King and Joker

by Peter Dickinson

  “I’ll trouble you not to talk till you know what you’re talking about, Miss. Her Majesty had a private arrangement with Miss Fellowes to whisper the promises while Her Majesty was saying them aloud. She explained it to me herself; and all about having that nasty modern service.”

  “Yes, Father told me about that. I bet God knows the difference between a singular ‘you’ and a plural ‘you’ even if the Archbishop doesn’t. And I bet Nonny kept her fingers crossed too. Oh, I’m happy!”

  Rock.

  “Happy!”

  Rock.

  “Happy! … Isn’t it funny how some people can do that? It doesn’t matter if they look a bit cold and stiff. Even poor Cousin Jack isn’t shy with Mother … and if you think of some of the other Queens—Victoria­ making people miserable and Mary scaring the living daylights out of everybody!”

  “Those that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

  “But aren’t I right?”

  “Queen Victoria was very gentle with children, and sweet, and they loved her as soon as they were used to her. And Queen Alexandra made her children happy, though people will tell you she was stupid, and of course she was always late for everything, and then she became so deaf …”

  “She didn’t manage to keep King Edward happy, did she?”

  Sniff.

  “Oh, Durdy, honestly! I’m not a baby any more! Did you meet Edward often?”

  “Only just the once, darling.”

  “What did he say? What did he do?”

  “He smelt my breath to see if I’d been drinking.”

  “Durdy! You?”

  “No, not me. But it is a great temptation to some poor women.”

  “What was he like? Was he terribly attractive?”

  Rock, rock in the long stillness. Only the tock of the cuckoo-clock and the grumble of the rockers, a pigeon cooing in the garden and beyond it the endless surf of traffic. Louise began to worry. Usually Durdy gave you warning that she was getting tired so that she didn’t drop off in the middle of a conversation. The rockers gradually stilled.

  “I wasn’t asleep,” squeaked Durdy suddenly. “Only remembering … things were so different then. I was a servant, you see, and servants knew their place. His Majesty had the family looks, of course, very like His present Majesty, especially about the eyes—only he was older and fatter and he wore that beard … but attractive? You see, darling, that’s what I mean about being a servant—I’d have had to have been a rich lady to tell you that … No, when he came to the nursery that night I thought he was more like a hunter … only he wasn’t hunting me, not me …”

  Silence again. Louise had never heard Durdy talking quite like this before, her thin old voice so close to whispering that it was difficult to hear what she said. It was almost as though she was talking to herself about something private to her.

  “He preferred his ladies of course,” whispered Durdy. “They could talk to him and make him laugh. But if he’d wanted one of us it wouldn’t have been much help running away. He’d have hunted you down, and then you’d have been like a bird, waiting for the snake to swallow you. A wee bird in the heather.”

  “I’m glad Father’s not like that,” said Louise. “It would spoil everything … everything!”

  She’d meant to speak lightly, but something in Durdy’s manner infected her into an explosion of vehemence that was almost like a shout of pain.

  “No need to tell the whole world,” said Durdy in her normal tones.

  “I’m sorry. But it does matter. It really does. Don’t you see? The whole thing only works because he isn’t like that … oh, Durdy, I’m sorry … I really don’t come here to shout at you about how I want the Family to behave …”

  “It’s not your fault, darling, only I’m a bit tired today.”

  “You’ve got a bone in your leg.”

  “Not any longer … no bones …”

  With a snicker and a fizz the cuckoo-clock started to chant six.

  “Help!” said Louise. “That must be fast! I’ve got a whole pile of homework! Where’s Kinunu? She ought to have brought you your green pill ages ago! Don’t buzz for her—I’ll tell her on my way out.”

  Durdy was murmuring to herself now, something about a kitten, and children. Louise bent to listen until she realised that it was like listening at a door. Carefully she kissed the stretched, textureless cheek and tiptoed away, alarmed by the sudden retreat of life away from the surface of the old face. Perhaps it was because the green pill was late.

  The Night Nursery was empty, the monitor still switched off.

  “Kinunu!” she called sharply. “Kinunu!”

  “I come,” answered a voice from the bedroom. “Thorry. I come.”

  But it was nearly half a minute before the door opened and Kinunu came bouncing out, very flushed, blinking, smiling her teasing smile, but with her nurse’s cap on all skew-whiff.

  “Tbleep,” she said. “Thorry, thorry. Oh, late. Oh, thorry.”

  “Miss Durdon’s very tired, Kinunu. I’m worried about her. Oughtn’t she to have had her green pill?”

  “Pilly. Yethyeth.”

  “You’ll check everything, won’t you? I’m worried. If anything’s wrong you’ll send for the King or for Doctor Simm?”

  “Yethyeth,” said Kinunu, bouncing impatiently away and into the Day Nursery.

  Louise hesitated, uncertain whether Kinunu had understood what she’d said and whether she’d check the dials properly. She was just moving to turn the monitor on (though as it took a couple of minutes to warm up she still wouldn’t be sure) when she heard Kinunu’s voice coming from the bedroom.

  “Lo, mithmith.”

  Of course, the bedroom monitor must be on—that’d be better. She tiptoed through the open door …

  McGivan was sitting on the bed, motionless, with his trousers half on. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and looked away. His hand rose to twirl the spike of his moustache. Then he appeared to remember his status in the Palace and rose to attention, emitting as he did so one of his richest and most repellent snuffles. His trousers collapsed round his ankles.

  “I … I …” said Louise, turning quickly away.

  “Yourr Highness,” whispered McGivan, urgently. She stopped but couldn’t look round.

  “Ye wunna tell a body?” he pleaded.

  “It’s nothing to do with me.”

  “Yon lassie was sae verra inseestent …”

  “It’s none of my business, Mr McGivan. I won’t tell anybody.”

  Louise managed to walk quite calmly out of the nursery suite and along the Upper West Corridor, but on the stairs she got the giggles, so violent a fit of them that she was teetering on the edge of hysteria. McGivan had been so appallingly McGivanish, just like one of Albert’s take-offs of him, with his snuffle and his joke-Scotch accent and his trousers round his ankles. It was a pity she’d never be able to tell anybody. Vaguely Louise was aware that there was another reason for the force of the fit that shook her. In the past few days she had been seeing glimpses of the great hinterland of human sexuality, not as hitherto in her life as a sort of imagined Narnia-world, part fairy-land and part moral-problem, but as a real country full of richnesses—like her three parents’ lives—and dangers—like the ravage in her bedroom and Durdy’s unsettling, unDurdy-like talk about the snake and the bird. And now she had seen that another part of this reality took the form of bedroom farce. Yes, it was like that too.

  Homework went badly. It wasn’t difficult, but even while she was reeling off a dozen potty French sentences her thoughts kept wandering between word and word so that sometimes she’d sit for a whole minute thinking about McGivan with his trousers round his ankles, or Nonny’s new hairstyle, or a strange misty vision of a fatter version of Father smelling little Miss Durdon’s breath to see if she was drun
k. She’d just about finished the French when Sir Sam came into the Library and when she looked up did his little bob of respect.

  “Aha,” he said. “I thought I’d find you here. You can save my legs a trudge. Have you been up in the Nurseries, and if so was HM there?”

  “No, he wasn’t, I’m afraid. Is something the matter?”

  “I wish Miss Durdon would let me put a telephone up there. No, no. Just Her Majesty’s reception for these South American cultural wallahs this evening. Home Office have been on the blower with a story about a Venezuelan terror squad being in the country and of course we’ve checked the whole place out—do that anyway, these days. First I just thought HM ought to know, then I got worried because I couldn’t trace him. He won’t answer his beeper, either.

  Then he’s on the loo, thought Louise. He always switches it off for that. Poor Father. Poor us. Life’s hell when he’s constipated. She smiled a sorry-I-can’t-help smile and watched Sir Sam fade silverly away. Just as the door closed she heard the sound of voices, his and Father’s, Father very abrupt, lending more weight to the constipation theory. You’d have thought a doctor would be able to control that, but of course Father has to be different.

  She glanced at the clock. Just before half past six. A ten-minute French homework must have taken her about twenty—still, it felt like twice that. And supper wouldn’t be till nine, because of’ this dreary reception. She might be able to finish her English essay. Come on, Lulu, get it over.

  The essay should have been almost as potty as the French, because it was about the difference between fantasy and realism and that meant you could waffle on about Tolkien till you’d done your three sides. But just as she was settling her thoughts in order Louise remembered Julie’s last words that afternoon—“You’re all right, duckie, you can write about the difference between real and fantasy princesses.” It was a temptation, though Louise knew that Mother would never let it through. She allowed herself another dip into useless musings, like those dips back into indulgent drowsing which one can’t help having when one is supposed to be getting up. Story princesses sit on thrones and wear crowns, and lovers fight duels over a smile from them. Real princesses do homework and worry about spots. I used to be a real princess, but now I’m a story one … d’you know, in some ways it’s going to make it easier, because I’ll be able to keep things really separate. The story princess can put on a show while the real me … the real who? I haven’t even got a real name … oh yes I have, because illegits take the mother’s name, don’t they … May Victoria Isabella Louise Catarina Alice Fellowes, that’s me. Pity they’re all such foul names except Isabella and Louise … I might call myself Kate, perhaps … OK, Kate, get on with your homework.

  Kate was an idle hussy. Quite quickly Louise lost patience with her and let the story princess take over. The story princess in her best writing wrote quickly down all the things which she knew Mrs Handishaw would like, paying special attention to what Jerry called the good ’n’ evil scene. In Tolkien good is all misty and evil is something over there, in that dirty old mountain, and the best thing to do about it is to whop off a few more orcs’ heads. But in the real world good and evil are all mixed together, for instance … she stopped writing and thought of instances when really good people had things which were wrong with them: Mother could be almost mad in her hate of her few ancient enemies, and Durdy had been a complete bitch to most of her nurses until Kinunu showed up … and evil, is anybody evil? The image of a single letter scribbled on a pair of clean panties flipped into her mind … rubbish! That’s not evil. That’s just sick. She put on a public face (intelligent attention) and let the story princess finish the essay off. A minus. Julie will be furious, but how can she expect anything except Bs if she keeps treading on all Miss Handishaw’s sacred toes?

  Shutting the book she saw that it was still only just after half past seven. Well done, story princess! You have your uses; now, what would you like for a reward? Why, to sit on a throne, of course. Trouble is, there’s only one pair of thrones in the Palace, and that’s in the ball-room where Mother’s cultural dagoes are whooping it up. Yes, but the curtain will be drawn across the dais and you can get round through the robing-room—and, actually, it might be quite useful to hear how Mother makes a speech in Spanish. At least that’s what you can tell people if they find you lurking around on the dais. Lucky you’re wearing a dress. Pity it’s not a long one, and there ought to be a tiara at least. Louise half closed her eyes and tried to imagine the bitter twinkle of diamonds in her straight mousy hair. Public face, sweet and gracious but capable of stern command. Have to practise stern command. Practise on McGivan? Better start with the dogs.

  She strolled out into the corridor still wearing her public face in case she bumped into a strayed Bolivian poetess. The Library lay round the corner from the run of State Rooms along the West Front; the wide corridor was busy with footmen, and the last guests still arriving, looking very much more as though they were used to this sort of thing than English people usually did in the Palace. It would be fun for Mother to be able to speak Spanish all evening and then complain at supper about the agony of listening to South American accents.

  Louise put on a proper smile for Pilfer as he stalked towards her, stooped and dismal, looking like the minister of some furiously narrow-­minded sect who has been visiting the fleshpots for the sole purpose of going back to his chapel and blasting their wickedness from his pulpit. Probably, she thought, he was just disappointed at once again having failed to catch Mr Lambert using Private Apartment silver for a State Apartment do.

  The hum of talk was not like that of real parties; it was quite loud, but missed out most of the shriller tones of chat.

  At the door of the ball-room Pilfer’s enemy, Mr Lambert, took a deep breath and raised an eyebrow at her.

  “No, I’m not coming in,” she whispered. “I just wandered along for a glimpse of the bright lights.”

  He nodded, then bent his head to listen to a fat little man with a vast, curling beard. When he straightened he let the breath go in the stately bellow which was his stock-in-trade.

  “His Excellency Senor Jose Grando Y Batet!”

  Under his raised chin Louise could see that the blue velvet curtains were indeed drawn across the far end of the room, almost like stage curtains. She strolled on against the current of guests and as though it were the normal thing to do slipped into the little robing-room which Father always called the vestry. She shut the door before she turned on the lights. Both the cupboards that held the robes were locked. Honestly, no long dress, no tiara, not even any velvet and ermine! Well, as Mrs Handishaw was always crooning, imagination is a marvellous gift. In imagination Louise robed herself in grandeur—much quicker than the real thing. She turned off the light, opened the door to the dais and slipped through.

  It was very nearly dark behind the curtains, which were also thick enough to fuzz the hundred-voiced mutter of cultural back-chat, making the sculptors and dancers and administrators and so on all sound a bit tiddly. Louise moved slowly forward. Story princesses don’t grope, even in the dark. She felt with her feet for the two steps to the dais and went up them at a stately pace, judging her course so well that the front edge of Mother’s throne brushed her knee exactly when she was expecting it. She settled down on to the slightly prickling velvet with her back and neck held as straight as if she had been Queen Mary. She was deep in a fantasy of quelling an incursion of rebellious peasants into her own throne-room when Mr Lambert’s bellow broke through, only the first few syllables drowned by the dying chit-chat. “Ladies and Gentlemen, pray silence for the Patron of the Anglo-Hispanic Cultural League, Her Majesty Queen Isabella, Lady of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, and Grand Master of the Order of the British Empiyaaah!”

  Rapidly Louise re-peopled her throne-room with a glittering throng of court
iers, soldiers, delegations from loyal cities and ambassadors from exotic islands.

  “Our much-loved subjects,” she murmured, stretching out to touch the hand of the imagined consort at her side.

  His hand was real.

  With a thundering bounce of the heart Louise jerked away, almost out of the throne, opening her eyes to peer through the gloom by now she could see the shape sitting there, a little hunched but wholly familiar. From beyond the curtains Mother’s clear voice began its welcome.

  “Father,” whispered Louise, already more frightened than amazed.

  He appeared not to notice, but to be listening intently to the speech. Shakily she rose and touched his shoulder, then shook it. His head tilted slowly, at first as though he were falling asleep but coming at last to an angle which could not be true.

  Chapter 10

  Mutters and whispers. A choked-back fit of coughing, some way off. Out of dark mists a white light, harsher than sunrise. Screw eyes shut.

  “Stand a bit over, Bella, and you’ll keep that spot out of her eyes. She’s coming round.”

  Father’s voice. His face close in the clearing mists. Mother black against the whiteness. Sir Sam’s trousers.

  “I thought … I’m all right … I thought you were …”

  “Wasn’t me. You’ve only fainted, She’ll be OK, Bella. Bert, d’you feel up to putting in an appearance back there? Last thing we want’s a panic. Sam, get them to send a stretcher, will you, then get on to the Yard?”

  “I’m all right. I don’t need a stretcher.”

  “Lie still, Lulu.”

  “I’m all right, I tell you!”

  With a wriggling twist Louise jerked to her knees, almost blacking out again as she did so. She stared round. The curtains were still closed but the glare flooded from spotlights overhead, fierce and shadowless. At its centre Father sat slumped on his throne still, with his head at that inhuman skew. She flung round to see who’d been speaking to her.