by Sue Townsend
“Hello, which service do you require?”
“Ambulance,” said the Queen.
“Putting you through,” said the operator.
The phone rang and rang and rang. Eventually a mechanical-sounding female voice said, “This is a recorded message. All ambulance service lines are busy at the moment and we are operating a stacking system. Please be patient. Thank you.”
The Queen waited. A man stood outside. The Queen opened the door and said, “Awfully sorry, it’s 999 calls only.”
She had expected the man to show a certain displeasure but was not prepared for the panic she saw on the man’s gaunt face. “But I gotta ring the ‘Ousing Benefit office ‘fore ten, else I get left off the computer,” he explained.
The Queen looked at the watch she had worn since she was twenty-one. It was 9.43 am. Nothing was ever simple in Hell Close, she thought. Nothing ran to order. Everybody seemed to be in a constant state of crisis, including herself, she admitted.
The Queen looked around Hell Close. Telephone wires were connected to at least half of the houses, but she knew that the wires were only symbols of communication. Somebody somewhere, whose job it was to disconnect the impecunious, had pulled the plug and severed most of the Hell Close residents from the rest of the world. Telephone bills had a low priority when money was needed for food and shoes and school trips, so the kids weren’t left out. She herself had raided the jar where she kept the phone bill money and bought washing powder, soap, tights, groceries and a birthday present for Zara. She had told herself that of course she would replace the money, but it had proved impossible on Philip’s and her combined pension and Philip wasn’t eating. How would they cope when he was cured of whatever it was that was ailing him and he regained his enormous appetite? The Queen was also waiting for back-dated Housing Benefit. She sympathised with the man.
“Come with me,” she said. Relations had been strained lately between her and Princess Margaret, but this was an emergency. As they crossed the road towards Number Four, the man told her that he was a skilled worker, a shop-fitter, but the work had dried up.
“Recession,” he said bitterly. “‘Oo’s opening shops? I made ‘For Sale’ signs for a bit, then I got laid off. ‘Oo’s buying shops?” The Queen nodded. On her rare visits to the town she had been surprised by the proliferation of ‘For Sale’ signs. Most of the shops on the Flowers Estate were ghosts, only Food-U-R seemed to thrive. The Queen remembered the day she had bought Harris Food-U-R’s own-brand dog food for the first time. She’d had no choice, it was ten pence cheaper than his usual brand. Harris had refused it at first and gone on hunger strike, but after three days had capitulated, hungrily if not graciously.
They reached the front gate of Princess Margaret’s house. The curtains were tightly drawn. Nothing of the interior of the house could be seen. The Queen opened the gate and beckoned the man to follow her.
“May I ask your name?” she said.
“George Beresford,” he said, and they shook hands on the front doorstep.
“And I’m Mrs Windsor,” said the Queen.
“Oh, I know ‘oo you are. You’ve ‘ad a bit of trouble yourself, ‘aven’t yer?”
The Queen said that she had and knocked on the door using a lion’s head knocker. Movement was heard inside, the door opened and Beverley Threadgold, now working as Princess Margaret’s cleaner, stood there, holding a drying-up cloth. She looked pleased to see the Queen.
“Is my sister there?” asked the Queen, stepping into the hall, pulling George with her.
“She’s in the bath,” said Beverley. “I’d offer you a cup of tea but I daren’t; she counts the tea bags.” Beverley looked towards the ceiling, above which her new employer was wallowing in expensive lotions. She straightened her maid’s cap and pulled a face. “Look a right prat in this, don’t I? Still it’s a job.”
“Pay well?” asked George.
Beverley snorted. “One pound, cowin’ twenty pence an hour.”
The Queen was embarrassed. She decided to change the subject quickly.
“Mr Beresford and I would like to use the telephone,” she said. “Do you think that would be possible?”
“I’ll pay,” said George, showing the collection of warm silver coins he clutched in his hand. The Queen looked at the grandfather clock that loomed over them in the narrow hall. It was 9.59.
“You go first,” she said to George. Beverley opened the door to the living room. They were about to enter when Princess Margaret appeared at the top of the steep stairs.
“I’m awfully sorry,” she called down, “but I must ask you to remove your shoes before you go into that room, the carpet shows every mark.” George Beresford blushed a dark red. He looked down at his training shoes. They were falling apart and he wasn’t wearing socks. He couldn’t possibly reveal his naked feet, not in front of these three women. His feet were ugly, he thought; he had hairy toes and split nails.
The Queen looked up at Princess Margaret, who was drying her hair with a towel and said, “I’d rather not remove my shoes. Will the cord stretch into the hall, do you think?”
Beverley brought the phone to them, the cord unfurled and stretched to its full extent as it reached the threshold of the room. But George was able to dial.
He listened intently as it rang.
The Queen watched Beverley cleaning Margaret’s windows and wondered how much the maids at Buckingham Palace had been paid. It was surely more than one pound twenty an hour.
Eventually George recognised the tone. “Engaged,” he said. The grandfather clock struck ten. George panicked.
“I’ve missed my turn on the computer.”
“Try again,” urged the Queen. “The computer’s always breaking down, isn’t it? At least that’s what they’re always telling me when I ring about my Housing Benefit.”
George tried again. No. Engaged.
George dialled a third time and on this occasion the phone was answered immediately. This threw him; he had never mastered the use of the telephone. He liked to look into the eyes of the person he was talking to. He shouted into the receiver,
“‘Ello, is this the Housing Benefit? Right, right. I was told to ring before ten but…yes, I know, but…it’s George Beresford speakin’. I had this letter to ring before ten so I can get on the…” George stopped talking and listened. The sound of the hairdryer seeped down the stairs.
“Yes, but,” said George, “the thing is,” he turned slightly away from the Queen and lowered his voice. “See, I’m in a bit of trouble. I’m havin’ to pay the rent out of my redundancy and the thing is…it’s gone…” He listened again. The Queen could tell from the way that he contorted his face that he was being told things he either didn’t want to hear, had heard a dozen times before or didn’t believe.
“Hang on!” George said into the phone, then, turning to the Queen he said, “They say they’ve got none of my papers. They can’t find nowt about it.”
The Queen took the phone and said, in her authoritative Queen’s Speech tones, “Hello, Mr George Beresford’s advisor here. Unless Mr Beresford receives his Housing Benefit in tomorrow morning’s post, I’m afraid I shall have to instigate a civil action against your Head of Department.”
Beverley giggled, but George didn’t think it was funny at all. You couldn’t afford to muck about with them. He was surprised at the Queen’s behaviour, he really was. The Queen handed the receiver back and George heard the Housing Benefit clerk say that she would ‘prioritise’ George’s claim. George put the phone down and asked the Queen what ‘prioritise’ meant.
“It means,” said the Queen, “that they will miraculously find your claim, process it today and put your cheque in the post.” George sat on the stairs and listened while the Queen rang the doctor’s surgery and asked if the Australian doctor could call again at Number Nine Hell Close to see Mr Mountbatten, whose condition had deteriorated. The Queen and George Beresford said goodbye, put thirty-five pence on the hall table
and left.
∨ The Queen and I ∧
32
SHRINKING
Dr Potter looked down at Philip and shook her head. “I’ve seen plankton with more meat on ‘em,” she said. “When did he last eat?”
“He had a digestive biscuit three days ago,” said the Queen. “Shouldn’t he be in hospital?”
“Yeah,” said the doctor. “He needs an intravenous drip, get some fluids in him.”
Prince Philip was unaware that the two women were looking at his emaciated body with such concern. He was somewhere else, driving a carriage around Windsor Great Park.
“I’ll get a bag together for him, shall I?” said the Queen.
“Well, I gotta find him a bed first,” said the doctor. And she took out her personal phone and began to dial. As she waited for her call to be answered she told the Queen that three medical wards had been closed down last week, which had resulted in the loss of thirty-six beds.
“And we’re losing a children’s ward next week,” she added. “God knows what’ll happen if we get a few emergencies.”
The Queen sat on the bed and listened as hospital after hospital refused to admit her husband. Dr Potter argued, cajoled and eventually shouted, but to no avail. There wasn’t a spare bed to be had in the district.
“I’m gonna try the mental hospitals,” said Dr Potter. “He’s off his head, so it’s kinda legit.” The Queen was horrified.
“But he needs emergency medical care, doesn’t he?” she asked. But Doctor Potter was already talking. “Grimstone Towers? Dr Potter, Flowers Estate Practice here. I’ve gotta bloke I wanna admit. Chronic depression, food refusal, needs intubation and intravenous fluids. You gotta bed? No? Medical Unit full? Right? Yeah? Tomorrow?” she asked the Queen.
The Queen nodded her head gratefully. She would do her best to get some nourishment down him tonight and then tomorrow he should be in the safe hands of the professionals. She wondered what Grimstone Towers was like. It sounded horrid, like the establishments one saw lit up by lightning in the opening moments of a British-made horror film.
∨ The Queen and I ∧
33
SWANNING ABOUT
Two hours before the trial was due to begin the coachload of policemen cleared the immediate area around the Crown Court. All the print journalists and radio and television reporters who had come to cover the case were taken to an ex-RAF camp just outside Market Harborough and spent the day locked inside a large room, where they were encouraged to consume the contents of too many bottles of British wine.
PC Ludlow was now in the witness box, trying desperately to remember the lies he had told during the previous hearing at the Magistrates’ Court.
The QC for the prosecution, a fierce fat man called Alexander Roach, was leading Ludlow through his evidence.
“And,” he was saying, wobbling his jowls towards the dock, “do you see the accused,” he pretended to refer to his notes, “Charlie Teck, in this court?”
“Yes,” Ludlow said, also turning towards the dock. “He’s the one in the shell suit and pony tail.”
The Queen was furious with Charles, she had told, no ordered him, to have a short back and sides and wear his blazer and flannels, but he had stubbornly refused. He looked like, well, a poor, uneducated person.
Ludlow stumbled through his evidence without the benefit of his police notebook, the Queen noticed. Ian Livingstone-Chalk, the barrister representing Charles rose to his feet. He smiled cruelly at Ludlow in the witness box.
Ian Livingstone-Chalk had been an only child. In youth his reflection in the mirror had been his closest companion. He was all style but no substance, being too concerned with the impression he thought he was making to listen properly to the clues given by his witnesses.
“Police Constable Ludlow, did you take contemporaneous notes on the day in question?”
“Yes sir,” said Ludlow quietly.
“Ah good,” said Livingstone-Chalk. “Do you have the notebook in which you made these notes in your possession?”
“No sir,” said Ludlow, even more quietly.
“No!” barked Livingstone-Chalk. “Pray, why not?”
“Because I dropped it into the canal, sir!”
Livingstone-Chalk turned to the jury, and once again smiled his carefully adopted cruel smile. “You-dropped-it-into-the-canal,” he said, spacing out the words, inviting scepticism to fill the gaps. “And pray, Constable Ludlow, do tell the jury what you were doing at, on or in the canal.”
Ludlow said in a whisper, “I was rescuing a distressed swan, sir.”
Livingstone-Chalk looked blank.
Two jurors sighed, “Ah” and looked at Ludlow with new eyes.
Charles said, “Ridiculous!”
The judge ordered Charles to be quiet, saying: “I’m surprised you should find the rescuing of a swan to be a ridiculous pastime, Teck, considering that until very recently your mother owned the entire British swan population. Proceed, Mr Livingstone-Chalk.”
The Queen glowered at Charles, willing him to be silent. Then she turned her eyes on Livingstone-Chalk and willed him to cross-question Ludlow about his fictitious swan-rescuing activities, but he ignored the heaven-sent opportunity and instead got bogged down in the minutiae of the fight. The jury got bored and stopped listening.
When Livingstone-Chalk eventually sat down, Alexander Roach QC leapt opportunistically to his feet. “One last question,” he said to Ludlow. “Did the distressed swan live?”
Ludlow knew he had to answer carefully. He took his time. “Despite my best efforts at mouth to mouth resuscitation and heart massage, sir, I’m afraid the swan expired in my arms.”
The Queen laughed out loud, and the whole court turned to stare. When the Queen had regained control of herself, the case proceeded. Charles, Beverley and Violet gave their evidence in turn, each of their stories corroborating the others.
“It was a silly misunderstanding,” said Charles, when accused by Roach of inciting the Hell Close mob to kill PC Ludlow.
“It may have been a misunderstanding to you, Teck, but PC Ludlow here, a man who is capable of showing tenderness to a swan, was grievously harmed by you, was he not?”
“No,” said Charles, red in the face. “He was not grievously harmed by me, or anybody else. Police Constable Ludlow scratched his chin when he fell on the road.”
The whole court turned to look at PC Ludlow’s bearded chin.
Roach said dramatically, “A chin so scarred that PC Ludlow will need to wear a beard for the rest of his life.”
The clean shaven jurors nodded sympathetically.
As they left the court room at the luncheon recess, Margaret said, “Where did Charles find Ian Livingstone-Chalk chained to the railings outside the Law Society?”
Anne said, “Charles is from Dorksville, USA, but even he could defend himself better than Livingstone-Chalk.”
Over bacon sandwiches in the court cafeteria, Diana asked the Queen, “How do you think it’s going for Charles?”
The Queen daintily removed a piece of gristle from her mouth, placed it on the side of her disposable plate and said, “How did it go for Joan of Arc, after the taper was applied to the faggots?”
It was in his closing speech to the jury that Ian Livingstone-Chalk finally ruined any chances Charles might have had of being acquitted. He had turned to Charles’s character and background, saying, “And finally, members of the jury, consider the man before you. A man from a deprived background.” (A few jurors rolled their eyes here.) “Yes, deprived. He saw little of his parents. His mother worked and often travelled abroad. And at a tender age he was sent away to endure the privations and humiliations of, first, an English prep school and then, the ultimate horror, a Scottish public school. The regime was cruel, the food inadequate, the dormitories unheated. Every night he wept into his pillow, longing for his home.”
(It was here the case was lost one juror, an ironmonger, later to be elected Foreman of the Jury, whi
spered to another, “Pass me a violin.”) But Livingstone-Chalk continued, oblivious to the antagonistic atmosphere emanating from the judge and jury. “Is it any wonder that this homesick boy turned to drink? Will any of us forget the shock when it was revealed that the heir to the throne was escorted out of a public house after consuming unknown quantities of cherry brandy?” (Charles was heard to mutter, “I say, it was only one,” and was told to be quiet by the judge.)
Livingstone-Chalk continued, with the doomed flamboyance of a man executing a spectacular dive into an empty swimming pool, “This pathetic, wretched man deserves our pity, our understanding, our justice. What he did was wrong, yes, it can never be right to shout, “Kill the pig,” and to attack a policeman. No, most certainly not…”
Charles muttered, “But I didn’t. Whose side are you on, Livingstone-Chalk?”
The judge ordered him to be quiet or face further charges for contempt of court.
Livingstone-Chalk wound up by saying, “Show him mercy, members of the jury. Think of that little boy sobbing in the dorm for his mummy and daddy.”
There was not a wet eye in the court. One female juror stuck two fingers down her throat in an ‘I want to vomit’ gesture. As Livingstone-Chalk returned to his seat in the court, the Queen had to be restrained by Anne and Diana from leaping to her feet and squeezing on his adam’s apple until he was dead. Beverley had taken Charles’s hand and pressed it sympathetically, and Violet had said out of the corner of her mouth, “They’ve got better briefs than him in Marks and Sparks, Charlie.”
Charles smiled politely at Violet’s joke and was again rebuked by the judge, who said, “The least you could do is to show some contrition, but no, you appear to find this case amusing. I doubt if the jury agrees with you.”
This monstrous leading-the-jury statement went unnoticed and unchecked by Ian Livingstone-Chalk, who was adding up his expenses in his bulging Filofax.