The Audience (7 page)

Major
All right … (
Clears throat
.) The Princess felt the monarchy in its current form was outdated, unegalitarian and unrepresentative of the modern country Britain has become – and that the people were growing sick of it. She mentioned the fact that most monarchies in western democracies had been swept away by now – Portugal for example, Italy, Greece …

Elizabeth
That we should be swept away, too?

Major
She didn’t go that far, but I think she feels – and here the Government would tend to agree –

A silence. Major gathers the courage.

– that there might be a case to be made for
further
reform and modernisation … (
A beat.
) On top of the extremely generous concessions you already made this year when you agreed to foot the bill for the repair to your own home, Windsor Castle, after the fire.

Stony silence.
  
Major clears throat.

It’s just when you agreed to those measures, we expected public approval to be reflected in the polls, and it seems it hasn’t yet – the most recent one suggesting … that every second Briton now considers you – the monarchy – a luxury the country cannot afford.

The Queen looks away.

So there are one or two further
tiny
modifications – the payment of inheritance tax for example – which the Government would ask Her Majesty to consider just to get things back where they belong … approval-wise.

Elizabeth
If the Crown pays inheritance tax, that makes us like everyone else. And we’re
not
like everyone else. That’s the point of us.

Major
Very well. Opening up Buckingham Palace.

Elizabeth
To what?

Major
People.

Elizabeth
People
?

Major
It would give them a chance to share in the legacy. Make them feel like they know you.

Elizabeth
I don’t
wish
to be known.

Major
All right. And
Britannia
. The Royal Yacht.

Elizabeth
What about it? You don’t want people traipsing round
her
too?

Major
No.

He braces himself, then:

I’m suggesting she’s taken out of service.

Elizabeth
(
quiet
) Never!

Major
I’m aware this is a sensitive matter …

Elizabeth
That yacht means everything to me. She was launched the year I was crowned. She’s been the one constant in my life. Commissioned by my father.

Major
These are difficult times economically.

Elizabeth
Forty thousand miles I travelled on
one
tour alone
– in service to this country. Five American Presidents have stayed aboard her. She has taken us to the remotest corners, and helped hold together the Commonwealth. That yacht is my refuge. The one place I feel at home.

Major
But the costs …

Elizabeth
What costs?

Major
Two hundred and sixty sailors, most of them permanent, two dozen bandsmen, red boxes being
helicoptered
out every day from London at great expense …

Elizabeth
Have you ever set foot
inside
of her?

Major
No.

Elizabeth
When you do, I suggest the one thing that will strike you will be her modesty. (
Rising indignation
.) Enough now. Enough. This family gives every minute of every day in service to the British people and do you see me complain? Never. Serving this country is my duty and my privilege. But every now and then I must be allowed to draw the line. I am the Crown, after all …

Major
Yes, Ma’am.

The Equerry enters, having heard raised voices.

Elizabeth
You’d do well to reflect on that – on
who
I am and
how
I got here. It’s
God’s will
, understand?

Equerry
Running a temperature, Ma’am.

Elizabeth
(
raising voice
) And
He’s
not telling us to give up
Britannia
.

Equerry
Open wide …

The Equerry delicately puts the thermometer in the Queen’s mouth in an attempt to silence her.

I’m sorry, Prime Minister, we must leave it there.

Major
Of course.

He politely gets to his feet, excusing himself.

Elizabeth
Make up your minds what you
all
want from us!! That’s all we ask!

Major goes.

(
Calling after him
) Just make up your minds!!

The Equerry soothes her.

Equerry
Nice and still for one minute.

Elizabeth
(
snaps
) Oh, for goodness sake.

The Equerry goes. Young Elizabeth walks on. The Queen looks up, and double-takes.

(
Speaking through thermometer
.) What
have
you done?

It’s a shocking sight. Young Elizabeth is covered in dark liquid. Her hair is matted.

Young Elizabeth
I poured ink over my head.

Elizabeth
Why?

Young Elizabeth
She’s just so awful. I wanted her
out
.

Elizabeth
Who?

Young Elizabeth
The French Mademoiselle.

Elizabeth
What did she do?

Young Elizabeth
Made me copy things out again and again. Like a slave. And shouted at me. I complained about her to Mummy, but she didn’t listen. So I did this. And screamed. (
A beat
.) You know, my piercing scream?

Elizabeth
I know the one.

Young Elizabeth
I kept it up for half an hour. Getting louder and louder. And it worked. She’s run away.

Elizabeth
What happens if the next one isn’t nice?

Young Elizabeth
I’ll get rid of her, too.

Elizabeth
Good for you.

Her expression toughens.

Sometimes one just has to draw the line.

Blackout.

End of Act One.

Equerry
Every August the Prime Minister is invited to Scotland to spend a weekend as a guest at Balmoral Castle. While there, Her Majesty and the PM often take a moment to catch up on matters of State. Generally they meet in the drawing room.

The Equerry turns to face the dark space behind him.

A desk in the corner, made by George Hepplewhite in 1775. Two Landseer portraits. A trophy of a stag’s head, a fourteen-pointer, believed to have been shot by Prince Albert in 1844. On the mantelpiece a gold-framed clock made by Ferdinand Berthoud. Two chairs, from Arbuckle and Haines, in Inverurie, with a tartan throw hand-woven by Mrs Janet MacDuff, an estate employee. A large fireplace dominates the room, but supplementary warmth is provided, when required, by a three-bar electric heater bought from John Lewis on the 5th of August 1968.

A lighting change:
  
It’s six p.m. on 20th August 1968. We’re in a drawing room at Balmoral Castle, Aberdeenshire. Wooden panelling. Stag’s antlers. Tartan carpets.
  
From outside the windows we can clearly hear the rain falling.
  
A uniformed Major of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders serenades his sovereign in the distance.
  
Harold Wilson staggers in. Soaking wet and shivering. He is wearing ill-fitting country clothes. A drowned rat.

Equerry
Prime Minister!

Wilson
M-m-may I stand by the fire? Just a moment.

He stands by the three-bar electric fire. The Queen enters, wearing tartan.

Elizabeth
You got caught in the ‘rude rain’! It’s what the locals call it.

Wilson
That’s not rain, Ma’am. It’s daggers of merciless ice. Blowing at fifty miles per hour. H-h-horizontally. In August. This unholy mess –

He indicates his utterly dishevelled appearance.

– is as a result of me popping fifty yards to the car to fetch Mary’s reading glasses …

Elizabeth
(
chuckles
) The Tsar of Russia – when he came to visit – claimed it was colder here than in the wastes of Siberia.

Wilson thaws by the fire, drying off.

Be reassured. I’ve spoken to the ghillies and told them we’ll have our picnic at Gelder Shiel. It’s covered there.

Wilson
Picnic? Good God …

His face perceptibly falls.

I was told that in the event of bad weather we’d be having dinner here in the Castle.

Elizabeth
But this
isn’t
bad weather. Just a spot of summer rain. How did you enjoy the Games today?

Wilson walks over to take a seat.

Wilson
The enjoyment of any sport comes with an understanding of its subtleties. I am sure there
are
nuances to caber tossing, putting the stone, and tugs of war, and profound allegorical significance to Highland dancing, but I’m afraid they are lost on me.

Elizabeth
It’s quite simple. The sports are trials of strength going back to the days of clan military recruitments, and the Highland dancers –

The Queen lifts her arms above her head in a lyre shape, spreading her fingers and pointing a toe.

– symbolise magnificent stags, leading their herds.

The hands above her head, it becomes apparent, represent antlers. From outside the bagpipe music strikes up again.

Wilson
Here we go again. (
Indicating the window
.) Will that chappie never stop?

Elizabeth
The Piper to the Sovereign plays every morning at nine a.m., wherever the Crown is in the world. Has done ever since Queen Victoria. One just retired, so we’re auditioning for his replacement. This one’s rather good, I think.

The Queen goes to look out of the window. We notice she is wearing a tartan skirt.

Wilson
Honestly, you lot and your ‘Scottishness’. Doesn’t fool me for a second. You should have someone playing the accordion in lederhosen. This whole place looks like a Rheinland schloss. Come to think of it, it
is
a Rheinland schloss.

Elizabeth
It was built by a local Aberdeen architect, with stone from our quarries, with just one or two modifications to the design by Prince Albert.

Wilson
I can guess how that went … (
Mimicking Prince Albert’s German accent
.) ‘Please make it look exactly like a Rheinland schloss.’

The Queen can’t help laughing.

Do you mind if I smoke, Ma’am?

Elizabeth
Not at all.

Wilson produces a cigar, and lights it.

Have you mislaid your pipe?

Wilson
No. The pipe’s strictly for the television and the campaign trail. All that folksy unpacking of tobacco and paraphernalia makes me approachable, and buys me time if the question’s a tricky one. The cigar’s my first love, but too potent a symbol of capitalist privilege and power. If I walked round puffing one of these I’d lose the left in my party in a second.

Elizabeth
The impression I get is you already have. By reneging on all those radical election promises you made.

Wilson
Maybe I’ll gain new friends on the right.

Elizabeth
No.
They
hate you for devaluing the pound. And that after all that grandstanding, and promises not to … (
Mimics
.) ‘My party will not be seen as the party of devaluation.’

Wilson
All right, all right. I thought we were on holiday.

Elizabeth
We are.

Wilson
Then couldn’t we leave politics out of it? Just for twenty-four hours? I’ve come here to recover. Get my strength back.

Elizabeth
Holiday it is. Can I offer you a drink?

Wilson
I thought you’d never ask.

Elizabeth
Whisky?

Wilson
Brandy, Ma’am.

The Queen pours him a drink.

There is a curious paradox at the heart of political life. All politicians crave being loved – what is an election if not a popularity contest? But the first requirement of the job is to be hated.

Elizabeth
Mine, too, incidentally. We’re both lightning rods, Prime Minister. Pressure valves. People need someone to be angry with, and generally that’s us. But you won’t catch me complaining about it.

Wilson
I wasn’t complaining.

Elizabeth
Yes, you were. I heard it in your voice.

Wilson
No, what you heard, Ma’am, was the sound of a heart breaking. Dreams shattering. When you realise you have not
won
an election at all, it is the previous government that has
lost
it …

Elizabeth
Would you like me to cheer you up?

Wilson
Please!

Elizabeth
That is something of which your nemesis, Mr Heath, has no idea. He still thinks he might actually
win
against you.

Wilson
Ha! The Grocer? Don’t mention his name to me. That man is odious. Odious I tell you. Even my saintly wife Mary, not a malicious thought in her head, cannot bear him. The man’s incompetent, insensitive and, worst of all, he’s a snob.

Elizabeth
And what makes you think I’m not?

Wilson
I’ve been in professional politics twenty-seven years, and I pride myself on this: I can sniff a Tory at a hundred paces. And you’re not one, Ma’am. Not a real one, anyway. You understand ordinary people. Working people. And where can that come from? Having been locked up in mausoleums like this all your life. You may be the richest woman in the world, but you’re also worrying about the cost of the central heating, telling yourself to go back into the room and switch the lights off –

Elizabeth
(
to herself
) It’s the Bobo in me.

Wilson
Deep down you’re not just happier with normal folk, you’re one of us. I’d even go as far to say –

He looks left and right.

There’s a good Labour woman in there somewhere.

The Queen laughs.

Elizabeth
If I were Labour, I would approve of your proposals to reform the House of Lords.

Wilson
And you don’t?

Elizabeth
Certainly not. And I’m not the only one. I read the
Mail
which suggested the proposed two tiers of the new House of Lords was –

Wilson
I know – (
Reciting perfectly
.) ‘A confusing hodge-podge of antithetical ideas and policies, a situation of needless bureaucracy where deposed hereditary peers will inevitably reclaim their voting rights when they are selected as one of the eighty-five new life peers.’

He shrugs.

What are you doing reading that rag? They got their facts wrong for a start. It’s eighty life peers we would create. And that bit at the bottom of the third paragraph about my proposals being ‘a step towards an atheistic society with no moral rudder’? I’m keeping sixteen bishops! What more do they want? (
Under his breath
.) Still sixteen too many as far as I’m concerned.

Elizabeth
Goodness. You certainly took it to heart.

Wilson
No, Ma’am. I just read it.

Elizabeth
But clearly often enough to memorise it.

Wilson
  I’m afraid that’s something that comes naturally. (
Taps head
.) To be honest, I don’t know how anyone could do the job without it.

Elizabeth
I don’t understand.

Wilson
3.1415926535897932384664338327950288419 716939937510582097494459230 …

Elizabeth
What on earth is that?

Wilson
Pi. To 66 places. Would you like me to go on? I can do 135.

Elizabeth
You have a photographic memory?

Wilson
I do.

Elizabeth
You memorised the article having read it –

Wilson
Skimmed it. Once. Over a boiled egg.

Elizabeth
I don’t believe you.

Wilson
Yes.

Elizabeth
No!

Wilson
Yes. Go on. Test me, then.

The Queen looks up.

Open up a book. Any book. On any page.

Elizabeth
A book …?

The Queen looks around the study. No sign of a book anywhere. Embarrassed, she walks over to her desk. Picks up the phone.

Hello. Could you bring us a book. (
Listens
.) It doesn’t matter what kind. (
Listens
.) There must be one somewhere. (
Listens
.) Ask someone from the household to go into one of the empty guest rooms. Try the Green Bedroom. In the East Wing.

She hangs up. A silence. Wilson puffs his cigar. The Queen sips her Dubonnet.

Won’t be a moment.

Wilson
Yes, it will. It’s a journey of about three miles. In a private house. It’s a scandal. Took me an hour to walk to breakfast this morning.

Elizabeth
You love it.

Presently, approaching footsteps. A breathless member of staff comes in holding a book. He passes it to Wilson.