Saving the Queen Read online

  “What’s that one?” she pointed.

  “The Order of the Full Moon, the highest award of the Paramount Chiefs of the Gold Coast.”

  “What is their lowest award, the Order of the New Moon?”

  “Really, Caroline, you are a dreadful snob.”

  “I am nothing of the sort, really. But if it pleases you to think so, Richard, then I’ll just say, very well, I am.” Caroline was uttering these words through a fixed smile as she greeted her subjects with the royal hand-wave, which she had practiced in her bathroom the day after the Prime Minister came to Scotland to announce her accession to the throne (after giving the prescribed oath that she was not a hidden member of the Roman Catholic Church). “Try it as if you were slowly unwinding a large bottle top,” her aunt said. The wave worked.

  The Duke of Norfolk, whose aide was discreetly behind him whispering the name of the next in line, intoned the next presentation:

  “Your Majesty, I present Mr. Blackford Oakes.” Directly in front of him, the American ambassador’s wife was being embraced by Margaret Truman, thereby holding up the procession and requiring, between Blackford and the Queen, an extension of their minimal exchange. (“Good evening, Mr. Oakes.” “Good evening, ma’am.”)

  “… Are you living in London?” the Queen inquired.

  “Yes, ma’am. In fact right now I’m living it up in London.”

  The Queen smiled and suddenly her eyes deglazed and she actually looked at the person she was addressing. She found herself most agreeably surprised by a young man of poise, with quite extraordinarily attractive features, blue eyes, dark blond hair, and an ever-so-slightly mischievous expression. She guessed his age, incorrectly, at twenty-three, and wondered whether he would guess her age at less than her thirty-one years. What she didn’t know was that he knew exactly how old she was, where she was born, who her godparents were, where she had schooled, what were her talents, hobbies, passions—and he knew that she was impetuous and could be witheringly sarcastic. Yet he hadn’t known for all that he had seen ten thousand pictures of her that she was a generator of power and sex. He sensed that she could, without serious emotional turmoil, order him shot, if she had the power, which she did not, or order him to her bed, which she had the power to do but would not.

  “Whom are you escorting, Mr. Oakes?”

  “Miss Helen Hanks, ma’am.”

  The Queen turned her heavily bejeweled head to the next person in line, who had been engaged in make-talk with the Duke of Norfolk.

  “Helen,” she said amiably. Helen Hanks curtsied. “Perhaps you and Mr. Oakes can join us at our table at dinnertime? We shall sit down exactly at midnight.” Her finger had lifted, unnoticed to either Blackford or Helen Hanks, but it might as well have been a rocket for the Lord Chamberlain, who appeared from nowhere and to whom she whispered in a voice audible to the two guests in front of her. “Change my table. Remove … the Turkish ambassador and his wife and place them somewhere exalted. Put Miss Hanks and Mr. Oakes in their place.” The line had begun to move, and the Queen smiled, evenly, at Blackford, and at Helen, and then greeted Viscount Kirk, who bowed, took her extended hand, and managed discreetly to tickle her palm.

  “How are you tonight, Perry?”

  “I’m fine, ma’am, and if I may, you look dazzling.”

  “You don’t look mistreated yourself, Perry. When shall we ride together again?”

  “I am, in this as in all other matters, at Your Majesty’s service,” said Kirk, with that exaggerated deference used only by flunkies and very old friends.

  “Not tomorrow,” said Caroline. “Wouldn’t do for me to gambol about the woods on my horse while they are lowering Queen Benedicta into the sod. And Wednesday I must see the Duke off. I shall set out for Windsor from the airport. Join me there for a late family supper, eight o’clock.”

  “With great pleasure, ma’am.”

  Blackford found himself exchanging greetings with nearly one half of the two hundred guests at the party. He knew everyone by name, and Helen had long since become accustomed to Blackford’s desire to meet everyone, which she attributed to natural gregariousness, a galloping Anglophilia, and an unconcealed desire to advance his engineering projects—the details of which Helen had never completely understood. He seemed to want to be in touch with influential Englishmen with contacts in the academies, in the business world, and in the great postwar construction enterprises. The orchestra played 1930s jazz. There was a vocalist, and the white-tied men, half of them in their twenties, half of them portly ministers and ambassadors, danced with their starched ladies, and retreated, from time to time, to their tables where their champagne glasses and smiles were refilled. Helen was a moderately attractive girl, and her father greatly influential, so that Blackford was left without a partner much of the time, and after dancing spiritedly with (a) the flighty daughter of a duke, (b) Margaret Truman, and (c) Helen’s mother, he set out for his table to drink a glass of champagne. The Queen, who until then had sat up at balcony level, a miniature proscenium of sorts on which was the throne from which on other occasions she rose officially to greet ambassadors and gartered commoners, descended toward the ballroom stepping down two large, circular steps, led by the Duke of Gloucester, toward the same table. Blackford was seated, looking out at the dance floor, and did not notice the Queen’s arrival behind him, at the head of the table. He was startled, on turning to fill his glass, to look up and find that the Queen, the Duke of Gloucester, and he, were quite alone at a table that seated eight. He wondered whether he should leave, but this would have appeared unnatural—he had just filled his glass with champagne—and by instinct, Blackford could not be awkward. So, without showing surprise, he looked up.

  “Champagne, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” she said, “thank you,” and turning to her companion, “and you, Uncle Harry?”

  “Yes, dear,” the Duke of Gloucester said absent-mindedly, stretching his glass toward Black. “Caroline, you will excuse me a moment? I shall be right back, but Madeleine is waving to me, and I fear I know what she has on her mind, and what’s worse, she’s right—I must dance with her sister—this is her first time out since Alan’s death.”

  “Go right ahead, Uncle Harry. I shall talk with Mr. Oakes.” The Duke of Gloucester, bowing almost imperceptibly, rose and left, and the Queen motioned Blackford to bring his glass and sit next to her.

  “What are you doing, exactly, in London?”

  “I guess the best way to put it, ma’am, is that American engineers have something of an inferiority complex. We build the biggest everything in the world …”

  “You do not. The Queen Elizabeth is still the biggest passenger liner afloat.”

  “Well, yes, though our United States will be faster, and, though only a hundred feet shorter, much, much lighter.”

  “It is a new ship. What makes you think when we launch a new one it won’t be even lighter, with respect to speed and size?”

  “I don’t know. But I hope to know all this by the time I return to America.”

  “What were you saying about an inferiority complex? If so, it would be very good news. Most of the Americans I know could use large transfusions of inferiority complex and still be pretty unbearable.”

  “Are you referring, ma’am, to all the Americans you met when they came over to give you the tools so that you could do the job? Perhaps they were just homesick.”

  Queen Caroline paused for the slightest moment; and then smiled. She wished her Prime Minister were a bit more that way—she would enjoy herself more. She wondered if she could ever say anything that would provoke him into speaking to her with the same ease as the young American. She had never traveled to America, but had read a great deal about it, had known many Americans, and read their journals. In some Americans, she reflected, the republican experience was truly profound. They accepted the paraphernalia and rituals of the monarchy with wholly good nature, but they would exhibit the same good nature in the court of the Par
amount Chiefs who gave Richard that preposterous medal. It wasn’t condescension—there hadn’t been a trace of that in Blackford’s manner. It was, really, an assured sense of metaphysical equality. She liked it very much. She wondered whether she was too spoiled to like such a style if she ever felt that she could not, with a wave of her hand, cause it to go away, or, through the use of her station, deliver an overwhelming rebuke—the force of which, however, would express not her linguistic resourcefulness, but her temporal rank. She thought it would be amusing to test herself with this young man, to whom she was greatly attracted. She found it increasingly easy to achieve informality—to the dismay of the more formal members of her household, in particular her impossibly punctilious husband who desired ochlocracy abroad but, at home, to be paid homage by the baboons at the zoo. Or, as he would insist on putting it, the Royal Zoo. After the funeral, he would be back for only one day, and then at noon on Wednesday he would depart for a blessedly long and detailed tour of Australia. She would not antagonize him during his last day here.

  “Mr. Oakes, are you aware of the archives at Windsor Castle, which collect eight hundred years of engineers’ drawings, specifications, and insights into the problems of constructing not only Windsor Castle but also some of the great cathedrals in England?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m aware of that library—but not familiar with it.”

  “Would you care to examine it?”

  “I would be very, very, very glad to examine it.”

  “You may do so. Call my lady in waiting Lady Lunford at the palace tomorrow, and she will make the arrangements.”

  “Does the palace have a listed number?”

  The Queen laughed. “Over here, Mr. Oakes, we say: ‘Is the palace’s number ex-directory?’”

  Backford knew that, but knew also that idiomatic American solecisms carried one further, in certain circumstances, than total acclimatization. He smiled. “I’m glad you’re in the book.”

  The Duke of Gloucester returned. Blackford stood. The Duke asked his niece if she would care to dance. She didn’t really want to, but of course she did, and as they rose and approached the floor, the other dancers drew back, without themselves missing a beat—it is so prescribed by convention—leaving their sovereign a wide semicircular berth. She and the Duke went round and round, but did not move six feet from where they first touched the ballroom floor, so that they remained like the tip of the handle of an outspread, ornate fan, and from the table where he stayed sitting, Blackford was struck by the ornamental splendor of the scene, with the huge chandeliers, the gilt-red balcony, the steps behind him ascending to the regal eyrie whence Queen Caroline had descended, the muted whispering and laughing of the dancers and the popping of the champagne bottles, mini-drums written into a secret, melodic score firmly directed by the conductor.

  “I guess,” Blackford thought to himself, “the time has come to call Singer Callaway.”

  The contact was routinely established, and Blackford found himself back at Park Street on the afternoon of January 15.

  “I knew you were making progress,” Callaway said. “Your name has been in the social pages, and I’ve seen your photograph two or three times. I liked in particular the picture of you and the ambassador’s daughter at the Aldershot Tattoo, though I must confess I felt a certain pang when the ambassador asked me at a staff luncheon the other day, “Who is this Blackford Oakes, Callaway?’

  “‘Don’t rightly know, Mr. Ambassador. Seems a pleasant-looking fellow.’ I think you should know that he turned to his secretary and told him to remind him to make some inquiries. Anyway, since I gather you are pretty well launched, it might be a good idea to disengage a little from Helen.”

  “What for?”

  “There are two disadvantages to being with her too much. First, everyone will begin to think of you as her property. Second is that old Hanks, if he thinks you are serious, will bring together a picture of you—in microscopic detail.”

  “So what?” said Blackford. “The Company did, and wasn’t deterred.”

  “The only slightly frail reed in your tightly thatched cover, Blackford old shoe, is the American foundation’s munificence. Hanks is not beyond calling in a top scientist and asking him to assess your mission. We would not welcome that. In fact before we permitted it, we’d have to consider bringing Hanks into the operation. The best thing is to ease away from Helen. She’s scheduled to spend six weeks in Arizona with her father beginning in February, so that will help.… Now tell me.”

  “I was in Buckingham Palace last night. The Queen invited me to sit at her table. She subsequently invited me to inspect the engineering archives at Windsor Castle. I was told to call her personal secretary, Lady Lunford, to make an appointment, and it was not clear, when the invitation was tendered, whether the Queen would be around when I went over the papers. It became very clear this morning. Lady Lunford—she’s the Queen’s personal secretary—a little prim-sounding, but you get the feeling whatever Her Majesty wants, Lunford baby wants at least as badly—told me the Queen would herself introduce me to the keeper, that it would require at least three days for me to inspect the documents, that the Queen had reserved a suite of rooms for me at the castle and would look forward to welcoming me for dinner on Wednesday night.”

  Callaway whistled. “My God, Oakes, your instructions were to penetrate society, maybe the court. Not the Queen.”

  “What did you want me to do? Run off with Lady Lunford?”

  “No, but I want you to leave here now, because there is nothing I can do at this point without consulting my superior. And Black, you know I mean, really … congratulations. Say, what’s she like?”

  “The kind who stays with you after you’ve gone. Everything about her. And of course the thing is to ask yourself: Is it the Queen business that makes her eyes that way, the voice intriguing, the skin luminous—her hair looks as if one shake of her head would make it all come down, it’s that light. At nineteen she was a tomboy, riding horses all the time. You wouldn’t know that now, though she rides all the time. You’d guess she was queenly when they changed her diapers. She is something.”

  “Be at your flat tomorrow at noon,” Callaway said. “If you don’t hear from me, then come here at two. You will be introduced then to the exact nature of your assignment.”

  After Blackford left, Callaway made a telephone call.

  “Yes, I can be there in fifteen minutes—hell, I can walk there in fifteen minutes,” which he did, rounding the park going west at Knightsbridge past Basil Street and the little hotel he had first stayed at in London, and on to number 28 Walton Street. The door opened as he approached it, and he walked down the staircase to the study of the man whose principal responsibility during the war had been to co-ordinate the deceptions that led Adolf Hitler to anticipate that Eisenhower’s crossing would be to Calais, rather than a landing in Normandy.

  His code name then had been “Rufus,” and before Eisenhower gave the final command, he demanded that Rufus, whom he had never laid eyes on and whose whereabouts were never exactly known, should be put on the phone. This was done in about fifteen minutes, which was longer than General Eisenhower liked to wait, particularly in the hours before D-Day. “Rufus, goddammit,” Eisenhower had said, in the presence of his five most immediate associates, “it’s in your hands more than anybody else. If your deception has worked, we go. If you smell a rat, we’ll call the whole goddamn thing off and save a hundred thousand lives.” The disembodied voice at the other end of the telephone paused, then said, “Get going, General. The coast is clear, and I’m giving you information less than five minutes old.”

  “All right, Rufus. And when this is all over I want to meet you. And when I do, it’ll be either to give you my dog tags or to plant a bayonet through your gut.”

  After the war, Rufus had retired to France, but when in January of 1952 he was visited late one afternoon at his farm near Haudon by Allen Dulles, Rufus greeted him cordially and, somehow, was unsurpr
ised. When he offered Dulles tea or a drink, Dulles said no, he wanted him to come along and visit a neighbor. Rufus’s wife would not have been surprised if Dulles had told him to go circle a galaxy in an unidentified flying object, and so she said nothing, stepping silently into the hall closet to bring her absent-minded husband his raincoat. In the car, Dulles whispered to his driver and lifted the separating glass.

  “General Eisenhower wants to see you, and he’s waiting for us at Villa St.-Pierre.”

  There being no man, ever, who looked like Allen Dulles and wasn’t Allen Dulles, the guard, after squinting through the window, did not demand identifying papers, but ushered the car straight through to the residential compound of the Supreme Commander, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in the old modernized villa. It was after six. Eisenhower was in his study, the fire crackling. He told the butler to bring them whiskey, pushed a key on his telephone, and told his secretary he was not to be disturbed.

  Then he rose, and clasped his arms around Rufus. “That’s the way I feel about you, Rufus—and I’ve only laid eyes on you once before.”

  “I was awfully relieved, General, that that other time you had your dog tags in your hand, not a bayonet.”

  “Do you still have them?” Eisenhower’s expressive face looked up inquisitively.

  Rufus unbuttoned, lowered his T-shirt, and pulled them out. Eisenhower reached for his pocket, put on his spectacles, and examined them. “EISENHOWER, DWIGHT DAVID 0-3822.” He smiled. “I was issued those in 1915. I never thought I’d give ’em away. I don’t know anybody—anybody—who did more than you did, Rufus, to save lives and help win the goddamn war. I had a funny feeling about you—couldn’t explain it. Tried to once with General Marshall, and he thought maybe you had me spooked.” Ike laughed. “I told Mamie. She understood. But that’s the trouble with Mamie. She understands everything. But you’ve got to admit, Rufus, I could get through to Churchill or the President easier than to you, and I sometimes thought, goddammit, Rufus, that you didn’t talk to me because you didn’t want to talk to me. The Supreme Goddamn Commander!”