The Jenny Wilson Show (featuring Henry VIII and his six wives) (2 page)

Katherine nodded. “I’ve already mentioned the gift he gave me in February. A couple of weeks after John died, the king appointed my brother to the privy council and then made him a Knight of the Garter in April. I hadn’t taken too much notice of this for I thought my brother had merit enough of his own but then it became apparent that the king was lonely and depressed and that he felt that only my presence could cheer him.”

“Weren’t you flattered?”

“Well, yes. It is always good to know one is admired. But I tried to keep it as a friendship only.”

“But that didn’t work?”

“Well, no. And that is my problem you see. I do not have any desire to be queen. It is a path that seems to bring nothing but danger with it.”

Talk about a statement of the bleedin’ obvious! But I did like the way she was acting as if she faced the dilemma now instead of four hundred odd years ago. I should have worked out the timeframe before we took to the airwaves. “As we shall hear,” I said, smoothly. “But couldn’t you find compensations in it?”

“Well, yes. There would be the chance to create more of a family life for the king and his children, I should enjoy that. Then I would also be able to hear the finest musicians, wear the best clothes and promote reform.”

“Promote reform?”

“Of the church. Theology is a subject I find fascinating and I think the king has done well to reform the church.”

“Get her off religion,” Julian’s voice crackled through my earpiece. “This is about Henry marrying, not about his religious policy.”

“I think you’ll find the two inextricably entwined,” said Ruth, “but for the moment get her off the subject. In fact, we need to cut to a break soon, now’s as a good a time as any to start heading into one.”

Although this was a programme made for PL-TV, it links into adverts screened on earthly TV. Among our audience there is, it seems, a fascination with adverts for things you will never have a need for.

“So,” I said. “The choice comes down to duty or love?”

“Love and duty or pure passion,” she smiled.

“Love and duty?”

“Well, yes. We should all love our king.”

Once again, the mindset clash between the sixteenth century and the twenty first century. Do people still love the monarch enough to feel they should marry them? I rather suspected not.

But I nodded, and said to the camera, “We’re now heading for a break but rejoin us to hear what Henry thinks he’s got to offer and whether Henry’s previous wives think he’s a good bet for Katherine.

“And cut,” said the production assistant’s voice in my ear.

“Well done Alice,” added Ruth.

“Are you all right,” I smiled at Katherine.

“Yes, fine. It seems strange to be going through the whole should I, shouldn’t I process again though. Last time around I just had to pray and hope the answer I got was the right one.”

“Ah well, that’s PL-TV for you,” said Julian, who had emerged from the control room with Ruth. He wandered off to check the positioning of a camera and wave his arms at Clare.

“Sorry about the debates,” said Ruth. “We both worked in TV once upon a time and neither of us agrees with the way the other one works. Besides, he’s crap; full of his own self-importance, it’s as if he never left the other place.”

“It does seem...odd.”

Ruth shrugged. “TV changes things. I presume they thought of that when they gave PL-TV the go-ahead.”

I wondered. There was probably a road called good intentions leading to the building we were in. I’d have to check when I went out.

“Who’s the next guest?”

“We still haven’t decided. Julian thinks we should bring on all the wives before bringing on Henry, the big denouement as it were. I think we should bring Henry on now. This isn’t a murder mystery.”

“No, there’s no mystery about it. If we bring Henry on first it would allow him to answer each wife’s points,” I said. “Might set up the conflict Julian wants.”

“See, you’re a natural at all this,” she said, heading off in Julian’s direction with purposeful strides.

“Hadn’t you done this before?” Katherine asked.

I shook my head. “I did do a bit of print journalism but not for very long. I finished up number crunching in an accounts department. But Julian liked my face and offered me the chance to present this show even though my name wasn’t Jenny Wilson. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do afterwards, you see.”

“I think it’s easier for those of us who were famous,” she said. “People sort of expect you to carry on being yourself, so you don’t become part of the whole or go for reincarnation and I think that if you’ve risen to fame at any time then you possibly have a stronger sense of self than most people, so it’s easier to hang onto. Some of us do the odd bit of haunting but it’s really only a sideline: people like to spot us around. I must admit, things have improved since the invention of TV. There’s always something to watch somewhere. The first three hundred and fifty years or so after my death were pretty dire, I can tell you. Unless you liked watching battles, of course. Always some of them going on.”

I nodded. “I must admit, all of this was a bit of a surprise for me. I didn’t think anything much happened after you died. The body becomes worm food but that’s about it.”

She smiled. “I believed that man was sinful and that it was only through God’s charity that we could come to heaven. It was a little surprising to find that there was no heaven and no hell.”

“I did hear that they tried the concept of hell but couldn’t find anyone to staff it. The smell of the sulphur was a bit of a problem. And I heard the Wright brothers put paid to the fluffy white cloud and musical instrument idea.”

“Quite a few used to go for that you know, particularly people who couldn’t play or sing a note in life.”

Julian and Ruth reappeared. They were still debating. I sighed. Clare stood behind them, she didn’t look very happy either.

“The thing is,” said Julian, “although this is a good story, it’s not really sexy TV is it? I mean, where’s the guts of the story?”

“Guts!” Ruth exploded. “They’re the Tudors for goodness’ sake. Blood and guts is what they do for recreation. They make twenty first century dysfunctional families look like the bloody Waltons!”

“Well, we’re not seeing it on the show.”

“No, that’s because we’re setting the scene. We’re showing Katherine’s dilemma before bringing on the wives who have gone before. That’s the point at which we can expect to see some conflict, all of which means we need to get Henry out there next. He’s the lynchpin, he’s the one that ties them all together – don’t forget some of them never met in life.”

Julian narrowed his eyes at her before flouncing off. It was a superb flounce given that he was wearing combats and a T-shirt. If he’d been in regency ruffles and satins he’d have turned flouncing into an art form.

“We need to get this show back on the road,” said Ruth.

I winced: I didn’t like to be reminded of roads.

“We’ll bring Henry out next. Get him to explain why he wants another wife and then we’ll bring the wives out in order to give their opinions. Are you OK with that?”

“Yes.”

“Good, if you take your place to the left of stage we’ll get going again.”

She dashed back to the control room, muttering. It sounded something vaguely like, ‘I’ll give him blood and guts’ but I was busy with Clare, checking Katherine was in place and finding my spot, so I wasn’t sure. It couldn’t be that, surely, it would be far too much like a threat.

Chapter Two

“And cue Alice.”

“Welcome back to The Jenny Wilson show. I hope you enjoyed the break,” I said, smiling into the camera. “And now it’s time to introduce our second guest. He’s been listening in while Katherine explains her dilemma and now it’s time to hear from her husband-to-be. Please, give Henry the Eighth a big round of applause.”

The doors slid back and Henry bounded down the steps. Not the Henry you see in the famous – or infamous – Holbein portrait but the younger and trimmer version from the Joos Van Cleeve picture, which was my favourite of the ones I’d seen. I gaped.

“Shut your mouth darling,” hissed Julian in my ear, “you’re practically dribbling.”

Henry beamed and waved at the audience, strode across to me, somehow grasped my hand – I wasn’t aware I’d offered it – and kissed it. His beard felt soft, I gazed into his eyes.

“Thank you for agreeing to appear on the show.”

He smiled, “It’s my pleasure, I assure you. I know the Van Cleeve was your favourite portrait.”

Was he flirting with me? His eyes were making me feel as if we were the only two in the studio. Trying to recover my wits, which appeared to have packed their bags and gone on a long-haul holiday, I gestured that he should take the seat next to Katherine. They smiled and nodded at each other.

“Now, Henry, you had five wives before you proposed to Katherine and it’s fair to say she’s had some difficulty in deciding whether to accept you or not.”

“If he’d looked like that at the time he proposed to me, I don’t think I’d have had as much difficulty deciding,” Katherine interrupted.

“Perhaps you should show us your physical journey,” I said to Henry. Oh, the advantages of the post-life, there’s no need for people to spend hours in make-up, a bit of willpower and you can be the sense of self you want to be. The only difficulty is keeping the concentration going long enough to hold it. That’s why most of us appear in the clothes we associate most with our bodily selves and why everyone hailed PL-TV as a natural winner: so few costs. Not that costs mattered to us really and time didn’t usually matter at all. But PL-TV was changing the post-life concept of time: we had to make it appear that we were a normal TV programme, so we couldn’t allow people to drift off for a couple of centuries before returning to answer a question. We use available digital frequencies and we have to make sure we complete our show while the chosen frequency is still unoccupied.

He pursed his mouth and looked at me steadily for a couple of seconds before nodding and standing.

“I’ll begin from when I was seventeen and became king,” he said.

There was a murmur of appreciation from the audience as he showed off his mastery of changing form in front of us. First the young, slender athlete with the bobbed red hair and clean-shaven chin. Gradually he became heavier, more muscular and a short beard appeared. Then the figure became more solid and the hair shorter. Finally the figure itself grew and grew until the muscle was gone and a bear of a man stood in its place, with tiny eyes peering out of a potato of a face. After taking us through the transformation, he returned to his chosen self.

“Sadly, I was not able to present my younger self to woo Katherine. The injury to my leg prevented me from exercise, stank as if the Devil himself had cast it on me…”

“On behalf of my client, I object to that comment.” A member of the audience had risen to his feet.

“With respect,” I replied, “we are not in a court of law. Such objections have no place here.”

“But my client…”

“Would really like you to sit down. Terribly sorry about that,” Lucifer himself called across to me having grappled the lawyer into his seat. “It’s just I have such a bad press. My lawyers are very keen to see I’m not defamed.”

“And, of course, they are naturally drawn to you,” grinned Henry. “Is Crum with you?”

“Probably,” said Lucifer. “It’s difficult to keep track at times, what with people expecting all lawyers to lodge with me. Quite unfair, of course. Very good at land law, Thomas Cromwell. He’s probably making sure my lands raise sufficient revenue. And we all know he did the same for you!”

“Best in the business,” said Henry affably.

“If we could continue,” I butted in.

It wasn’t that I had a problem with Henry and Lucifer’s banter, Lucifer has such a wicked sense of humour that he keeps everyone amused. It’s just that not everyone is comfortable with the fact that Lucifer constantly moans about his bad press. Well, if you’ve been brought up on tales of Hell, sulphur and demons, then the discovery that Lucifer is omnisexual is fine. It’s the hanging baskets which always win first prize at the gardening competitions that cause the shock. And no, he doesn’t cheat: his ambition is to win the trophy for the best rose but the competition for that is as fierce as the competition to breed a lilac daffodil, partly because of the different definitions of perfect. Besides, I didn’t want another interruption from Julian if I could avoid it. I didn’t know where he was getting his nastiness from but it felt wrong and it was uncomfortable; upsetting even, thinking about it, that was probably why it felt wrong – upset was a banned emotion here.

“Henry, you’d been married five times before. Why did you want a sixth wife?”

“A court without a queen just doesn’t work,” he explained. “For without a queen there can be no queen’s household to serve her and without that there are very few high-born women with whom one can pass the leisure hours. The company of women brings out a man’s gentler side, enables us to pass the day with the courtesy and gallantry required of a gentleman. It brings us respite from sport, hunting, study and matters of business as we look to dancing and music and softer entertainments.”