The Audience (3 page)

Elizabeth
That’s a flat fish, isn’t it?

Major
Yes, Ma’am.

Elizabeth
With eyes in the middle of its head?

Major
Yes.

Elizabeth
Like the halibut.

Major
I believe it
is
a halibut.

Elizabeth
Oh.

Major
It’s just marketed as Greenland turbot in America to prevent any confusion with the Pacific halibut.

Elizabeth
(
not seeing
) I see.

Major
However in Europe we call it Greenland halibut not to confuse it with the
real
turbot.

Elizabeth
It’s like the Duke of Normandy also being called the Lord of Mann.

Major
I dare say.

Elizabeth
Or the Duke of Lancaster being called the Lord High Admiral of the Royal Navy.

Major
I’ll take your word for it. I’m afraid I don’t know these people.

Elizabeth
Actually you do. You’ve met them all. In fact you’re sitting with them now. They’re all me. And some of my other titles.

Major
Oh.

Elizabeth
Kotoku, the ‘White Heron’, Paramount Chief of Fiji. Me, too!

Major
The real turbot.

Elizabeth
Yes. Just with slightly more attractively positioned eyes.

As they walk off, lights change, the stage is plunged into darkness.

The Equerry walks on.

Equerry
Audiences between the Queen and Prime Minister take place every Tuesday evening and this has been the case with each of Her Majesty’s PMs – with the exception of her tenth.

While the Equerry speaks, an august, elderly silhouette wearing top hat and frock coat, walks across the stage.

Equerry
He suggested that the audience be moved to Wednesday evenings – to allow him time to better prepare for Prime Minister’s Questions. The Queen expressed ‘surprise’ at this break with tradition, and was comforted when Mr Blair finally left office, hoping that the audiences could be moved back to Tuesdays again. At 6.30 p.m. As they had been, right from the beginning …

Winston Churchill removes his hat, white-faced, bows deeply in deference (with difficulty, wheezing conspicuously, clearly experiencing discomfort), then straightens …

But evolution stops for no man. Or monarch. Or constitution. And the Audience now continues on Wednesday evenings, consigning the Tuesdays to distant history.

… and remains standing.

Churchill
Your Majesty.

The year is 1952 and sitting opposite him is the twenty-five-year-old Queen.

Elizabeth
Please … Prime Minister…. (
Indicating seat.
)

The Queen, as befits the protocol, is in mourning, and still wearing black. We are in the period of time after her father George VI’s death, before her Coronation.
  
When she speaks, we notice the voice is quieter. More uncertain. Thinner. Higher. That of a girl.

I’ve ordered tea. Or would you prefer water?

Churchill stares in horror: ‘Water?’

Something stronger, perhaps?

Churchill
Oh, dear. Did no one explain? The Sovereign
never
offers a Prime Minister refreshment. Nor a chair. The precedent set by your great-great-grandmother was to keep us standing, like Privy Councillors. To waste time is a grievous sin. If there’s one thing I have learned in fifty-two years of public service it is that there is no problem so complex nor crisis so grave that it cannot satisfactorily be resolved within twenty minutes. That was certainly also your dear father’s view. Headlines only. No chat. So – in respect to his memory, shall we make a start?

Elizabeth
Please.

The Queen reaches for something.

Churchill
Second drawer. On the right.

Elizabeth
What?

Churchill
The notepad. Your father always took notes as I spoke.

Elizabeth
I wasn’t looking for a notepad. I was going to get my box.

The Queen bends down, picks up the Sovereign’s red box.

I’m sure you can imagine, most of my time since the funeral has been taken up with our move to Buckingham Palace – but I have now had the chance to read the boxes. And I have the following questions. Can you give me a date for the end of rationing of sugar, butter and meat? What more can you tell me about our development of nuclear weapons? And do you envisage a military engagement, by UN forces, against China – in support of their allies in Korea?

Churchill
No, no, stop! Goodness. Your Majesty … (
A patronising laugh
.) Did your father not tell you how these sessions work?

Elizabeth
Yes. No. This is my first.

Churchill
It’s quite simple. The Prime Minister – that’s me – comes to the Palace every Tuesday evening and explains what of note has transpired that past week in Cabinet, Parliament and Foreign Affairs. He then gives a brief indication of what is
going
to happen the following week. Throughout this the Sovereign – long may it be you –
listens
, makes notes, encourages and asks questions, maybe on the
rare
occasion expresses an opinion, then the Prime Minister goes. That is how it is, that is also how it reflects – in microcosm – how a constitutional monarchy works. The unchecked flow of information from one institution to the next. There is no finer system in the world.

Elizabeth
I can see why you think that. You get to do all the talking. I get to take notes.

Churchill
It’s true. The British constitution, at first sight,
is
a little odd. But that’s why it works so well. It’s like a great ancient city – that’s grown and evolved with time – organic and mutant, full of cul-de-sacs and short cuts, blind alleys, contradictions and follies. No planners could have come up with it. And at the heart of it, wrapped in a knot of mysteries and inconsistencies, is the relationship between you and me, Crown and Government.

Elizabeth
The mystery being how
you
got so much power and I, as Head of State, get none. Wasn’t it Gladstone who compared the British Prime Minister to a dictator? He was right.

Churchill
Yes, but remember this dictator is still a human being. Ambitious. Grasping. Venal. That’s how he got into office. And what ambitious, self-regarding dictator could fail to be impressed by all this? (
Gestures to their surroundings
.) By
you
? (
Gestures to the Queen
.) To a man they will be rendered speechless. Weak-kneed. And in that moment – the dictator will be yours to shape and to steer. One by one your Prime Ministers will fall under your spell. In here. In this audience. In this room.

Elizabeth
Are you weak-kneed now, Mr Churchill?

Churchill
(
smitten
) Oh, I am, Ma’am.

Elizabeth
I meant literally. Would you like to sit?

Churchill
(
proud
) Certainly not. I would not dream of it. Who knows where things would end?

He straightens to his full height, but in so doing he injures himself, and flinches again in pain.

Elizabeth
They may actually end in your comfort. Please … ignore my great-great-grandmother and sit.

Churchill finally relents, and gratefully sits.

Let it be written into our unwritten constitution that from now on the audience will always be conducted this way. Now I have a question for you. My Coronation. I’ve heard you wish to postpone it until June next year. Why?

Churchill
For your benefit entirely.

Elizabeth
My
benefit?

Churchill
A long period between accession and Coronation was of great value to your father –

Elizabeth
He had five months. You’re proposing I have
sixteen
.

Churchill
There is never enough time. Especially now, with this dreadful business of televising it. A quite unjustifiable vulgarisation … (
Stretching
.) Cables will have to be laid, angles worked out …

Elizabeth
I know I’m young and have led a sheltered life, but that does not make me a fool. The delay is for
your
benefit.

Churchill
Mine …?

Elizabeth
Your party wants you to resign and make way for Mr Eden. They think your clinging on to power is hurting the party and hurting the country. They even came to see my father hoping he’d talk you into stepping down – but his sudden death robbed him of the opportunity. You know no one would bring up your resignation while you were actively engaged in planning the Coronation. So by delaying my investiture, you are in fact hanging on to power. Is that true?

A beat.

A simple ‘Yes’ would suffice.

Churchill
Ye–es, Ma’am.

Elizabeth
In which case, I would suggest therefore that you are somewhat in
my
debt. So
if
I agree to the delay, perhaps you would consider returning the favour – quid pro quo – and supporting me on another matter.

Churchill
Name it.

Elizabeth
My husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. It is his wish, and mine, that I and our children take his name. Mountbatten.

Churchill looks up.

Churchill
Is this Lord Mountbatten’s idea? That man’s ambitions know no bounds.

Elizabeth
What is your answer?

Churchill
No, Ma’am. You must not. It would be a grave mistake.

Elizabeth
Why? For a wife to take her husband’s name is the law of this country, is it not?

Churchill
It is the custom, not the law.

Elizabeth
Can the custom not apply to me, too?

Churchill
Mountbatten was the adoptive name your husband took when he became a British citizen. His real name, you’ll hardly need reminding, was
Schleswig-Holstein
-Sonderburg-Glücksburg of the Royal Houses of Denmark and Norway, and latterly of Greece. A convention of genealogists couldn’t pinpoint that man’s roots. Your grandfather already changed his name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor to spare his subjects the embarrassment of appearing to be ruled by the very people we were at war with. Mountbatten
itself
is an anglicisation of Battenburg. (
Exasperated
.) Just how many foreigners can we
have
in our royal family?

Elizabeth
Then I suggest as a compromise the name of Edinburgh.

Churchill
Ma’am. I beg you. That was a bestowed title.

Elizabeth
All right. Edinburgh-Windsor.

Churchill
Out of the question.

Elizabeth
Why?

Churchill
It’s double-barrelled.

Elizabeth
So?

Churchill
It’s common.

Elizabeth
Prime Minister, I fear you’re not taking me seriously. I am Queen of England but also a woman. And wife. To a man whose pride and whose strength are in part what attracted me to him. I want to be in a successful marriage. I would argue that stability under this roof might even be in the national interest. Had you considered
that
? So how do we do it? Tell me. How do we make our marriage work? If the man in this house is effectively neutered.