The Audience by Peter Morgan Read Free Book Online Page A

Albert.
     
    Wilson I can guess how that went … (
Mimicking Prince Albert’s German accent
.) ‘Please make it look exactly like a Rheinland schloss.’
     
The Queen can’t help laughing.
     
    Do you mind if I smoke, Ma’am?
     
    Elizabeth Not at all.
     
Wilson produces a cigar, and lights it.
     
    Have you mislaid your pipe?
     
    Wilson No. The pipe’s strictly for the television and the campaign trail. All that folksy unpacking of tobacco and paraphernalia makes me approachable, and buys me time if the question’s a tricky one. The cigar’s my first love, but too potent a symbol of capitalist privilege and power. If I walked round puffing one of these I’d lose the left in my party in a second.
     
    Elizabeth The impression I get is you already have. By reneging on all those radical election promises you made.
     
    Wilson Maybe I’ll gain new friends on the right.
     
    Elizabeth No.
They
hate you for devaluing the pound. And that after all that grandstanding, and promises not to … (
Mimics
.) ‘My party will not be seen as the party of devaluation.’
     
    Wilson All right, all right. I thought we were on holiday.
     
    Elizabeth We are.
     
    Wilson Then couldn’t we leave politics out of it? Just for twenty-four hours? I’ve come here to recover. Get my strength back.
     
    Elizabeth Holiday it is. Can I offer you a drink?
     
    Wilson I thought you’d never ask.
     
    Elizabeth Whisky?
     
    Wilson Brandy, Ma’am.
     
The Queen pours him a drink.
     
    There is a curious paradox at the heart of political life. All politicians crave being loved – what is an election if not a popularity contest? But the first requirement of the job is to be hated.
     
    Elizabeth Mine, too, incidentally. We’re both lightning rods, Prime Minister. Pressure valves. People need someone to be angry with, and generally that’s us. But you won’t catch me complaining about it.
     
    Wilson I wasn’t complaining.
     
    Elizabeth Yes, you were. I heard it in your voice.
     
    Wilson No, what you heard, Ma’am, was the sound of a heart breaking. Dreams shattering. When you realise you have not
won
an election at all, it is the previous government that has
lost
it …
     
    Elizabeth Would you like me to cheer you up?
     
    Wilson Please!
     
    Elizabeth That is something of which your nemesis, Mr Heath, has no idea. He still thinks he might actually
win
against you.
     
    Wilson Ha! The Grocer? Don’t mention his name to me. That man is odious. Odious I tell you. Even my saintly wife Mary, not a malicious thought in her head, cannot bear him. The man’s incompetent, insensitive and, worst of all, he’s a snob.
     
    Elizabeth And what makes you think I’m not?
     
    Wilson I’ve been in professional politics twenty-seven years, and I pride myself on this: I can sniff a Tory at a hundred paces. And you’re not one, Ma’am. Not a real one, anyway. You understand ordinary people. Working people. And where can that come from? Having been locked up in mausoleums like this all your life. You may be the richest woman in the world, but you’re also worrying about the cost of the central heating, telling yourself to go back into the room and switch the lights off –
     
    Elizabeth (
to herself
) It’s the Bobo in me.
     
    Wilson Deep down you’re not just happier with normal folk, you’re one of us. I’d even go as far to say –
     
He looks left and right.
     
    There’s a good Labour woman in there somewhere.
     
The Queen laughs.
     
    Elizabeth If I were Labour, I would approve of your proposals to reform the House of Lords.
     
    Wilson And you don’t?
     
    Elizabeth Certainly not. And I’m not the only one. I read the
Mail
which suggested the proposed two tiers of the new House of Lords was –
     
    Wilson I know – (
Reciting perfectly
.) ‘A confusing hodge-podge of antithetical ideas and policies, a situation of needless bureaucracy where deposed hereditary peers will inevitably reclaim their voting rights when they are