Queen Camilla (27 page)

Harold Bunion had been pressing the call button on his bedside table for over twenty minutes. His bladder was bursting, but he needed assistance to get out of bed and into his wheelchair; his legs were two leaden
lumps since his last stroke. Down the corridor he could hear Edna Hart pleading, ‘Help me, help me!’ and further away somebody was groaning, as though in pain. Harold strained his ears, listening for footsteps approaching his room, but there were none to be heard.

He shouted, ‘Is anybody there?’ Prince Philip stirred in his sleep and Harold shouted again, ‘Is anybody there?’

Prince Philip struggled up from his pillows and yelled, ‘
Britannia
is sinking.’

Harold visualized the royal yacht capsizing and being swallowed up by a huge dark sea, and wondered why the Queen had not been to see her husband for a few days. He could tell that Philip had not been eating or drinking from the untouched trays that were dumped on his bed trolley. He fumbled on his bedside table in the dim light for a receptacle of some kind. His hand touched the little plastic pot which held his dentures, but when he tried to grasp the pot he only succeeded in pushing it further away. He pressed the call button and this time heard footsteps in the corridor. A care worker he had never seen before put her head around the door and said, ‘Is it you making all that noise?’

Harold said brusquely, ‘I need the toilet. Help me into my wheelchair.’

The woman said, ‘A wheelchair transfer takes two people. It’s Sunday, and me and the other nurse is running the place on our two owns, and she’s on her break, so you’ll have to wait.’

Harold said, savagely, ‘I can’t wait. Just help me into the chair, will you?’

The woman said, ‘I can’t, it’s health and safety. I’m not going to do my back in for five pounds twenty-eight an hour. I’ll fetch you a bottle.’

Philip shouted, ‘We’re drowning! The water’s over my head.’

There was a commotion from one of the rooms at the end of the corridor, and Harold deduced from the raised voices that Mrs Hart had fallen out of bed. He began to weep; he had lost control of everything in his life, and now he was losing control of his bladder. The urine flooded out of him, warm at first, but it quickly cooled down, and soon he was shivering in his saturated bed.

Prince Philip said, ‘I’m hungry and thirsty. I want Elizabeth.’

Harold said, ‘She’ll be here in the morning. Go to sleep now.’

Harold was comforted by the thought that the Queen might visit them in the morning. He was a Republican and had denounced the monarchy on many public platforms, but he liked and trusted Mrs Windsor. He lay awake for a few moments, listening to the rise and fall of Prince Philip’s breathing.

Princess Michael was sitting at her dining table, writing in an A4-size spiral-bound notebook using a Bic pen. She was working on the manuscript of a novel she intended to call
A Princess in Exile
. The heroine, Cristina von Kronenbourg, was not unlike herself, Marie-Christine thought: statuesque and hauntingly beautiful with hair like spun gold and a smile that captivated men’s hearts and kept them prisoners for eternity. Her fictional husband, Prince Michael of Kronenbourg, had been tragically lost in an avalanche, though his body had never been found. Finding herself cast out by his cruel family, who had ruled the small country of Kronenbourg for centuries, she wandered from country to country finding nothing but unkindness from the common people. After many adventures, she found her husband, who was disguised as a sea captain. Reunited, they returned to their previous positions. But the prince had learned a valuable lesson – that poor, uneducated people were absolutely horrid and that the best people with the warmest hearts were the rich and the powerful ones. They were the best friends to have.

Princess Michael had shown the manuscript to only one person, Chanel Toby, who cleaned for her once a week. Chanel had been forced to read the manuscript under the intense gaze of Princess Michael, who scrutinized
every gesture that Chanel made, saying, ‘Your mouth moved, are you amused?’ or, ‘You raised an eyebrow, you are surprised by the story, huh?’

Chanel had blurted out at the end of the ordeal that she thought, ‘The book were brilliant; much better than anything anybody has ever writ before.’

Princess Michael said, ‘Please be honest with me, child. I know the book is good, but
brilliant
, I’m not so sure.’

Chanel, desperate to get out of the house, said, ‘It’s better than the Bible and Shakespeare and Harry Potter.’

Princess Michael had smiled. It was as she thought, she was a genius. Her book would explode on to the literary world like a shooting star. She would be acclaimed by
Hello!
and
Cosmopolitan
, fêted by other authors. Her financial worries would be over. The only regret she had was that she hadn’t started to write novels years ago. She heard a noise outside. Voices were raised and dogs were barking. She looked up from the manuscript and saw a rowdy crowd of Hell Close residents milling around one of Grice’s delivery vans.

She finished the paragraph she had been writing: ‘Princess Cristina was invited into the torture chamber to watch the torturers practising their black arts. She greatly enjoyed hearing the peasants who had wronged her begging for mercy. Such entreaties she answered with a merry tinkling laugh that sounded like fairies shaking a cowslip.’ Inspired, she carried on: ‘ “Ask me not for mercy, peasants, lest thee displease me further, in which circumstance thy tribulations will increase fourfold.” ’

As she crossed the green with Zsa-Zsa in her arms, she heard inside her head the Whitbread Prize judge saying, ‘And the first prize goes to Princess Michael of Kent for
A Princess in Exile
.’

After six days without another grocery delivery, there was a serious shortage of dog food. The humans were also feeling the pinch. Mr Anwar and his wife were suffering the worst; they were used to eating vast amounts of food and were living in Hell Close precisely because he was morbidly obese and had been put on the Morbidly Obese Register. Mr Anwar had said at the time, ‘I wish the doctors would make up their minds. Ten years ago they tell me I am
fat
, five years ago they tell me I am
obese
, and now they have changed their minds
again
and tell me I am
morbidly
obese! What next?’

He had signed many National Health Service contracts, promising to keep his calorific consumption down to two thousand five hundred a day, but had failed to keep to any of them for more than forty-eight hours before cracking and waddling into Grice’s Chinese Chip Shop. Mr Anwar had begged his obesity counsellor to recommend him for gastric reduction surgery, a procedure that involved reducing the stomach to the size of a baby’s fist. But the counsellor had explained that Mr Anwar was much too fat for the operation, and had told him that he would need to lose at least five stone before he could be safely anaesthetized. Mr Anwar had protested in his reedy voice, ‘But I can’t lose five stone until I have the operation.’ This circular argument had been going on for many years.

Mr Anwar’s dog, Raj, was also obese. He rarely left the house; he felt safe only in the back garden. He communicated with other dogs occasionally by barking loudly and listening to their barked replies, but he was too fat to run and play with them on the green and so missed the subtleties of their interaction.

Everybody was hungry. A deputation of dogs went up to the police barrier and spoke to Judge and Emperor who were on duty.

Harris barked, ‘We’ve been living on slops and human leftovers for almost a week; we’re actually starving to death. Can you nae do something for us?’

Leo whimpered, ‘I’m a growing dog, I need my food.’

Judge barked, ‘Piss off! We work for our food. You’re nothing but lapdogs and parasites.’

Harris snapped, ‘I’d cut my tail off for a job. Can I join the police force?’

‘No,’ laughed Emperor. ‘You ain’t got the height, shortarse.’

When Arthur Grice’s Rolls-Royce drew up at the barrier, the dogs stood aside to let him drive through. Rocky was snarling on the back seat, ‘Hello, losers. Feeling a bit peckish?’

Grice drew up outside Charles and Camilla’s and opened the car boot. He took out a large carton full of dog food and ordered Rocky to guard the car. The Hell Close dogs, nineteen in all, surrounded Arthur, baying, barking, howling, yelping, whimpering and growling. They followed him up the path to the front door. Hunger had stirred a primeval memory of when dogs were wild creatures who hunted and killed to fill their
empty bellies. Grice kicked out at the dogs and banged on the door. When Camilla opened it, he pushed past her and stumbled into the hall. Leo, Freddie and Tosca stood shoulder to shoulder and pushed the other dogs back over the doorstep, and Camilla slammed the door.

Grice said, ‘I’ve brung you a present. There’s twenty-four tins of Pedigree Chum in ’ere. Where do you want it?’

Camilla said, ‘How very kind. In the kitchen, please.’

Grice followed Camilla through to the kitchen, and dropped the box on to the table.

Freddie barked to Tosca, ‘Grice does nothing out of the goodness of his heart. What does he want?’

Tosca growled, ‘I don’t care. I’m hungry.’

Leo barked, ‘Camilla, get the box open. Find the tin opener. Feed me!’

Grice said, ‘Your ’usband not in?’

‘No,’ said Camilla. ‘He’s with his mother.’

Grice smiled. ‘Family is everythink,’ he said.

‘Do you have any children?’ asked Camilla.

‘No,’ said Grice. ‘We’ve got Rocky. He’s a Dobermann, and they don’t like kiddies.’

‘Enough of the small talk,’ barked Tosca, jumping up at the box.

Camilla said, ‘How much do I owe you for the dog food, Mr Grice?’

Grice waved the suggestion of payment away airily. ‘Nothink,’ he said. ‘It’s free, gratis, a present from one dog lover to another.’

Camilla asked, ‘And are all the dog lovers in Hell Close to be given dog food?’

Grice’s eyes shifted away from Camilla. ‘You could
mention to ’Er Majesty the Queen that you’ve got a few spare tins,’ he said.

The Hell Close dogs had made their way around the side of the house and were now marauding in the back garden, trampling on the neat lines of brassicas and winter cabbage. King had jumped over the fence and was howling at the back door.

When Grice made no sign of leaving, Camilla, impelled by good manners, asked if he would like a cup of tea. Grice unbuttoned his cashmere overcoat and dropped down heavily into a chair. He looked around the kitchen and said, ‘I hope you didn’t take your house arrest personal, only I ’ad to be seen to be in control.’

Camilla stood with her back against the sink, willing the kettle to boil. She made no move to open the carton of dog food, though it was hard to resist the hunger in her dogs’ eyes. She waited for Grice to state the nature of the price she would have to pay.

Grice said, ‘I was brung up in a council house like this. There was nine of us, we took it in turns to wear the shoes, an’ there was never enough cups to go round. I ’ad to drink my tea out of a jam jar.’ Grice’s voice faltered, he was suddenly overwhelmed with self-pity. ‘I didn’t own me own underpants until I was sixteen.’

Freddie snarled, ‘Pass the bleeding violin.’

Camilla said, ‘You’ve certainly done terribly well to fight your way out of such poverty, Mr Grice.’

Grice sighed, ‘Yeah, I done all right. I’ve got everythink – ’ouses, cars, expensive wife, millions in the bank – but it ain’t enough. I want somethink money can’t buy.’

Camilla asked, ‘Happiness?’

Grice said, ‘No, happiness is for losers. What I want is an honour.’

Camilla said, ‘But money
can
buy you an honour, Mr Grice. One only has to donate a large sum of money to the Cromwell Party.’ She had heard recently from Beverley Threadgold that Michael Jackson, the disgraced singer, had, in exchange for many millions of pounds, been elevated to Lord Jackson of Neverland.

Grice growled, ‘But it ain’t guaranteed. And anyway, why should I pay the monkey when I can get one from the organ grinder?’ He was rather pleased with his analogy, but Camilla was baffled. What had monkeys and organ grinders to do with the reintroduced honours system?

The kettle shrieked and Camilla poured boiling water into the teapot. The dogs in the garden were now leaping up at the windows and scratching on the back door. Camilla felt doubly besieged; her own dogs were whimpering pitifully, never taking their eyes off the carton of dog food, still unopened on the table. She poured strong black tea into a delicate china cup and asked, ‘Milk and sugar?’

‘A bit of milk and seven sugars,’ Grice replied. ‘Anyway, you might mention that in your opinion, Arthur Grice, employer of hundreds, philanthropist and benefactor to the poor, deserves an honour. Perhaps when you give the Queen a few tins of this dog food.’

Camilla said, ‘Mr Grice, I have no influence over the Queen.’

‘But your ’usband has,’ said Grice. ‘Couldn’t ’e put a word in for me?’

Camilla said, ‘Relations are strained between my husband and his mother at the moment.’

She spooned seven teaspoons of sugar into Grice’s cup and added a little milk.

Grice said, ‘I expect she blames you because she’s not allowed to see ’er ’usband.’

Camilla said, ‘I do feel dreadful about that.’

Grice said, ‘And it’s your fault ’er dogs are goin’ ’ungry.’

‘Yes,’ said Camilla, grimacing as Grice sipped his sickly-sweet tea.

He said, ‘An’ all these problems could be solved by just a little tap on the shoulder with a sword, and the words “Arise, Sir Arthur”.’

‘When you put it like that,’ said Camilla weakly.

‘Well, I’ll leave you to think about it,’ said Grice, picking up the carton of dog food.

Leo, Tosca and Freddie leapt at the box, trying to knock it out of Grice’s huge hands. Grice roared, ‘Fuck off, you bleeders!’ and kicked out viciously, catching Tosca a hard kick behind her ear. She recoiled from the blow and lay still on the floor, whimpering, with her eyes half closed. Leo and Freddie cowered away from Grice as he made his way out of the kitchen carrying the carton. Camilla knelt over Tosca, stroking her head and making soothing, calming noises. She heard the front door open, then close, then the cacophony of ravenous dogs outside pleading for food.