The empress of ice cream

Louise

It is almost two weeks before he comes back to my rooms.

‘Your Majesty,’ I say, curtseying.

‘Oh, there you are,’ he says - as if I have been away; as if it is me, not him, who has been avoiding this moment. He holds out his fist. ‘Here. I have something for you.’

‘I do not need gifts, sir.’

‘Not “sir”. “Charles”. Unless we are in company, which I am glad to say we are not.’

‘Charles.’ The word slips from my mouth a litde awkwardly, a ‘sh’ where there should be ‘ch’.

He smiles. ‘My sister could never pronounce it either.’

I try again. ‘I do not need gifts . . . Charles.’

‘Better. But it is even prettier when you misspeak.’ He lifts his hand. ‘Now then.’

He leaves his fist closed, so that I must turn it over and open his fingers for him, unpeeling them one by one from his gift. A pocket watch, the smallest I have ever seen, an oyster of polished gold.

‘Open it.’ ;

I open the lid that covers the face. It is like no pocket watch I have ever seen. There are three hands', one of which is racing round the dial.

‘It tells the seconds,’ he says proudly. ‘A coil inside the mechanism that is wound tighter than any pendulum. And look at the reverse.’

I turn it over. An inscription. Waste not these hours with regret. A date.

It is the day I came to England.

‘My calendar started then,’ he says simply.

*

He wants to show me his apartments. We pass the royal bedchamber, where he never sleeps, and go through a door almost hidden behind a curtain. Inside there is a working room, no bigger than Madame’s, filled with clocks. The noise they make is like rain, a deafening downpour of time; seconds and minutes tumbling around our shoulders.

He brings out his favourites - the watch that tells the phases of the moon, the carriage clock that contains a carousel of tiny silver horses chasing a fox. They were made by one of his virtuosi, his gang of philosophers and men of learning. He has many gangs, I am coming to realise. He likes to slip between them, changing roles as he does so: here the rake, here the philosopher, here the statesman, but always eager for entertainment, for dialogue, for enthusiasm. Almost like a boy.

Certainly it is hard to believe that, of his brother James and he, Charles is the older. Or that he is more than twice as old as me. But a king is young at forty-two, a woman old at twenty.

He is called away on business, but bids me wait. As the hour comes, a dozen chimes ring out, the moment jumping from timepiece to timepiece.

Curious, a little bored, I inspect my surroundings. There is a door that leads to a padded privy stool. Another room contains his chemicals and machines. And then there is a light, square room in a tower, lined with wooden panels that reach from floor to ceiling.

One of the panels is ajar. I look more closely: it is hinged, like a cupboard.

I swing it back. Hung on the inside, so that he may choose whether or not it is displayed, is a painting. A woman, completely naked, reclines on a bed of cushions and velvets. Her pale skin seems to glow like moonlight against the dark, rich cloth. Around her are stage props, some painted theatre scenery. Red hair, a mischievous smile.

The actress.

Does he have all his women painted like this, I wonder.> I swing

open another panel. Another naked body, the face haughty. I recognise the woman who spoke to me at the French ambassador’s ball. And another - a woman with her gown rolled down beneath her breasts, smiling saucily. I turn back another, then another ... the panels sway and crash gently against each other, like the pages of some giant wooden book.

I hear voices from the other room. Quickly I swing them back again, one by one, ending with Miss Nelly. Hidden again behind the wainscot, the brown respectable wood, for the king’s pleasure alone.