Mrs. Queen Takes the Train (29 page)

“What? You! Tally-ho?”

“No, you idiot. Not that. Just the opposite. He and a group of his friends were hunt
saboteurs
. They were going to a hunt to stop it. Wearing ski masks.”

“Oh, well, I don’t think I’m much in favor of galloping across country in order to kill a poor fox myself.”

“They had knives. They were going to hurt the horses so they’d throw their riders.”

“Oh,” said Rajiv flatly.

“I couldn’t believe it. He’s been calling me since, but usually I don’t answer. Hadn’t heard from him in almost a year. Then he called me earlier when we were having coffee.” Rebecca didn’t herself understand why. Was he that attracted to her?

“That’s why you left.”

“That. But other things too. Here’s the truth. I’ve never cared about boys. They hated me. Said I smelled. Not worth the trouble they cause. Horses, yes. Boys, no.”

“Wait a minute. You wanted to sleep with a horse? Isn’t that what killed Catherine the Great?”

“Not sleep with them.” Why did he always have to make schoolboy jokes when she was trying to tell him something she’d told no one else? “But they’ve always seemed more real, more interesting than boys. Not interested in you either, not as a,” here she wrinkled her nose, “as a penis. Only semi-like you as someone who makes me laugh, seems kind.”

“But if I were hung like a horse, it would be different?”

She rolled her eyes. “See?”

Rajiv made a face as if he were T. S. Eliot on “Poetry Night” of an old-fashioned radio programme that usually featured classical music and intoned:

Rebecca has no use for this man.

Elizabeth of course as a horse counts far more.

But Elizabeth’s in her stable, and The Queen’s at her table

So Rebecca has to put up with this man so far as she’s able.

Rebecca laughed delightedly. “You call yourself a poet! What was that? Some sort of limerick?”

“Well, you have to start somewhere. It were spur of the moment, weren’t it?”

“Not high art, if you ask me.”

“Stick with me, kid,” said Rajiv, leaning in to put his arm around her waist, “I’ll show you some high art. And did I tell you? You smell gorgeous to me.”

For the first time she didn’t mind his touching her. He seemed to want it so badly. What would it cost her, she thought, to let him have some physical contact?

Just then The Queen, with the blind man on her left arm and Hohenzollern’s harness in her right hand, the dog leading the way, appeared in the buffet car. “Who’s this canoodling in the corner? I believe it’s the young man from Paxton & Whitfield! Who’s looking after the shop?” She sounded a little indignant. Then she looked at Rebecca. “And here is a representative from the Mews. Going to see a friend in Scotland? Hmm? Or, perhaps, taking him with you?” said The Queen, looking at Rajiv. She felt it was a little strange to see these people whom she recognized on a public train, but then she so rarely boarded public conveyances—never, really—that she wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Maybe it was common to find people one knew on ordinary buses and trains? Life beyond the palace walls was foreign to her. Nor did she want to interrupt what was clearly a private moment between them. It had nothing to do with her. She confined herself to a nod in Rajiv’s direction as she went past and said in a stage whisper to Rebecca, “Very nice young man.” She trooped by, followed by the man with piercings, who had the woman with spectacles on his arm. They disappeared down the aisle of the next coach.

“Busted,” said Rajiv to Rebecca.

“Oh God,” she groaned.

“It’s not the end of the world. She didn’t mind seeing us. We can go and join her now if we like.”

“No, we can’t. You don’t just go and
join
The Queen. You have to be invited. Who were those people with her, anyway?”

“Oh, her coach was crowded when I put her on at King’s Cross. They were the ones who were already at the table when she sat down. I expect they’ve become chums.”

“They are not her chums, whoever they are. And now we’ve certainly got to mind where she goes with them.”

“Well, they can’t have gone further than back to their seats.”

Just then the man behind the counter of the buffet car called out to them that he was about to close. Edinburgh was in twenty minutes. Did they want anything before he had to shut up shop? They thanked him, no, they didn’t want anything. They started to return to the last carriage where The Queen had been sitting, but the announcement over the train’s public address system that the final stop was coming in a matter of minutes brought everyone out into the aisles, pulling their cases and coats down from the overhead racks, throwing away their newspapers, standing in the vestibules in order to be the first off the train when it pulled into the station. This blocked their passage and when the train arrived they were still several carriages behind where The Queen had been sitting. When at length they found her place, the spot was empty. They both rushed off onto the platform, ran backwards and forwards, had a look at the taxi rank and the bus stops, but The Queen, the blind man, the woman with spectacles, and the man with piercings were all gone.

W
illiam’s simulated slumber turned into the real thing. When he woke up and looked over at Luke, he saw that he was asleep too. He was a little disappointed, but also a little thankful that their conversation hadn’t gone any further. William didn’t actually know how to proceed with Luke. Being friends with someone younger, rather confused, and without the least gay affect did not offer any immediate clues about how to proceed. Most of William’s closest friends, since he was a boy, had been girls and women. It made him laugh to hear gay men called misogynists. He adored women, always had, but it wasn’t as simple as people thought. It wasn’t that he wanted to be a woman himself, or that they spent all their time talking about girly things. Far from it. He had a highly chivalric attitude toward women. Enjoyed holding the door for them, pulling out chairs for them, deferring to them, not because he had to, or because they were weak, but because they were ladies and it was an ancient code. He liked the politics and economics of modern egalitarian Britain; but the hierarchical rules and regulations of a partly Catholic, semi-medieval kingdom were rituals he believed in passionately as well. He didn’t see why women shouldn’t have equal pay for equal work. He could also imagine putting his jacket down so a lady friend could cross a puddle in the road.

His most beloved partners, his most fulfilling relationships had always been with straight women. They weren’t as emotionally constipated as men. He could recall going somewhere in the car with his father when he was ten or twelve. He thought there was something wrong that there was no conversation. He would occasionally throw out a topic he thought might interest his father, only to have the shortest possible, most ill-tempered reply. He was in his thirties before he discovered that men friends liked being together without talking, that wordlessness was generally considered a desirable attribute of masculinity.

He had no close men friends in the Household. There was certainly camping and carrying on with some of the other staff. You could joke with the other gay chaps, but it never went much further than that, and they kept their distance from one another. They wouldn’t be working for the Household if they didn’t take their jobs quite seriously and they all knew that having an affair with someone at work would get found out, turn awkward, and lead to someone losing his job. Bruno was perfectly capable of putting the knife in his back.

Luke was also strange to him in having apparently reached his thirties without any long-term romantic or sexual commitments. William had never been in any doubt about his own sexuality. Luke, on the other hand, seemed to be questioning his abilities as a romantic partner well into a decade when most young men were already well and truly married, most of them fathers even.

Luke stirred.

“Awake, Sir Galahad, no more sleeping on duty.”

“Oh, sorry,” said Luke, squinting at William’s shoulder. He couldn’t see anything in the dark. “What happened? Where are we? What time is it?”

“Four in the morning. Edinburgh in about half an hour, I imagine. I saw a sign back there about five minutes ago. You fell asleep. What are our orders, Major Thomason? You may as well reveal them to me now. We’re nearly there.”

“Jesus, oh four hundred. Well, Rebecca from the Mews was on the same train as The Queen from King’s Cross. She should have called me to let me know what was happening. They should be there by now. Lady Anne and Mrs MacDonald too. Surprised they haven’t called me either.”

“Shirley and Lady Anne together. Oh my God.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Shirley is devoted to The Queen. But she’s never been in love with any of the ladies-in-waiting. Thinks they’re useless, in fact. Won’t have any truck with them. Steers clear of them when she can.”

“I suppose The Queen’s little, um, jaunt, has created a number of unusual . . . partnerships.”

“I’m not your partner, mate. I’m along to look after Her Majesty when we find her. So pull out your mobile and let’s see if the women have called.”

Luke did as he was told. “Christ!”

“Now what?”

“It’s dead. I forgot to charge it.”

“Totally useless you are. No wonder Iraq was such a balls-up. You lot couldn’t find Colonel Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden himself without it being marked in red on a map.”

Luke was again surprised to find William not play-angry with him but truly exasperated.

“Look. I’m sorry. I hadn’t been planning on coming to Scotland this evening.”

“Well, me either, but here we are, so you better have a bloody quick think about what we’re going to do when we get there.”

“Lady Anne’s nephew?”

“Who’s he? Keeper of the Keys of Edinburgh Castle? Fat lot of good he’ll do us now, Luke. It’s an
honorific
title, doesn’t mean he actually has them.”

Luke stared down into his lap and fiddled with his nonresponsive mobile phone.

“What is it now?” said William impatiently.

“It’s just that, well, that was the first time you called me Luke.”

“I’m going to call you a lot worse than that if you don’t come up with some more ideas. What’s the point of Lady Anne’s idle nephew?”

“Well, he got them their tickets to Edinburgh. Last flight out of Heathrow. And Lady Anne said he had a flat in Charlotte Square. Said that if they found The Queen, they’d take her there.”

“Okay, good. Now we’re getting somewhere. And you put the girl from the stables in touch with Lady Anne?”

“Well, no, I didn’t.”

“Why in the world not?”

“Because I wasn’t thinking of it. Because MI5 was breathing down my neck. Because I was thinking of running to catch the bus. It’s not usually part of my job to be exchanging the mobile telephone numbers of the ladies-in-waiting with the Mews.”

“Well, I want to know what your job description actually is, then. Because whenever I see you lot, you’re just tucking in at Her Majesty’s table while I pour the wine.”

“Harder than it looks.”

“What is?”

“Pretending to have a good time with perfect strangers. Entertaining ministers from Commonwealth countries. What do you talk to them about?”

“Well, you’re on for some real work now, darling. Pull out your wallet because we’re here now and you’re paying for a taxi to Charlotte Square. If we can find one, and you’re responsible for that too if we can’t.”

“Wait a minute. Why don’t we split it? Why can’t
you
find the taxi?”

The bus pulled into the coach station in Edinburgh. The two men came clambering off the bus, still bickering as if they were blue jays, the noisiest and most cheerful thing about that still Scottish morning.

T
he Queen had to admit to herself that she was an old woman on a spree and she hadn’t the energy she used to have. She’d found her way to
Britannia
from Edinburgh Waverley using the crumpled note from inside Rebecca’s hoodie. She’d spent the last of the crisp banknotes from her handbag on her fare and supper on the train. The driver of the bus from the railway station had changed Rebecca’s £20 note for her with bad humor and complained that she ought to have brought the exact change. It wasn’t how she was often spoken to, but it amused her to find someone as bad-tempered as she’d often begun to feel herself. After she arrived next to the ship, a security man whom she’d managed to call to the edge of the gangplank mistook her for a cleaner. All she’d had to say was “I’d like to go on board, please,” and the firmness of her request convinced the man that she knew exactly where she was going. Who else would ask such a thing on a deserted quayside at ten at night? The cleaner often did turn up at this time of night, and though he remembered her as younger and friendlier the last time he’d let her up, he supposed the schedule of cleaners was always changing. He hadn’t been on duty that many months himself.

After The Queen climbed on board, she found many of the familiar doors locked, and there was no one to call to have them opened. So she sat down, rather heavily, in one of the chintz-covered chairs in the sitting room to have a rest. “Oh,” she thought to herself, “I have been happy here.” She recalled a dozen holidays, in cold waters and warm, visiting all seven continents. She could recall going to Florida, when was it? In the early nineties? After the first Gulf War? The tall President Bush was in then. She’d given a party on
Britannia
moored in the harbor at Miami. The private secretary came into her sitting room before the party to ask her to approve the toast he’d written for her. He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt. With no tie. She’d teased him. He wanted to show off his sunburn, didn’t he? Then she’d read the speech while he stood there and found he’d written her a joke about sun cream. How they’d laughed. Then crossed out the joke. They’d had their fun. No one wanted The Queen to be too funny in her speeches. Short, to the point, dull propriety. That was usually her line. Her gloom started to reassert itself.