V 02 - Domino Men, The (14 page)

His Royal Highness Prince Arthur Aelfric Vortigern Windsor was the kind of man whose appearance might generously be described as unusual — not for him the privileged complexions and arrogant cheekbones of most of his ancestors and a good many of that swarming mass of male relations to which he referred, in that long-suffering tone which the nation had come to find faintly irritating, as “the brood.”  Lugubriously proportioned, thin lipped and pharaoh nosed, Windsor was a man profoundly ill at ease with the twenty-first century.  He despised the vulgarities of its culture, the vapid light shows of its television, the unmelodic jabberings of its music, but above all else he hated the manner in which his family, once the most influential bloodline in Europe, had degenerated into a national laughing stock.

This particular day was special, not only because Arthur was celebrating his sixtieth birthday, a milestone in a life which seemed to him increasingly without compass, but also because it was the day on which he finally accepted a miserable truth.  His wife — beloved by her subjects as a radiant philanthropist, sylphlike humanitarian and dispenser of hugs on an industrial scale — no longer fancied him.  Naturally, he hoped that she still cared for him, that she at least felt some residual dregs of affection, but it was painfully clear that she no longer incubated the slightest scintilla of physical desire, meeting every one of his advances with barely concealed distaste.  Arthur had realized it that morning when, upon his suggestion of a birthday roll around the marital bed, Laetitia had sighed and looked away, a small, darting, sideways glance which confirmed his every fear.  In the end she had acquiesced, though wearily, and as she lay dutifully beneath him Arthur noticed her stifled yawns, surreptitious inspections of her nails and regular stolen glances toward the clock.

His mood was not significantly improved by the feudal cheers of his household staff which greeted him on his descent for supper by way of a “surprise” (scarcely that, since something similar had occurred annually since his birth).  Arthur gazed at their ham-fisted attempts at decoration and found it difficult to suppress a sigh.  He thought the pomp and strut of his official birthday (traditionally held much earlier in the year to avoid a clash with the Christmas season) taxing enough but often wondered whether this ghastly pageant of vulgar good intentions might actually be worse.

There was no sign of Laetitia.  Over breakfast, she had complained of the first stirrings of a migraine, no doubt laying the groundwork for a plausible absence from the festivities.  Arthur would have to face it alone, all the smiling and the shaking of hands and the pleasant inconsequentialities. This was the worst of it, he thought, the awful knowledge that one belongs, almost in one’s totality, to other people.

As the assembled domestics launched, wincingly off-key, into “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and a troupe of small boys enthusiastically tossed rose petals in his general direction, the prince noticed a muscular, bulky man, a year or two his junior, shoulder his way toward him.  Here, at least, was an ally.

“Good evening, sir,” said the man when he had at last drawn close enough to be heard above the caterwauling.  “Happy Birthday.”

“Thank you, Silverman.”

“Are you quite well, sir?”

“Oh, I’m dandy.”  The prince tried his best at a smile but, as usual, entirely failed in the attempt.  He knew that his smile did not convince.  He had seen himself many times on the television, and various acquaintances in what he supposed he was obliged to refer to as “the media” told him that it was regularly used by certain sectors of the press as a stick with which to beat him.  It had a rictus quality, an overstretched look quite at odds with the boyish grins and flirty smirks of the new prime minister — a youth with whom the country still seemed inexplicably besotted.

“I have a message from your mother, sir,” said Silverman.

“Oh?”

“She sends her apologies for not being able to attend in person.”

The prince thrust his considerable chin into the middle distance and mumbled an acceptance.  His mother had not appeared in public for years, having long ago removed herself to a modestly proportioned wing of the palace in order to live out an informal and thoroughly deserved retirement.  Arthur had not seen his mother for almost twenty months and relied upon Silverman as a go-between.  Tired of life in the public eye, the woman was close to becoming a complete recluse, although naturally no one in the palace seemed at all prepared to admit this.  It suited them all — the fawners, the toadies and the yes-men — to pretend that she would go on forever, monarch in perpetuity.

“I appreciate that this is rather an irregular request, sir.  But I understand that your mother would like you to meet someone.”

“Who is it?”

“I regret I do not know his name, sir.  But the gentleman is waiting outside.”

“Now?”

“Your mother believes time to be of the essence, sir.”

“But this is my party.”

A deferential tilt of the head.  “Indeed, sir.”

The prince looked around him at the merrymaking, brushed away the rose petals that had accumulated like expensive dandruff on the shoulders of his dress uniform and came to the conclusion that everyone present would have infinitely more fun were he simply to disappear.

Silverman walked toward the big oak doors which constituted the exit and prompted:  “This way, Your Highness.”

Windsor looked back, hoping for some evidence of his wife.  There was nothing.  Feeling a pang of sadness rise up in him again, he followed Silverman from the room.  Nobody noticed him leave — and, if they did, they scarcely cared.

Silverman led him to a large, circular chamber around the size of an Olympic swimming pool which Arthur was almost certain he had never seen before.

“Silverman?  Where is this place?”

“The old ballroom, sir.  I believe you danced here as a child.”

A vague memory, lambent in his mind.  “It is as though I recollect it from a dream.”

“That may be so, sir.”

A stranger stood in the center of the room — a slim, blond, narrow-faced man, sharp suited though stripped of a necktie, his hair cajoled into slick, brash spikes.  He was the kind of man who seemed to swagger even when he was standing still; the kind of man, the prince reflected, whom women, in their wisdom, find irresistible.

The stranger looked at the prince, conspicuously unimpressed.  Not that Arthur was sufficiently naïve to expect awe or admiration — not in these, the dog days of empire — but a little respect would not have been amiss.  A bow.  The tiny courtesy of a handshake.

“I’m Mr. Streater.”  The voice of the stranger echoed around the room.  “Your mum sent me.  I’m sorta her birthday present to you.”

“I’ve never heard of you.”

Mr. Streater winked.  “Yeah?  Well, I’ve been told plenty about you.”  The blond man glanced dismissively toward Silverman, who, hovering three paces behind the prince, looked constipated in his concern.  “Oi, Jeeves!  Sling yer hook.”

Silverman rallied with his frostiest smile.  “So sorry,” he said.  “I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch that.”

“You heard me,” Streater snapped.  “Arthur and me have got private business here.  Man to man.”

As Silverman looked toward the prince for guidance, Arthur beckoned the equerry to come closer, lowering his voice so that they might not be overheard.  “Could you do something for me, Silverman?”

“Anything, sir.  Always.  You know that.”

“Get word to my mother.  Find out why she’s sent this fellow.  There’s something wrong here.  Something most improper.”

Silverman gazed at the prince, unwilling to abandon him.  “I could hardly agree more, sir.”

“Good luck, Silverman.  Godspeed.”

“Yes, sir,” the equerry said reluctantly.  “Thank you, sir.”

Arthur gave him a brisk nod, meant dually as goodbye and reassurance.  Silverman walked across the ballroom, hesitated for a moment by the door and left.  The prince returned his attention to Mr. Streater, who had watched the departure of the other man with a smirk so appallingly insouciant that several of Arthur’s ancestors would have had him hanged for treason.

“So then.”  Arthur glared at the intruder.  “What does my mother wish you to do?”

“I’ve come to prepare you.”

“Prepare me?  For what?”

“Something’s coming, Arthur.  A new world.”

“If this is a prank or a practical joke, Mr. Streater, I can assure you that I shall not permit it to continue for a moment longer.”

Streater did not seem in the least alarmed by the threat.  “Easy, mate.”

Arthur was astonished at the effrontery of the man.  “Mate?  I’m not your mate.  I’ve never been ‘easy’ in my life.  And I am hardly accustomed to being spoken to in this manner.”

“Yeah?” Streater shrugged.  “Bet you’re not used to this either.”

What happened next seemed almost like a dream.  In a few deft motions, Streater rolled up the left sleeve of his jacket exposing his bone-white skin, produced a rubber glove, knotted it into a tourniquet, patted his arm and found a vein.  Arthur guessed what was coming and, despite the bile steaming through his chest, he could not bring himself to turn away.  With the air of an old-time confectioner dispensing half a pound of sherbet lemons, Streater took out a hypodermic loaded with pale pink liquid, thrust it into his arm, depressed the plunger and sighed with obscene pleasure.  Then and only then did Arthur Windsor look away.

When he could bring himself to look back, the syringe and the tourniquet had vanished and the blond man was rolling down his sleeve, grinning wildly, like someone had slashed a smile in his face from left ear to right.  “I don’t care what anyone says.  Drugs are cool.”

“The Prince of Wales flinched.

From somewhere, Streater had conjured up a cup of tea, which he proffered to the prince.  “Oi.  Get this down your neck.”

Arthur took the cup and drank.  The blend was unfamiliar to him but he liked it at once — soothing, rich and aromatically sweet.

“I’m not sure what this is all about,” he said.  “But I want no part of it.  I am a decent human being.”

Streater gave him a pitying look.  “Grow up, chief.  The world’s not interested in decency anymore.”

Arthur turned his back on the man and tried the door, only to find it locked and bolted.  “Let me out this instant.”  Somehow, he succeeded in keeping his temper.  “You’re already in very serious trouble.  Don’t make it any worse for yourself.”

Mr. Streater shook his head in mock pity.  “Stay where you are, chief.”  He peeled back his lips and grinned.  “I’m gonna tell you a secret.”

I fear the worst.

I’ve just sat down to write, intending to continue the account of my first meeting with the Prefects, only to find several previously blank pages crammed with the opening of someone else’s story, a different set of events entirely, some weird interpolation about the House of Windsor.

This has got nothing to do with me.  That handwriting is not my own.  Whatever you’ve just read, you can be absolutely certain that it wasn’t me who wrote it.

But of course.  I know what’s happening here.  I know what this means.

It means that I am losing.

The creatures which Steerforth had called, with a shudder in his voice, “The Domino Men” sat on their deckchairs, swinging their short-trousered legs and laughing.