The Queen and I by Sue Townsend

lavatory.
    “Anyway,” said Beverley, standing up in the bath, naked and lovely. “It’s time you ’ad the taps.”
    15 Lonesome Tonight
    The following evening, the Queen climbed over the broken fence and rang the Threadgolds’ front door bell. A few notes of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” chimed through the house. Beverley opened the door wearing burgundy mock velvet pyjamas with white elasticated cuffs at wrist and ankle. She was barefoot and the Queen noticed that Beverley’s toenails were a curious atrophied yellow colour. The Queen held out a five pound note: “I’m repaying the money your husband so kindly lent to me: for bus fares and the gas meter.”
    “Come in,” said Beverley, and led the Queen through the hall into the small kitchen. It was the first time the Queen had been in their house. Elvis Presley was everywhere; in pictures, on the wall, on plates, cups and saucers in a cupboard. On tea towels drying from an overhead rack. On an apron hanging from the back of the door. The kitchen curtains bore his face. The mat under the Queen’s feet showed him in his notorious pelvic thrust pose.
    Tony Threadgold stubbed out his cigarette in Elvis’s left eye and got to his feet as the Queen entered. The Queen handed Tony the five pound note, saying, “I’m most grateful, Mr Threadgold. My mother finally found her purse in the gas oven.” Tony cleared a pile of Elvis boxer shorts from a stool and asked the Queen to sit down. Beverley filled the Presley kettle and the Queen said, “I see you’re fans of Elvis Presley.”
    The Threadgolds agreed that they were. When the tea was mashed, they went through to the living room and the Queen was introduced to the most precious pieces of Elvis memorabilia. But the Queen’s eye was taken by a lurid oil painting of two young children which hung over the fireplace. The Queen asked who they were. There was a slight pause, then Tony said, “It’s Vernon and Lisa, our kids. We thought it was worth ’aving ’em painted. It’ll be an heirloom in years to come.” The Queen was surprised; she had assumed that the Threadgolds were childless. She said so. Beverley said, “No, we got kids but they’ve bin took off us.” The Queen asked, “By whom?”
    Tony said, “Social Services, they’ve ’ad ’em eighteen month.” He and Beverley drew together and looked at the beautiful painted faces of their children. The Queen did not like to question them further and they did not volunteer any more information so the Queen thanked them for the tea and said goodnight. Tony saw her out and waited until she was safely at her own front door. The Queen said to him across the fence, as she took out her key, “I’m sure that you and Mrs Threadgold were excellent parents.”
    “Thanks,” said Tony, and he closed his door and went to comfort his wife. The Queen went upstairs and opened the bedroom door a few inches and peered inside. Her husband was lying on his side. He opened his eyes and looked at her with such an expression of misery that she went to the bed and took his grimy hand.
    “Philip, what is it?”
    “I’ve lost everything,” he said. “What’s the point in living?”
    “What is it that you miss particularly, my darling?” The Queen stroked her husband’s unshaven cheek. How old he looks today, she thought.
    “I miss every bloody thing, warmth, softness, comfort, beauty, the cars, the carriages, the servants, the food, the space . I can’t breathe in this hideous box of a house. I miss my office and the royal train and the plane and the Britannia . I don’t like the people in Hell Close, Lilibet. They’re ugly. They can’t talk properly. They smell. I’m frightened of them. I refuse to mix with them. I shall stay in bed until I die.”
    The Queen thought, he sounds like a child . She said, “I’m going to heat a tin of soup, would you like some?” Philip whined, “Not hungry!” and turned his back on his wife. The Queen went downstairs to