The Hawk Is Dead

59

Monday 27 November 2023

One of Arthur Lambourne’s colleagues joked that an English summer consisted of three fine days followed by a thunderstorm. Not far off the mark, the elderly groundsman thought. You could apply the same to the Indian summers that used to reach into October but now seemed to extend as far as November and December. Three days and then, boom!

He’d seen the changes in the weather pattern all right, during his fifty-five years of maintaining the Buckingham Palace lawns — his particular responsibility, and passion. Changes in pretty much everything. Who’d have thought when he entered royal service all those decades back, proud as Punch, that one day the head of the twelve-strong gardening team would be female — and a darned knowledgeable woman at that.

A few years back when he’d first told his daughter, Nel, about the appointment of his new boss, she had responded, only partly in jest, Girl Power! Then again, of course, up until a year ago, the boss of not just the entire Palace but the entire nation had been a female too.

He had been deeply saddened by the death of Queen Elizabeth, and had fond memories of the many times they had conversed when she was out walking across the lawn, her corgis running free. But he was enjoying very much just how keen a gardener King Charles was — his wife also. Lots of new ideas, new plans. You had to move with the times, Arthur knew, even though it often felt in the sanctuary here, behind the walls that kept the outside world at bay, that in many ways time stood still. He just wished the weather would stay still sometimes, too.

The back end of last week had been glorious, enabling him to get out on the ancient Atco gang mower — which, through loving care, he’d kept in service for over a quarter of a century — and create those perfect stripes that he knew The King liked so much. Almost as much as he loved the acers, which were in abundance along the borders of the huge area of lawn. Then fierce rain had come in late on Saturday. And the even more torrential downpour that accompanied the thunderstorm came next, followed by yet another glorious day yesterday. All of which meant the grass had grown to the point where it needed cutting again today.

The one positive about the rain was that it had cleared away all the droppings from the pesky — albeit beautiful — Canada geese that descended annually on the Palace lake, terrorizing the ducks, moorhens, coots and swans, and crapping all over the lawns like they were a public toilet for wildlife.

If he’d had his way, he’d have sorted them out with a twelve-bore. But, and he could understand the reasons, the sound of gunshots ringing out within the Palace grounds was probably not a great idea.

Mind you, some of the late Queen Elizabeth’s corgis were a problem too. Not the female ones — although they also did their business on the grass — but Vulcan, the little bugger, had had particularly acid wee. His urine was like a vial of sulphuric acid being poured onto his precious lawn. Small, horrible and ugly brown patches all over the place.

Her Majesty’s passing had been a terrible time for him. He had admired her and liked her so much, but if there had been one positive it was that the two newest corgis to survive her had gone to live with Sarah Ferguson and no longer signed their names on his precious forty acres of greensward. Camilla’s Jack Russells were much better — because they at least pooped in the flowerbeds — which weren’t his problem.

Arthur smiled at the memory of an encounter with an American at a Garden Party, some years ago — later, he discovered he was the US Ambassador to the UK — who had approached him while he was tending to a damaged area of grass well away from the proceedings and asked him, ‘Hey, tell me, how do you get a lawn so amazing, so perfect as this?’

Something about the man’s demeanour had really irritated Arthur — he couldn’t say what exactly, but the man had really rubbed him up the wrong way. He’d replied in his native rural Hampshire burr: ‘Oh that’s easy, sir. What yer needs to do is aerate the soil, plant yer grass seeds, making sure the birds don’t eat ’em all. Then you wait for the grass to take root and grow. Once that’s happened, all you need to do is cut it, weed it, water it and roll it — for about one hundred and fifty years.’

He still chuckled to himself sometimes, if he was having a bad day, at the Ambassador’s expression.

But he wasn’t chuckling today. The assassination attempt on Her Majesty last Monday had left him and all the Palace staff in a state of shock. But if there was one thing he had learned in all these years it was that no matter what, the show must go on. Tomorrow there was a state visit scheduled for the ruler of the United Arab Emirates. The Master of the Royal Household had already briefed him — albeit unnecessarily — that the lawns needed to look immaculate. Even more immaculate than ever, eh, Arthur?

When he’d informed Sir Tommy that they would indeed look even more immaculate than ever, he’d been rewarded with a, Good chap — super!

Which meant having finished mowing them he had to go over them again with the grass collector — which he was now doing — not such an easy task with sodden cuttings. And looking over his shoulder, he could see the grass bags were almost full. Mowing the lawns in November, incredible. Who’d have ever thought he’d be doing that? Whether it was global warming or something else altogether, Mother Nature was out of kilter, all right.

He steered the mower over towards the West Wing of the Palace, towards the skip behind the large, dark green cylinder, which was ten foot tall and the same wide, and connected to the Palace wall by a series of pipes, like a mutant insect feeding off it. The anaerobic digester — the initiative of The King that helped run the Palace hot water and central heating.

Before emptying the grass bags into the skip, he needed to use the pitchfork in the skip to load some of the current contents into the digester, through a hatch in the side, to top it up. He opened the hatch, dug the pitchfork into the mulch, then as he tipped it in, he froze.

Oh no. Oh shit. No. No!

Was he hallucinating?

Within the bubbling mass there appeared to be a human body, on its back.