Windsor Christmas dinners were often long affairs, as was the case with most of the world’s families. The dinner could be adequately split into three main movements – a ravenous, hopeful start where all participants were looking forward to what they were about to consume; a contented, jovial middle where everyone was happy with their tablemates and their light conversation as their stomachs still left room for more; and a full, irritable end where everyone was well and truly fed up with everything happening around them – conversation drying up and still more food lying there, less a delicious sustenance and more a vile challenge. All of these cavernous movements felt feature-length, especially for the man who had to stand outside the dining room door, forever ready to leap to action at the sound of a bell.
Thus it was that Jon listened to the family tuck into chicken and parsnip soup with crisp Camembert croutons and realised that he would be in it for the long haul. He had to go back to the small kitchen to switch the dishes in the steam tables. But the rest of the time would be spent here, just outside the dining room doors, in case he was needed within.
‘This looks positively scrumptious,’ Maud said as the door closed behind Jon. He was glad that the first thing uttered when he was not present was a compliment and not a slight. Compliments were far more impressive when not made under duress.
‘What are those things?’ Martin said. ‘They look like cheese.’
‘I think they may be cheese, oddly enough,’ Matthew said.
It is important to note that Jon did not wish to eavesdrop on the dinner. If he was called for within, it would be by a small bell alerting him. However, the doors to the dining room, which were directly behind him, were thin, and Jon could hear everything said whether he wanted to or not. He may as well have been in the room, but he could understand the need for the illusion of privacy. The illusion of privacy was something that the Royal Family had gotten used to.
For the starter, as custom dictated, the conversation (much like the soup) was light. Presented by Maud, the topic was the television programme The Monarch. The Monarch, as no doubt already surmised, was a television programme on ITV1 unofficially dramatizing the events of the reign of King Eric. It was currently in its fourth series and was getting closer and closer to being up to date.
‘. . . I for one think it’s just what the country needs. An impartial look into our lives. Thomas, darling, tell them about your encounter.’
Crockley launched into a long story about how he was approached by one of the researchers for the programme in an upmarket London bar called The Gentlemen. ‘He wanted to pay me to liaise with him about the family. Tried to give me his card. Of course, I told him to sling his hook.’
‘It does open the question of whether we should be liaising though,’ Maud said. ‘We could help them to get some of the details right. Emeline, you were saying how they got your courtship with Anton wrong.’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake. Anton this. Anton that,’ Marjorie snipped, so quietly Jon almost did not hear.
‘I’m just saying that they are getting things wrong, and omitting other things entirely,’ Maud said. ‘They didn’t even mention Poppy.’
‘Poppy?’ Marjorie scoffed. ‘Poppy? Who is . . . Do you mean that golden retriever you wanted to adopt once? Wasn’t that it? What a startling omission.’
Maud said nothing to this.
‘We do not concern ourselves with television dramatists, Maud,’ the King said, cutting in, with the vindictiveness of one who had recently spent ten hours recording a seven-minute Christmas speech. He told Jon afterwards that he had performed the speech in one take perfectly, but the damn director wanted to get ‘artsy’ with it. ‘I would have you remember that if these researchers ever come knocking at your door.’
‘I hasten to agree,’ David said.
‘And why would that be, Uncle?’ Maud said rapidly.
The aged Prince changed the subject. ‘The lack of seasoning really is apparent, isn’t it? Maybe time to lay the old boy out to pasture, eh?’
‘Nonsense,’ Eric said.
Horrifyingly, the conversation moved to Jon’s ability to cook. Therefore, he was mightily glad that his timer started vibrating, and he had to move off to the upper kitchen. Once there, he loaded up the trolley with the finest Christmas dinner in all of England and wheeled it to its final destination. As he got back to the dining room, he knocked before pushing the trolley inside. Despite the comments, David and Marjorie were the only ones to whoop and cheer. This was most likely attributed to the fact that there were somehow already two empty wine bottles between them. Jon replaced them with full ones from the trolley after clearing the soup bowls and placing fresh plates in front of the family. Lastly, Jon placed all of the food in the centre of the table – he started to serve meats, advancing on the turkey with a skewer, but the King waved him away with a smile. Therefore Jon left the room and went to prepare the desserts. As the desserts were finished and largely cold, Jon put them on the trolley and started wheeling it through the castle.
When he returned to his place outside of the dining room, it was not long before he was joined by another. As the Royal Family was to feast upon sumptuous turkey, duck, gammon, bacon-wrapped pork sausages, honeyed carrots and parsnips, Brussels sprouts tossed with walnuts and pancetta, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, and all manner of condiments and garnishes, including three different types of homemade gravy, Jon had to stand there with a growling belly and try to maintain conversation with Tony Speck, who appeared from the opposite direction to the dining room and the kitchens. He must have been outside, as there was still snow sticking to the ends of his moustache.
It did not begin well. Inside the room, the family were talking of their interpersonal relationships, and outside the room, Jon could only think of his lack of one with the oaf standing next to him.
‘Is everything in order?’ Speck said, eyeing up the desserts.
Before he could stop himself, Jon snapped, ‘Where have you been?’
Speck frowned. ‘Protecting the monarchy. Where have you been?’
Jon ignored the flagrant bullheadedness of the question. ‘The last I checked the monarchy was in here, and not in the blizzard outside.’
‘You do not have a head for threats, Alleyne. You are no tactician.’
Jon would have argued that every single action in the kitchen today had proved him a brilliant tactician, but there really was no talking to Speck. It was easier to just shut up and take his mockery.
‘Assassins stalk this world, Alleyne. I must think like them. And I do.’ He sounded like he rather enjoyed it. ‘Really, one of the best things about today is it gave me licence to requisition that new Balmoral security system I’ve been wanting. I now have sensors everywhere on the grounds. All kinds – thermal, auditory, movement. If anything triggers them, I am notified immediately. If anyone strays onto the grounds, if there’s a soul here besides the two of us and the Royal Family, I will know.’ Speck fumbled in his jacket and brought out a tablet. ‘Look here.’
He held the screen up to Jon, like an excited toddler showing off his Christmas present. The screen displayed a topographical wireframe map of the surrounding area. Ten small red dots pulsed inside a lined facsimile of the building – like something out a science fiction film.
‘The red dots are us.’
‘This is thermal imaging?’ Jon asked.
Speck nodded proudly.
‘But there are other heat sources in the castle besides us?’
‘That’s what makes this system so impressive. It can weed out the cats and the microwaves, and just show me the humans that are on the property. Assassins, Alleyne. They don’t stand a chance now.’
‘How does that work?’ Jon said, genuinely curious, but of course Speck shrugged. He didn’t understand the equipment, he just used it.
‘All that matters is that the Royal Family is the safest it has ever been.’
Jon was a little thankful for that – Speck’s new system was indeed comprehensive. His men had spent the entirety of the last week installing it. It did offer some sort of feeling of safety, even if it was in Speck’s hands. But the impressiveness of the system did beg a question. ‘If the Royal Family is so safe, why do you need to be out patrolling all day?’
‘This is why you are the chef, and I am the protector, Alleyne. You would simply not understand.’
Speck was absolutely correct – Jon did not understand one bit. ‘I assumed that when the two of us were assigned today, there would be a trifle more . . . give-and-take.’
‘Give-and-take? Christ, Alleyne. You wanted me to help you whisk something, and then what? How are you of any use to me? Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you get to lord over me.’
‘That’s not what I meant and you . . . ’ But Jon could not complete what he started. He knew it to be fruitless. The two servants, standing to attention like the Beefeaters outside the Tower of London, fell into an uncomfortable silence. If not for the sound of far more interesting interactions happening within the dining room, Jon would have found it hard to stay where he was.
Inside, it seemed that Prince Martin was regaling the family with random facts. ‘Did you know that there is a fruit that tastes like chocolate pudding?’
No one appeared to be paying attention to him, however. ‘I am just saying that I would have preferred my private scolding to have been separated from Christmas,’ David was saying.
‘I’m sorry, dear brother. I truly am. I simply had to air a few things out before – ’
‘And while we are at it – ’ David interrupted, before he himself suffered the same fate.
‘Before?’ Emeline said. ‘Before what, Father?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Did you know that hot water freezes faster than cold water?’ Martin said.
‘You said “before” as if we were quickly hurtling towards something only you are privy to.’
The King seemed to pause. Jon knew he would be scratching his chin in the way he always did – usually when stuck on a particularly fiendish puzzle. ‘Well, yes. There is always a before, and always an after. We are currently in the in-between. So why don’t we just enjoy the moment, hmm?’
This was clearly not the answer anyone wanted to hear, from the sighs coming from the room, and Jon had to admit that he would have liked to know himself what the King really meant by his use of the word ‘before.’ He stole a sideways glance at Speck, who was adjusting a cuff link with a look of extreme apathy on his face. He wasn’t listening.
The room inside was silent, and Jon bet that someone was going to speak up about this more, but Prince Martin broke the spell. ‘Did you know that there’s a place that you can shoot a man in the gut and it’ll go straight through, and he’ll survive?’
‘There’s many of those places, Martin,’ Matthew said.
A familiar tutting, loud enough to hear anywhere in the castle. ‘You have to do something about these children, Maud.’
The conversation became about Maud and Crockley’s parenting, which Jon found about as painful as they did. He found his interest waning and stopped listening. He was just about to try small talk with Speck, but he realised it would not be appreciated by either party so didn’t. He just stood there, until the bell signalled they were ready for dessert.
Jon sprang into action. The desserts were set in front of the family, and Jon was back outside the dining room door in such a well-oiled manner he was almost strangely annoyed that this was the last time he would have to do it. Tony Speck, in a manner of great good will, even kept the door open for him as he served the family, watching him every step of the way.
‘Not bad, Alleyne.’
It must be Christmas.
Squeals of joy came from the dining room as the Christmas pudding raged.
‘Look at that,’ the King marvelled. ‘A real pyre.’
As desserts were consumed, it became apparent to Jon that they had arrived at the final stage of Christmas dinner – the deepest and darkest of the lot. The stage where a family realised that the small talk was all burned up, that there was a reason they did not sit together like this more often, and that they were bound by blood and not much else. Luckily – or unluckily? – the Windsors were bound by something else: royalty, and here was where civil conversation ran dry.
‘I was saying before the interruption,’ David scoffed, ‘about my scolding . . . ’
‘Yes, yes, Uncle,’ Maud said, her words as soaked in sarcasm as the pudding was in alcohol, ‘we all understand your terrible plight.’
‘I do believe we were talking about me, Uncle,’ Emeline said.
‘Ah yes. Emeline and Anton, you have my full support,’ the King said earnestly, ‘and I think, although you may have to search a little deeper inside some people, you have the full support of everyone at this table.’
‘If that were so,’ Emeline said, ‘why is he not at this table?’
Silence.
‘And that, my dear darling daughter,’ Marjorie slurred, ‘is the greatest answer you can get from a king. Silence.’
‘Marjorie, when you are quite through weaving your webs, would you pass the Christmas pudding?’ Eric snapped.
‘For once, she is not entirely wrong, Father,’ Emeline said.
Jon felt for King Eric there. He was sure that Anton’s absence was not entirely his decision in the slightest, and any prejudices it might have implied were completely placed at the wrong door. The government still had power here, within these walls, even if they weren’t physically here. The King did not have as much power as the common man thought. The government’s influence had gotten even stricter of late – Jon had a feeling that this day was to appease the King for another year and make him more lenient to other manipulations.
The King was silent, and the room was too.
‘Let me cut in here to address the elephant in the room, as we are all talking around the subject with words marinated in others entirely,’ David said. ‘Why not just tell us what we all want to hear, Eric? Hmm? So this guessing game can come to an end. Your shake-up of the succession rules leaves us all in contention, yes?’
The new succession rules were elusive to Jon, as he tried as hard as he could to not concern himself with such matters. However, from what he had heard, the new rules abolished the idea of a line of succession, and when it came to naming a new king or queen, the retiring monarch would have more of a say about who to choose out of all potential candidates in the royal roster.
‘What is he talking about, Daddy?’ Maud said.
The King said nothing.
‘Martin, do you have any more facts?’ Matthew asked, showing himself wise beyond his years and jumping to his grandfather’s defence.
No facts came, however, but a mumble from Speck did, meaning the conversation from within moved on without Jon.
‘Do I have a dinner?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Do I have a dinner, Alleyne?’
Jon knew exactly what Speck was getting at, of course, but he thought it would take him only a few seconds to think of hundreds of ways to phrase it more politely. Give him the whole afternoon, and he could have come up with thousands. ‘The leftovers are in the residential kitchens. You can choose what you like from there. Do not eat much of the turkey though – the King likes it in his sandwiches on Boxing Day, and I would like to make a pie.’
A few minutes went by, with Jon so furious that he could not focus on anything happening in the dining room or indeed out. What a nerve! Unfortunately, it was only to get worse – ‘Be a dear and plate me up some, would you? That way I don’t overstep my turkey allowance.’
Jon saw a violent red but tried his best to exude a serene blue. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t have the time. I have to clear the table, load up the trolley, see the family from the dining room, then go and wash up.’ As if on cue, the bell rang that indicated the family were finished.
‘Very well, Alleyne,’ Speck snarled. ‘I’ll throw you a bone and settle the family in the drawing room myself. But I must do another perimeter sweep in twenty-six minutes, and I would like a full stomach by then. Be a chap and give me extra sprouts, yes. You could give me yours for being such a good sport.’
Jon bit the inside of his cheek as the both of them went inside the dining room.