The Queen and I by Sue Townsend Read Free Book Online Page A

looked forward to putting on an apron, getting into the kitchen and rattlin’ those pots and pans, just like Little Richard ordered. She would borrow Violet’s chip-pan tonight and cook egg, chips and beans for the family. Charles would have to compromise his dietary rules until she could organise a supply of pulses. She doubted if Violet had a jar of lentils she could borrow.
    As they worked, Mandy asked, “What will you miss most?”
    Diana answered instantly, “My Merc”
    “Merc?”
    “Mercedes-Benz 500 SL. It’s metallic red and it does one hundred-and-fifty-seven miles an hour.”
    “Bet that cost a bit,” said Mandy.
    “Well, about seventy thousand pounds,” confessed Diana. The room went quiet.
    “An’ who paid for that?”
    “The Duchy of Cornwall,” said Diana.
    “Who’s that?” asked Mandy.
    “My husband, actually,” said Diana.
    “Did you say seventeen thousand?” said Violet as she adjusted her pink hearing aid.
    “ Seventy thousand,” bellowed Philomena Toussaint, the only black woman in the room. There was silence.
    “For a car?” Violet’s chins wobbled in indignation. Diana dropped her eyes. She didn’t yet know that the women cleaning her kitchen, whose clothes she despised, had bought those clothes in charity shops. Violet’s 38 DD bra had been bought for twenty-five pence at Help the Aged.
    Mandy broke the silence by saying, “I’d miss the bleedin’ nanny.”
    This reminded Diana that she hadn’t seen William or Harry since her visitors had arrived. She called upstairs but there was no answer. She looked outside into the sad-looking back garden, but the only sign of life was Harris ingratiating himself with a cross-breed alsatian belonging to Mandy Carter. The two dogs circled each other. The little and the large, the commoner and the aristocrat. The alsatian was called “King”. Diana ran outside, calling, “William, Harry.” It was nearly dark. Bare bulbs showed as Hell Close prepared for night.
    “The boys have never been out in the dark before,” said Diana. The women laughed at this new evidence of the boys’ pampered existence. They regularly sent their small children to the Indian shop for late night groceries. Why keep a dog and bark yourself?
    “They’ll be playing somewhere,” comforted Violet. But Diana would not be placated. Throwing on a silk parka, she strode out in her cowboy boots to search Hell Close. She finally located them playing battleships in front of the gas fire with their grandfather at Number Nine. She watched through the window until Harry saw her and waved. Prince Philip was wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown. He hadn’t shaved and his hair hung over his ears in sparse strands. A tin of baked beans with a jagged open lid stood on the William III silver table.
    “Charles telephoned,” Philip shouted through the window. “They’re still at the hospital. Can’t ask you in; bloody front door won’t open. Bloody back door key’s lost.”
    Diana took the hint and went back to her domestic tasks. When the kitchen cupboards had been thoroughly cleaned out, the women broke for tea and Silk Cuts.
    “That should keep them at bay for a bit,” said Violet.
    “Keep what at bay?” asked Diana.
    “The cockroaches. We’ve all got ’em. Nothin’ gets rid of ’em. You could fire a Polaris missile at ’em an’ the buggers’d still come back three days later.” Violet shifted gear. “Right, what you need now is linin’ paper, before you put your food in.”
    Diana had nothing suitable, so Violet banged on the wall which divided her living room wall from Diana’s and shouted, “Wilf! Bring yesterday’s paper round.”
    Diana heard a muffled reply and soon Wilf Toby stood at the front door. He was an unusually tall man with powerful shoulders and huge feet and hands. The sort of man who is described in court as “a gentle giant” by defence barristers. But Wilf Toby was not a gentle man. He had chronic bronchitis and his constant