The excitable chatter had been building for some time now; the flag-draped throng on Trafalgar Square growing ever more restless, implicitly demanding that something new be in the offing. And then it came- an impromtu warbling, rising up from a loose grouping of ruddy-faced, middle-aged Britons:
-And did those feet in ancient times-
They sang out Blake's verse fairly modestly to begin with; ordinarily being reserved little Englanders, unused to causing a scene. But increasingly emboldened by an air thick with patriotic fervour, the localised warbling soon rose to a rowdy collective clamour. The contagion seemingly unstoppable now, it swept along down Whitehall, reverberating about the vain, horse-mounted leaders the British State had thought fit to immortalise there. Foremost among them being old King Charles the First, who might have been forgiven for finding this less-than-tuneful disturbance a further annoyance to add to that of his subjects having once put him to death upon this very avenue. Though, of course, he couldn´t fail to be cheered by the fact that, whether in-tune or not, these were clearly far-less rebelious minions, gathered on Whitehall today for a very different order of royal spectacle. That is, for their eagerly anticipated royal wedding.
And in the far distance now, outside Westminster Abbey, many of them could be seen pointing and gasping as the final guests exited their sleek, navy carriages. Who was it? Ah- not one of the royal set this time, but a yet more revered national treasure- for it was none other than Joanna Lumley. Some excitable cheers sounded. And who was that in the other car? They gasped... Was it.... Stephen Fry?.... Yes it was. The two of them now smiled magnanimously at the assembled masses, and as they did so both seemed to swell up so large as to positively dwarf those masses. Or was it rather the masses that had shrunk? Bowed so low in reverence as they were. Whatever the cause of the height disparity, the lofty national treasures proceeded now, hoofing their giant strides through the crowd- dangerously close to stepping upon their idolators.
"Oo- so thoughtful, that Ms Lumley," cooed one old dear draped in the flag, having just narowly avoided being squashed into the ground. "To think she'd give thought to step around little old me!"
Oh, yes, old King Charles could only have been heartened at such reverence of the people towards their social betters. Though he would certainly have been rather more careful to have avoided cultivating such ego-swollen courtiers....
"The young groom, nervously awaiting his bride," there all-of-a-sudden boomed an establishment voice that silenced the crowd. The voice was of course that of Dimble-dee- not to be confused with that of his favoured-by-nepotism BBC brother, Dimble-dum- accompanying the BBC shot of the heir to the British throne, projected up upon the big screen on Traflagar Square; one of many such screens erected up and down the land. "All those troubles that so cast a shadow over his childhood- all behind him now as he awaits she whom he's to make his queen."
Yes, there was no-one in the business quite like Dimble-dee, the BBC producer congratulated himself, leaning back to light a Malboro light. That pompous, over-inflated tone could make even the most banal of air-time filling sound as vital to the nation as one of Churchill's war-time addresses.
The producer now had the cameras focus in on the young prince, allowing the viewers opportunity to discern a few nerves upon a face otherwise so passive, so temperate; implying a pliancy that had led the establishment to see in him a most suitable heir to his grandmother. Well, far more suitable than his father anyhow. And yet more so than his hedonistic brother stood nearby; the one brother born to rule, the other to pleasure. And true to form, the grinning, red-faced-Harry was there reliving the 'stag'- A-fuck-ing-awe-some-time... Wills-was-so-ooo-waste-ed.....
'And one wonders,' continued on Dimble-dee, now waxing speculative to the nation. "Whether we might today see emotion from her majesty herself- in watching her grandson grow from that bereaved little boy who walked so mournfully behind his mother's casket, to now step up to find his happiness today. One perhaps oughtn't to be so surprised if we might today see a tear moisten her majesty's cheek...'
The image was left lingering in the nation's consciousness as the cameras panned in on the Queen's face; a face so familiar and yet so alien. Tears on old Liz's cheek? Who'd ever have thought such a thing? Not least of all because her majesty had long-since been dead...
No-one had been able to pin-point exactly when her majesty had died. Perhaps it was mid-way through having to read an especially fatuous opening-of-parliament speech, sat there in her robes of state, snuffing-it amid the vacuous buzz-words. Or maybe it was during one of her garden parties, sick and tired of the sight of all those cravely proles held in awe as they milled about the gardens of Buckingham Palace; each one wondering how many prawn vol-aux-vaunts they ought to take, how they ought to curtsey should her majesty grace them with the favour of a so-what-do-you-do-then? No, none of her innermost courtiers could quite pin-point when it had happened, but nor were they especially concerned that it had happened either. For decades of performing much the same, repetitive functions meant that her majesty's body had entered an extraordinary prolonged state of waxing and waning riga mortis- continuing to periodically stiffen so as to utter her so-what-do-thens whenever she approached an awe-struck subject, even managing to shuffle along at a nudge from her Prince Consort.
As for the old bugger himself, he wasn't wholly dismayed at this new phase of his married life- attested to by the wry grin across his churlish chops as he sat there next to his wife's corpse. For the even greater limiting of his wife's social repartee meant he was given even freer reign to make inappropriate remarks to royal audiences. Indeed, it was even encouraged now, so as to deflect any more studied attention lingering on his wife; lest anyone realise the true state of her majesty's health, perhaps even leading to the awful inconvenience of having to declare her dead. And then where would they all be? Having to crown her cabbage-brained son King, that was where, the fact of his cabbage-brain having been organically grown on a royal estate by no means having improved its fitness to rule.
He looked as bumbling as ever today, did this more modern Charles, now turning back down the aisle at the sound of the opening notes of the bridal march. And with him, the rest of those suckling upon the establishment bosom turned now too: all those royals clinging with greedy suckers onto their place on the civil list; all those barbarous foreign dictators still in Western favour, or rather, on good BAE credit; then the politicians- more grateful than most for a royal wedding during a season of open butchery on the welfare state; and finally all those national treasures- the Beckhams, the Lumleys, the Frys, the McCartneys, the Eltons. The celebrity elect, the lucky ones; though it had to be said their talents had suffered somewhat for their giddy elevation.
And yes indeed, there Kate was, entering the Abbey- staring out of those shiny hazel eyes, up towards her prince. Yes, she'd got him, had Kate, those alterside nerves on the prince's part being quite unwarranted. For Kate had been in it for the long game, unlikely then to falter at the last. She'd endured all those long nights in the dormitory at boarding school, all that smoochy fumbling she'd heard in the beds around her. But not for her- no! She was keeping herself pure for her prince, bedding down with a little photograph of the young prince at her side.... that motherless prince.... how she'd mother him! And then later, so too did she repulse the advances of all those Henrys and Ruperts that pursued her whenever the masters thought it time for the sexes to mingle, to prepare them for later studding. All those boys with their artificially rumpled appearance, with the sense of entitlement that ten-grand-a-term buys. But their plentiful advances to the coverted Kate were all repulsed; their rugger bugger exteriors sometimes even being punctured by the wound of rejection. Were they not great prospects? So they exclaimed to themselves. Men who'd give any girl the leisured, moneyed existence they were assured she wanted.
Then amid their shock, they'd been whispered the truth by others from Kate's dormitory; from those less-prized girls, though no less ambitious, looking to kindle some intimacy with the moneyed catches. Kate was saving herself for her prince, they told the boys, their penises shrivelling at the reminder that there was a status their money could not buy. Hence their bullying of Kate- a bullying the media had so relished reporting- she a martyr to ladder-climing aspirations, a Daily Mail reader's martyr par excellence. But she'd endured all that, had been indifferent to it. For she'd only one goal, had taken it with her to St Andrews where the prince was studying- coincidence, oh coincidence. There to see all those rich American girls offering him everything all at once.... But she'd been there for him during these over-zealous suitings- the 'friend'. Comforting him, cultivating a growing dependency; waiting, biding her time.... and then, one day, all of a sudden- he was hers... Every step down the ailse spoke this truth. So too the glow that dissipated all the ill will radiating from those rejected princesses, debutant's and the like, shooting poison at her from both sides of the ailse. Yes, that smile- the cat who'd got the cream- nay, the whole salmone a la creme, the whole feline-inclined, Michelin-starred shebang.
"Yes, from rather humbler origins, Kate both pursued her prince, and was then was pursued in turn," continued on Dumble-dee to the nation, adding his own contibution to the myth of the middle-class monarch, so beloved of the media and their aspirant readership. That all their foregoing little pleasures so as to buy that better quality car, to landscape the front garden, to send their children to posher schools wasn't in vain; that their sacrifices could be rewarded with elevation to the highest station- to marry a prince. Yes- that was the dream that kept them going, kept them saving; a dream today made incarnate...
"She's not one of us!" screamed a dissenting voice from a village green down in Surrey, looking with the other royal street party goers up at 'their girl' on the big screen. Though clearly he hardly shared their rapture, he a bearded leftist, bent forward with head and hands locked in some stocks. "She's a millionaire, for Christ's sake! She went to an an elite bloody boading school," he screamed, futiley struggling against his captivity.
"Now, come on, Geoff," said one villager, indulgently scolding this village pariah. "Pipe down a bit."
"I mean, just look at her- she's one of them!" he screeched impotently again. For poor Geoff had been unable to afford to fly away with other Guardianistas, off to one of the dwindling number of socialist nations. Nor was he even able to flee to nearby Republican France, where they knew better the kind of ceremony befitting royalty- chop, chop. Though of course old England had known that spectacle too, before France even. And who knew that better than the old King back down Whitehall? For though the Restoration had returned him his head, he'd certainly felt the regicide well enough. The bloody civil war.... the affront of his own subjects putting he, their rightful King on trial.... the death warrant that followed... his being led to the Whitehall scaffold.... the extra jumper worn so as not to shake before the mob.... his head on the block....
As for England-stuck Geoff then, in being neither able to avoid the parties on every street, nor able to constrain his rage to a sneer over a glass of cava, he'd resigned himself to being willingly locked in the stocks.
"Come on, Geoff," said another lady, glancing warmly at him, she of the sort that can't but help weigh into a battle of hearts and minds. "It's been a tough year for everyone- we're all feeling the pinch. It's nice to have a little escapism isn't it, Geoff? Come on, isn't it nice for us all, Geoff? Can't you be happy for them, Geoff? Be happy for us?"
She smiled, Geoff screeched an animal screech; scraping skin and bone as his every muscle spasmed in despairing fury...
Old King Charles too had had enough. Though he'd been dead for several centuries, the grotesque degeneration of his successors had driven whatever spirit still lingered about his statue into violent revolt. It had been those all-too-familiar discussions of 'Wills' and 'Kate-the-middle-class-monarch' that had done it; all the gossipy tittle-tattle; all the sentimental reminiscing over a dead, traitorous princess... But worst of all was the sight of the circus of politicos, bureaucrats and media types who today seemed to pull the strings of the dead monarch. So he dismounted his horse, his heavy frame thudding down onto Trafalgar square; unnoticed by the royal revellers but for a few Japanese tourists, who in their ever-readiness instantly began clicking away on their Nikons. Amd vision now coming to his bronzed eyes, old King Charles now noted the scaffolding outside Whitehall's old Tudor Palace, set there by its restorers. The scaffold throbbed ominously for the old King. So he drew his sword, making off through the crowd towards it....
Back in Wesminster Abbey now, Kate looked up at her prize, he gawkishly down at her. A nation swooned. Indeed, only the media moguls paused for thought other than of matrimonial bliss. Had she a tragedy in her? So they wondered. For after all, though many, many newspapers had been sold in leaking details of Kate's past, together with the endless whetting of their reader's appetites with details of the big day, what about after this long-awaited climax? Sure, there'd be paparazzi shots of them arm in arm on a beach somewhere- Kate in a fetching thong, tender caresses to note of the prince. But then?.... Maybe a few commemorative anniversary plates, the leaked details of their early marital bliss.... But then?.... No, she was no Diana, they all realised that; they better than anyone had a nose for such things. Unlike Charles for Diana, 'Wills' was her all, had always been her all. So there'd be no revelling in her public martyrdom for Kate; no carefully choreoraphed photos of her looking lonesome by the Taj Mahal; no finding consolation in being the-queen-of-everyone's-hearts. And still less would there be hunky rugger buggers or billionaires to have intimate liasons with, for she´d rejected all that already. She standing there now with that satisfied smile, unfaltering even as those curious eyebrows of the arch-bishop were creeping out towards her. Yes, she do. He do. She double-do.
But then- Aha!- one of the media moguls had it now as he sat there in the Abbey, his small eyes set lizard-like in his face, roving in calculation across the faces of an establishment he'd once been outcast to. But he'd broken their little club; had ruined them one by one, group by group, till they'd nothing to do but accept him; come crawling to him so as to beg that their petty corruptions go unreported. And perhaps they would go unreported.... should they then be- his. Thus the establishment had persisted, though in broken form, at the mercy of such new masters. He now took in this soon-to-be princess, whom he'd ordered so much praise be lavished upon; though of course not wholly benevolently, for then so much the greater would be the fall he'd be first to report. And it would come. Indeed he could now see how it'd happen, how his papers would be sold beyond the dispatching of the umpteenth commemorative plate. It was the very fact that Wills was her all that would undo her. For unlike other winners of long-coverted men, hers wasn't one she could keep with her at all times. There'd be countless engagements that would take her prince away. No, there'd be no feeding him up till he was unable to raise himself from the sofa of an evening- for he was evermore fated to cavort with the glittering, beautiful global elite. Nor with the Secret Service ever-present down in that Anglesea cottage, could she even resort to the shattering of bone....
The stories now swirled round in the mogul's ever-calculating brain, hopes and dreams rising and falling like so many numbers on the stock-exchange. His words-for-hire now caught on to his thoughts, ever in step with their master- for why else had he hired them? Today it was to be sugar-coated schmultz, but tomorrow- well tomorrow was another day. Inside the Abbey, outside, in the skies above, in the studios, those words-for-hire screeched in obedient, over-zealous readiness. Yes, they foresaw how her fall would begin: with a few incomprehensible mutterings to foreign dignitaries, then crystallising into eccentric verbal slights on a Nordic princess who'd taken a shine to the prince. It'd all be reported in the paper, with a knowing wink from the reporter.
Then she'd not come out at all- she'd be ill, they'd be told.... more winks... the paparazzi zooming into the windows of the cottage, catching those now wild, reddened eyes. And then the sound footage of smashed crockery as her hysteria reached new heights.... Such intrusive reporting defended as 'in the public interest'- for after all, she was to be the public's Queen.
Though she'd have to leave the house eventually, this the mogul knew, and at the thought his minions now scaled an excitement aproaching orgasm. And Elton John too, sat behind the mogul, had had his mind set spinning; always quick to scent a celebrity tragedy, another eulogy to fit the Norma-Gee formula; another spike in his fame, a few more thousand square feet for his walk-in wardrobe. Goodbye....? Goodbye.... Britain's Bloom?.... Wills's Chav?...
He knew. The mogul knew. The words-for-hire knew too- that she'd eventully be forced out of the house, heavily made-up. For media hints at the truth would compel it. And then, as she sat over a long banquet, the long-sleeved blouse she wore would be sure to slip back, revealing to the world the red scars- the indelible proof of her deranged pleas that her prince stay; that he be hers, only hers....
What had drawn her to him had undone her- there was their story as she said her final 'I do'. That aspirant types be warned- they don't really want what they think they want. But still the nation gushed, other's blubbed, at the sight of this no-doubt all-too-ephemeral happiness. And indeed, Dimble-dee was even lost for words.... all the whilst the mind of the media mogul spun its dark machinations...
Meanwhile outside, old King Charles slashed defiantly at the crowd with his sword, shouting wildly in an archaic tongue. And sure enough, arms and limbs were sliced away, severed heads bloodied flags... And yet.... and yet.... no-one paid the least attention, so enthralled there were they by the spectacle beamed down to them by the big screens.
So with no reaction forthcoming, no rallying against his tyranny, no overpowering by the mob, the Absolute Monarch was reduced to pleading. He produced an old parchment in his hand, already made up, praying to God that one of his subjects might sign it. He remonstrated to them, pointing to the subjects he'd just slain, that he'd continue to so slay- proclaiming himself God's representitive on earth. And then his call was answered, for someone had seen the document brandished, the pen at the ready. It was some minor celebrity, a B-lister who'd humiliatingly not been invited to the wedding. So wounded had he been at this that the B-lister had even masqueraded as a republican so as to dampen the blow in front of his other celebrity friends. He'd refused the invite on principle, the B-lister had hectored at the chosen ones. Though his self-worth was now at an all-time low for his being unable to stay away; for his being reduced to standing in revelry with the proles. So he now greedily made for the document- signing his autograph on the old King's death warrant with a self-restorative flourish....
Not lingering a moment longer, the old King now ran to the scaffold, so swiftly as to this time have no need of an extra jumper- his haste saw to it that shivers would come as little from cold as from fear. Though for want of a subject worthy of the deed- their pacification having mirrored that of their monarch- he was left to suffer the indignity of performing the decapitation himself.... But we shan't detain ourselves with this gory spectacle.... since no-one else did....
You may kiss the bride, said Rowan, and the smitten prince leaned in to do so. Indeed, they all did: every parasitic royal hanger-on, every craven celebrity courtier, every royal puppet master; right up to the media mogul, his tongue flickering, pocket jingling with silver as he edged in towards shiny Kate. And outside now too, people up and down the bankrupt little island closed their eyes and leaned in: all those children whose schools were no longer to be built, all those in need no longer judged so needy, all the unemployed fated to have yet more indignities piled upon them. And then finally the bearded leftist, limp and exhausted in his stocks, found that he too had leaned in; even he unable able to resist the force of the collective delusion at the last....
