Your Royal Hostage (8 page)

‘I
t's to help the poor animals. It's not a plot. You will not see these photographs in the Press, not if you are sensible, they say. They are good people, not' - Mirabella cast around for the word -'not horrid blackmailers.'

The Prince lifted an eyebrow; his face was hard in repose, and for a moment the skull of the older man he would become, lips too narrow, nose straight but long, deep incisions beside the narrow mouth, showed beneath the surface of the bonhomous man of pleasure, still in his prime.

'They wish you, they wish you and her - the leetle Princess -to speak to everybody. About animals. That is all. It is a nice thing to do, Ferdel, not a nasty thing.' Mirabella attempted a little winning smile. She fluttered her eyelashes. 'And then they will give you back the boring photographs. And they will trouble you no more.
Je
te promis.

'Unfortunately our Press Conference was yesterday,' replied the Prince in a sombre voice.

'I know, but there is this woman, yes, you will speak to her? The woman with red hair, what is her name? You will speak to her, yes? You will speak to her on television. That is what they say. And with the leetle Princess, you will be very, very nice about the animals. Oh yes, my darling, you will.' There was something artificia
l, almost automatic about Mirabella's wheed
ling voice; she was evidently still upset in some way by the recent episode, but whether by the Prince's anger, her own outburst, or even (despite her complicity) the photographic session itself, was hard to say.

'I shall do nothing -' began the Prince. Before he could say anything more, there was a noise of the key in the lock. Then the heavy doors opened and Mrs Taplow, a strange expression which might have been anticipation or dread on her face, entered the room.

Whatever her expression betokened, she stopped abruptly at the scene before her, and stood in the doorway. It was noticeable that she did not look in the direction of her husband.

'Taplow,' said the Prince sharply, 'Leave the room. Take your wife. And no talk, nothing. I shall speak to you later. In the meantime no talk, no telephone calls, nothing. Both of you.'

'Sir' - Taplow gave a little bow. Mrs Taplow hesitated, then bobbed. The Taplows retreated from the room, shutting the door behind them. Once the door was shut, the Prince moved swiftly across the room, opened it again and removed the key from the lock outside. He then locked the door from' the inside. Ferdcl stood looking at Mirabella. Something had changed about his expression; no longer quite so hard, it was more speculative, even anticipatory.

'So, Mirabella, friend of the animals, we shall talk. We are quite alone here. I do not expect further interruptions - I hope I am right about that, my dear? I would not want the return of those other animals, or rather friends of the animals, your friends? Good. And by the way, you had better keep quiet about the fact you know them - knew them. Understood?' Mirabella nodded.

He walked towards her.

'Understood. So we are in agreement once more. I am glad. You see - what was it you suggested an hour ago? Let's fuck. Ah, you don't feel like it now? After what has happened, you don't think it would be amusing. A pity. You see I disagree. After what has happened, for the first time, I think it
would
be amusing. Very amusing.'

He had reached her. The Prince stretched out his hand, the white shirt cuff protruding from the dark sleeve, in the direction of the tiny diamonded buttons which fastened her black crepe bodice. He started, with a faint smile, to unbutton them.

Mirabella did not attempt to stop him. She was trembling slightly.

It was only much later when she said something low, like
'mon Prince',
and he responded, equally low,
'Ach Go
t
t,
Mirabella', that an observer might have supposed that the coupling carried out so violently on the carpet in front of the fireplace - the man first devouring the woman with his lips, then forcing her to take him in hers, finally subduing her harshly with his body - that action begun with violent possession had in fact ended in some kind of tenderness on both sides.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

Royal Gossip

Lamb was lingering unhappily on the platform at Sloane Square station waiting for the Circle Line train; trains of the other lines came and went with what she felt was unfair rapidity. Lamb was unhappy first of all because she wondered whether, due to some vagary of the erratic Circle Line, she had missed the appropriate train. Life on the regularly flowing Central Line was infinitely simpler: there was always trouble when Monkey indicated the rendezvous was to be on the Circle or the District... Lamb always felt anxious. Lamb stopped herself. Lamb was not supposed to feel anxious.

The second cause for Lamb's unhappiness was, she decided, a legitimate one because it threatened the success of the Underground Plan. There were crowds of people, many of them foreign, standing on the platform, and not just because the Circle Line train was a long time in coming. London was filling up with tourists, some of them undoubtedly attracted by the coming spectacle of the Royal Wedding, others simply part of some slightly dazed routine which induced them to 'do London'. Then there were bodies, bodies of ordinary travellers. Goodness knows where they had been during the cold dull months of early spring; like bears they were out in the open now. Lamb allowed herself to worry about the question of security in these more crowded circumstances.

So far the Underground Plan, as devised by Monkey (and as
suggested originally by Lamb,
let her not forget, that was
Lamb's
idea), had surely been successful. No one could possibly have realized, could they, that the disparate group of travellers engaged in seeming casual conversation in their series of moving venues, had in fact been engaged in conspiracy. Of course there had been other meetings where necessary, mainly in one particular private place, but the Underground had generally served to establish contact. And now?

The Circle Line train was signalled on the indicator, and almost immediately arrived. As Lamb had feared, there was a rush towards it. When she achieved the last carriage, as was the practice, the first person she saw was Monkey strap-hanging. Beagle was next to him, lounging upright in his characteristic stance and being Beagle, disdaining to touch the strap; Lamb felt the familiar stab of fear, longing and, she had to face it, probably desire when she saw Beagle. Chicken was standing up, standing up and reading a paperback book called
Man and the Natural World.
Lamb recognized the book: Chicken had been reading it for some time. When Lamb had admired the cover, showing a variety of animals fleeing a forest fire, including a rather lovable if primitive lion, Chicken took the opportunity to explain that this famous painting, in a museum in Oxford, was not really so admirable since it depicted the classical myth whereby man discovered fire and in so doing succeeded in subordinating the animals to his sway.

Lamb nodded with apparent humility. She was good at appearing to look humble. Secretly she still thought the painting was rather lovely. Why not liberate it from the museum one day? As a symbol that animals were no longer subordinated. One day. The Underground Plan had to come first. All the same, it was an idea. Lamb pointed out to herself how she was absolutely full of ideas these days.

Unlike Chicken, Fox was sitting down - trust him. Lamb did not like Fox. Although he sometimes talked plaintively to Lamb (naming no names) about his unhappy childhood, a father who had never understood his artistic leanings - only Noel the dog really seemed to understand
them -
Lamb thought rather crossly that the main effect on Fox had been to make him extraordinarily self-centred ... which was not the same thing at all as having artistic leanings.

Trust Pussy too to manage to get a seat when she arrived, which would be at the next stop, Sloane
Square. With her mess of logo-e
d plastic shopping bags about her, like sandbags surrounding her stout person, Pussy was not above demanding the right to sit down; she generally chose an inoffensive-looking young person, but on one occasion Pussy's black sense of humour (which oddly enough she did not lack) had led her to pick on Beagle. Lamb still remembered the look on Beagle's face when he refused.

'You must be joking,' was all he said; it was the expression which was frightening, a kind of naked glee at the opportunity to wound, insult.

'Right in character. Puss,' said Beagle later, 'Catch the sort of person I am getting up for any old cow with her plastic shopping battering rams.'

'I shall remember that, Beagle,' replied Pussy quite equably. 'You see if I don't. I have my own character too, you know.' And the incident apparently passed off. All the same Lamb wondered what Monkey thought of a complicated plan, involving watertight procedures in which at least two of the characters involved cordially disliked each other - not to use a stronger word. Better far when they loved each other, like Beagle and Lamb.
Did
Beagle love her? He hated what he described her as standing for, he had always made that quite clear; but then so in a sense did Lamb herself. If something in Beagle's background made him pecu
liarly violent at times, frighte
ningly so, towards the notion of Lamb's upbringing, did she not share his distaste? Hence Innoright, hence her participation in the cell. Hence, so her doctor, the nice one, had said certain other things in Lamb's past. But Lamb loved too, she loved animals, the innocent, sometimes with a quite unbearable love. And she loved Beagle, whatever his past. Did he, then, love her?

Lamb could just imagine Beagle's reply if asked such a question; because she had worked towards it in the past: 'This
is
love, my Lambkin,' he had said upon one occasion, putting her hand firmly on his groin, with its large moulded lump inside the skinny jeans. 'And this is for you.' But now Pussy was getting into the carriage.

That left Tom, due to arrive at Victoria.

Then Lamb noticed that Monkey was carrying an umbrella. How had she not noticed it before? No, Monkey must have somehow masked it with his body until five out of the six members of the Underground Plan cell were present; chat still left Tom unaccounted for. Wait, Monkey had a blue handkerchief in his breast pocket where normally a white one was customary. Now
that
he had definitely put in place within the last few minutes; she couldn't have missed the bl
ue handkerchief, which, coupled
with the umbrella meant Yes, meeting abandoned for the time
being, same route to be tried again in four hours' time, same procedure. Any cell member unable to do that for personal reasons to tell the person closest to them in the carriage.

Perhaps Monkey like Lamb found the crowds oppressive. This was certainly no occasion for any kind of planning meeting. Four hours brought them well past the rush hour to another theoretically dead period, off
ice workers vanished. The Under
ground Plan involved three possible times of day, the third (which would be used following an evening cancellation) being at ten thirty the next morning. But everyone found that time difficult, and it had so far only been used once.

'Good news,' Beagle was saying in her ear. 'We're really into something." Then he patted her bottom, felt it really, followed the shape of it with his hand ... Lamb gave Beagle a look of unforced indignation. 'My place afterwards,' he murmured. And was gone. Lamb left at the next station without further contact of any description with the rest of the cell.

Yes, she thought rather bitterly, seven o'clock was no problem to her. What did she have to do that was more important than Innoright? What did she have to
do,
come to think of it? But Lamb stopped that train of thought at once, that really was not the way to think, not in any way, not ever according to the instructions of the nice doctor. And although Lamb would never dream of telling the nice doctor what she was up to at Innoright, she still had a feeling that he, the doctor, would not totally disapprove. Lamb was after all thinking of others just as the doctor had told her to do, and at the same time valuing herself.

'Better to love others than hate yourself.' Lamb was definitely loving others - the others being the animals. And Beagle.

Lamb picked up a taxi outside the Tube station and went home.

Lamb's sister looked up when Lamb entered the house; the front door of the little Chelsea house which they shared opened directly into the sitting-room. The first sight which should have met Lamb's eyes at this point was a large oil portrait — over-large for the small room - which hung in a dominating fashion over the fireplace. It showed a man in military uniform; he had an incongruously fierce air amid the girlish chintzes with which the room was decorated. But Lamb took care not to look at the portrait and thus avoided the ferocious gaze which her father appeared to be bestowing upon the room's inhabitants. The nice young doctor had talked to her at length about 'finding your own way of dealing with your father's memory'. Lamb's own way was to refuse to look at the portrait altogether otherwise she found rage, what was worse, helpless rage, welling up inside her.

It helped Lamb to inspect automatically instead the various photographs of her mother which stood in silver frames on the occasional tables, chintz-draped, scattered about the room. An observer would have noted the strong resemblance between Lamb and her mother, even down to the tense expression they shared; but between the girl now standing (unseeing) beneath the portrait and the portrait's subject, it was difficult to see any resemblance at all.

'Good day, darling?' enquired Lamb's si
ster as Lamb entered. Her low-he
eled court shoes had been kicked off and she was reading the evening paper. The tone was perhaps artificially bright, as though the conventional enquiry masked, for once, some real concern about the nature of Lamb's day.

'Mmm. Went to the Tate. Awfully crowded. And you?'

'Good day, bad day. You know how it goes. I've got the evening off. Am I going to make you some supper? Promise not a whisper of meat anywhere, or fish, no bouillon or naughty stock cubes, Chef gave me this wonderful recipe. I'm longing to try it.'

'I'm afraid I have to go out,' replied Lamb, 'and don't frown.'

'I'm not frowning,' said her sister mildly. 'I haven't said a word.'

'Well, your look was worried. I can't bear that. You're not supposed to worry about me, I'm supposed to worry about me if anyone does. It's called taking responsibility for myself. I have to go out. Do you find that odd? As a matter of fact I said I'd go to a film with Janey. It's a long one. I might be quite late.' Lamb was aware that she was speaking too rapidly.

'Sounds fun!'

'I don't know that it will be all that fun,' began Lamb in a slightly childish voice. She stopped. 'I may be late, that's all. Janey does go on a bit these days. Her parents' divorce. The whole thing.'

'But that was ages ago. I mean, you told me she'd finally got over it the last time you saw her. You were so relieved. Anyway, darling, I don't think Janey really should burden you of all people with things like that -'

It was the turn of Lamb's sister to stop. Then:

'Darling Lydia,' resumed Lamb's sister,
Ione
Quentin, in the same equable voice she was wont to use to Princess Amy in order to smooth over an awkward moment. 'Why
not
go to a cinema indeed? I'll try the recipe another night. I'm whacked as it happens. P.A.
not
in a good mood because Ferdel failed to show ... Really that man, although I can't help fancying him when he's actually there. He looks a bit like Daddy, don't you think? Pictures of Daddy as a young man; not as you remember him. And of course P.A. fancies him like mad, so she gets all jealous.'
Ione
Quentin stopped. 'Am I boring you, darling? I'm sure you don't want to hear all this. Tell me what you saw at the Tate.'

'No, no, go on,' Lydia Quentin, known in some circles as Lamb, spoke with evident sincerity. 'I love hearing about your life at
cp.
I like the little details. Go on about Ferdel. So what did he do? Go on about everything. What about all those awful wedding arrangements? You're so clever, Nonie, I really love hearing it.'

The Quentin sisters settled down for a nice royal gossip until such time as Lydia Quentin had to leave again to keep her appointment at South Kensington station.

About this time, in other parts of the city, various other forms of what might also be termed royal gossip were taking place. For example, it would probably be legitimate to term the remarks made by a man leaning over some emerging photographic prints, as royal gossip; even if the remarks themselves were too scabrous to be printed in any actual gossip column.

As for Jemima Shore, sprawling on the white carpet of her Holland Park Mansions flat, with Midnight flumped down blackly beside her, she might be said at the very least to be studying royal gossip. All about her were notes, charts and newspaper cuttings, preparatory to her exclusive interview with the royal couple in the near future. When the telephone rang, she realized that it must be Rick Vancy making one of those checking calls from his car telephone which somehow seemed to her to do little more than establish Rick Vancy's ability to drive and digress (on topics of the day) at one and the same time.