King and Joker (13 page)

“I say I say I say,” said Louise. “Your public face isn't as good as mine, darling.”

“It doesn't have to be, darling. Shall we do a command performance? Come on, Vick—command us to perform.”

“I went to Durham to get out of the opera and now I come back to this,” grumbled Father. “OK, let's get it over.”

“You lead, I'll try to follow,” said Nonny.

Father trumpeted the theme from The Infernal Can-can. Mother clapped the rhythm. Nonny and Louise pranced. Nonny was extraordinarily easy to dance with; she made it seem as though she were actually wired into your own nervous system, so that the impulse that twitched your limb twitched hers at the same moment. It was a bit shaming that she could high-kick several inches further than Louise. The dance was very tiring, especially when Mother and Father began to speed the rhythm. Louise got in a tangle and brought Nonny tumbling on top of her. Father filled the glasses again.

“Humph,” he said. “That's enough. Don't ring us, we'll ring you. Mmmm … sorry to introduce a sour note, but we'd better get back to business. Of course I'm delighted that you've managed to sort things out between you so that Lulu can accept the pretty shabby way we've treated her …”

“That huas my fault,” said Mother. “It huas all my idea.”

“I don't see why I shouldn't take some of the blame,” complained Nonny. “She's my daughter, isn't she?”

“All right, all right,” snapped Father. “We've all behaved equally badly, but now we've got to decide what to do about it. The point is that pretending Lulu was Bella's daughter is the only big lie I've told in my life, and I don't think we can afford to let it come out. This is partly for Lulu's sake: I know we think of her as every bit as much our legitimate daughter as Bert is our legitimate son, but we'll never put that over with the GBP. If we let the truth out, Lulu will become twice as much a peep-show as she is already, without any of the defences that she's got at the moment. And Nonny would have a pretty bad time of it, too. That's one thing. The other seems to me even more serious. I've inherited a monarchy and I've done my best to keep it going so that I can hand it on to Bert. I think it's worth while. I think the GBP like us, and in their funny way need us. But these are pretty hard times, with a million unemployed and all that. We can fend off the Willie Hamiltons of the world till the cows come home. If we have to we can also cut down on our expenses almost indefinitely, and we'd still be pretty well respected. But the one thing we can't afford to do is let the GBP find out that we've been lying to them about Lulu. She's extremely popular with them, and that makes it worse. It's funny, but I suspect that the one thing that would really shake them would not be my having a mistress and an illegitimate daughter, but Bella conniving, aiding and abetting. Anyway, there it is. Personally I'd go to any lengths to stop the truth coming out. It's absolutely essential that nobody should know …”

“But people do know, Vick,” said Nonny. “There's dear Tim Belcher for a start …”

“You can count him out,” said Father. “I'd stake my life on that. Also all the others who've always known. Derek Oliphant—he was the obstetrician, Lulu; the Stuarts at Allt-na-giubhsaich—they got things ready and lent us the baby-clothes—they're OK—you know what they're like if anyone asks the most harmless question about us. Your mother, Nonny.”

“Poor darling,” sighed Nonny. “She was far too ashamed of me to tell a soul. She took me to a ghastly hydro near Oban, Lulu, and made a great parade of my husband being in South Africa. You won't remember her. Anyway, she never knew it was Vick's baby.”

“And my poor Inez is dead too,” said Mother.

“Your maid who died in the plane crash?” asked Louise.

“Oh, how she adored the intrigue of it,” said Mother. “Do you remember, Vick, huen …”

“I remember a damned sight too much,” said Father. “But that's the lot, Lulu. We decided from the start that we'd talk, think and behave all the time, even among ourselves, as though you were Bella's daughter. For instance, we've never told Albert.”

“But somebody else does know,” said Nonny. “Look what happened in Lulu's room.”

“Yes,” said Father. “I've got an idea about that. I think I might be able to sort that out, But if Lulu's going to start growing more and more like Nonny …”

“I'd like that,” said Louise.”

“Tais-toi,” said Mother, sharply enough to break for an instant the gold haze of content in which Louise had been floating along.

“It's all very well your sitting around swigging fizz and dressing up identical,” said Father, “but we've got to take the thing seriously now.”

“Huat do you think hue've been doing?” demanded Mother. “Hue spend two hours repainting Lulu's room, and then hue come up here to huork out how they can be made to look different. You don't expect us to do that until hue are sure how they look the same?”

“Will you mind if I dye, Vick?” said Nonny.

“Eh? Oh, dye with a Y. No, of course not. What colour?”

“A sort of reddy brown. Bouffant. Lulu can stay lank. I'm going to wear a bit more make-up, all-overish, and she's going to concentrate on her eyes. And I'm going in for tighter skirts so that I don't lope so much. It's indecent at my age, anyway. It'll work, Vick. Do you want a demo?”

“Not necessary. You gave me a bit of a shock about dying, that's all. I'm sure you'll make it work—I'm long past any amazement at the sheer flexibility of the female mould. It only seems a week since every other girl you saw was a Bardot, and then it was a Fonda, and now it's … what's that hussy's name?”

“I like that,” said Louise. “All we're doing is what you did with McGivan.”

“Time you were in bed, Lulu,” said Father abruptly. “One moment, though … Durdy. I was talking to her about all this the night before I went north, and she's been fretting about what you'd feel when you found out. Nip up as soon as you can—tomorrow after school will do—and tell her it's OK.”

“Lovely. I'll have tea with her. Don't forget, Mother, I'll need a note saying I couldn't do my homework.”

“I huill think of a reason, darling.”

“Great. Well, good-night, parents all.”

Feeling like an eight-year-old Louise kissed the three of them and swayed hazily back to her paint-smelling room.

Chapter 9

L
ouise hadn't meant to worry Durdy by telling her about the rape of her bedroom, but Durdy got it out of her. She was impossible to lie to. Louise thought that she was like a pool among pine-frees, dark and still, miles from the nearest house, a pool where a kelpie lived. If you bathed in the pool and told the kelpie your troubles it would take them away. But it was no use telling it only part of your troubles, just as it was no use only dipping a foot in the pool. You had to undress and trust your whole self to that stillness among the black, hospital­-smelling pines. When she'd finished, she felt that she had somehow made a ritual acceptance of the new situation. She was Nonny's daughter and Father's, but Mother was still Mother and she could join hands with them and dance in the ring of love.

She'd had a curious day, almost exactly like yesterday but completely different. Jerry's love-sickness had been funny, his new girl absurd and a bit pathetic, Julie really amusing; even the headache—the mild buzz of a champagne hangover, like radio interference—had been something to clutch and cherish, a continual nudging reminder of the previous evening, of Mother bustling about behind the two chairs with brush and comb, prattling in a mixture of five languages like a hairdresser gone mad with ingratiation, of dancing with Nonny, of Father pouring out champagne to drink her health on her unofficial birthday.

“The only thing that still bothers me is the joker,” she said. “I mean he knows, doesn't he? What's he going to do next? He's not just going to stop there, not when he's got something like that to play with.”

“Then we'll have to stop him.”

“But we don't know who he is! Father said he'd got an idea, but …”

“Then leave it all to your Father, and don't trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.”

“It's troubling me already.”

“Who did I hear saying just how happy she was? Some people don't know their own minds, it seems.”

“Oh, Durdy, that's mean. I was only …”

Sniff.

Louise nudged the rocking-horse to and fro a couple of times. If Durdy didn't want to talk about the joker, it wasn't fair to make her.

“You've no idea how miserable I was yesterday,” she said. “I was longing to get out of the whole princessing business, and I couldn't see how. Have any of the others wanted that, Durdy?”

“Lord have mercy, why, all of them, one time or another. No, I'm a liar. My first Louise—she was seven when I came to the Family—I don't think she ever wanted anything except to do what was expected of her.”

“A princessing machine. How did, she end up?”

“Why, she was your great-aunt, the Queen of Romania. Dearie me, yes.”

“The one who refused to shake hands with the Kaiser?”

“She shook hands with me, though.”

“I bet she kissed you too.”

“No, never.”

“Poor thing. I wonder whether anybody ever kissed the Kaiser. I suppose his wife had to—it must have been difficult without getting his moustache in your eye—I expect there were times when one of the ladies of the court suddenly started wearing an eye-patch and then everybody knew … Durdy, tell me honestly, weren't you a bit shocked when Father told you he was going to set up with Mother and Nonny together?”

“What I thought was my own affair.”

“You can't come that with me any more, Durdy. I know all about you—sneaking off to Scotland to aid and abet in the production of illegitimate babies and sitting purring in the window-seat when the deed was done.”

“I'll trouble you not to talk till you know what you're talking about, Miss. Her Majesty had a private arrangement with Miss Fellowes to whisper the promises while Her Majesty was saying them aloud. She explained it to me herself; and all about having that nasty modern service.”

“Yes, Father told me about that. I bet God knows the difference between a singular ‘you' and a plural ‘you' even if the Archbishop doesn't. And I bet Nonny kept her fingers crossed too. Oh, I'm happy!”

Rock.

“Happy!”

Rock.

“Happy! … Isn't it funny how some people can do that? It doesn't matter if they look a bit cold and stiff. Even poor Cousin Jack isn't shy with Mother … and if you think of some of the other Queens—Victoria­ making people miserable and Mary scaring the living daylights out of everybody!”

“Those that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.”

“But aren't I right?”

“Queen Victoria was very gentle with children, and sweet, and they loved her as soon as they were used to her. And Queen Alexandra made her children happy, though people will tell you she was stupid, and of course she was always late for everything, and then she became so deaf …”

“She didn't manage to keep King Edward happy, did she?”

Sniff.

“Oh, Durdy, honestly! I'm not a baby any more! Did you meet Edward often?”

“Only just the once, darling.”

“What did he say? What did he do?”

“He smelt my breath to see if I'd been drinking.”

“Durdy! You?”

“No, not me. But it is a great temptation to some poor women.”

“What was he like? Was he terribly attractive?”

Rock, rock in the long stillness. Only the tock of the cuckoo-clock and the grumble of the rockers, a pigeon cooing in the garden and beyond it the endless surf of traffic. Louise began to worry. Usually Durdy gave you warning that she was getting tired so that she didn't drop off in the middle of a conversation. The rockers gradually stilled.

“I wasn't asleep,” squeaked Durdy suddenly. “Only remembering … things were so different then. I was a servant, you see, and servants knew their place. His Majesty had the family looks, of course, very like His present Majesty, especially about the eyes—only he was older and fatter and he wore that beard … but attractive? You see, darling, that's what I mean about being a servant—I'd have had to have been a rich lady to tell you that … No, when he came to the nursery that night I thought he was more like a hunter … only he wasn't hunting me, not me …”

Silence again. Louise had never heard Durdy talking quite like this before, her thin old voice so close to whispering that it was difficult to hear what she said. It was almost as though she was talking to herself about something private to her.

“He preferred his ladies of course,” whispered Durdy. “They could talk to him and make him laugh. But if he'd wanted one of us it wouldn't have been much help running away. He'd have hunted you down, and then you'd have been like a bird, waiting for the snake to swallow you. A wee bird in the heather.”

“I'm glad Father's not like that,” said Louise. “It would spoil everything … everything!”

She'd meant to speak lightly, but something in Durdy's manner infected her into an explosion of vehemence that was almost like a shout of pain.

“No need to tell the whole world,” said Durdy in her normal tones.

“I'm sorry. But it does matter. It really does. Don't you see? The whole thing only works because he isn't like that … oh, Durdy, I'm sorry … I really don't come here to shout at you about how I want the Family to behave …”

“It's not your fault, darling, only I'm a bit tired today.”

“You've got a bone in your leg.”

“Not any longer … no bones …”

With a snicker and a fizz the cuckoo-clock started to chant six.

“Help!” said Louise. “That must be fast! I've got a whole pile of homework! Where's Kinunu? She ought to have brought you your green pill ages ago! Don't buzz for her—I'll tell her on my way out.”

Durdy was murmuring to herself now, something about a kitten, and children. Louise bent to listen until she realised that it was like listening at a door. Carefully she kissed the stretched, textureless cheek and tiptoed away, alarmed by the sudden retreat of life away from the surface of the old face. Perhaps it was because the green pill was late.

The Night Nursery was empty, the monitor still switched off.

“Kinunu!” she called sharply. “Kinunu!”

“I come,” answered a voice from the bedroom. “Thorry. I come.”

But it was nearly half a minute before the door opened and Kinunu came bouncing out, very flushed, blinking, smiling her teasing smile, but with her nurse's cap on all skew-whiff.

“Tbleep,” she said. “Thorry, thorry. Oh, late. Oh, thorry.”

“Miss Durdon's very tired, Kinunu. I'm worried about her. Oughtn't she to have had her green pill?”

“Pilly. Yethyeth.”

“You'll check everything, won't you? I'm worried. If anything's wrong you'll send for the King or for Doctor Simm?”

“Yethyeth,” said Kinunu, bouncing impatiently away and into the Day Nursery.

Louise hesitated, uncertain whether Kinunu had understood what she'd said and whether she'd check the dials properly. She was just moving to turn the monitor on (though as it took a couple of minutes to warm up she still wouldn't be sure) when she heard Kinunu's voice coming from the bedroom.

“Lo, mithmith.”

Of course, the bedroom monitor must be on—that'd be better. She tiptoed through the open door …

McGivan was sitting on the bed, motionless, with his trousers half on. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and looked away. His hand rose to twirl the spike of his moustache. Then he appeared to remember his status in the Palace and rose to attention, emitting as he did so one of his richest and most repellent snuffles. His trousers collapsed round his ankles.

“I … I …” said Louise, turning quickly away.

“Yourr Highness,” whispered McGivan, urgently. She stopped but couldn't look round.

“Ye wunna tell a body?” he pleaded.

“It's nothing to do with me.”

“Yon lassie was sae verra inseestent …”

“It's none of my business, Mr McGivan. I won't tell anybody.”

Louise managed to walk quite calmly out of the nursery suite and along the Upper West Corridor, but on the stairs she got the giggles, so violent a fit of them that she was teetering on the edge of hysteria. McGivan had been so appallingly McGivanish, just like one of Albert's take-offs of him, with his snuffle and his joke-Scotch accent and his trousers round his ankles. It was a pity she'd never be able to tell anybody. Vaguely Louise was aware that there was another reason for the force of the fit that shook her. In the past few days she had been seeing glimpses of the great hinterland of human sexuality, not as hitherto in her life as a sort of imagined Narnia-world, part fairy-land and part moral-problem, but as a real country full of richnesses—like her three parents' lives—and dangers—like the ravage in her bedroom and Durdy's unsettling, unDurdy-like talk about the snake and the bird. And now she had seen that another part of this reality took the form of bedroom farce. Yes, it was like that too.

Homework went badly. It wasn't difficult, but even while she was reeling off a dozen potty French sentences her thoughts kept wandering between word and word so that sometimes she'd sit for a whole minute thinking about McGivan with his trousers round his ankles, or Nonny's new hairstyle, or a strange misty vision of a fatter version of Father smelling little Miss Durdon's breath to see if she was drunk. She'd just about finished the French when Sir Sam came into the Library and when she looked up did his little bob of respect.

“Aha,” he said. “I thought I'd find you here. You can save my legs a trudge. Have you been up in the Nurseries, and if so was HM there?”

“No, he wasn't, I'm afraid. Is something the matter?”

“I wish Miss Durdon would let me put a telephone up there. No, no. Just Her Majesty's reception for these South American cultural wallahs this evening. Home Office have been on the blower with a story about a Venezuelan terror squad being in the country and of course we've checked the whole place out—do that anyway, these days. First I just thought HM ought to know, then I got worried because I couldn't trace him. He won't answer his beeper, either.

Then he's on the loo, thought Louise. He always switches it off for that. Poor Father. Poor us. Life's hell when he's constipated. She smiled a sorry-I-can't-help smile and watched Sir Sam fade silverly away. Just as the door closed she heard the sound of voices, his and Father's, Father very abrupt, lending more weight to the constipation theory. You'd have thought a doctor would be able to control that, but of course Father has to be different.

She glanced at the clock. Just before half past six. A ten-minute French homework must have taken her about twenty—still, it felt like twice that. And supper wouldn't be till nine, because of' this dreary reception. She might be able to finish her English essay. Come on, Lulu, get it over.

The essay should have been almost as potty as the French, because it was about the difference between fantasy and realism and that meant you could waffle on about Tolkien till you'd done your three sides. But just as she was settling her thoughts in order Louise remembered Julie's last words that afternoon—“You're all right, duckie, you can write about the difference between real and fantasy princesses.” It was a temptation, though Louise knew that Mother would never let it through. She allowed herself another dip into useless musings, like those dips back into indulgent drowsing which one can't help having when one is supposed to be getting up. Story princesses sit on thrones and wear crowns, and lovers fight duels over a smile from them. Real princesses do homework and worry about spots. I used to be a real princess, but now I'm a story one … d'you know, in some ways it's going to make it easier, because I'll be able to keep things really separate. The story princess can put on a show while the real me … the real who? I haven't even got a real name … oh yes I have, because illegits take the mother's name, don't they … May Victoria Isabella Louise Catarina Alice Fellowes, that's me. Pity they're all such foul names except Isabella and Louise … I might call myself Kate, perhaps … OK, Kate, get on with your homework.