The Audience (5 page)

Wilson
Ma’am?

Elizabeth
That’s all for now.

Wilson
Is that it? A cosy chat about holiday homes, and a nice cup of tea …?

Elizabeth
Our twenty minutes are up.

Wilson
I make it sixteen.

Elizabeth
Was there anything you felt you needed to add?

Wilson
There was. If my manner earlier was a little abrupt, forgive me. I just want to impress upon Her Majesty the gravity of the situation. For too long now the assumption has prevailed that the Empire still exists, and all will be well – because it always has been in the past. It’s not true. There’s a revolution taking place out there, and the old ruling class is sleepwalking right through it, looking backwards when everyone else is looking forward. The fact
is
there is no ruling class any more. Just one nation. That can be just as great, but will never be the same.

The Queen gets up, indicating that the time is up.

Wilson
Now if I could just …

Wilson produces a camera. The Equerry appears.

Wilson
Mary insisted.

‘Snap’: a picture is taken. Wilson smiling proudly. Then his smile fades.

C’mon, Wilson …

He straightens, looks the Queen in the eye.

The picture’s for me, Ma’am. This is the proudest moment of my life.

Elizabeth
That’s very kind.

Wilson smiles proudly as they pose.

Wilson
If my colleagues on the left of the party could see me now. I’m afraid they despair of my monarchist leanings.

‘Snap’: another picture is taken.

One more, if you don’t mind, Ma’am. For my father. James Herbert Wilson. He’s not been well. Lumbago.

‘Snap’: another picture.

Until next week.

Elizabeth
Prime Minister.

Wilson takes his camera, and bows deeply. Exaggeratedly deeply. Producing another bemused smile from the Queen.

The Queen exits the stage as Young Elizabeth walks on with her Scottish nanny, Bobo Macdonald.

Young Elizabeth
What did Mummy mean tonight when she said everything would be different?

Bobo
It means as of today your father will not just be your father. He will be your king, too. And that’s how you’ll have to refer to him. In public.

Young Elizabeth
Can’t I still call him Papa?

Bobo
Maybe. But don’t be surprised if he says it has to be ‘Sir’. It also means you’ll have to curtsy to him whenever you greet him, or say goodbye …

Young Elizabeth
And Mummy?

Bobo
To her, too.

Young Elizabeth
That’s silly. I’ll get the giggles.

Bobo
You mustn’t do that. You wouldn’t like it if people giggled when they curtsy to you.

Young Elizabeth
Why would they do that?

Bobo
Because that’s what you do to the heiress presumptive. And call you ‘Ma’am’. Your friends, too.

Young Elizabeth
What if I don’t want them to? Please, don’t make them do that. They’ll hate me. How can we stop this?

Bobo
We can’t. Unless your mother and father –

She checks herself.

– the King and Queen have a boy.

The Queen enters. She is now eighty-three years old, white-haired and showing the first signs of frailty.

Bobo
Now what’s it going to be? Am I going to tell you a bedtime story? Or are we going to say our prayers?

Young Elizabeth
Prayers.

Bobo
And what are we going to pray for?

Young Elizabeth
That the King and Queen have a boy.

A lighting change. Bobo and Young Elizabeth exit.

Brown
So
humiliating
.

Enter Gordon Brown, fifty-eight, the Queen’s eleventh Prime Minister. It’s late September 2009.

Five attempts, Ma’am,
five
to secure private bilateral talks with President Obama, and he refused point blank … yet proceeded to have one-on-ones with everyone else right under my nose. The Dutch, for God’s sake. Finally, after repeated representations by my ambassador –

Elizabeth
(
under her breath
)
My
ambassador.

Brown
– he agreed to a meeting in the kitchens. For five minutes. For what his aides insultingly called a ‘walk and talk’.

Elizabeth
In the kitchens?

Brown
Through
the kitchens. Of the United Nations building. A short cut taken by his security people. The Head of Her Majesty’s Government. America’s staunchest ally, a political brotherhood forged over two centuries, gets fifty yards by the refrigerators. Couldn’t have been more insulting.

Elizabeth
I’m touched by your indignation. But I wouldn’t read too much into it.

Brown
How can I not? Everyone else is. Leader writers and bloggers taking it as an indication of the White House distancing itself from the candidate they fully expect to lose the next General Election. I suppose it serves me right. I probably will lose, and only have myself to blame. After all, you told me to go for it.

Elizabeth
For what?

Brown
A snap election. In 2007. When I was still in my honeymoon. To establish a personal mandate.

Elizabeth
Ah, yes. I’m a great believer in displays of strength. When Mr Major told me he intended to face down his rebels in 1995 …

Brown
‘Back me or sack me.’ I remember.

Elizabeth
I didn’t discourage him. Nor Mr Wilson in 1974, when he had a minority Labour government.

Brown
All
of us politicians could learn a thing or two from you. We’re
all
in the survival business, and God knows, if anyone has pulled off an inexplicable survival against the odds it’s you … I mean this institu—I mean … Oh …

Brown tails off, checks himself.

Elizabeth
I think that started life as a compliment – but ended up somewhere else.

The Queen smiles.

It’s true. From a purely logical perspective our ‘inexplicable’ survival on the throne is perhaps hard to justify. But that’s where one’s grateful for one’s faith and the clarity that brings.

Brown
(
not following
) Ma’am …?

Elizabeth
The Coronation is no civic event. It’s a consecration that takes place in God’s house. Under
His
roof.

Brown stares. Still not understanding.

It’s
His
will that we are where we are.

A silence.

Back to your trip?

Brown
Well, after a couple more days in Pittsburgh, and a productive meeting with Colonel Gaddafi.

Elizabeth
Was he in his tent? With all his female bodyguards?

Brown
Not this time. I met him in New York. At the UN. In which he reiterated his commitment to abandoning his weapons programme and his desire to continue investing in the UK. I came home.

Elizabeth
I heard he’d taken to referring to himself both as ‘Leader of the Revolution’ and the ‘King of Kings’. Which seems to be wanting to have it both ways. (
A beat.
) Did you at least manage to get away for the weekend?

Brown
I did. And even found some time to think about a book I’m planning to write. About the financial crisis engulfing us all. And how the world can work together to best prevent another one in the future; through coordinated monetary policy and regulation … by way of some post-Keynesian stuff about insufficient aggregate demands …

Elizabeth
That was your
weekend
?

Brown
Yes, Ma’am.

Elizabeth
No guests then?

Brown
Oh, yes. Someone from the Department of International Development whose name escapes me, someone from Save the Children – a corpulent woman. But Sarah took care of them. Gave them the tour.

Elizabeth
Swimming in the indoor pool? A walk in the woods?

Brown
You know the Chequers routine.

Elizabeth
We have a similar one at Balmoral as you know. Picnics by the lake, walks on the moors after lunch …

Brown
Weather permitting.

Elizabeth
Excuse me. No
matter
the weather.

Brown smiles.

Brown
I shall never forget the story you told about my predecessor turning up at Balmoral in brand new country clothes.

Elizabeth
Mr Blair? Yes. He and his lady wife, Cheryl …

Brown
Che-
rie
.

Elizabeth
In spanking new tweed … I
think
with all the price tags still attached. We were all very amused.

Brown
(
erupting in joy
) Ha!

Brown slaps his thigh. His laughter is alarmingly loud and without restraint. The Queen is startled.

Elizabeth
Goodness.

Brown
Forgive me – but jokes at his expense never fail to cheer me up.

Elizabeth
That’s a
Schadenfreude
you have in common with all your predecessors.

Brown
No, Ma’am. Trust me. This one is in a league of its own.

Elizabeth
Worse than Eden and Churchill? I doubt that. Than Heath and Thatcher?

Brown
You’d be surprised.

Elizabeth
I suppose he took a long time to go.

Brown
Ten years. One month. Three weeks. Four days.

Elizabeth
Churchill took even longer. Fifteen years until he made way as Conservative leader for poor Mr Eden.

Brown
That’s the first time I’ve heard the word ‘poor’ uttered in the same sentence as ‘Eden’.

Elizabeth
He was so dashing. One forgets that now. On the electoral trail in 1955 the women of Britain lined the streets. A year later, he was a disgraced man. I recall a conversation I had with him – (
She smiles as she remembers
.) I was in an evening gown – tiara and Garter sash, having been photographed by Cecil Beaton – which was almost word for word identical to one I had with Mr Blair almost fifty years later. The similarities, the parallels were striking … (
A beat
.) I suppose that’s what happens if you stick round long enough. The same people, the same ideas come round again and again. Wearing a different coloured tie.

The Queen turns.

Elizabeth
So, back to your weekend, and all this industriousness. Were you up very early?