My Uncle Oswald Read online

  'Of course. But you know something, Oswald. With a triple dose they're so far gone they don't feel a thing. I might've been tickling his arse with a feather for all the good it did.'

  'How many jabs?'

  'Till my arm got tired.'

  'So what then?'

  'There are other ways,' Yasmin said darkly.

  'Ow again,' I said. I was remembering what Yasmin had once done to A. R. Woresley in the lab to get away from him. 'Did he jump?'

  'About a yard straight up,' she said. 'And that gave me just enough time to grab the spoils and dash for the door.'

  'Lucky you kept your clothes on.'

  'I had to,' she said. 'Whenever we give an extra dose it's always a sprint to get away.'

  So that was Yasmin's story. But let me now take it up from there myself and go back to where I was sitting quietly in my motor car outside 'Shaw's Corner' in the gathering dusk while all this was going on. Suddenly out came Yasmin at the gallop, flying down the garden path with her hair streaming out behind her and I quickly opened the passenger door for her to jump in. But she didn't jump in. She ran to the front of the car and grabbed the starting-handle. No self-starters in those days, remember. 'Switch on, Oswald!' she shouted. 'Switch on! He's coming after me!' I switched on the ignition. Yasmin cranked the handle. The motor started first kick. Yasmin dashed back and jumped into the seat next to me, yelling 'Go man, go! Full speed ahead!' But before I could get the gear lever properly engaged, I heard a yell from the garden and in the half-darkness I saw this tall, ghostlike, white-bearded figure charging down upon us stark naked and yelling, 'Come back, you strumpet! I haven't finished with you yet!'

  'Go!' Yasmin shouted. I got the car into gear and let out the clutch and off we went.

  There was a street-lamp outside the Shaw house and when I glanced back I saw Mr Shaw capering about on the sidewalk under the gaslight, white-skinned all over save for a pair of socks on his feet, bearded above and bearded below as well, with his massive pink member protruding like a sawn-off shotgun from the lower beard. It was a sight I shall not readily forget, this mighty and supercilious playwright who had always mocked the passions of the flesh, himself impaled now upon the sword of lust and screaming for Yasmin to come back. Cantharis vesicatoria sudanii, I reflected, could make a monkey out of the Messiah.

  22

  By now Christmas was nearly on us and Yasmin said she wanted a holiday. I wanted to keep going. 'Come on,' I said, 'let's do a Royal Tour first, kings only. We'll nobble all the nine remaining monarchs of Europe. Then we'll both take a good long rest.'

  Romping with the royals, as Yasmin called it, was an irresistible prospect and she agreed to delay her holiday and spend Christmas in wintry Europe. Together we worked out a sensible itinerary which would take us, in the following order, to Belgium, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. I checked over all nine of my carefully prepared letters from George V. A. R. Woresley refilled my travelling liquid nitrogen container and supplied me with a new stock of straws, and off we went in the trusty Citroen, heading for Dover and the cross-channel steamer, with the Royal Palace in Brussels our first stop.

  The effect that the King of England's letter had upon the first eight monarchs on our list was virtually identical. They jumped to it. They couldn't wait to please King George and they couldn't wait to get a peek at his secret mistress. For them it was a fruity business. On every single occasion Yasmin was invited to the Palace only a few hours after I had delivered the letter. We had success after success. Sometimes the hatpin had to be used, sometimes not. There were some funny scenes and one or two tricky moments, but Yasmin always got her man in the end. She even got seventy-six-year-old King Peter of Yugoslavia, although he passed out at the end of it all and my girl had to revive him by throwing a chamberpot of cold water over his face. By the time we reached Christiania (now Oslo) at the beginning of April, we had eight kings in the bag and there was only Haakon of Norway left. He was forty-eight years old.

  In Christiania we booked into the Grand Hotel on Carl Johan's Gate and from the balcony of my room I could look straight up that splendid street to the Royal Palace on the hill. I delivered my letter at ten o'clock on a Tuesday morning. By lunchtime Yasmin had a reply in the king's own handwriting. She was invited to present herself at the palace at two-thirty that afternoon.

  'This is going to be my very last king,' she said. 'I shall miss popping into palaces and wrestling with royals.'

  'What's your general opinion of them,' I said, 'now that it's nearly over? How do they measure up?'

  'They vary,' she said. 'That fellow Boris of Bulgaria was terrifying the way he rolled me up in chicken wire.'

  'Bulgarians are not easy.'

  'Ferdinand of Romania was pretty crazy, too.'

  'The one who had distorting mirrors all around the room?'

  'That's him. Let us now see what revolting habits this Norwegian chap has got.'

  'I hear he's a very decent fellow.'

  'Nobody's decent when he's had the Beetle, Oswald.'

  'I'll bet he's nervous,' I said.

  'Why?'

  'I told you why. His wife, Queen Maud, is King George V's sister. So our fake letter was supposedly written to Haakon by his brother-in-law. It's all a bit close to the bone.'

  'Spicy,' Yasmin said. 'I like it.' And off she bounced to the palace with her little box of chocolates and her hatpin and other necessary items. I stayed behind and laid out my equipment in readiness for her return.

  In less than one hour she was back. She came flying into my room like a hurricane.

  'I blew it!' she cried. 'Oh, Oswald, I did something frightful awful terrible! I blew the whole thing!'

  'What happened?' I said, starting to quake.

  'Give me a drink,' she said. 'Brandy.'

  I got her a stiff brandy. 'Come on then,' I said. 'Let's have it. Tell me the worst.'

  Yasmin took a huge gulp of brandy, then she leaned back and closed her eyes and said, 'Ah, that's better.'

  'For God's sake,' I cried, 'tell me what happened!'

  She drank the rest of the brandy and asked for another. I gave it to her quickly.

  'Lovely big room,' she said. 'Lovely tall king. Black moustache, courtly, kind and handsome. Took the chocolate like a lamb and I started counting the minutes. Spoke almost perfect English. "I am not very happy about this business, Lady Victoria," he said, tapping King George's letter with one finger. "This is not like my brother-in-law at all. King George is the most upright and honourable man I've ever met."

  ' "He's only human, Your Majesty."

  ' "He's the perfect husband," he said.

  ' "The trouble is he's married," I said.

  ' " Of course he's married. What are you implying?"

  ' "Married men make rotten husbands, Your Majesty."

  ' "You're talking rubbish, madam!" he snapped.'

  'Why didn't you shut up right then and there, Yasmin?' I cried.

  'Oh, I couldn't, Oswald. Once I get going like that I can't ever seem to stop. Do you know what I said next?'

  'I can't wait,' I said. I was beginning to sweat.

  'I said, "Look, Your Majesty, I mean after all when a strong good-looking fellow like George has been having rice pudding every night for years and years, it's only natural he's going to start wanting a dish of caviar."'

  'Oh, my God!'

  'It was a silly thing to say, I know that.'

  'What did he answer?'

  'He went green in the face. I thought he was going to strike me but he just stood there spluttering and fizzing like one of those fireworks, those bangers, the ones that go on spluttering for a long time before the big explosion comes.'

  'And did it come?'

  'Not then. He was very dignified. He said, "I will thank you, madam, not to refer to the Queen of England as a rice pudding."

  ' "I'm sorry, Your Majesty," I said. "I didn't mean it." I was still standing in the middle of the room b