Free King and Joker by Peter Dickinson Page A

click as he turned, suave and smiling, to thank Mr Jones for coming and make sure that Commander Tank fed him into the machinery for easing such people out of the Palace. As he moved away Louise saw that Mother was still holding the shrub and Father still shovelling the earth round its roots.
    â€œHell,” said Albert. “I’d better go and help. I wish he felt he could leave it to Farren.”
    â€œI don’t,” said Louise. “The papers are going to say he planted it himself, so he’s got to.”
    â€œLucky he doesn’t feel the same about foundation stones, or he’d finish up building the whole hospital.”
    â€œThat’s different. Bert?”
    â€œUh?”
    Louise looked at her parents. Though Mr Jones had gone they still seemed posed and artificial against the sweep of the lower branches of the big cedar, with the edge of a storm bruise-blue behind its apex and the slant light of evening slotting between the heavy horizontal branches.
    â€œDo you know about Nonny?” she said.
    â€œYes, of course. Mother told me when I was about ten. I’ve always felt it was funny they should make such a song and dance about telling you.”
    â€œMother told you?”
    â€œYes, of course. Why?”
    â€œSomething happened yesterday which made me think she minds more than she pretends to.”
    â€œI think you’re wrong. What sort of thing?”
    â€œWell …”
    With a little stumble of hesitation Louise explained about the essay, and her talk with Mother, and the sudden sense of rejection as soon as she mentioned the press-cuttings.
    â€œâ€¦ and when I went to the Library next day,” she finished, “I found they were moving out everything before 1960.”
    â€œWhat! All the good wishes about my birth, and poor old Masefield’s extraordinary poem in The Times ?”
    â€œOh, Bert!”
    â€œSorry. I know what you mean, but I think it’s something else. I don’t know what—you do hit reefs with Mother, though. Something happened when I was born, for instance—I’ve never found out what. Are you worried?”
    â€œA bit. I’m glad I asked you, though. I don’t like the idea of living with a sort of lie. I mean … Look at them now.”
    They watched the King of England straighten, put his hand to the small of his back and do a mock hobble round to Mother. She said something. He put his arm round her waist and together they watched Mr Farren brush the last of the loam from his lovely turf.
    â€œIt’s funny how things become symbols,” said Albert in his Archbishop Coggan voice. “Father’s not interested in plants, and Mother doesn’t like this one, but now they’ve made it mean something to both of them. I make these observations from the standpoint of one who is destined by birth to become a symbol himself, in his own humble way.”
    â€œI’m glad it’s you and not me,” said Louise.
    Slowly, with linked arms, Mother and Father began to stroll along the lawn, not towards the Palace but sideways, parallel with the lake.
    â€œThat’s nice, isn’t it?” said Nonny’s voice from behind them. “It seems a pity to interrupt them.”
    She was walking down from the terrace, looking very secretarial with her specs pushed up on her forehead and a pad in her hand. She smiled vaguely at Louise as she swept past with her long-legged bouncy stride.
    â€œNo, watch,” muttered Albert, somehow guessing that Louise felt it was not just prying but actually risky to do so. Their Majesties seemed to hear Nonny coming, for they swung and stood there, still arm in arm but in a faintly formal stance, as though they were now posing for a much more old-fashioned picture of married harmony. Nonny seemed to sense this too, for she turned her last stride into a curtsey so low that she unbalanced and almost fell sprawling. It was Mother who helped