The Queen and I (13 page)

When the Queen reached the town centre, she rested on a bench and put Harris on his feet. He lifted his leg and urinated against an overflowing litter bin. The Queen was reminded of Niagara Falls, the flow of which, unlike Harris, could be switched off at will.

A man was sitting next to the Queen. He had a raw, recently broken nose. He was drinking out of a brown bottle. After each drink he drew a filthy hand across his mouth, as if hiding the evidence. His shoes were of the type worn by bandleaders between the wars. Harris’s urine trickled towards these shoes and the man drew his feet onto the bench in a decorous movement, like a young girl avoiding a strolling spider.

The Queen apologised for Harris’s behaviour.

“Och, the wee dog canna help it,” said the man, his voice hoarse from violent shouting in the small hours. “An’ let’s face it, missus, he’s too wee to climb onto a lavatory seat.”

The man laughed and choked at his joke and when he saw that the Queen was not laughing, he prodded her and said, “Aw, c’mon, lassie, let yourself go. You’ve got a face on you like a wet Sunday in Aberdeen.”

The Queen showed her teeth briefly and the man was pacified.

He said, “D’you know who you look like? I’ll tell you. You look like that woman who impersonates the Queen. You do, you do, you look like her – wassaname? You know the one. You look
more
like her than she does. You do. You do. You could make a
fortune
. You shid do it, you shid. You shid do it. You know who
I’ve
been taken for?”

The Queen looked at his broken veined face. His tropical sunset eyes, his matted hair, his verdigris teeth.

“G’wan, guess who I’m took for?”

“I simply can’t imagine,” said the Queen, turning her head away from his cidery breath.

“Hee, hee, hee,” laughed the man. “Hee, hee, hee, that’s verra guid. You sound jus’ like her.
‘Ai simplay carrnt eemaygin’
,” he mocked. “Jus’ like her, jus’ like the Queen. You shid go on the clubs, you shid.
‘Ai simplay carrnt eemaygin’
.” His laughter echoed around the town centre. He beat on his thighs with his fists. “I mean, you’re not tellin’ me that her accent is
real
. It’s not, it’s not. It’s not real. She sounds like a robot from
Doctor Who
. Doesn’t she, missus? Doesn’t she? Still, we’re rid of her now. Guid riddance, I say. I’ll drink to that. I’ll drink to that. Who’s in charge now?”

“Jack Barker,” said the Queen, trying to flatten her vowels.

“Tee hee, hee.
Jek Barker
. You’re a scream, missus,” said the Republican. “You are, you are, you are.”

He stood up and swayed in front of the Queen. She noticed that he was not wearing socks. His trouser hems had fallen down; overlocking threads trailed behind him. If ever asked by a style magazine journalist to explain how he chose each day’s wardrobe, he would have to say in all honesty that he threw his clothes on in the morning and continued to wear them day and night until many months later when they were removed by men wearing rubber gloves, overalls and face masks.

“G’wan, who do I remind you of?” He struck what he perceived to be an artistic pose. One finger on his chin, and his head turned to display his wrecked profile.

The Queen shook her head; she didn’t know.

“The Duke,” shouted the dissolute one. He saw that the Queen was not familiar with the name. “Prince Philip. I’m a dead ringer for him; everybody says, everybody. Can you not see it? Can you not?”

The Queen eventually admitted that perhaps there was a “slight resemblance”. He drank the bottle dry, then shook it and steered two brown drops into his gaping mouth. He shook it again, inverted it against his mouth, waited, got angry when nothing appeared and banged his teeth on the rim.

“You wouldn’t have the price of a Big Mac, would you missus?” he asked.

“No,” said the Queen, placing the cider bottle against the litter bin. “I do not have a penny.”

“Och, that’s what they all say, though not in such a classy accent.”

The Queen asked him for directions to the DSS office. He offered to escort the Queen to the door, but she declined graciously. As she waited for the green man to give her permission to cross the road, she heard the grimy one shout, “Jeanette Charles! That’s her, that’s her, that’s the one. You’re a dead ringer for her. A fortune! A fortune!”

The Queen joined the queue outside the DSS office. A girl in unmemorable clothes gave her a numbered disc – thirty-nine. She stood behind number thirty-eight and was soon joined by forty. Those in the queue with watches looked at them, frequently. Those without asked the time, often.

Time, invisible and invincible, fled by, mocking those waiting outside. Would they be seen? There were twenty-five minutes left. They did mathematical calculations inside their heads. Little children stood stoically holding onto the pushchairs of their younger siblings. The rush hour traffic jerked by, three feet away, sending fumes directly into the lungs of the occupants of the pushchairs.

Harris coughed and strained on his lead.

The queue shuffled in until the Queen was sufficiently far forward to be able to see inside the large room where a menacing clock with black hands and a hurrying second hand told her that it was twelve minutes past five. A baby began to cry and was given an unopened packet of crisps to suck.

“’S no good givin’ him a actual
crisp
, they’re salt and vinegar,” said the young mother – number thirty-eight. “’E don’t like salt ’n’ vinegar.”

The Queen nodded, reluctant to open her mouth and advertise her class. Her accent was proving to be rather a bother. Should she try to modify it? And her grammar was a nuisance. Should she throw in a few double negatives? It was terribly difficult to work out where she
belonged
any more – except as a number between thirty-eight and forty.

As the hands of the clock moved towards 5.30, the queue started to panic and surge towards the counters where claimants were seated, pleading their cases through grilles set into sheets of safety glass.

Words of supplication, anger and desperation passed one way through the screen from the waiting room to the office. In the other direction passed words pertaining to regulations, explanations and refusal. A man stood up and banged on the screen, “I need some money – now,” he shouted. “I can’t go home without some money. We’ve got nowt.”

The clerk sat impassively and watched a security guard lead the man away.

“Thirty-six,” said the clerk. “Thirty-seven,” said another.

A third clerk left her desk and gathered her papers and her boxed pen and pencil set together. She slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder and prepared to leave.

The Queen left her place in the queue and said through the grille, “Excuse me, but at what time do you leave your work?”

The clerk said reluctantly, “Half past five.”

“Then you have five minutes left,” said the Queen. “Perhaps your watch is rather fast.”

The clerk resumed her seat and said, “Thirty-eight.” The Queen rejoined the queue, who were pleased at the small victory. Behind her, forty said, “Good show, ma’am.” He came closer and said out of the side of his mouth, “I had the honour to serve in your regiment, Welsh Guards. Saw action in the Falklands, Bluff Cove. Honourable discharge. Nerves gone to pot.”

“A bad show,” said the Queen, who was the former Colonel-in-Chief of thirty-eight regiments and the Captain General of seven others.

Her number was called by a pleasant-looking Asian youth. The Queen had two minutes in which to state her case and leave with bus fare, food money and coins for the meters. “It’s impossible,” smiled the youth, after she had answered that no, she had no documentation to prove who she was and where she lived.

“To get an Emergency Payment, we need proof; a pension book? A gas bill?”

The Queen explained that she had not yet received her pension book. She had only been in her present accommodation for four days.

“And where did you live before?” asked the youth.

“At Buckingham Palace,” answered the Queen.

“Sure you did,” laughed the youth, looking at the Queen’s coat covered in muddy paw prints, at her grimy nails, her wet straggling hair. Honest. He had heard all sorts of stories. He could write a book! Two books. Honest.

“And why were you living in Buckingham Palace?” he asked, raising his voice so that his fellow workers would be able to share the joke.

“Because I was the Queen,” said the Queen.

The youth pressed a buzzer under his counter and a security guard took the Queen’s arm and led her and Harris out into the dark evening. She stood on the pavement, not knowing what to do or where to go for help. She tried all her pockets, searching for a coin for the telephone, though she knew perfectly well that her pockets were completely empty apart from a sheet of lavatory paper torn from a roll. She didn’t know that it was possible to make a reverse charge call through the operator.

It was Friday night, the DSS would be closed for two days. They had money, she had none.

Dragging Harris behind her, she ran back into the office. The staff were wearing their coats. The clock said that it was five twenty-nine and thirty seconds. Claimants were being escorted from the room. The Queen noticed that number thirty-eight had a five pound note in her hand and was talking to her baby: telling the child that she was going to buy milk and bread and nappies. Forty was refusing to leave, “I was at Bluff Cove,” he was shouting.

The Queen picked Harris up and put him under her arm. “My dog is starving,” she announced to the room.

Clerk number two lived with her mother, three dogs and five cats. She had wanted to be a vet but couldn’t get the “A” levels. She looked at Harris, who lay languidly in the Queen’s arms as though he were in the last stages of malnutrition. The clerk sat down behind her desk. She unbuttoned her coat, reached for a pen and invited the Queen to sit down. First she lectured the Queen on the responsibilities of dog ownership, saying, “You shouldn’t really keep a dog unless you’re prepared to, well,
keep
it properly.”

Harris whimpered pitifully and allowed his ears to droop. The clerk continued her lecture. “He looks in very bad condition. I’m going to give you enough for a couple of tins of dog food and some conditioning tablets – Bob Martin’s are good.”

The Queen took the money, signed the receipt and left the office. She thanked God that the English were a nation of dog lovers.

20 A Bag of Bones

The bogus beast followed her. As she left the office, he prayed that she was not planning to walk home. His feet were raw lumps of meat. He couldn’t wait to take his shoes off. The Queen clutched the three pound coins tightly in her hand. How much was a loaf of bread? A pound of potatoes? A jar of coffee? She had no intention of buying dog food or conditioning tablets for Harris.

Crawfie used to make broth whenever the Queen was ill as a child. The Queen remembered that bones were involved. She passed a butcher’s shop. A man in a white coat and striped apron was scrubbing the shelves in the display cabinet. Small bunches of plastic parsley were piled up on the shop counter, waiting to be replaced in order to beautify the shelves. The Queen tied Harris up outside and pushed the door open.

“We’re closed,” said the butcher.

“Could you sell me some bones?” asked the Queen.

“I’m closed,” he said.

The Queen pleaded, “Please. They’re for my dog.”

The butcher sighed, went out to the back and returned with a collection of gruesome bones which he slung on to the scales.

“Thirty pence,” he said, brusquely, wrapping them loosely in a sheet of paper. The Queen handed him a pound coin and he took the change from a bag of coins and handed it to her without a smile.

“May I have a carrier bag?” the Queen asked.

“No, not for thirty pence,” said the butcher.

“Oh well, thank you and goodnight,” said the Queen. She didn’t know how much it would cost to buy a carrier. She couldn’t risk spending perhaps twenty or thirty pence more.

The Queen said again, “Goodnight.”

The butcher turned his back and began to place the plastic parsley around the edge of the display shelves.

The Queen said, “Have I offended you in some way?”

The butcher said, “Look, you’ve got your thirty pence worth, just close the door behind you.”

Before she could do as she was told, a well-dressed man came into the shop and said, “I can see you’re closed, but will you sell me three pounds of fillet steak?”

The butcher smiled and said, “Certainly, sir, won’t be a tick.”

The Queen took her bones and left. As she untied Harris, she watched the butcher through the window as he sliced fat slices of steak from a large lump of beef. He was now all jollity, like a butcher on a playing card.

Harris was maddened by the smell of the bones. He leapt up toward the parcel which was tucked under the Queen’s arm. When they got to the bus stop, she threw a small knuckle bone onto the pavement and he attacked it ferociously; holding it in his front paws and tearing at the wisps of flesh with guttural, greedy sounds.

The bone was stripped bare by the time the bus arrived. The town centre was almost deserted. The Queen dreaded the weekend ahead. How did one feed oneself, one’s husband and one’s dog on two pounds and ten pence, which was all she had, after paying her bus fare? She simply could not borrow any more. She would pray that her pension book came in the post tomorrow.

The Queen said, “One to the Flowers Estate, please.”

She put sixty pence in the driver’s black scoop bowl and waited for her ticket. The driver said, “I want ninety pee. It’s ’alf fare for the dog.”

The Queen was horrified, “Surely not?”

“Dog’s ’alf fare,” repeated the driver.

The Queen gave Harris a venomous look. For two pins, she’d make him run behind the bus. He’d been nothing but a nuisance all day. However, she paid up and, as instructed by the driver, carried Harris upstairs to the top deck. She counted and recounted her money, but always came to the same total: one pound and eighty pence. She closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle – of the loaves and fishes variety.