Skeleton-in-Waiting (10 page)

Janine tapped on the door and put her head round, but not far enough to see the scene in the bath. She was a pleasantly prudish little thing.

“It's His Majesty, ma'am.”

“Oh, bring the bloody thing in, then. You'll have to take the brat.”

There was a moment of fluster as they made the exchange.

“Hello? Lulu? What was that about?”

“Nearly dropped you in the bath. I was teaching your grandchild to swim.”

“You must be feeling a bit drowned yourself.”

“I had layers and layers on. Smelly though.”

“Don't I know it. You came over pretty well. I gather you weren't happy about Tank fixing you up to talk to that Falklands widow? It looked all right.”

“It was. In itself, I mean. I just want everyone to understand I'm not going to do anything which makes life harder for Bert and Soppy. I'm not going to be stood alongside her for comparison. We've got to help them sort themselves out. That's what matters.”

“One of the things that matter.”

“The main thing.”

“Perhaps. But I think Tank was right this time—at least till we know what's happening.”

“What
is
happening? Did Bert get onto her?”

“The Lipchitzes appear to have told their servants to tell everyone they are away. They'll have half the Argentine press at their gates by now, and our own lot due any moment.”

“Did Bert know she was going?”

“Yes. Said it was his idea. I managed not to yell at him if you're interested.”

“Well done. What happened to her detectives, by the way? They went to Florida with her, didn't they?”

“Of course. But she was staying there on one of those spreads with its own security fences, so the arrangement was they didn't hang around while she was inside the ring. Her hosts say she asked to borrow a car and told them not to tell our people—they assumed she was going to visit some man—they seem a pretty easy-going bunch, used to that sort of thing. She'd not got anything much laid on for next day so she could get over her jet-lag before polo started, so they didn't begin to worry till the evening. I may say, if that's how it was, then she's behaved extremely badly towards them. The media over there are beginning to kick up a stink.”

“It was a private visit.”

“My foot. Polo matches. Princess of Wales playing. People who've never even seen the game would have been driving in from hundreds of miles away. She must have known.”

“It just shows how pushed she must be feeling.”

“Best hope is she's nipped off to the Argentine for a couple of days to prove she can, and she'll show up in Florida again.”

“No. I think she'll do another bolt. The Lipchitzes will help her, won't they? They're so rich they're used to doing whatever they like, so they think everyone should be able to. It's a game to them. They'll pass her on to someone else and tell everyone she just drove off and they don't know where she's gone.”

“Oh, God! And the Argentine government are already looking around for ways to exploit it. You know, this is the most bloody awful potmess we've been in since … I don't know when.”

“How did you get on with Mrs T.?”

“Well as could be expected. No, better than that. We keep it pretty formal, and she's too experienced by now to try and take advantage of something like this until she can be sure where the actual advantage lies. Meanwhile she's got to cope with the usual bloody little ticks on the back benches trying to get themselves a bit of publicity at Question Time. We're putting out a statement for tonight's news …”

“I've got to go to the flicks.”

“Yes, of course. This Emperor thing. Just like home life, I should think. Listen, I haven't rung you just to blast off—there's something else. When did you last see Bea Surbiton?”

“Can't remember. Bit after Christmas. Why?”

“She's still sitting on my mother's bloody papers. We've been letting it slide, deliberately. The longer Bea muddles around the more time it gives us to deal with your friend Dr Romanov.”

“What do you mean, deal with?”

“Don't ask. Nothing sinister, Lulu. He's a tougher nut than we realised. Anyway, you leave him to us. The point is the papers Bea's got. We've got to get them out of her before they get into the wrong hands. It has now become urgent.”

“Because of Soppy? I remember Granny …”

“You only saw a fraction of it. She tended to behave herself with you, for some reason.”

“She was pretty good hell when I was trying to marry Piers.”

“That was mild, compared. She regarded that as one in the eye for Bella and me, so she just went in for minor bits of havoc. But there's bound to be stuff in her papers about Soppy and Bert, pure malice, lies, distortions, fantasies … can you imagine what it would be like if any of that came out now?”

“You want me to try again with Aunt Bea?”

“Point is, she's got herself in the clutches of some woman, Mrs … Mrs … I'm getting senile.”

“Walsh.”

“That's right. Husband was a curious chap my grandfather picked up and gave a job to. Nothing much on his file, but Jane got onto old Lady Godstone—before your time, before mine, even—and she says she remembers him as a fat jumpy little man who played snooker with my grandfather. Wasn't up to his job always, she says—that's code for getting drunk—but he'd got a Russian wife who kept him going. No family.”

“I thought there was a daughter.”

“Code again. Lady Godstone would've meant he didn't come from anywhere. No connections. Not even a gent, quite likely, but then my grandfather liked a bit of low life—he'd really have been happiest running a back-street pub, only he wouldn't have been mentally up to it. Pot-boy, maybe. You're right about the daughter, though. Lady G. mentioned her specifically, because it was the only point she could think of in his favour. The kid was Down's syndrome, and the wife hadn't any time for her, but Walsh himself was very good with her. Used to push her about the Park in a pram. Lady G. hinted that there was something fishy about the pair of them, but my grandfather wouldn't hear a word against him and my mother approved of her, so they stayed on. Might be useful to know what Lady G. was talking about.”

“He'd written a book about his Russian adventures and sent a copy to Great-grandfather, who gave him a job because of being a rabid anti-Bolshie. Then it turned out that the book was stolen from a lot of other books. I think the Walshes may have worked out that if it was published they'd lose his new job because of the hullabaloo, so they got it withdrawn and the publisher went bankrupt. It's a bit late if you're thinking of using that to put pressure on Mrs Walsh to get her claws out of Aunt Bea. By the way, don't Down's syndrome children die young?”

“Yes—that's to say they haven't got proper immunities and tended until recently to succumb to various infections. Why?”

“The daughter's still alive. She must be getting on seventy.”

“Can't be, not if she was Down's syndrome.”

“According to Mrs Walsh she lives abroad.”

“Might be something else, I suppose. Of course Lady G. wouldn't have said Down's syndrome—she'd have said Mongol. Alkaptunuria? Turner's syndrome? Kleinfelter's? I don't know. If she'd only seen the kid in the pram …”

“She might be lying. I think she is about her family name.”

“Why on earth?”

“That's my timer. I've got to get out and start dressing.”

“Hold it. Let's get this sorted. You are going over to see Bea and Mrs Walsh … when?”

“I don't keep my diary in the bath. I'll have to let you know. Have we got any money?”

“What do you mean?”

“Mrs Walsh is helping Aunt Bea because she can read Russian. A lot of Granny's letters are in Russian. Aunt Bea's paying her. She hasn't got a bean on her apparently. That's why she's spinning the job out.”

“She'll have a Palace pension. It won't be much.”

“I thought we might offer to review it, if she'll let go of the papers. I wouldn't put it that bald.”

“Um. Sam won't like it.”

“She's been living off scraps from the tourist restaurant according to Aunt Bea.”

“It can't be that bad, even for a pre-war pension. They were reviewed in 'fifty-eight and they've been index-linked since 'seventy-two.”

“I'm just telling you what Aunt Bea said. I must go. Oh, I'll need to know how things are between the old girls and Alex Romanov. Jane might know. Last I heard he was getting a bit frustrated and beginning to talk about solicitor's letters.”

“Can't have that. I suppose …”

“I've got to go. Ask Jane and get her to ring me. Oh, and tell Sir Sam to take it easy with Alex. He's pretty jumpy—he told Piers he'd been vetted, and told me he'd put his copies of the letters in a bank. OK? See you soon, I hope. And I hope Soppy comes out of this all right.”

“Hope we all do. Enjoy the film, darling.”

Slant, whipping sleet-flurries. Large crowd waiting behind barriers in the bitter cold, further away from the entrance than usual. Wet paving, wet cars, wet brollies, wet functionaries, all glittering in the flashlight dazzle. Police tall shadows beyond the brightness. Cheers. Climb from the car, turn, wave, smile. Huddle snugly into white fur collar as you wait for Piers to climb out, laugh as you take his arm, turn again and teeter towards entrance, giving glimpses of wicked crimson stocking through slit of white satin sheath (soft royal porn-limit), on into foyer, shake hands and chat with actors (biogs mugged up in car), joke about court life, smile, look happy, excited—all genuine tonight, because Piers with you, but all part of the job too, along with getting soaked and frozen on colour-parades, signalling to the few million people who happen to be watching between the football results and the weather forecast (no, not in the normal royal spot tonight, but right up front, thanks to Soppy),
Look at me. Think me a dream. Love me.
Yuck.

At least it was a film Louise would have chosen to see anyway. Five years ago she and Albert had staged a Palace revolution and announced that if they were made to attend any more idiot Brit comedies or limping Bond-clones they would yawn publicly the whole way through—there were specialist hacks who came to royal premières with night-vision glasses and never looked at the screen all evening. She was seated out of reach of Piers, so they couldn't hold hands, though Joan must have told them (“HRH greatly prefers …”), but the message hadn't got through. Piers wouldn't mind as much as she did, and it would upset him if she made a fuss, so she sat in the lonely dark and half-dozed after the long day. The extraordinary story on the screen became her dream, distortions of familiar sights and events, with the plot a sort of afterthought imposed by the drowsing mind as it automatically tried to assemble the surreal images presented to it into a rational sequence. When the baby emperor marched down between the kowtowing courtiers he became Davy, not just in fancy but in the momentary solidity of dream really, painfully so, with herself watching, powerless to cry out or warn or arrest in any way that happy confident strut towards … She must really have been dozing at that point, because in another shift of the dream-pattern, though the strut remained and the child was still her Davy, it was a different Davy, his face Chinese-looking, mongoloid. He was marching through an immense empty courtyard, with ruined walls. He was Down's syndrome … Her shudder shook her awake and she forced herself to make sense of the story, but even as she did so she was aware that for quite a time to come, and especially when she met Mrs Walsh, she was going to be haunted by the image of that other baby, of its birth, of its being carried newly born through the mountain passes—why hadn't they left it to die among the rocks? Not realised, either of them, what they'd got?—and then other images of its being wheeled in an immense pram through Kensington Gardens by a fat little ex-adventurer who drank too much and yet loved it. She'd never get Mrs Walsh to talk about it, she realised. The daughter “lived abroad”. Or perhaps that was just a euphemism, the sort of thing people like Mrs Walsh might say rather than admit the shame of having to keep their child in a home. And she still said it, from habit, though the child had died years ago. Perhaps.

Punctuality of departure, Father used to say, was as important an aspect of the politeness of princes as that of arrival. If you linger on, everyone else has to, on their best behaviour instead of whooping it up. So you let yourself be whisked away, smartish, three or four hands to shake, no cameras to flirt with, only the small and dedicated group of royal-spotters still waiting at the barriers for a second glimpse. Louise checked quickly to see if her good-luck couple were there. They showed up at almost every announced appearance she made within thirty miles of London, late middle-aged, the woman taller than the man, both in Sunday best, nodding and muttering to each other as she passed, knowledgeable as judges at a vegetable show. Once she had paused and said hello. They had been polite but reserved. That was not part of the relationship they wanted—to them it had been as if a prize onion had answered back. Anyway the lighting was too patchy tonight for Louise to be sure if they were there. No omen.

3

“Do we have to have that thing on?”

“There's going to be a statement. I'll turn it so I can just hear Big Ben.”

“You sound a bit low.”

“A bit.”

“Not a good point at which to see that particular film.”

“I don't know. We're completely different. Well, almost completely. I mean, what was he doing? For anyone? At least we're working, in a sort of way. People still want us. Sometimes I wonder if we aren't a sort of dream everyone's having. If you don't dream at all—I know a lot of people don't think they dream, but they still have … what's it called, sounds like some kind of medal?”