Chopko: Look at our speed.
Flight Engineer Hal Ward: The heavies aren’t designed for this. We could just come apart up here.
SAM: Captain, on your present setting you’re going to be coming in right under it.
Macmanaman: What are they saying? Thirty-three, thirty-four?
SAM: Their latest and best is an NEO altitude of twenty-one point four. Repeat, at 17.43. If you’re not yet on the ground you’re going to feel it. Heat and blast.
Macmanaman: And another thing. Watch the nose, Nick. No no no. Pull back, pull back, pull back.
6. What do princesses want?
On screen, the bathroom of the Yellow House: the passageway, the circular concavity of the tub, the mirrors, the towels on their pegs. Brendan flinched as a subtitle gave date and place. He turned. On the sofa the King stared levelly.
The Princess entered, in her tennis whites. She approached, smiling with amusement or satisfaction, and then vanished to the right. The sound of a sigh, the brisk drilling of micturation, the soft percussion of the toilet paper as it ripped. She reappeared with her shirt half-up and her skirt half-down, and limping as she kicked off her shoes. She threw on the taps. She paused for a full minute, examining a blemish on her forearm. Then she undressed carelessly, and in she climbed.
It hadn’t wavered, the watching eye, stupidly imperturbable, like a security monitor. After a while you understood that it had now begun a painfully gradual zoom.
Here came the change of the Princess’s expression — a listening face. The sound of a door opening and closing, and the audible rumour of advent. Then the white shape, still halved by shadow.
The quality of the sound, throughout, had been ticklishly distinct. And now the sudden surge of a human voice.
‘I come from your father’s bed. He sent me here to help you bathe.’ It was He, it was He … He removed her robe, and held out a hand in such a way that the Princess must rise to receive it. He stepped in … The kissed neck and throat, the sponged breasts. The two bodies, one brown and full of gravity, one pale and light. And the two faces: one with its young astonishment and horror, the other with its ancient inclemency.
Brendan turned again. Henry had his arms up on the sofa’s shoulders and his head was bent to one side. Moisture had had time to sink in around his closed eyes.
Some minutes later Brendan said, ‘Sir? I think you …’
Henry sat up and stared. A different scene, now, gloom, luxury, a half-dressed He Zizhen attending to his own naked body, which looked utterly helpless, like a baby waiting to be changed.
‘If it’s any comfort to you, sir, I think we can say this of Miss Zizhen. She was our Enemy’s Enemy.’
‘It is some comfort, surprisingly enough, Bugger. This is over now. Oughtred at one end and the PM at the other. What remains is for us, or for me, to divine what the Princess wants. What do princesses want?’
7. Simon Finger
His crutch was of the sort that went all the way up the arm. Joseph Andrews leant it against the side of his desk and, after some bitter tottering, crashed down into his swivel chair.
‘Sime,’ he said when he was able.
He addressed a small middle-aged man in a chalkstriped suit and with foul eyes, pale round the poster-blue pupiclass="underline" Simon Finger.
‘Sime, mate. It’s all bollocks, that: me threat. I’m a monarchist, mate. Always have been. And what I got on that lot’d make the royal family disappear. And I couldn’t live with meself with that on me conscience. Knowing I’d done that, I couldn’t rest easy in me grave. They nick me tomorrow, then I’ll take me secret with me. Though Cora always have it, lest need be.’
In his ripe drawl — posher than the King — Simon Finger said, ‘I couldn’t agree more, Jo. It’s a fine institution.’
‘Where are we? Yeah, we’ll be obliging Tony Tobin, Yocker Fitzmaurice, Kev Had and Nolberto Drago. You can do what you want with them other slags, but I want to be there for Nobby Drago.’
For a while Joseph Andrews unsystematically sifted through the papers on his desk. He held up a clipping.
‘Calls me a mad prick. In print. Names me. Places me. As for what he said here the other night: no respect whatsoever. And he would’ve walked away if I’d’ve let him! Wouldn’t stand. He wouldn’t stand. Called me a … Me own son. Well I’m not having that. Her,’ he said.
‘Her? Isn’t that rather …?’
‘Yeah. See. Cora’ve made me promise I won’t hurt him. So I want you to hurt her, Simon. The wife. Because it’s not gone away. And I’m owed. I want you to mark her, Simon. I want you to cut her face.’
‘No. That’s uh, incommensurate. I think that would undoubtedly be un peu trop.’
‘… I don’t understand you, Simon Finger. You got arsehole to spare. If a raging bull come at you, you’d stand. You’d stick your head in a fucking cement-mixer, you would. If you considered it the correct thing to do. I’ve just asked you to top four villains and you’ve barely shrugged. And you won’t even … Uh all right. All right. Will you knock her about — will you do that at least?’
‘What are we talking about here, Jo? A bloody nose and a black eye? … A handful of hair or two and a couple of teeth?’
He leant forward and spread his hands all-solvingly. ‘Exactly. Just like any normal husband’d give her.’
Then Simon Finger helped Joseph Andrews down the stairs to join their friends for the little going-away party, Manfred, Rodney and Dominic, Cora Susan and Burl Rhody, Tori Fate, Captain Mate, and He Zizhen.
8. The vestal follow
They were all there for the midday meeting: Clint, Supermaniam, Strite, Mackelyne, Woyno, Donna Strange. Clint had just had a conversation with Donna Strange about Dork Bogarde. It was remarkably similar to the conversation he had had with Dork Bogarde about Donna Strange: she couldn’t remember him either. Chemistry not quite right, thought Clint. Nevertheless he took this sophisticated exchange as a good omen for his rendezvous with Kate, now only hours away. He could see himself parking the Avenger and strolling across the road. Having a quiet wander across the road …
Supermaniam said, ‘Ainsley Car reckons Durham’s the best dryout centre he’s ever been to. Course he’s treated like a god in there. And Ainsley and Beryl are going to get married for the third time in the prison chapel. Could do a piece on that.’
Crinkling his nose, Desmond Heaf said, ‘So you see some things turn out for the best.’
‘Yeah. You know,’ said Clint: ‘“The faded and disgraced football legend gave a wry smile as he added his own slops to the bucket of filth outside his cell. His wedding day had begun.”’
‘Oh I imagined something a bit softer in tone. Though point taken: football is the religion of our … Now,’ said Heaf with a glance at his watch. ‘It doesn’t happen often — oh no — but every now and then, every now and then, in a publishing lifetime, you encounter an instance of the journalist’s craft that simply takes your breath away … Yesterday morning I said to Clint here, “Clint? I’ve had a personal communication from the Palace via the FPA.” ‘Heaf briefly waved a flyer-like sheet of paper in the air. ‘It says that the tacit embargo on the Princess is now officially lapsed, but that they do respectfully ask that we maintain a certain tact and distance at this very sensitive time, following the demise of Queen Pamela. Explaining this, I said, “Clint? How about a little piece on Vicky? Something for the op-ed page. And not Yellow Dog, mind! More like your earlier light-hearted style. Now that all the scandal’s blown over, and with her sixteenth birthday not that far off. To go with this nice new photograph. Lovely to see her laughing again, isn’t it? … A turning of the page — the start of a fresh chapter.” This morning I happened to open my Lark at the breakfast table, in the company of my wife and six daughters. Would you all now turn to page thirty-three. “Vicky With Nobs On”.