To Play the King

NEW STORM HITS KING 'IS HE A CHRISTIAN?'

A new storm of controversy surrounded the Royal Family last night when the Bishop of Durham, from the pulpit of his cathedral, questioned the King's religious motives. Quoting the King's much-criticised newspaper interview earlier this week in which he revealed a deep interest in Eastern religions and did not discount the possibility of physical resurrection, the fundamentalist Bishop attacked such 'fashionable dalliance with mysticism'.

The King is the Defender of the Faith and anointed head of our Church of England. But is he a Christian?'

Buckingham Palace indicated last night that the King had simply been trying to emphasize, as King of a country with a large number of racial and religious minorities, that he felt it his duty not to take a narrow and restrictive view of his religious role. But the Bishop's attack seems set to fuel further controversy in the wake of the recent critical opinion poll which showed dramatically falling support for some members of the Royal Family such as Princess Charlotte, and a growing demand to restrict the number of members of the Royal Family who receive their income from the Civil List.

Supporters of the King rallied to his defence last night. 'We shouldn't be enticed into a constitutional supermarket, shopping around for the cheapest form of government,' Viscount Quillington said.

In contrast, critics were quick to point out that the King, in spite of his own personal popularity, was failing to set a clear lead in many areas. 'The Crown should stand for the highest standards of public morality,' one senior Government backbencher said, 'but his leadership of his own family leaves much to be desired. They are letting down both him and us. They are overpaid, overtanned, underworked, and overly numerous.'

The Royal oak is being shaken,' said another critic. 'It would do no harm if one or two members of the Family were to fall out of the branches…'

News began trickling through shortly before four in the afternoon, and by the time it was confirmed the short winter's day had finished and all London was dark. It was a wretched day; a warm front had passed across the capital bringing in its wake a deluge of relentless rain which would continue well into the night. It was a day for staying home.

Staying home had been the mistake, fatally so, of three women and their children who called 14 Queensgate Crescent, a tenement block in the middle of Notting Hill, home. It was the heart of old slumland, which in the sixties had housed streetwalkers and tides of immigrants under the stern eye of racketeers. 'Rachmanism' they had called it then, after the most notorious of the landlord-racketeers. 'Bed and breakfast' it was called in the modern parlance, where the local council housed one-parent and problem families while they searched around listlessly for somewhere or someone else to take over the responsibility. Much of the temporary accommodation provided in Number 14 had changed little in the thirty-odd years since it had been a brothel. Single rooms, shared bathrooms, inadequate heating, noise, rotting woodwork and unremitting depression. When it rained, they would watch the windowsills trickle and the damp brown stains creep even lower as the wallpaper peeled from the walls. But it was better than sitting in the middle of the downpour outside, or so they had thought.

Institutional housing breeds indifference, and no one had bothered to report the smell of gas which had been lingering for days. That was up to the caretaker, and so what if he only turned up when he felt like it. It was somebody else's problem. Or so they had thought.

As dusk had gathered the automatic timer had turned another gear and switched on the light in the communal hallways. They were only sixty-watt bulbs, one per landing, scarcely adequate, but the small spark caused by the electrical contact had been sufficient to ignite the gas and blow the five-storey building right out of the ground, taking much of the neighbouring building with it. Fortunately there had been no one in next door, it was derelict, but remnants of five families were inside Number 14 and of the twenty-one women, children and babies only eight would be pulled out of the rubble alive. By the time His Majesty reached the scene it consisted of little more than a huge pile of bricks, fractured door frames and twisted fragments of furniture over which firemen crawled beneath harsh arc lights. Several persons were believed to have been inside for whom there was still no account. A double bed teetered precariously on a ledge of splintered wood many feet above the heads of the rescuers, its sheets flapping in the squally wind. It should have been pulled down before it had a chance to fall on those below, but the mobile crane was having trouble getting through the rain and rush-hour traffic and they couldn't afford to wait. Someone thought they had heard a noise from the rubble directly beneath and although the infra-red image enhancer showed nothing, many willing hands were tearing at the ruins, lashed by the rain and the fear they would be too late.

As soon as the King had heard the news he had asked to visit the scene. 'Not to interfere, to gawk. But a word to the bereaved at a time such as this can speak louder than a thousand epitaphs later.' The request had gone through to the Met Police Control Room at Scotland Yard just as they were briefing the Home Secretary, who had immediately passed the news on to Downing Street. The King arrived on site only to discover he had unwittingly been involved in a race he had already lost. Urquhart was already there, holding hands, comforting the injured, consoling the distressed, giving interviews, searching for the television cameras, being seen. It made the Monarch look like a man sent onto the field from the substitutes' bench, no better than an able reserve, following in others' footsteps, but what did it matter? This wasn't a contest, or, at least, shouldn't be. Or so the King struggled to convince himself.

For some time the Monarch and his Prime Minister succeeded in avoiding each other as one took briefing and quietly sought out survivors while the other concentrated on finding a dry spot from which to give interviews. But both knew a meeting would have to come. Avoiding each other would be news in itself and would serve only to turn tragedy into farce. The King stood like a sentinel gazing at the devastation from atop a mound of rubble surrounded by a rapidly enlarging lake of slime and mud, through which Urquhart had to trudge to meet him. 'Your Majesty.' 'Mr Urquhart.' Their greeting had the warmth of a collision of icebergs. Neither looked directly at the other, but chose to examine the scene around them.

'Not a word, Sir. There has already been too much damage done, too much controversy stirred. See, but do not speak. I must insist.'

'No perfunctory expression of grief, Mr Urquhart? Not even to one of your own scripts?'

'Not a wink or a nod, no sideways expressions or exaggerated lowering of the eyes. Not even to an agreed formula, since you seem to delight in untangling every knot we weave.' The King waved the charge away with a dismissive gesture.

The Prime Minister spoke slowly, with great deliberation, returning to his theme. 'I must insist.' 'Silence, you think?' 'Absolutely. For some considerable period.'

The King turned from the carnage and for the first time looked directly at the Prime Minister, his face frozen in condescension, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his raincoat. 'I think not.'

Urquhart struggled to avoid rising to the challenge and losing his self-control. He wasn't willing to let the King escape with even a trace of satisfaction. 'As you have seen, your views have been widely misunderstood.' 'Or manipulated.' Urquhart ignored the innuendo.

'Silence, you say,' the King continued, turning his face into the wind and spray, his nose jutting forward like the prow of some great sailing ship. 'I wonder what you would do, Mr Urquhart, if some damn fool bishop made you the target of such ludicrous misrepresentation. Shut up? Or stand up? Wouldn't you think it even more important to speak out, to give those willing to listen the opportunity to hear, to understand?' 'But I am not the King.' 'No. A fact for which both you and I should be grateful.'

Urquhart rode the insult. Beneath the burning arc lights a tiny hand was spotted beneath the rubble. Brief seconds of confusion and hope, much scrabbling, only for the flicker of anticipation to die amidst the mud. It was nothing but a doll. 'I must make sure, Sir, that I am also heard and understood. By you.' To one side there was a crash of falling masonry but neither stirred. 'Any further public outpourings by you would be regarded as deeply provocative by your Government. A declaration of constitutional war. And no Monarch has taken on a Prime Minister and won in nearly two hundred years.' 'An interesting point. I had forgotten you were a scholar.'

'Politics is about the attainment and use of power. It is a rough, indeed ruthless arena. No place for a King.'

The rain ran in rivulets down their faces, dripping from their noses, creeping behind their collars. They were both soaking and chilled. Neither was young, they should have sought shelter but neither would be the first to move. At a distance onlookers could hear nothing beyond the rattle of jackhammers and the urgent shouts of command, they could see only two men staring face to lace, rulers and rivals, silhouetted against the harsh glow of the rescue lights in a monochrome scene washed by rain. They could not distinguish the insolence on the face of Urquhart nor the ageless expression of regal defiance that suffused the checks of the other. Perhaps an astute observer might have seen the King brace his shoulders, but surely only against the elements and the harsh fortune that had brought him to this place? 'Did I miss a mention of morality in there, Prime Minister?'

'Morality, Sir, is the monologue of the unexcited and the unexcitable, the revenge of the unsuccessful, the punishment of those who tried and failed, or who never had the courage to try at all.'

It was Urquhart's turn to attempt to provoke the other. A silence hung between them for many moments.

'Prime Minister, may I congratulate you? You have succeeded in making me understand you with absolute clarity.' '1 didn't wish to leave you in any doubt.' 'You haven't.' 'We are agreed, then? No more words?'

When finally the King spoke, his voice had grown soft so that Urquhart had to strain to hear it. 'You may rest assured that I shall guard my words as carefully as you aim yours. Those you have used today I shall never forget.' The moment was broken as a shout of warning rose above the scene and men scurried from the rock pile as the wooden ledge shivered, jarred and finally collapsed, propelling the bed into a slow, graceful somersault of death before it was reduced to nothing more than another pile of matchwood on the ruins below. A solitary pillow sagged drunken in the wind, skewered upon the pointed shard of what that morning had been a baby's cot, its plastic rattle still singing in the wind. Without another word Urquhart began the trudge back through the slime.

Mycroft joined the King in the back of his car for the return drive to the Palace. For much of the trip the Monarch was silent, lost in thought and his emotions, eyes closed – affected by what he had witnessed, thought Mycroft. When he spoke, his words were soft, almost whispered, as though they were in a church or visiting a condemned cell.

'No more words, David. I am commanded to silence, or must accept the consequences.' His eyes were still closed. 'No more interviews?' 'Not unless I want open warfare.'

The thought hung between them for several moments which dragged into silent minutes. His eyes were still closed. Mycroft thought it might be his opportunity to speak.

'Perhaps it's not the right time… it's never really the right time. But it would be helpful for me to take a few days away. If you're not doing much in public. For a while. There are a few personal things I need to sort out.'

The King's head was still back, eyes shut, words coming in a monotone and squeezed of emotion. 'I must apologize, David. I've rather taken you for granted, I'm afraid. Lost in my own problems.' He sighed. 'With all this confusion I should still have found time to enquire. Christmas without Fiona must have been hell. Of course. Of course you must have a little time off. But there's one small thing I want your help with beforehand, if you can bear it. I want to arrange a small trip.' 'To where?'

'Three days, David. Just three days, and not far. I was thinking of Brixton, Handsworth, perhaps Moss Side and the Gorbals. Work my way up the country. Dine at a soup kitchen in Cardboard City one day, have breakfast at the Salvation Army the next. Take tea with a family living off benefit and share their one-bar fire. Meet the youngsters sleeping rough. You get the idea.' 'You can't!'

The head remained back, sightless, the tone still cold. 'I can. And I want cameras to accompany me everywhere. Maybe I shall live off a pensioner's diet for three days and challenge the press travelling with me to do the same.' That's bigger headlines than any speech!'

'I shall say not a word.' He started laughing, as if cold humour were the only way to suppress the feelings that battered him within, so forcefully they had left him a little in fear of himself.

'You don't have to. Those pictures will be top of the news every night.'

'If only every Royal engagement could get such coverage.' The tone was almost whimsical.

'Don't you know what you're doing? It's a declaration of war on the Government. Urquhart will retaliate…'

Mention of the Prime Minister's name had a galvanizing effect on the King. His head came up, red eyes open and burning bright, the jaw tightened as if a burst of electricity had passed through him. There was fire in his belly. 'We retaliate first! Urquhart cannot stop me. He may object to my speeches, he may bully and threaten me, but this is my kingdom, and I have every right to go wherever and whenever I bloody well please!' 'When did you have in mind for starting this civil war?'

The grim humour settled on him once more. 'Oh, I was thinking… next week.'

'Now I know you're not serious. It would take months to organize.'

'Wherever and whenever I please, David. It needs no organization. I'm not going to meet anyone in particular. No advance notice need be given. Anyway, if I give them time to prepare all I will see is some anaesthetized version of Britain which has been swept and whitewashed just for my visit. No, David. No preparation, no warning. I'm bored with playing the King; time to play the man! Let's see if I can take for three days what so many others have to take for a lifetime. Let's see if I can lose the silk-covered shackles and look my subjects in the eye.' 'Security! What of security?' Mycroft urged desperately.

'The best form of security is surprise, when no one expects me. If I have to get in my car and drive myself, by God I'm doing it.'

'You must be absolutely clear. Such a tour would be war, right out in front of the cameras, with no hiding place and no diplomatic compromise later on to smooth everything over. It would be a direct public challenge to the Prime Minister.'

'No, David, that's not the way I see it. Urquhart is a public menace, to be sure, but this is more about me. I need to find myself, respond to those things I feel deep inside, see whether I am up to the task not just of being a King, but of being a man. I can't go on running away from what I am, David, what I believe. This is not just a challenge to Urquhart. It's more of a challenge to myself. Can you understand?'

As the words hit him, Mycroft's shoulders sagged, the weight of several worlds seeming to bear down upon his shoulders. He felt exhausted from his own lifetime of running, he had no resources left. The man sitting beside him was not just a King, he was more, a man who insisted on being his own man. Mycroft knew exactly how he felt, and marvelled at his courage. He nodded. 'Of course I do,' he responded softly.

'Elizabeth. The toast is burnt again!'

Urquhart contemplated the ruins of his breakfast which had crumbled at the first touch of his knife and showered into his lap. His wife was still in her dressing gown; she had been out late again – 'working hard, telling the world how wonderful you are, darling' – and was only half awake.

'I cannot think in that ridiculous little kitchen, Francis, let alone cook your toast. Sort out the refurbishment and then you can have a proper breakfast.'

That again. He'd forgotten about it, pushed it to one side. There were other things on his mind.

'Francis, what's wrong?' She had known him too long not to catch the signs. He gestured to the newspapers, announcing plans for the King's visit. 'He's called my bluff, Elizabeth.' 'Will it be bad?'

'Could it be worse? Just when everything was beginning to come right. The opinion polls turning in our favour, an election about to be called. It will change everything.' He dusted the crumbs off his lap. 'I can't go to the country with everyone talking about nothing but poverty and freezing pensioners. We'd be out of Downing Street before you had time to choose new wallpaper let alone get your paste bucket out.'

'Out of Downing Street?' She sounded alarmed. 'It may sound churlish, but haven't we only just got here?'

He looked at her pointedly. 'You'd miss it? You surprise me, Elizabeth. You seem to spend so much time away.' But she usually came back before daybreak, and as she sat there he understood why. She wasn't at her best first thing in the morning. 'Can't you fight him?'

'With time, yes. And beat him. But I don't have time, Elizabeth, only two weeks. The pathetic thing is that the King doesn't even realize what he's done.'

'You mustn't give in, Francis. You owe it to me as well as yourself.' She was struggling with her own toast as if to emphasize what weak, useless creatures men were. She was no more successful than he, and it irritated her. 'I've shared in all the sacrifices and the hard work, remember. And I have a life, too. I enjoy being the Prime Minister's wife. And one day I'm going to be a former Prime Minister's widow. I'll need some support, a little social respectability for when I'm on my own.' It sounded selfish, uncaring. And as she did when she couldn't help herself, she used her most potent weapon, his guilt. 'If we had children to support me, it would be different.'

He stared at the ruins of his breakfast. That's what it had come to. Dickering over his coffin. 'Fight him, Francis.'

'I intend to, but don't underestimate him. I chop off a leg, yet he keeps bouncing back up again.' 'Then fight him harder.' 'You mean like George Washington?' 'I mean like bloody Cromwell. It's us or him, Francis.'

'I've struggled so hard to avoid that, Elizabeth, truly I have. It would not simply be destroying one man but several hundred years of history. There are limits.' 'Think about it, Francis. Is it possible?'

'It would certainly be a distraction from bellyaching about the underprivileged.'

'Governments don't solve people's concerns, they simply try to rearrange them in their favour. Can't you rearrange them in your favour?'

'Inside two weeks?' He examined the determined look in her eyes. She was in earnest. Deadly earnest. 'That's what I've spent all night thinking about.' He nodded gently. 'It might just be. With a little luck. And witchcraft. Make him the issue, the people versus the King. But this would not simply be an election, it would be a revolution. If we won, the Royal Family would never recover.' 'Spare me the pity. I'm a Colquhoun.' 'But am I a Cromwell?' 'You'll do.'

He suddenly remembered they had dug up Cromwell and stuck his rotting skull on a gibbet. He looked at the remnants of charred toast, and was very much afraid she might be right.