Is it not true that one of the worst parts of a tragedy is the fact that the world so readily carries on after it? The planet continues turning. Time barely falters in its eternal march. Buses keep running. Tomorrow is to be expected no sooner or later than usual. Pain is all consuming and is one’s to carry alone. The lives shaken are the only ones out of sync.
As a matter of fact, this was exactly how Jon would have described the drawing room of Balmoral at that moment. Three minutes past three – the longest minute of his life. A place out of time. Less a minute and more a destination – one he never wished to visit again. He was there for years, as were the others around him. It took them all of that minute to realise that King Eric had ceased to be. And then the clock ticked over to four minutes past and it all continued happening. Planes did not fall from the sky. Power stations did not explode spontaneously. War was not declared. King Eric still spoke from fourteen million television sets throughout the British Isles. Posthumously, although his subjects were blissfully unaware of the fact.
The first thing that happened, in that newest period of Interregnum, was that someone screamed, and the second thing that happened, curiously, was that someone laughed. It was an odd fact that it was not the first thing that finally made Jon accept the reality of the situation they found themselves in, but in fact the second.
The Royal who produced the scream was Emeline. ‘Father? Father?’ Emeline, like much of the rest of her family, was horrified by the scene in front of her, but she seemed to be emotionally ahead of everyone else. She understood, much like Jon did. King Eric was gone – there was no question. He was dead – his soul no longer present. Jon did not know where his essence was – but it was no longer in the vessel laid before him. It was not a shock that anyone’s first reaction was to scream – let alone Emeline, who had just lost a father.
The cry seemed to jostle the other Royals out of their transcendent state and understanding started to infect them all. Most exhibited feelings much the same as Emeline’s. But then the laugh occurred, and it was shock that Jon felt, upon realising that one Royal had decided it was an appropriate reaction, outwardly, to exhibit.
Jon straightened up. The world did not. He was standing over the dead body of a king. His friend. His mentor. His anchor. The sight of Eric Windsor draped over the coffee table was too much to bear. ‘We have to move him.’
Marjorie was cackling like a loon and seemed to be mightily puzzled why none of the rest of them were too. ‘‘Well, he’s not dead.’ She put down her glass of whiskey and, evidently deciding that a death in the family was ample grounds for the death of decorum, picked up a wine bottle instead and upended it into her mouth. ‘He’s done this before. Get up, Eric. You’re getting stale, doing this again.’
Maud erupted into cries, closely followed by echoes from her sister. Jon was unsure if it was Eric or Marjorie who had elicited the reaction. Thomas Crockley rocked back on his heels, clicked his tongue, and comforted his wife – viewing everything that was occurring as if it were nothing to do with him.
‘He’ll get up in a minute,’ Marjorie said. ‘You’ll see.’
‘Shut up, Marjorie,’ David snapped. The King’s brother had gone an almost radiant shade of white – with tears threatening the corners of his eyes. ‘How could you say that? Just look at him.’
Jon seized the King’s shoulders. ‘Somebody help me.’ There was a body next to Jon then, and Matthew was hovering over the King’s form. Matthew and Jon looked at one another and nodded. They lifted the King as gently as they could and laid him on the carpet.
Matthew withdrew as quickly as possible. As Jon moved from the King, he held back a sob as he saw the old man’s face. The King’s eyes were closed, his eyebrows were raised in expectation and his mouth was agape in the middle of gasping for a breath that would never come.
‘Oh God, Father,’ Emeline wailed. The twin sisters were just that, in that moment – mirroring each other perfectly. She ripped Maud from Crockley’s clutches and held her tight. ‘Jonathan?’
The rest of the Royal Family were standing over him and the King. They were all looking to him for some sort of guidance, but he had no idea what to possibly do. He was the chef, for God’s sake!
He turned back to the King and knew that he would have to try to clear the man’s throat. He took two fingers and stuck them inside the King’s mouth, grimacing as he raked through something slimy. He scooped out three loads of brown grimy sludge – a substance that did not look like it came from this planet, let alone someone’s body. In reality, it was probably a concoction made up of whiskey, red wine, Christmas dinner, and maybe even breakfast toast.
‘Oh my God,’ Maud sobbed.
‘He’s played dead before, believe me,’ Marjorie was continuing, evidently absent from the rest of the room. ‘Remember our wedding night, eh, Eric?’ She made a snorting sound that seemed to be endless in its perversity – very unbecoming of a princess, much less one who would be queen.
‘Please, Margey! Look at him!’ David roared.
‘Does anyone know CPR?’ Jon said breathlessly, looking up to blank faces. He had never been taught CPR himself, although he had always thought he should have been. Whenever he brought it up with anyone, there was always the air that someone far more important would be around to save a Royal’s life. The irony was not lost on him, even in such a dire moment.
‘Wait, he does,’ Emeline said, pointing to Crockley. The man looked sheepish. ‘Thomas, you won’t stop going on about the bloody Badgers. The St John Ambulance or something. This is not the time to tell me that was one of your bloody lies.’
Crockley was hesitant, but the accusation fuelled him. ‘Now, look here, I was a Badger. But that was back in the day. Protocols have changed since then. If I do something wrong, I could really hurt the old boy.’
‘Thomas, he is bloody dead.’
Crockley glanced around at his inherited family with the right amount of panic and apprehension. ‘Okay, point taken.’ He stepped over the King and knelt down. Jon shuffled out of the way as Crockley, with a mixed amount of confidence, tipped the King’s head back and stared into his mouth. Next, he traced the outline of the King’s ribs, finding the right spot and locking his right hand there, his left hovering above it. ‘I don’t suppose anyone could hum me the Bee Gees, could they?’ It was clear it was not a joke – the man was petrified. But when no one responded, he began his chest compressions.
One, two, three, four, five. Crockley haphazardly pumped down upon the King’s chest. Then he moved to the King’s head, and with a little hesitation, blew into his mouth twice, lips locking down to form a seal. Jon watched him anxiously, fearing the worst – he didn’t think that the King would miraculously spring back up like the other Royals were clearly hoping. And after a few minutes of Crockley switching between breathing for the King and trying to beat his heart, that hope was dwindling.
‘Stop, Thomas,’ Maud said through tears. ‘Please stop.’
‘You will keep going!’ Emeline snapped.
‘Brother,’ David whispered sadly, ‘dear God in heaven.’
‘Thomas, please,’ Maud begged, partly to her husband and partly to her sister, ‘please just stop. He is gone.’
Jon staggered to stand. The Royals were behind him on their grief – and Marjorie was still in denial, looking as if she were holding back gales of laughter. The Princess Royal snorted again, a sound met with the motion of another swig of wine. The old woman was positively Roman in her shameless decadence – the shambolic paper Christmas hat nestled in her wiry hair did not help matters either. Elsewhere even David was crying, with the twins clutching each other, and Matthew trying to comfort young Martin, who was staring wide-eyed at the whole scene.
‘Keep going!’ Emeline screamed.
‘He’s gone, Aunt,’ Matthew said to her.
The King was dead. Jon’s legs threatened to give way and send him back to the floor. What was this? How could this have happened? The Royal Family were the safest they had ever been – wasn’t that what Speck had said? All the security systems in the world could not have predicted or prevented this. The King was dead.
Jon tore his eyes from the King and the family surrounding him to look out the window past the Christmas tree. The world was still glowing with pure white snow. He could not see outside properly, as frost and snow clouded the glass. It almost seemed as if the blizzard had gotten worse – as if the weather were mourning too. Maybe the snow had known what was going to happen here today and had come to take a look.
But nobody could have known. Could they? Jon thought back to the King’s final act, a simple drink from his glass and then . . .
‘What do we do?’ Maud said, defeated, as her husband finally gave up the battle. He shuffled back from the body as though it were diseased. He clutched his stomach and barely made it over to the wastepaper basket before vomiting.
‘I regularly feel that way after a kiss from the King,’ Marjorie said, chuckling. ‘Isn’t that right, Eric?’ It was clear that no one had the space in their own emotional process to accommodate her. The Princess Royal would have to forge her own path through grief and understanding.
‘Dear brother,’ David said again. He was openly weeping, a show of raw emotion that had never painted his face, at least in these walls. He tipped his glass of whiskey as if in ceremony.
Jon felt that something was very wrong, and his body acted before he even knew why. David raised the glass to his lips, and this was the motion that finally unlocked the connection in Jon’s brain – so bright, he wondered why no one else had seen it also. In one swift movement, the type that he did not know himself capable of anymore, he threw himself to David’s side and slapped the glass out of his hand just before it touched his mouth.
The glass sailed through the air and became caught in a web of Christmas tree ornaments, becoming one itself.
David scowled at the chef in utter amazement. ‘What in the great hell has gotten into you?’
Jon silently asked himself the same question, but it all became clear as he moved around to the entire family. ‘The King has been poisoned.’
The worst part of a tragedy is that the world carries on so readily after it, even when you wish it wouldn’t.