Stanley Elkin - Van Gogh's Room at Arles

I stepped forward.

“He’s so modest,” I told them. “Do you remember when the Prince was in New Guinea?” I was speaking directly to the chap who had put the question. Vaguely, he nodded. “It was a gift from a Cargo Cult there. Who had it, according to the beliefs of its members— from God. Hence, as you see, its sentimental value.”

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so very much for coming,” said the Prince.

(A lot of this is in the public record. I know that. I haven’t even begun to budge those fifty thousand pounds yet, have I, Sid? I’m giving you my side. If you think that doesn’t count for much, wait, be a little patient please.)

Then, suddenly, his retinue reappeared— that magic, show-biz retinue of royal retainers, equerries, and handlers, that sworn corps obliged not just to the Realm but to each other as well, so professional you didn’t even see them coming. One moment they weren’t there (or you weren’t conscious of them), the next moment they were. Not even noticeably swelling the crowd but almost like actors in some cleverly staged play who merely by taking up a prop or altering their position somehow manage to change not only their character but their actual roles. I even spotted Colin— or, no, not Colin, Colin was heavier, but Colin’s stand-in— the one who’d gone into the shop earlier and paid for the fateful wreath while the prince carried the fateful aloe.

Because I couldn’t see Jane, because I couldn’t see Marjorie. And me musing along: Why, he was ripe! (“I’ve reserved a seat for you!”) Not not just any woman, any woman owning up, any woman owning up to what she put there and then what he put there. And not just any prince but this shy, diffident, earnest one. That explains it. It could as well have been Jane, it could as well have been Marjorie. That explains it. All the biff-bam of our encounter. Explains his fire, explains his lust and abandon on the frond-strewn clothing-carpeted floor of our unwinding wicky-up. This prince, this shy, diffident, earnest, and virgin prince. It was only a question of being in the right place at the right time, a serendipity, some upside-down, inside-out For-Want-Of- A-Nail thing. He was the conscientious one, the one with the character. That’s why I say fateful. That’s why I say it could have been Jane, it could have been Marjorie.

On shipboard or boatboard, or whatever it’s called when it’s the Royal Yacht and the distinctions still aren’t clear in a working girl’s head, he asked how I knew he’d been to New Guinea and that he’d actually seen a Cargo Cult.

“Why, I thought you’d been everywhere, Sir.”

“I have been everywhere.”

“Oh, my,” I said, “this isn’t to be another of those Poor- Little-Rich-Prince conversations, is it? Filled with languor and acedia and lots of lecturing about how one mustn’t judge until one’s plunked down one’s behind on another man’s throne.”

“Louise!” shocked the Prince.

“You’re not going to make me play How-Heavy-Hangs- the-Head again, I trust.”

“I’m sorry if I bore you.”

“Bore me? You don’t bore me. How could you bore me? When you suddenly up and announce I’ll be Princess of England one day, and that when you succeed to your succession I’m entitled to walk a neat two or three steps behind you. You lead, I follow. Why, we’ll look like one of those silly, overdressed couples that show up on the telly during the International Ballroom Dance Competitions. I think the only thing you left out is who gets to wear the number on the back. So, no, you don’t bore me.”

“You didn’t turn me down, Louise. You spoke up to those reporters.”

“Yes. Well. There you have me, Prince. Suddenly I thought you needed defending. It was like doing my National Service. My British passport was practically burning a hole in my purse.”

“You don’t love me?”

“Excuse me, Sir. I figure you can easily enough get yourself out of whatever it is you think you’ve gotten yourself into. That whole business this afternoon could have been something you made up on the spot to detract attention from coming late to your own ceremonial. It certainly wasn’t to make an honest woman out of me.”

“What if it were?”

“Well, it would have been too late, woul’n’t it? You can just drop me off anywhere you think it’s convenient.”

Was I fishing? Haven’t I already said I was starting to feel something for him?

“Louise,” he said, “we’ve been intimate!”

“I was right,” I said, “you were a virgin!”

“Where would I have found the time?” he demanded. Yes, Sid, demanded. He was angry now. His face was red and he wasn’t blushing. He might almost have been that battle prince out of history he’d seemed to me that morning. (That morning. My God, was it still the same day?) For all I knew he could have thought it convenient to throw me overboard then and there. I think I may have flinched. I saw him make a deliberate effort to calm down. “Where would I?” he asked again, softly. “These sailors are some of the same people you saw with me on shore this morning. They were at the proceedings this afternoon.” He lowered his voice still more, speaking in a register so deep it could have been amorous. “Your eyes were shut,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m under a sort of constant surveillance. Well, not surveillance exactly. No one actually spies on me. It’s just my nature, Louise. Even in public school at the Royal Naval Academy when the other boys had no trouble doing number two in front of each other in the open stalls I had trouble doing even number one.” He looked away. Abashed, he gazed down at the deck. “I’d wait until they were asleep and then I’d get up in the middle of the night … I was always costive,” he admitted. Then, his resentment apparently not leveled at me this time, he altered his tone again. “Well I’m going to be their King one day, aren’t I? It isn’t seemly. A king oughtn’t to be seen in his throes. It isn’t seemly. Noblesse oblige. Kings must set an example. Forgive me, Louise, I know it must sound mad to anyone not in my position but if it ever got out that kings f-t and p-ss and shi-like other people it could destroy their reigns. That they vomit or mas--bate or have fantasies about women g-ng d-n on them, or are sometimes too ravenous at their food, could go bad with them. I know it must seem mad.”

“Too right.”

“So how could I?” he said as if he hadn’t heard me. “Because except for the odd birthday party when I was a child and ran about doing naughty things to my cousins at the bottom of the garden, messing their frocks and playing silly games with them, playing Harley Street, playing Spin the Jar, playing Postbox, where would I have found the time? And I’m always so tired, and— ”

“So you do mean to tell me your troubles.”

“We can talk about anything you want, Louise.”

“Why did you say we were engaged? Why did you tell everyone you’d obtained Their Majesties’ prior consent to the engagement?”

“Not just their consent. Their encouragement.”

“They don’t even know me,” I said.

“Well, I was ripe,” he said, echoing the term I had used to describe him to myself only that astonishing afternoon.

(And I’ll tell you something, Sir Sid. For the first time I began to regard it as a possibility. Not only the engagement, but the possibility of the Royal Wedding, too. For the first time began to think it might not be a bad tradeoff— a life with a mad Prince and then another with a mad king. To be Princess of All the Englands. And he was handsome. Possessed, as I say, of almost a surfeit of beauty. And I would be one of the world’s richest women. And, too, I was starting to have these feelings for him. Tell me, my dear press lord, was he the only game in town or was he the only game in town?)