by William Kuhn
“No, now we go. We can’t lose her again. We’ve got to go after her,” said Rebecca.
Rajiv followed behind as Rebecca loped in her riding boots across the station to the three women who were on the verge of climbing into the taxi.
“Um, I’m sorry,” said Rebecca as she reached the three women.
“Ah, here you are again,” said The Queen, recognizing Rebecca. “And you,” she said, nodding at Rajiv. “Glad to see that you’re,” she said, pausing, and then happening upon a friendly tease, “sticking together.”
“And who are they, Ma’am?” said Shirley thoroughly annoyed. Having just rescued The Queen from a group of the homeless, she was hardly going to give her up to more strangers.
“Oh, why it’s Rebecca from the Mews. And this young man works at Paxton & Whitfield. Or did. He’ll probably be given the sack for leaving his post and following his friend to Scotland. Can’t remember your name, Cheddar.”
Rajiv beamed. The Queen had just given him a nickname.
Rebecca was less pleased and unsure about what to do. It was clear by her “Ma’am” that Shirley knew The Queen, and the frail one seemed to be on equally familiar-formal terms with her. What was her responsibility if The Queen had been recognized and collected by senior members of the Household? Perhaps she was no longer wanted? But she hated to withdraw without first establishing that The Queen no longer needed any protection.
Rajiv saw Rebecca’s wordless confusion. So he put in, “Well, Your Majesty, I certainly did follow her to Scotland. You’re quite right about that. But, she just wanted to look after you. And to be utterly honest with you, I was also following you. Just wanted to make sure you were okay. That sort of thing.”
“Oh dear,” said The Queen, returning to a semblance of her former self. She felt a sudden revival of clarity about who she was and what she was doing. What she had done. “You were all looking for me, weren’t you? You, Shirley, and you, Anne? And now Rebecca and Cheddar too? What a nuisance.”
At the same time Rajiv said, “Not at all,” Anne said, “Well,” and Shirley said, “That you have been.” Rebecca said nothing.
Anne continued, “Perhaps we’d better all have a little sleep. My nephew has a flat near here. Several bedrooms. Enough for all of us. Why don’t we all go there and see if we can’t have a few hours’ horizontal.”
There was enough room for all five of them in the taxi if four squeezed in the back and Rajiv sat up in front with the driver. All four women crowded together and began apologizing for the tight fit. “Nonsense,” said The Queen, beginning to enjoy herself. “Isn’t this cozy? More adventure,” she said, separating the syllables with enthusiasm. The taxi’s taillights disappeared in the direction of Charlotte Square as it sped through Edinburgh’s empty streets.
Once they’d arrived, William and Luke couldn’t find a taxi outside the coach station. They consulted a map they found mounted on the wall inside the station and decided to walk to Charlotte Square. There was no other choice. Walking through the dark streets together, with a destination in mind, they were on somewhat better terms with one another, but they both felt a little disconsolate as well. They had no idea how they’d find Anne’s nephew’s flat once they got to the square, or if The Queen would be there if they did. While Luke was looking in his pocket for a scrap of paper, to see whether Anne had given him the precise address, and whether he’d written it down, an envelope, with an American stamp, addressed in a woman’s sloping script, fell on the pavement.
William looked briefly at it as he picked it up and handed it silently back to Luke. As they’d got on to dangerously intimate territory earlier in the evening, William was determined not to ask about it.
Luke saw and appreciated William’s restraint, so explained, “From the mother of a friend of mine, actually. Andrew. Andy.” He paused a moment, and then, in a voice drained of emotion, added, “Died in Iraq.”
William was afraid of asking and curious at the same time. He forced himself to say, “Go on.”
“It arrived earlier today. Funnily enough, I was just going to ask The Queen if I might leave early, go back to my flat, sit down, and reply properly. That’s when I found she was missing.”
“And Andrew? Who was he?”
“Well, he was from one of the American units near us. Young captain. Sent over to coordinate some maneuvers the Yanks had been ordered to do with us. We had to work together. Became friends.”
William sensed some of the large history that must underlay those few words.
“One day he went out without me. Roadside device went off. Killed instantly. Went home in a bag.”
They walked some distance in silence.
“And the letter? What did his mother say?” asked William, knowing well that the story wasn’t over.
Luke was silent. He walked on without replying, as if he hadn’t heard William’s questions. William thought it was the wrong time to force the issue, so they continued without talking, coming after a few blocks to Charlotte Square. There was a hotel, and several eighteenth-century townhouses that were now clearly banks or businesses or firms of solicitors. Only one of these houses had lights on in the second-floor windows at this early hour of the morning and they made directly for it. As they’d hoped, they found that one of the buzzers was marked “Thyonville Estate.” William was about to reach up and press the buzzer when Luke told him, “Hang on a minute. I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me now? Shouldn’t we see if . . .” William began, nodding with his head to the doorway.
“You want to know, don’t you?”
William paused. Luke glared at him. Then Luke sat down on the stone steps that led down to the pavement and began swatting the letter he held in one hand against his other hand.
William said nothing. He had no choice but to follow Luke’s lead. He sat down by Luke’s side.
“She’s written to congratulate me, actually. Someone told her about my being promoted and going to work in the Household. About the decoration.” He stopped and stewed in his bitterness a moment. “What good is that when her son is dead?” He turned and looked at William, as if he might have an answer to that, as if the whole awful mess was his fault.
“That bloody medal,” continued Luke. “When he died, I couldn’t see straight. Couldn’t think straight. Just wanted to die too. I got myself put on to several missions. Pretty suicidal, really. We raided a number of positions held by the insurgency. Barking. Mad as hell. Secured them for our side. That’s how I got the gong ‘for bravery,’ but they should have called it ‘for revenge.’ ”
William didn’t touch other men easily or naturally or without fear, but now he reached up tentatively and rested his hand between Luke’s shoulder blades.
Just then, Anne who was about to pull the curtains across the sitting-room window of the flat before she lay down for a few hours, not of sleep, she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but of collecting her thoughts, looked down, and saw the two men sitting on the steps. She went downstairs and opened the door. William and Luke turned around at the noise of the door opening.
“Is she . . . ?” began William.
“She is,” said Anne. “Quiet, though. She’s asleep now. Come upstairs.”
It was a few hours later, still early morning and not yet light out. In that northern latitude in the beginning of winter it wouldn’t be fully light until nine in the morning, and it would start to darken again at three in the afternoon. There was a small shaded lamp on the kitchen table in Charlotte Square. Anne intended to switch it on when she came in, wearing a flannel robe she’d found in the loo. She discovered Shirley sitting under the harsher glare of the overhead light. “Could we have this smaller light on instead, Shirley? So unflattering that overhead light.”
“I’m no beauty. A change in the light won’t help,” said Shirley stoutly. She was already fully dressed.
“
Yes, I know, darling, but I’m a bit older than you and my wrinkles need to be very carefully lit if I’m not to frighten everyone off.”
“Don’t exaggerate, Anne. You look fine. Tea?” Shirley gestured to a brown teapot she had on the table.
“Oh, yes, please.”
Shirley found a second mug in the cupboard and poured out the tea. Gesturing to the marble countertops and cherry cabinetry, she said, “Your nephew must have spent quite a bit doing this place up.”
“He spares no expense on things to do with keeping up property, you’re quite right. But he doesn’t give me anything from the estate. He knows my husband lost the dowry, but he hasn’t advanced me a penny.”
“The aristocracy have always had peculiar ways of looking out for family, haven’t they?”
“Well,” said Anne, raising her chin, “one aims to minimize charges on the estate for daughters and younger sons so that the whole thing is preserved as a going concern to pass on to the next generation.” She cleared her throat. “But when the heir so clearly has cash to spare, it does seem he might have a care for the old woman who sometimes changed his nappy when he was a baby.”
“You mean his nanny? I can’t imagine you changing nappies, Anne,” Shirley said, laughing.
“But I did, you see. I’m not quite so helpless as I seem.” She paused to sip her tea. The two women were now becoming comfortable enough with one another, especially since the undertakings of the previous evening, that they could allow a silence to fall between them without its feeling awkward. “I am getting older, though, and may be more helpless shortly.”
“Looking for a nurse, are you? Don’t look at me.”
Anne was thrown off balance by this. It was harsher than she’d expected. The idea had occurred to her. She had been intending to raise it by degrees with Shirley. This abrupt rejection of her plan left her speechless.
Shirley was aware that Anne was disappointed by what she’d just said. By way of explanation, she began, “I reach retiring age next year. I thought of buying a place in Windsor. Or maybe Scotland. My grandmother retired up here. So did my mother. I won’t have an automatic right to a place, but round about Ballater is less expensive than Berkshire. I might be able to find a little place. Fix it up. Balmoral might give me a bit of help.”
“Oh, well, that’s not bad. A permanent place mightn’t be a bad thing. But, frankly, I can’t imagine you retiring to the Highlands, Shirley. Your work has always been in London, or traveling with The Queen to all parts of the world. You think it will be enough for you to go have a half pint in Ballater of an evening? Drive an hour into grey Aberdeen for the shopping? Meet the rest of the Household pensioners once a year for some knees-up at the Castle? You think that will be enough for a happy old age?”
Anne had unerringly put her finger on three of the things it had occurred to her might occupy her time after she retired, and the prospect was not appealing. “I’ll be fine,” said Shirley briefly. “It was good enough for my granny and good enough for my mum. It’ll be good enough for me.”
“Of course it will. And you won’t miss London, will you?”
“I loathe London. It turns a fresh white blouse grubby in a day. And if you leave the window open on a July afternoon, there’s a quarter inch of filth on every window ledge.”
“Yes, filthy London. And the theatre in the West End, filthy. The restaurants of all description, filthy. The Proms, the cinema, and Covent Garden, filthy. The cathedral choirs, filthy. The shops, filthy. The parties, filthy. And all the curious people on the Tube and on the bus, well, they’re filthy too, aren’t they?”
Shirley knew when she was being made fun of and chose not to rise to these sharp-tongued remarks. She decided to go on the offense to protect herself. “Well, Anne, I imagine you’ll be all right, won’t you? The Queen has allowed you to keep working for her into your seventies. There’ll be a pension from the Household when you decide to go. That will buy you a nice carer to look in on you if you need anything.”
“There will be a small pension, yes, but it won’t pay for a carer. I do have some odds and ends of money from my late husband, but I’ll have to sell the flat when I stop doing waitings if I want to survive. Rather sad, as it’s in a good location. Sargent, Whistler, and Wilde once lived in Tite Street, did you know? And I’ve been in it such a long time, well, it will be hard to go. But go I must,” she said, pressing her thin lips together.
They both looked out the darkened window and contemplated their futures. They both felt that they deserved better after lives of work and worry.
“Ow,” said Anne shortly.
“What’s the matter with you, then?”
“Oh, a little bursitis in the shoulder. Acts up when it’s damp out. Bit of a headache too.”
“Nothing a little neck-and-shoulder rub won’t cure, is it?” said Shirley, warming her hands on the teapot. Then she stood up and walked around behind Anne’s chair at the kitchen table.
She put her hands gently on Anne’s shoulders and began some circular pressing motions on the muscles underneath her bathrobe. Anne was a little surprised. She liked Shirley, but she hadn’t been prepared for this kind of physical contact.
It did feel good, though. “Mmmm, thank you,” she said lightly, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice. Soon Shirley slipped her hands onto the strained tendons and flesh of Anne’s neck. It felt so warm and comforting that Anne quite forgot that she was being touched by a relative stranger. “For God’s sake, you’re good. How have you kept this talent a secret for so long?”
“I don’t do it for many,” said Shirley practically, keeping her attention on her hands and Anne’s sinewy stiffness. “I was thinking . . .”
“Mmm?”
“Perhaps you could have a lodger in that flat of yours?”
“Well. Perhaps. Only it would have to be a lodger with some talents, now.”
“Like a firm pair of hands?”
“Yes, and maybe someone with a little holiday place for going to in Scotland together when one wanted a change from London.”
“But who won’t wash your grubby shirts, now, she won’t, the lodger won’t, I mean.”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t expect that.”
“And this lodger would like to come and go as she pleases. Have the occasional friend in for tea. Or to watch a film.” Shirley was thinking of William. “Have her own key, and not be interfered with.”
“No. She may, the lodger may do whatever she likes, but . . .”
“But? There’s frequently a ‘but’ to this kind of accommodation.”
“But if the landlady breaks down, or falls down, or catches the flu? If she has a stroke or becomes a cripple, what then?”
“Well, the lodger might call the social services then.”
“The social services. I see,” said Anne. Discouraged.
Shirley continued to massage the neck just below Anne’s hairline. “But the lodger might make the landlady a cup of soup every now and again.”
Just then The Queen came softly into the room, still wearing her Hardy Amies skirt of the day before, but less Rebecca’s hoodie.
Shirley raised her hands off Anne’s bent neck with a start.
“As you were, Mrs MacDonald. Carry on,” said The Queen, nodding at Anne’s neck. Anne turned her face to one side and noticed The Queen had come into the kitchen, but she was too wrapped up in the sensation of Shirley’s massage, and the negotiations the two women had begun, to react. The Queen saw this and said, with an ironic inflection, “Don’t get up, Lady Anne.”
Under normal conditions Lady Anne certainly would have stood up when The Queen entered the room. She was literally doubled over with the combined pain from her shoulder and headache, however, and found it impossible to move.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty. Feeling a little under the weather at the moment. A ki
nd of migraine, I fear.” She pronounced “migraine” as if it were a French word.
“I expect it’s the stress,” said The Queen kindly. “Happy Baby would help with that.”
“Happy Baby, Ma’am? The stress?” Anne was beginning to fear that The Queen had given in to old ladies’ confusion again.
“Happy Baby. Yes. Yoga pose. You roll on the floor, while holding your legs in the air and massage your back. Relaxes you no end. I could show you here, but we’d need some yoga mats. The stress of looking for me, I meant.”
Anne shot a cautious glance in Shirley’s direction. When they’d discovered The Queen on Waverley station the previous evening, they’d been so relieved to have found her that they hadn’t required any explanations of her. They had wondered whether she hadn’t had a small stroke, or was showing the first sign of dementia, not uncommon for someone of her age. Now that The Queen had raised the issue herself, Anne thought she might cautiously explore it.
“Well, we were worried.”
“Terrified, Ma’am, is more like it,” put in Shirley with emphasis.
“I am sorry,” replied The Queen.
“We were wondering . . .” began Anne, still bent over.
“What in the world you thought you were doing?” Shirley completed Anne’s sentence using the tone of an angry parent addressing a child who’d left home.
Not in the least angry at being spoken to in this tone of voice, The Queen began, “I don’t think I was quite myself.”
“I should say not.” Shirley was still annoyed.
“I expect I’ve given you that headache, haven’t I?” said The Queen to Lady Anne.
“Oh no, Ma’am, I’m just a sensitive flower.”
“It was me. Don’t try to deny it. I might have said where I was going.”
“And where were you going, then?” put in Shirley, barely leaving a space for The Queen to explain. “Do you know what lunatics are out there? How much danger you were in? It made our blood run cold. And now Anne’s having a breakdown. Doesn’t surprise me in the least. Do you realize what might have happened to you? As it was, I’m sure you were bothered, weren’t you? And no Household to attend you. They must have given you a dreadful time. We’re amazed you’re still in one piece. Did you have any supper, even? Did anyone hurt you? Did they insult you? Oh, Ma’am. We were so worried. What in the world did you think you were doing?” This was a cascade of language, with Shirley’s Scottish accent, usually suppressed, becoming more pronounced as she went along. Starting out rather irritated with The Queen, but feeling in the end rather sorry for herself.
