Stanley Elkin - Van Gogh's Room at Arles

And this occurred— that I might have been the only non-show-biz type left in the shop, my Prince’s lone remaining bona fide witness, a fiddle if not of yeomanry then of just that much more hero-building effacement, more historic gull to the historic shill of all those drawers of the lightning; behind the elaborate lines and colorful smoke screen of all that cadre of lookouts and posted guards— that this was just for my benefit, that I was as necessary a part of the process as the Prince himself; that all that was left in the aloe shop now were myself and the show-biz tourists got up in the lamb’s cloth of what was merely that much more retinue— that even the wreath-and-aloe saleslady was a show-biz wreath-and-aloe saleslady. (But conflicted, too, don’t you know. Mindful that perhaps I’d been in the States too long. Where they take their drawers of the lightning even more seriously than we do in England, and almost every other person in the crowd — not counting the armed chaps on the roofs and in all the windows or the reporters who ask some of the toughest questions at the press conference — is Secret Service, SWAT, or CIA.) And, My, I’m thinking in the tropes of a paranoia turned inside out, all this attention. For little me? Why, thank you, kind sirs and mesdames, and thank you, kind Sir. Self-conscious as the recipient of a singing telegram, don’t you know, or a guest of honor, or someone not used to it at her very first Command Performance.

I may have been blushing; I was probably blushing. Whereupon the most remarkable thing.

He dismissed them.

In that same efficient semaphore with which he’d passed them through. At the same time, seeing me with my banknotes in my hand, signaling me to remain behind, and freezing the show-biz wreath-and-aloe lady in her place. One look, one look did it, one all-inclusive gesture — this complicated syntax of self-assured silence. So that when the shop had cleared and he finally spoke to her, I was the only one left to hear.

“I’m looking,” says the Prince, “for a wreath. Do you do wreaths?”

“Oh yes, Your Highness, but we’re such a small village. The resident population can’t be but four or five thousand at most, though closer to four, I should think.”

“Yes?” goes His Highness.

“Just enough commissionaires to open the doors at the taxi rank, just enough porters to handle the cobble and trim of the holiday makers, just enough publicans and innkeepers, barmaids, tapsters, and potboys. Just enough ostlers. Just enough chars. Just enough buskers to sink in the streets and play their guitars outside the cinema.”

“So?” says the Successor.

“Just enough drivers to drive the red double-decker buses and just enough Pakis to collect your fare and hand you your change. Just enough unarmed bobbies to answer questions about directions and make sure the pubs close after last call. Just enough Tommies. Just enough of the King’s Home Guard Cavalry to stand in the sentry boxes under their bearskin busbies and challenge the tourists to provoke reactions for snapshots. Just enough men to change the guard outside the Governor’s Palace. And just enough people to pick up the post from the kiosks for day trippers to send home just for the sake of the canceled stamp.”

“I don’t make out …” says the Heir Apparent.

“Just enough cockney accents; just enough Liverpudlian, Yorkshire, Welsh. Just enough Scots, Sir; just enough Lincolnshire. (Though we both know, don’t we, Sire, how clannish East Englanders are and how they pretty much keep to themselves.) Just enough C of E rectors to offer up mass and call out the number of the hymn from the Book of Common Prayer. Just enough choristers …”

“… your meaning.”

“Well, it’s not as if we had a proper cemetery, is it, Highness?” says his subject-apparent.

“Madam?”

“Well, we’re an outpost of Empire, aren’t we, Prince? Closer to the States than Bermuda, we are. We drive on the left side of the road here, we do, and quainter we are than bowlers and bumbershoots. We’re an enterprise, we are.”

“I’m not sure …”

“You’re not sure? You’re sure.”

“Is this the way, madam, you address your future King?”

“Well, you’re not my King yet, you know. And really, M’lud, when push comes to shove you haven’t any real power. You can’t shut me up in the Tower or have me beheaded, can you? I mean, you’re all symbolic-like, aren’t you?

“It’s the bargains you come for. You came for a price on the flowers. It’s your way and it’s charming, and you’re quite famous for it, but do you know what I give for a wreathing? The labor alone? The cost of all that coiling and twisting and interweaving? We’re not, as I say, a big population — three or four thousand at most, but closer to three, I should think. And no more graveyard to speak of than what fits in back of a church. And the artisans died out. And most of the personnel on this tight little fun fair of an island, this picturesque theme park of an empire — those not gone to bush — posted back to Britain before they’re fifty. And it isn’t as if we’re equipped to lay out holiday makers, so I have to bring in extra hands, don’t I? Navvies and erks and night porters. Factoti. So I’m dead sorry, Wilshire, my wreaths have to be pricey.”

“I’m still looking,” he says to me, “you go ahead.”

“Some aloe, please,” I tell the woman and give over my banknote while at the same time I try to hide my cut, chafed and burning hands.

“It’s ready,” she says, “but wasn’t it Jane’s turn, or Marjorie’s?”

“Jane quite forgot, I’m afraid,” I said.

“No, please,” said the Prince. “Wait and I’ll help you with that.”

In the end he didn’t bargain with her, he didn’t even seem angry. He let her rude remarks pass like the great gentleman he was. “I’ll take that one,” he said, and pointed to a large, leafy wreath interlaced with long ropes of bright yellow flowers.

“Yes,” said the awful woman, “it’s the only one we have, isn’t it?”

“If you know so much about my ways,” said the Prince, “then you know I never carry money. Indeed, I hardly ever look at it. My personal equerry will take care of you.” He turned to me. “Give me that,” he said. Well, I was confused. The aloe plant was rather big, and he was already carrying his great heavy wreath. I half thought he meant to steal it from me.

His equerry was waiting outside. All the others had gone. Not even a bobby was to be seen in that queer, translated, odd English street. No cars were there, no red double-deck buses with their extraordinarily high route numbers — I already knew there were only two routes in that tiny town and that while they took you past different points of interest, both ended up discharging their passengers at the same spot — and now the place, except for the shops on the High Street — the greengrocers, the Boots, the W. H. Smith, the Marks and Spencer, and various others — the hire purchase and estate agents and removal companies and cafes and fish- and-chips, the offtrack betting, the theatre and the cinema, et cetera — seemed not so much deserted as abandoned, evacuated even. In the distance I could just make out a residential area— a block of flats, an occasional thatched roof, one or two County Council-looking structures.

“It seems we must pay a hundred pence on the pound to the tick,” he told the fellow. “Organise it for me, would you? There’s a lad. Oh, and take this for me, Colin, I’m assisting the girl.”

He handed the wreath over to his equerry.

He relieved me of the aloe plant and, exposing my raw, rubbed hands, said, “Oh, your poor hands.” He broke off a leaf and squeezed out its white juices. Laying the plant down, he rubbed the stuff across my palms and the back of my hands. He spread it up and down my fingers. It was as sticky as sperm.