The Autobiography of The Queen (4 page)

On the other hand, why did Mrs Gloria Smith not ask if she might lodge her valuables in the hotel safe? A campaign to spread the information that the hotel – indeed the entire island – suffered no crime, had been started a few weeks back, but no one had believed in it so it had been dropped as a waste of money. Could the old lady have understood herself and her possessions to be safe here? It seemed unlikely, as the lavender tweed suit proclaimed a very recent arrival. Reception decided to lodge Mrs Smith in the block of rooms just above the main desk: she didn't look like someone who would demand a plunge pool, and they could keep an eye on her more easily than if she were placed in one of the cottages higher up.

‘If there is no sign of one's luggage, then one must buy some new clothes,' said the Queen. She was staring past reception at the boutique where various floral silks and enticing bikinis were laid out. Unsure whether she should ask opening hours (being the Queen had meant she had never seen a closed shop or an empty mall) the Queen paused before exposing herself in this way.

‘Of course, madam.' Jolene, who now had developed a healthy curiosity on the subject of the old lady – perhaps she was looking for a companion, some visitors to the island actually came looking for such a person – moved a little closer to the Queen. Marriages, these normally performed on the beach by Father Kit Maloney (expelled from St
Winifreda's in Fitzrovia some years ago for molesting choirboys and now ensconced permanently in the village on Joli Beach) were fairly frequent – same-sex nuptials proving the latest fad, but Jolene did not consider a wedding for herself and Mrs Smith. As she guided the frail but determined-looking new resident of the Joli Hotel to the glass door of the boutique, however, an idea came to her and she slid off sideways, mobile phone appearing suddenly from under her hair.

‘Excuse me, madam.' The concierge, as the printed notice on the desk proclaimed him, jabbed the form he had been filling in with the help of the Queen's passport.

‘What is it?' Being addressed first was simply not on: everyone knew that people had to wait for royalty to make a remark, pose a question (or, very unusually, make a joke) and his careless attitude was exasperating. Of course, the Queen had to remind herself that she was now Gloria Smith, but this was tiring: she had had a long day and wanted only to be shown her room, take off her shoes and lie on the bed.

‘Your address in the UK, Mrs Smith,' pressed the concierge. ‘We need to fill in here, madam –' And, as irritated by the old lady as she was with him, he pushed the form along the desk.

‘The Foreign Office, London,' the Queen snapped. And, used as she was to being obeyed, there was no sign in the Queen's demeanour of surprise
at the acquiescence of the concierge to her command. People had always done what the Queen wanted – that was why she loved the dogs so much, because they so often refused to do as they were told – and now, thinking of them and of the row of towels laid on the lawn every morning at Balmoral, and the green wellies set out there for herself on the long walks down glen and up brae, her eyes felt an unaccustomed moistness.

‘This way, Gloria!' Jolene had decided on an informal approach since speaking on her mobile: she was quite new here and had called a friend to ask how she should handle the old lady. Staff at Joli were trained to chat and sit with visitors after carrying their rum punches across the beach from the Rainforest Bar – should she ask Mrs Smith now whether she would like a cocktail in her room or offer her a reflexology session (she looked as if her feet were causing her pain).

The Queen, who had never been called Gloria, did not reply, but walked straight up to the glass door of the boutique.

‘I'll go for the manager,' Jolene said when the door failed to open. Nothing was going as it should, and her idea of gaining a holiday in England in return for a friendship in St Lucia now seemed a foolish one. Mrs Smith was the type who knew what she wanted and although it was clear that she was used to some kind of personal assistance – she had handed her bag over to Jolene before making
her unsuccessful attempt to gain access to the boutique and taken it back immediately after seeing the door was locked – she didn't look like someone who wanted a friendly chat, or even a friend, for that matter. There was something odd about the old lady, Jolene thought – but perhaps the English were all like that. Coming from a village high above the Joli Estate, Jolene had taught herself English from watching the new satellite TV installed there recently, and her chief picture of those who resided in the UK was inspired by
EastEnders.
The wedding of Charles and Camilla had also been popular on the island – but it was hard to know which programme gave the most truthful picture of that faraway country as both worlds seemed simultaneously real and unbelievable.

By the time Jolene had been called to the desk by the concierge and told that her friend Austin was outside waiting for her, the Queen had pressed the Up button by the lift and was about to enter when Jolene called out to her to go to Room 209 on the second floor. At which – and the transformation came as a complete surprise to staff personnel – a smile lit up the old lady's face in the most extraordinary way. All at once, as concierge and Jolene conveyed to each other with their mutual looks of astonishment and pleasure, the old lady became someone whose approval and happy attentions were highly desirable and impossible to forget once experienced.

So it was that the Queen, still wearing her radiant smile, rose to the second floor of the Joli Hilton, smiled again at the cleaning woman who emerged from Room 209, mop in hand (this was fortunate, for the Queen had neither key nor card to gain entry) and was able, at last, to take a brief nap on the bed.

By the time the Queen had fallen into a blissful sleep peopled by figures from her now-abandoned past – her children were not amongst these, but her grandson William, as so often before in her dreams, appeared in his Coronation robes and stooped low to kiss his sovereign – the sun was beginning to climb down the sky in St Lucia and, at Balmoral, the gloaming, the lovely, late purplish evenings to be found only in Scotland, was turning with the presence of a new moon in the sky, to night.

Louisa Stuart, the maid, had been the first to set up the alarm – although, as members of the staff were shamefaced to admit, it wasn't until nearly midday that the Queen's absence was noted; and, due to a peculiarly irritating bureaucracy, it was one p.m., the usual time for luncheon to be served at the castle, before the Duke was told of his wife's disappearance. In corners of tartan-clad turrets
courtiers and servants conferred: phones were picked up in the library and on the advice of the Chamberlain put down again for fear of bugging. The corgis, found in the seldom-visited third drawing room, were chased from the room they had angrily savaged and fouled once the permanence of their mistress's absence became probable. Dew fell on the towels laid out for the dogs on the east lawn; and the Queen's wellies set out there stood unfilled and glistening in the first shower of the September day.

‘She had a wee case,' Louisa, pink with triumph, was recounting her experiences in the butler's pantry. Mrs McDuff, the housekeeper, and a gaggle of maids pressed their bodies against the plate cupboard to hear her and over by the sink a glass smashed, apparently of its own accord – which added to the atmosphere of hysteria. ‘A wee case on wheels, ye ken. She was pushin' it along when he —'

‘I always knew that Brno was no good,' Mrs McDuff said. ‘You must have eyes in the back of your head, Louisa,' she added in a reproving tone. ‘Her Majesty would never use a wheeled suitcase. And you don't push them, you pull them. Don't give us a whole lot of fairy stories, now.'

But the maid was adamant. She remembered the Queen pushing the case along like a pram – or a child's buggy – and she distinctly had the impression that Her Majesty was leaving for good.

‘But why would she do that?' cried Mrs McDuff. She was an ardent royalist and it seemed impossible that the monarch, after all these years of service to her people, could envisage walking out on them. Surely, she was simply taking a short break – although this was most unlikely too, especially with of all things a wheeled suitcase.

‘She was goin' somewhere hot,' Louisa gloated – for she had seen the sticker saying PalmVil Holidays that had fluttered from the shiny white handbag before Brno caught it and crumpled it up, then consigned it to a trouser pocket. ‘Lucky old Queen,' Louisa said irreverently.

A gong sounded from the main hall of the castle. Mrs McDuff shook herself and the plump maids shivered as a door opened and the head butler looked in at the crammed pantry. He demanded to be told whether they were aware that luncheon was about to be served. Could they get the hell out of his pantry, please? Where was Tom the footman? What the blankety-blank was going on today?

‘Mr Struthers, we have some important news for you,' Mrs McDuff said in a portentous tone.

But before she could speak, the electrically-operated lift (installed at Balmoral in the early years of the twentieth century) groaned up from the kitchens, bearing a platter of eggs in aspic, each decorated with a scoop of mayonnaise and a miniature tomato. Struthers pulled the lift door higher, the maids, gasping and giggling, left by the side
door leading down to staff quarters and Tom the footman finally appeared just as the kilted figure of the Duke could be espied from the open pantry door as he entered the dining room.

‘Fuck me,' Tom the footman said in a low whisper. ‘Her Madge gone awol is what I heard, and the shoot today going ahead for all that …'

‘But of course,' said Struthers gravely, heading for the dining room with his platter of eggs. He was thrown by the disappearance of the Queen; and he could have sworn the eggs winked up at him as he went, with their red eyes.

Austin Ford had been born and brought up in St Lucia, and, named after two makes of car imported to the island in his parents' youth, he liked to have printed on his card (which otherwise announced him as manager of ‘The Escort Service', to be contacted at Windsor Village, Joli Plantation) a line drawing of a car, something like a Cadillac and certainly nothing like an Austin or a Ford. This was of no importance to Austin, or to his clients for that matter, as he did not own a car. A taxi could be got from the Joli Hilton rank if an outing to Soufrière, or to the nearest takeaway, was planned. Generally, however, the elderly ladies and occasional disorientated-looking men who called his mobile were happy to relax in Windsor Village, a half-built assortment of wooden Caribbean houses by the edge of the sea. Here was where the artificial white sand, supplied by the crushing of thousands of tons
of coral in order to fulfil the ‘dream holiday' fantasy of guests of the hotel, ended and the indigenous black sand beach took over. Austin's customers did not ask to swim here, leaving a handful of Rastas to zoom up and down in rickety boats with a scarlet prow and a hideously noisy outboard engine. A ‘King fish' (most fish on the hotel menu were called this) was occasionally speared in the hugely deep waters below the Piton and this was thrust instantly into the deep freeze of the not-quite-finished restaurant at Windsor Village. The Rum Shop, which Austin owned – he lived in a shack out the back and this was threatened with demolition, but letters to planning authorities took a year to receive an answer so its future was not yet known – stood next to the bamboo-gated entrance to the little enclave. A sill out in front meant they were never closed, though Austin sometimes pulled across an iron grille to prevent tourists from ransacking his supplies. It was from here today that he set out to meet and offer an escort service to the Queen.

Jolene was a frequent supplier of clients for her step-uncle's brother, Austin Ford. They had all grown up in the village above the Joli Estate and diversification had become vital when the future of the Windward island (bendy) banana was imperilled by the American straight banana and people saw they would have to struggle to survive. Austin had been the first to show enterprise, with the Rum
Shop, built from jetsam rescued from the sea after the increasingly frequent hurricanes and storms, but the locals preferred beer and the tourist season was so short – December till March – that the escort service had become a useful addition to Austin's income. For fifty US dollars, a visit to The Rum Shop and dinner in the almost-finished restaurant of local specialities such as jerk chicken (this had become famous amongst the sailors who flocked to the deep water of the bay and tied up to one of the bobbing white buoys there) could be followed by dancing (Jolene's younger sisters) and even, if booked well in advance, fire-eating and Highland reels. It was to a full evening's entertainment of this kind that Austin planned to invite Mrs Gloria Smith (Jolene had glimpsed the lady's passport when she checked in and saw slipped between the pages a photo of a strangely short-legged dog wearing a tartan overcoat and standing in the snow outside what looked like a fairy castle. There were clearly links with Scotland).

The kind of evening Austin had in mind, after receiving this information earlier, would take some time to bring to fruition. The cost would be one hundred US dollars. But he deserved a break: September was the very worst month in this part of the world, and a forewarning of Hurricane Bertie coming first to Tobago and then hammering Martinique and St Lucia made him all the more determined to make a good deal now while there
was time. For tonight, Mrs Smith could enjoy a punch at The Rum Shop and maybe a takeaway from the Piton Grill if she would pay for the taxi. (The restaurant, as so often, was closed.) Austin also trusted that a deposit might be put down by Mrs Smith to pay for the skills employed by one of the island's most celebrated limbo dancers. Some of the regular visitors to Windsor Village, men who taught those on inclusive holidays at the Joli Hilton how to sail a catamaran or how to learn yoga while in the pool behind the Rainforest Bar, the tennis coaches and the masseurs, the workers who lived on the fringes of the tourist economy, would be invited to Mrs Smith's dinner party – which Austin now envisaged as taking up all of the first floor of the nearly-finished restaurant. A deposit would certainly be needed for so magnificent a reception. Austin's status would improve greatly. And Mrs Smith – who could tell? – might decide to buy a yacht and anchor permanently off Joli Bay.