Chapter Sixteen
Back then
Caroline had stayed for dinner, and had been talking for ten minutes about a christening she had no intention of attending, while James made the appropriate noises at the appropriate intervals and, beneath the lip of the table, worked his thumb across the screen of his mobile.
He’d had Benton record him at the flower show that afternoon. The result: a discreet clip taking in the crowd the moment he dropped the joke. James queued it up and sent it without preamble.
There he was at the lectern in his grey Huntsman blazer, hemmed in on all sides by tulips.
He’d looked out across the marquee, and delivered the line: I know I’m here to judge the best in show, but I’ll confess I’m rooting for all of you.
The audience hesitated a half-second, as if making sure the King had made a pun on purpose, and then the whole tent went off.
Of course, there was sycophancy in it. But the comic timing and delivery had been his own.
this proves NOTHING, came the reply, before Caroline had got to her rant about the godparents and their tendency towards very ungodly behaviours. they laughed because there’s a crown in the room. where’s tomorrow’s thing?
So you believe the charm of my smile did nothing towards softening the crowd?
The dots appeared. Caroline had moved on to the iniquities of the seating plan.
“—and she’s put the Vansittarts next to the band, James, which tells you precisely how she feels about them,” she was saying. He gave a sound of grave agreement as his mobile buzzed.
you looked like a gameshow host. now where are you gonna be tomorrow?
A charity reception, James typed, ignoring the put-down. For retired civil servants.
this time I want you to end with a real stinker. “it’s been a real pleasure. You’ve all been nothing but CIVIL.” Land it on civil. you will be booed.
James read the pun several times, in case it improved. Instead it got worse with each reading, and he laughed at the prospect of the conversation he’d have with Benton on the way home.
‘Are you feeling quite well, Sir? Only that you’ve been going rather off-script lately.’
Caroline stopped mid-sentence and narrowed her eyes at him. “James, I’ve been perfectly charming all evening and got absolutely nothing back from you. Is that someone from your Order of the Bedchamber?”
“It isn’t, no.” James turned the mobile face-up on the table. “It’s Tristan.”
Caroline’s brows climbed. “My Tristan?”
James slid his mobile to her so she could read through the thread.
“He’s labouring under the conviction that I only get my laughs because I’m King, and it’s basically treason to make me feel bad about myself.
I’ve put it to him that I have a natural charm independent of the office that helps me land my jokes.
He disagrees. So he’s been feeding me puns to try out on my engagements and prove his point. They’ve been going down a treat.”
She scrolled down their conversation. “Ah. So that’s what your little comedy routines have been about. Benton was beginning to worry. He’d convinced himself that the Royal Variety performance had turned your head, and that you were one bad afternoon away from trying your hand at a tight five.”
“I’m not developing an act.”
“He has a contingency drafted regardless. He always does.” She handed his mobile back. “It’s a ten-point plan for steering you off the open-mic circuit before any of it reaches the columns, without wholly deflating your artistic ego. Even Kings must have a creative outlet, in his opinion.”
“I’m doing it out of spite, Caroline. Nothing loftier than that,” James said. “I’ve a closer Tristan’s given me for tomorrow’s reception.”
“Do I want to hear it?”
“You don’t. But I need a test audience, and you’re conveniently here.
” He found his lectern register. “I thank the civil servants around me for years of distinguished service to the Crown. I move towards the door, and then I turn back, and I tell them: it’s been a real pleasure. You’ve all been nothing but civil.”
He held the pause exactly as Tristan had instructed, then gave her his most winning smile.
Caroline’s face didn’t move. “Oh, James,” she sighed.
“He’s really set me up for failure, hasn’t he?” James asked, delighted.
Caroline reached for her wine. “He ought to be prosecuted. There are still lèse-majesté provisions buried somewhere in the statute book, and I’d argue a sustained campaign of escalating puns against the reigning monarch clears the threshold.”
“It does rather feel like an assault on the dignity of the Crown.”
“The difficulty is that he’s far too charming to disappear into a black site.” She set her glass down. “And it’d also be highly inconvenient because I’ve invited him up to Sandringham with us.”
“No, Caroline. He can’t come. And it isn’t that I don’t like him, because I do like him a great deal more than I expected to. But Lex is proposing to Bash that weekend, and the whole visit’s been built around it. We need to keep the numbers down. Family, the Privy Council, no one beyond that.”
“James.” Caroline fixed him with her full attention, which was rarely good news for him.
“Tristan is on his own in this country. He’s just landed the role of his life, and there’s no one here to mark it or make a fuss of him.
So he’s coming. I’ll keep him well clear of the engagement itself, I promise you that.
But he is going to have one good weekend among people who are glad for him before he has to get to work. ”
There was no arguing with his sister once she’d reached that level of conviction. Benton could shepherd the man somewhere harmless on the Saturday night.
“Fine. He comes. But he goes nowhere near that stable yard once the dinner things are cleared. Bash will be furious if he cries in front of a stranger, and we don’t want a pall over his night.”
“Agreed.”
Now that she’d got exactly what she wanted, Caroline softened all at once. “Do you know, if you’d told me a few years ago that our Bash, who still goes pink at the sight of a suggestively arranged sausage, would end up with that great giant of a man, I’d have had you committed.”
James grinned. “I know. And the worst of it is that Lex has earned him. They’re revolting together. The man is disgustingly happy.”
Caroline reached over and patted his arm. “Our great love will come to us all, James,” she said, and squeezed once before she let go.
There was a little of the fish left on James’s plate, and he gave it more attention with his fork than it warranted while she watched him.
She had never said anything outright about Bash. Some time in their awkward teenage gangliness, she’d worked out the shape of what he carried for his best friend, and known better than to press the issue or to tease.
“Tell me you believe it, James.” She wasn’t letting it go. “That you’ll find someone too.”
“Of course.” He set the fork down. “It’s a constitutional necessity. I’ll need a steady supply of babies to show off on the Lindo Wing steps.”
Caroline reached across, took his chin between her fingers, and turned his face to hers.
“You will find the one you want,” she said.
“The one you won’t be able to live without and who’ll help you get through your lot in life.
And when you do, James, you will be brave about it.
You’ll let the very intelligent people around us move the whole world about to suit the two of you.
Because they can, and they will, the moment you require them to. ”
Of course she would make it sound that simple, as though the apparatus that had spent his whole life arranging him into something acceptable could be turned, just like that. She meant it as a kindness, so he wasn’t about to call her out on her unwarranted optimism.