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  “Exhilarated, to be honest,” replied Raymond.

  He moved toward Simon, who in turn offered his congratulations. The two men shook hands and for a moment resembled medieval knights who had lowered their visors before the final joust. The unnatural silence that followed was broken by Andrew.

  “Well, I hope it’s going to be a clean fight,” he said. Both men laughed.

  The train-bearer came to the Speaker’s side to inform him that Her Majesty had left Buckingham Palace a few moments earlier.

  Charles excused himself while the three leaders continued their conversation.

  “Has either of you been told the real reason why we are bidden here this evening?” asked Raymond.

  “Isn’t the Queen’s sixty-fifth birthday enough?” said Simon.

  “No, that’s just an excuse for us to meet without suspicion. I think it might be helpful for you both to know that Her Majesty has a highly sensitive question to put to us.”

  Simon and Andrew listened as Raymond revealed the substance of his discussion with the Prime Minister.

  Charles waited in the entrance of the courtyard of the Speaker’s House to welcome the Queen.

  It was only a few minutes before he spotted two police outriders entering the gates of New Palace Yard followed by the familiar maroon Rolls-Royce, which displayed no number-plate. A tiny white light on the center of the roof blinked in the evening dusk. As soon as the car had come to a halt a footman leaped down and opened the back door.

  The Queen stepped out, to be greeted by the commoner history had judged to be the monarch’s man. She was dressed in a simple cocktail dress. The only jewelry she wore was a string of pearls and a small diamond brooch. Charles bowed before shaking hands and taking his guest up the carpeted staircase to his private apartments. Her three party leaders stood in line waiting to greet her. She shook hands first with the new leader of the Labour party and congratulated him on his election that afternoon before inquiring how the Prime Minister was faring. Then she shook hands with her leader of the Opposition and asked how his wife was coping at Pucklebridge General Hospital after the new National Health cutbacks. Simon was always amazed by how much the Queen could recall from her past conversations, few of which could ever last more than a few moments. She then moved on to Andrew whom she teased about his father’s recent speech in Edinburgh on the Social Democrats’ greatest weakness being their lack of leadership.

  “He’s very old, ma’am,” insisted Andrew.

  “Not as old as Gladstone when he formed his last administration,” she replied.

  She removed the gin and tonic offered to her on a silver tray and looked around the magnificent room. “My husband and I are great admirers of the Gothic revival in architecture, though being infrequent visitors to Westminster we are, however, usually forced to view the better examples from the outside of railway stations or from the inside of cathedrals.”

  The four men smiled and a few minutes later Charles suggested they adjourn to the State dining room where five places were set out round an oval table covered with silver which glittered in the candlelight. The four men waited until the Queen was seated at the head of the table.

  Charles .had placed Raymond on the Queen’s right and Simon on her left while he and Andrew filled the other two places.

  When the champagne was served Charles and his colleagues rose and toasted the Queen’s health. She reminded them that her birthday was not for another two weeks and remarked that she had twenty-four official birthday engagements during the month, which didn’t include the family’s private celebrations. “I would happily weaken but the Queen Mother attended more functions for her ninetieth birthday last year than I have planned for my sixty-fifth. I can’t imagine where she gets the energy.”

  “Perhaps she would like to take my place in the election campaign,” said Raymond.

  “Don’t suggest it,” the Queen replied. “She would leap at the opportunity without a second thought.”

  The chef had prepared a simple dinner of smoked salmon followed by lamb in red wine and aspic. His only flamboyant gesture was a birthday cake in the shape of a crown resting on a portcullis of sponge. No candles were evident.

  After the meal had been cleared away and the cognac served the servants left them alone. The four men remained in a light mood until the Queen without warning put to them a delicate question that surprised only Charles. She waited for an answer.

  No one spoke.

  “Perhaps I should ask you first,” said the Queen, turning to Raymond, “as you are standing in for the Prime Minister.”

  Raymond didn’t hesitate. “I am in favor, ma’am,” he said quietly.

  She next turned to Simon.

  “I would also support such a decision, Your Majesty,” he replied.

  “Thank you,” said the Queen, and turned to Andrew.

  “At heart I am a traditionalist, Your Majesty, but I confess to having given the subject a great deal of thought over the last few years and I have come round to supporting what I think is described as the ‘modern approach.’”

  “Thank you,” she repeated, her eyes finally resting on Charles Seymour.

  “Against, ma’am,” he said without hesitation, “but then I have never been a modern man.”

  “Mat is no bad thing in Mr. Speaker,” she said, and paused before adding: “Some years ago I asked a former Lord Chancellor to draw up the necessary papers. He assured me then that if none of my parliamentary leaders was against the principle the legislation could be carried through while both Houses were still in session.”

  “That is correct, ma’am,” said Charles. “It would require two or three days at most if all the preparations have already been completed. It’s only a matter of proclamation to both Houses of Parliament: your decision requires no vote.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Speaker. Then the matter is settled.”

  BOOK SIX

  1991 PRIME MINISTER

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  HER MAJESTY’S PROCLAMATION passed through the Lords and Commons without a division.

  Once the initial shock had been absorbed by the nation the election campaign took over. The first polls gave the Tories a two-point lead. The press attributed this to the public’s unfamiliarity with the new Labour leader, but by the end of the first week the Tories had slipped a point while the press had decided that Raymond Could had begun his stewardship well.

  “A week is a long time in politics,” he quoted.

  “And there are still two to go,” Joyce reminded him.

  The pundits put forward the theory that Raymond had increased his popularity during the first week because of the extra coverage he had received as the new leader of the Labour party. He warned the press department at Transport House that it might well be the shortest honeymoon on record, and they certainly couldn’t expect him to be treated like a bridegroom for the entire three weeks. The first signs of a broken marriage came when the Department of Employment announced that inflation had taken an upturn for the first time in nine months.

  “And who has been Chancellor for the last three years?” demanded Simon in that night’s speech in Manchester.

  Raymond tried to dismiss the figures as a one-off monthly hiccup but the next day Simon was insistent that there was more bad news just around the corner.

  When the Department of Trade announced the worst deficit in the balance of payments for fourteen months Simon took on the mantle of a prophet and the Tories edged back into a healthy lead, but with the Social Democrats stealing a point from both of them.

  “Honeymoon, broken marriage, and divorce, all in a period of fourteen days,” said Raymond wryly. “What can happen in the last seven?”

  “Reconciliation, perhaps?” suggested Joyce.

  During the campaign all three leaders managed to visit most of the one hundred marginal seats in which the outcome of any general election is decided. None of them could afford to spend too much time worrying about those 550 of the 65