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outbursts of aggression. He sat on the Queen’s doorstep patiently waiting for Violet to come out.
    To change the subject from teeth, the Queen asked how Barry was, Violet’s delinquent forty-five-year-old son.
    Violet sighed. ‘He’s got a psychiatric social worker now, a woman. And according to Barry, this woman says Barry’s problems are all
my
fault. She says, locking him in the understairs cupboard when he was a little kid has made him want to destroy authority, and has gave him a syndrome.’
    The Queen said, ‘Charles blames me and his father for most of the problems he’s had in his life. He claims he was
neglected
, which is terribly unfair. We saw him at least once a day when we were in the country, and his nanny adored him.’
    Violet said, ‘I think Barry should be locked up. I’m ’aving to hide all my lighters and matches again.’
    The Queen nodded sympathetically. Charles was troubled, but as far as she knew he was not an arsonist. The Queen qualified many of her observations about people by saying, ‘As far as one knows.’ Even members of her own family seemed to have so many secrets. She had a few herself.
    A burst of dramatic, urgent-sounding music caught the two women’s attention immediately. A news band at the bottom of the screen said in fat red letters ‘Breaking News’.
    Violet said, ‘Now what?’ She was sick of having her programmes interrupted by real life. She never watched the news out of choice. Who wanted to know about wars and disasters? She couldn’t do anything to stop them, could she? So why worry herself, she was already on three blood pressure tablets a day.
    The leader of the Conservative Party, a grey man in a grey suit, had resigned in order to spend more timewith his latest family, and a new leader, a fresh-faced youngish man with a shock of luxuriant black hair, had taken his place. He was ‘Boy’ English.
    ‘Good gracious,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s Boy. His father ran a stud at Newmarket, his grandmother was one of my ladies-of-the-bedchamber.’
    Boy was being interviewed by the BBC’s senior political correspondent. ‘And what is at the top of your political agenda, Mr English?’ asked the bespectacled reporter.
    ‘I want to restore the monarchy,’ said Boy. ‘I want to see Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, back on the throne, and I want to see Jack Barker and the Cromwellians consigned to the dustbin of history.’
    When the Queen didn’t say anything, Violet said, ‘Well, I ain’t voting for ’im. I’d sooner casserole me own arm than vote Tory, an’ anyway, I don’t want to lose you, Liz.’
    Half an hour later, the villagers from Emmerdale lay trapped inside the wreckage of their coach as an express train hurtled towards them. The Queen was still thinking about Boy’s loyal statement. Even the melodramatic death of the village idiot, played by an actor she had never liked, could not engage her full attention.
    Camilla was at the bottom of the garden, in the dark, poking at a smouldering bonfire of wet leaves with a long stick. She had always loved the autumn. She was glad to put away her summer clothes and throw on a baggy sweater, jeans and wellingtons. In the old days, when her affair with Charles was still a secret from the public, she had lived for fox-hunting days. She wouldrise early to begin the ritual of dressing: in the tight jodhpurs, the white high-necked shirt, the fitted red coat with the brass buttons. And last, but best of all, the tight, black knee-high riding boots.
    She knew she looked good in the saddle and was regarded by her fellow huntsmen as a fearless rider. When she strode from the house towards the stables, whip in hand, her breath visible in the frosty air, she felt contained and powerful, and if she was honest with herself, there was the tiniest frisson of sexual excitement. With a horse between her legs and the open countryside in front of her, surrounded by friends she could trust with her life, she experienced a