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circumstances and wiped his nose himself on the bed sheet. He then turned over and went back to sleep; preferring royal dreamland to the hideous reality of being a commoner in a cold house.

    The Queen unpacked the cardboard box stamped “FOOD”. In it she found a loaf of bread labelled “THICK SLICED MOTHER’S PRIDE”, a half pound of Anchor butter, a jar of strawberry jam, a tin of corned beef, a tin of Heinz tomato soup, a tin of stewed steak, a tin of new potatoes, a tin of marrowfat peas, a tin of peaches (sliced) in syrup, a packet of digestive biscuits, a packet of Mr Kipling jam tarts, a jar of Nescafé, a packet of Typhoo tea bags, a box of Long-Life milk, a bag of white sugar, a small box of cornflakes, a packet of salt, a bottle of HP sauce, a Birds Eye trifle kit, a packet of Kraft cheese slices, and six eggs (presumably laid by the battery method since there was nothing on the box boasting that the chickens led a healthy outdoor life).
    Harris eyed the tins greedily, but the Queen said, “Nothing for you, old boy.” She picked up the tin of corned beef. It looks quite like dog food, she thought, but how does one gain access to it?
    She read the instructions: “Use key,” it said. She located the key which was flattened against the tin like a sentry in a box. But now, having found it, what did one do with it? Harris barked irritably as he watched the Queen fumbling with the corned beef tin: trying to fit the key into a raised metal strip at the base. The Queen said, “Please Harris, do be patient, I’m doing my best: I’m hungry and cold and you’re not helping me at all.” And she thought (but did not say aloud), and my husband is upstairs in bed and he’s not helping me either.
    She turned the key and Harris leaped towards the tin as the stale blood smell of the corned beef was released into the air. He barked frantically and even the Queen, whose tolerance of noisy barking was legendary, lost her temper and slapped Harris’s nose. Harris retreated glowering under the sink. After a long struggle the Queen removed the base of the tin. The speckled pink block was clearly seen but however hard she shook the tin it refused to move. Perhaps if she tried to grasp the meat with her fingers … ?

    When Charles returned through the window, proudly holding the fifty pence piece aloft as though it were a trophy, he found his mother leaning against a semi-circular William Gates cabinet, which now served as a hall table. A pool of blood gathered on the exquisite surface. Harris was under the cabinet attacking a tin and issuing primeval guttural growls. From upstairs came the fearful sound of his father in a rage. Charles had been taught how to cope with his paternal terror by a Gestalt therapist, so he blocked out his father’s obscenities by dating the William Gates cabinet.
    “1781,” he said. “Built for George IV.”
    “Yes, very clever, darling, but I rather think I may be bleeding to death. Would you ask my doctor to attend to me?”
    The Queen took the scarf from around her head and bound it around her bleeding fingers. Philip came to the top of the stairs, shivering in a silk dressing gown.

    They waited four and a half hours before the Queen was seen by a doctor at the Royal Hospital. There was fog on the motorway and road hogs and their victims cluttered the casualty department of the Royal Hospital.

    Charles, the Queen and an armed, but plain-clothed, policeman had driven past the barrier at the end of Hell Close just as Princess Margaret’s pantechnicon had driven in. Princess Margaret had looked down into the police car and seen her sister’s blood stained cashmere jumper and her closed eyes and had immediately had hysterics, shrieking, “They are going to kill us all!”
    The driver of the pantechnicon had turned murderous eyes onto her. After enduring three hours of her company he could cheerfully have put her up against a wall, a scarf around her eyes, a bullet in her heart. He would