The Queen and I Read Free Page A

your stuff,” he offered.
    “How kind, but the Republican Party suggested that my husband and I must get used to coping for ourselves.”
    The driver confided, “Nobody in our house voted for ’em. We always vote Conservative, always.”
    The Queen confided, “Somebody in our house supported them.”
    The driver nodded towards Prince Philip. “Not ’im?”
    The Queen laughed at the thought.
    A second removal van roared into the close. The doors opened immediately and the Queen’s grandchildren climbed out. The Queen waved and the little boys ran towards her. Prince Charles helped his wife out of the van. Diana had dressed for adversity: denim and cowboy boots. She looked at Number Eight Hellebore Close and shuddered. But Prince Charles smiled. Here, at last, was the simple life.
    4 Poshos
    The street sign at the entrance to the Close had lost five black metal letters. HELL CLOSE it now said, illuminated by the light of a flickering street lamp.
    The Queen thought, “Yes, it is Hell, it must be, because I’ve never seen anything like it in the whole of my waking life.”
    She had visited many council estates – had opened community centres, had driven through the bunting and the cheering crowds, alighted from the car, walked on red carpets, been given a posy by a two-year-old in a “Mothercare” party frock, been greeted by tongue-tied dignitaries, pulled a cord, revealed a plaque, signed the visitors’ book. Then, carpet, car, drive to helicopter and up, up and away. She’d seen the odd documentary on BBC2 about urban poverty, heard unattractive poor people talk in broken sentences about their dreadful lives, but she’d regarded such programmes as sociological curiosities, on a par with watching the circumcision ceremonies of Amazonian Indians, so far away that it didn’t really matter.
    It stank. Somebody in the Close was burning car tyres. The acrid smoke drifted sluggishly over a rooftop. Not one house in the Close had its full complement of windows. Fences were broken, or gone. Gardens were full of rubbish, black plastic bags had been split by ravenous dogs, televisions flickered and blared. A police car drove into the Close and stopped. A policeman pulled a youth off the pavement, threw him into the back of the car and sped away with the youth struggling in the back. A man lay under a wreck of a car which was jacked up on bricks. Other men squatted close by, aiming torches and watching, men with outdated haircuts and tattoos, their cigarettes cupped in their hands. A woman in white stilettoes ran down the road after a boy toddler, naked apart from his vest. She yanked the child by his fat little arm back into the house.
    “Now gerrin’ and stay in,” she screamed. “Oo left the bleedin’ door open?” she demanded of other, unseen children.
    The Queen was reminded of the stories that Crawfie would tell in the nursery at teatime. Of goblins and witches, of strange lands populated by sinister people. The Queen would beg her governess to stop, but she never would.
    “Och awa’ wi’ you,” she’d laugh. “You’re far too soft.” Crawfie never spoke or laughed like that in Mama’s presence.
    The Queen thought, Crawfie knew. She knew. She was preparing me for Hell Close.
    William and Harry ran up and down the Close, excited by the novelty of the journey, taking advantage of Nanny’s absence. Ma and Pa were at the front door of a dirty old house, trying to get a key in the lock. William said, “What are you doing, Pa?”
    “Trying to get inside.”
    “Why?”
    “Because we’re going to live here.”
    William and Harry laughed loudly. It wasn’t often Pa made a joke. He sometimes put on a silly voice and said things about the Goons and stuff, but mostly he was dead serious. Frowning and giving lectures.
    Mama said, “This is our new house.”
    William said, “How can it be new when it’s old?”
    Again the boys laughed. William lost control and needed support, he leaned against the