The Audience by Peter Morgan Read Free Book Online

August the Prime Minister is invited to Scotland to spend a weekend as a guest at Balmoral Castle. While there, Her Majesty and the PM often take a moment to catch up on matters of State. Generally they meet in the drawing room.
     
The Equerry turns to face the dark space behind him.
     
    A desk in the corner, made by George Hepplewhite in 1775. Two Landseer portraits. A trophy of a stag’s head, a fourteen-pointer, believed to have been shot by Prince Albert in 1844. On the mantelpiece a gold-framed clock made by Ferdinand Berthoud. Two chairs, from Arbuckle and Haines, in Inverurie, with a tartan throw hand-woven by Mrs Janet MacDuff, an estate employee. A large fireplace dominates the room, but supplementary warmth is provided, when required, by a three-bar electric heater bought from John Lewis on the 5th of August 1968.
     
A lighting change:

  
It’s six p.m. on 20th August 1968. We’re in a drawing room at Balmoral Castle, Aberdeenshire. Wooden panelling. Stag’s antlers. Tartan carpets.

  
From outside the windows we can clearly hear the rain falling.

  
A uniformed Major of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders serenades his sovereign in the distance.

  
Harold Wilson staggers in. Soaking wet and shivering. He is wearing ill-fitting country clothes. A drowned rat.
     
    Equerry Prime Minister!
     
    Wilson M-m-may I stand by the fire? Just a moment.
     
He stands by the three-bar electric fire. The Queen enters, wearing tartan.
     
    Elizabeth You got caught in the ‘rude rain’! It’s what the locals call it.
     
    Wilson That’s not rain, Ma’am. It’s daggers of merciless ice. Blowing at fifty miles per hour. H-h-horizontally. In August. This unholy mess –
     
He indicates his utterly dishevelled appearance.
     
    – is as a result of me popping fifty yards to the car to fetch Mary’s reading glasses …
     
    Elizabeth (
chuckles
) The Tsar of Russia – when he came to visit – claimed it was colder here than in the wastes of Siberia.
     
Wilson thaws by the fire, drying off.
     
    Be reassured. I’ve spoken to the ghillies and told them we’ll have our picnic at Gelder Shiel. It’s covered there.
     
    Wilson Picnic? Good God …
     
His face perceptibly falls.
     
    I was told that in the event of bad weather we’d be having dinner here in the Castle.
     
    Elizabeth But this
isn’t
bad weather. Just a spot of summer rain. How did you enjoy the Games today?
     
Wilson walks over to take a seat.
     
    Wilson The enjoyment of any sport comes with an understanding of its subtleties. I am sure there
are
nuances to caber tossing, putting the stone, and tugs of war, and profound allegorical significance to Highland dancing, but I’m afraid they are lost on me.
     
    Elizabeth It’s quite simple. The sports are trials of strength going back to the days of clan military recruitments, and the Highland dancers –
     
The Queen lifts her arms above her head in a lyre shape, spreading her fingers and pointing a toe.
     
    – symbolise magnificent stags, leading their herds.
     
The hands above her head, it becomes apparent, represent antlers. From outside the bagpipe music strikes up again.
     
    Wilson Here we go again. (
Indicating the window
.) Will that chappie never stop?
     
    Elizabeth The Piper to the Sovereign plays every morning at nine a.m., wherever the Crown is in the world. Has done ever since Queen Victoria. One just retired, so we’re auditioning for his replacement. This one’s rather good, I think.
     
The Queen goes to look out of the window. We notice she is wearing a tartan skirt.
     
    Wilson Honestly, you lot and your ‘Scottishness’. Doesn’t fool me for a second. You should have someone playing the accordion in lederhosen. This whole place looks like a Rheinland schloss. Come to think of it, it
is
a Rheinland schloss.
     
    Elizabeth It was built by a local Aberdeen architect, with stone from our quarries, with just one or two modifications to the design by Prince