Read Online King and Joker by Peter Dickinson - Free Book Online Page B

Albert.
    They were standing with Louise on the slope of lawn below the West Terrace. Further down, on the level, Mother and Father were talking to Mr Farren, the Head Gardener. A little to the right Mr Jones was arranging his tripod, watched by Commander Tank, the Press Secretary. Louise hated photograph sessions. The less formal they were the more trouble they seemed to be, with endless fiddling to achieve the apparently snapshot effect. Usually Mr Jones was quick and clever, but even so there was a lot of waiting about.
    â€œFoiled him?” said Sir Sam sharply. “Far from it. It was dashed annoying. I had to attend the reception in these trousers—thank God His Majesty’s not like King Edward. Old Toby told me he once heard Edward blow his top about the width of braid on a guest’s lapel. Pin-striped trousers with a boiled shirt! Whew!”
    â€œWhat happened?” asked Louise.
    â€œOh, it was just silly and tiresome. My office has a bathroom, you know, and I keep a few clothes in the wardrobe there. Can’t always be dashing home every time I’ve got to change. Hadn’t left myself much time last night—never do—it’s pretty well automatic—I reckon to get out of these duds and into tails in four minutes flat. Fact, it’s so automatic that I was into my trousers before I realised that the blighter had scissored both legs off at knee-level!”
    â€œYou must have looked like a boy scout in mourning,” said Albert.
    â€œThat’s right,” said Sir Sam. Even on almost-private occasions such as this he used his royal-joke smile—neat, eager, appreciative, but at the same time vaguely nervous, as though feeling that things could quickly get out of hand if much more of that went on.
    â€œBut you’ve got a spare pair of pants, haven’t you?” said Albert. “I remember last week, when Mrs Kissinger spilt her borscht in your lap, you snapped your fingers and somebody twinkled off, and a couple of minutes later you disappeared behind the service screen and popped out all immaculate, like a quick-change turn.”
    â€œYes, of course I’ve got spares. Fact, I’d three suits of tails and two dinner-jackets up there, each with two pairs of bags. They’d all had the treatment.”
    â€œWhat a waste,” said Louise.
    â€œEnglish tailors are no good at trousers anyway,” said Sir Sam. “If I were a rich man I’d have my jackets cut in London and my bags in New York. Anyway, there they were, all hung up on their hangers. The blighter had even had the insolence to take off only one leg of those pairs and hang them up so that it didn’t show. He’d had plenty of time. My secretaries push off at five-thirty and then I have a session with HM until six. And, you know, that pair Mrs Kissinger chucked the soup over, I suddenly remembered they’d only just come back from the cleaners. They were still in their box in the outer office. Done him, by God! I thought. But by heavens he’d found it, done his deed, folded the trousers neatly back and pinned his damned red cross to them? Hello, you’re wanted.”
    This year Commander Tank, after taking his mysterious soundings of public feeling, had come up with a number of subliminal targets to be aimed for in the annual Royal Wedding Anniversary photo. It had to demonstrate a strong sense of family unity, of course. It should hint that the Royals were helping to fight inflation by doing things for themselves, but not overtly suggest that they were on their uppers. Whatever they were doing should be rather English and middle-class, because the last official photographs had shown them at a champagne picnic on President Giscard d’Estaing’s country estate, and so on. These effects were to be achieved by showing His Majesty and the Prince of Wales planting a Queen Isabella rhododendron to mark the anniversary, Queen Isabella herself standing by