs in cathedrals. When the liturgy is magnified and echoed so powerfully that one’s diaphragm vibrates in sympathy, as if the impetus were from within, it takes the soul out of the body and frees it of extraneous and distractive impulses that block it from weightlessness and ascension.”
“How would you know?” Fredericka asked. “Men don’t have diaphragms.”
At least he liked to fly helicopters and she liked to fly in them, or, rather, to sit in them as the engines strained. She was not actually interested in flight, but vibrations. As a princess she had precious few opportunities to lean against a warm washing machine, and so resorted to military helicopters. By the time they entered the one that had touched down on a Kensington Palace lawn, it was dusk.
“Let me give you a hint about the press,” Fredericka said, as she climbed to take her seat next to Freddy.
“I’ve been dealing with the press since I was two. What hint have you for me?”
“Things have changed, Freddy. The world has changed.”
“I haven’t.”
“That’s the problem.”
“No, it’s the world’s problem, Fredericka. It’s not that the world has betrayed me, it’s that, by almost any measure of quality or dignity, the world has betrayed itself.”
“Whatever the world has done, you have no sense of dealing with the press.”
“I think what I say to them is rather eloquent, thank you,” he said as he started the pre-flight check.
“Who cares about what you say?” she asked, buckling her seatbelt. He went on, in silence, with a long list of pre-flight items. “Words don’t matter any more,” she told him. “Didn’t you know? It’s just pictures. You can say anything you want. No one understands or cares. It’s not what you say, it’s how you look. And you just don’t have a feel for it.”
“Why? I’m usually pretty well turned out.” He moved the throttles and gently grasped the controls, feeling every detail of the huge craft’s movement in his feet and fingers.
“That’s not what I mean,” she said as they lifted off. “For example, you like photographers to take your picture when you’re flying this thing, be-cause the ear muffins hide your ears.”
“Photographers use special architectural lenses to make my ears seem big. They do the same for Michael Heseltine’s eyebrows.”
“Freddy, Demeter and Dimitri do his eyebrows for Question Time. They say they’re fabulous and they’re real.”
“Demeter and Dimitri think everything is fabulous, even rabies.”
“What you don’t know, Freddy, is that the press actually likes taking photos of you in this machine, because the ear muffins don’t hide your ears, they emphasise them. Everyone knows you have big ears, so when you wear ear muffins, people assume that the ear muffins are as thin as silk and your ears fill them completely. That’s what I mean. You didn’t know that. You have no flair for picture publicity.”
“And what if I don’t?”
&nb
sp; “You’ll be left behind.”
“Nonsense.”
They rose into the air above dusk-coloured London gleaming below them from Battersea to Hampstead in white, green, and buff. Unlike most great cities, which at this time of evening begin to sparkle like astronomical prints, London hid its masses of lights amid cliffs of stone and brick, in sheltered squares and curtained windows, and behind fonts of royal foliage that during daylight and blue sky projected upward in autumnal colour like the plumes of fireworks.
This was Freddy’s London, soft and gentle in its colours and as perfectly balanced as a good sword, not at hilt and blade but at the juncture of the drive of life and history’s tranquil comment upon it. As Prince of Wales or king he could fly over the city and see it with dream-like mastery. But though he might float above it he could not live in it, and unlike anyone else, he could never be lost in it. His mother had described this to him as swimming so buoyantly upon the sea as to be unable to get wet. “In that sense,” she had said, “you and I, my father, and your heir, will have given up our lives for the sake of our duty. People don’t know, and they’ll never know, that no collection of things and no human deference can ever make up for not being able to ride home, tired and alone, on the train to Camden Town, and disappear into a block of flats unwatched, in glorious and absolute privacy.”
Absorbed in the demands of piloting the helicopter, meditating upon the beauty of London, and thinking about his unusual fate, he had lost track of Fredericka. He turned to glance at her, and then, watching once again the sky ahead and the strobe lights of aircraft moving through the air over London like fireflies, he said, “Damn it, do you have to do that? We’re over a miracle of civilisation!”
“I want beautiful nails!” she snapped, and resentfully went back to buffing them.
“It’s time to observe.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Freddy, you know I hate it.”
“It’s a family tradition.”