The Autobiography of The Queen by Emma Tennant Page B

would cover Mrs Gloria’s fare back to the UK, for, as Austin knew from Jolene, hermoney and passport had also been stolen from the hotel bedroom. He was desperate, now, to get the owner of the jewels off the island. Jolene had a good idea of who’d done it: Rover from Soufrière, who’d already been arrested several times for petty theft. It was just a question of getting this strange woman off his back – and taking a few pals to have a word with Rover. As it was, he’d had to dig deep into his savings to find enough for an economy seat to London. A new passport was easy – Campbell at the airport had been alerted by Austin and had ready a leather (imitation) purple passport with
Dieu et mon Droit
stamped under the lion and the unicorn and a photo of an old lady (a copy found on the floor of the booth of the Polaroid shot of a traveller). There would be no suspicions at the replication: old women, after all, and especially if they were white, all looked exactly alike.
    Austin sighed as the engine cut out and the red-painted fishing boat drew up to the wharf. He had been surprised at the equanimity of Mrs Smith at the realisation she was being taken to Hewanorra Airport, by sea, and not on a touristic jaunt to the coves and cocoa plantations of the south of the island. She was a tad gone in the head, of course, but really she was behaving like this was a royal visit and the duration of it just what she had been told beforehand. Look at her now! The woman was standing in the boat waiting to be helped out on to the quay and as a bunch of children ran past andwaved to her, she was graciously waving back at them. She’d been rich and important once, that was obvious if you knew about the emeralds; or maybe she’d been married to a man like Sir Richard Branson, who might build a new resort in the hills above Soufrière and pay better money to Jolene, Jooleeta and Austin’s other cousins and girlfriends than the Joli Hotel. Austin even wondered if he could ask Mrs Smith if she
was
Lady Branson in disguise.
    Such musings were interrupted by the arrival of the incoming flight from London Gatwick, a jumbo with a Marilyn-imitation blonde painted on its prow and HOTLIPS written in large letters under a perky breast. The Queen stood obediently in line as passengers emerged from the transatlantic aircraft; and as they descended to the reception area and baggage hall she looked modestly down, as if avoiding both recognition and the possible necessity of recognising someone or something herself. The sight of her feet, beach-stained and streaked with dirt from the tarmac on Joli Estate roads caused her to look up again quickly – and it was then that the double shock occurred. For a passenger bearing the News section of the
Sunday Times
was now visible behind the plate glass dividing about-to-be travellers and new arrivals; and the headline QUEEN IN CARIBBEAN appeared, at least to the Queen, to dwarf almost everything else in the airport and to draw the eyes of the crowd, much asshe had on her royal tours, always done. That she was known to be in St Lucia was of little interest to her – for, like the holidays organised for the poor, one place was made to look just like another (a camp, a pool, a bar and an eatery for Her Majesty’s low-paid subjects, a red carpet, a ritual ceremony by painted people and a motorcade for the Queen).
    No, it was the unpleasant experience of seeing oneself after three days without so much as a royal event recorded, three days without the continual intrusion of the hungry lens, which had made the Queen unaccustomed to representations of herself, Queen and Head of State, symbol of Britain’s enduring monarchy and the proud island’s refusal to throw off the pomp and glory. For the woman occupying the entire front page of the newspaper seemed to bear no relation to the general perception of Elizabeth the Second. The white hair floated in all directions, a