Eric is shy, insecure and a member of one of the oldest aristocratic families in Europe.
They say opposites attract, but when Joel discovers that Eric is the crown prince and future king of Doggerland, he starts having doubts.
They want to get married. They think their greatest battle will be convincing the King and the Prime Minister to give their consent. But estranged relatives coming out of the woodwork, intrusive tabloid press, and the traditional, stifling lifestyle of the aristocracy conspire against them.
Are Joel and Eric secure enough in themselves and each other to overcome a world which is not as tolerant as they thought?
The King And
I
Breakfast was
at ten. I’d agreed with Button-eyes that he’d pick me up at half past nine and
brief me on regal rules before escorting me to the breakfast room.
At eight o’clock, I was sitting, fully dressed, on the edge of my bed,
nervously twiddling my thumbs. I hadn’t slept at all. The butterflies in my
stomach had multiplied overnight. Not only was I going to meet my potential
in-laws – that would’ve been nerve-racking enough –but I was also going to meet
the king and queen of Doggerland. It was still beyond me how I had ended up in
this situation!
Tired of not being able to sleep, I got up at seven, showered, shaved,
and spent a further hour agonizing about what to wear. I went for the outfit that
Eric had bought me in Brighton. The shirt and trousers were a little wrinkled,
but I thought I looked presentable enough.
Button-eyes, however, disagreed. As soon as he opened the door and saw
me, he frowned and shook his head.
“No, no, no, this won’t do at all,” he said, without even a good morning or did you sleep well?“You should’ve told me you needed your clothes
pressed and ironed. Have you anything else?”
“These are the smartest clothes I’ve got.”
“Well, it won’t do. The queen is very judgmental, and if she sees you
like this, she’ll think you’re a slob.”
He walked over to the telephone table, picked up the horn, and barked
out an order in his own language. Then he replaced the horn in its cradle and
took a watch out of his jacket pocket. “I’ll take you to the laundry room. We’ll
find you some decent clothes there.” He looked at his watch and frowned. “But
we must be quick about it. Follow me; I’ll explain about royal etiquette on the
way.” Putting his watch back in his pocket, he marched out of the room.
“First of all, the king of Doggerland never shakes hands.” Button-eyes
strode down the long corridor. I tagged along behind him, struggling to keep
up. “When you greet the king and queen, you stand before them with your arms by
your sides, you look at their foreheads – not their eyes, but their foreheads –
and you nod. You nod until your chin touches your chest. Do you understand? You
greet the king first. Then you greet the queen. You do not sit down until the king
asks you to. You will call the king and queen your majesty, but do so only once. After that, you can call them sir and ma’am. Don’t leave the room before they do, and never show them
your back.”
I followed him into the laundry room, where a woman in a black uniform was
waiting for us beside the washing machines.
“This is Ingrid,” Button-eyes said. “She will give you something
suitable to wear.”
I stepped towards the woman and smiled. “Hi, Ingrid. I’m Joel. I don’t
actually need different clothes. I just need my shirt to be ironed and my
trousers to be pressed. I can do it myself if you show me where things are.”
“You need a different outfit, Mr Bottomley.” Button-eyes checked his
watch and frowned. “You’re wearing dining clothes. Breakfast is a casual
affair. The queen cares about these things. Now, hurry up and take off your
clothes. We haven’t much time.”
Ingrid gave me a dark blue turtleneck jumper and a pair of brown
corduroy trousers, both a few sizes too big for me.
“Whose clothes are these?” I asked.
“They’re Eric’s,” Button-eyes said.
“Won’t the queen recognise them?”
“He’s never worn them.”
“They’re too big.”
“They’ll do. Just roll up your sleeves. Ingrid will adjust your
trousers.” As he said this, the woman knelt down before me and began rolling in
my trouser legs.
I wasn’t at all comfortable with these clothes. The jumper was too
baggy. And corduroy? Who still wears corduroy? But I had no say in the matter.
As soon as Ingrid finished with my trousers, I followed Button-eyes back down
the long corridor towards the breakfast room.
Eric was waiting for me outside, his face pale and tense. He smiled as
we approached.
“You look good,” he said, patting me on my shoulder. “Have you been
briefed?” He looked at Button-eyes for an answer.
“He has,” was the reply.
“Good. We will go in together, and I will introduce you. The queen is in
a bad mood, but don’t let that put you off. She can huff and puff all she
wants, but my father is the one in charge, and he is usually quite reasonable.
Are you ready?”
I nodded, and we both stepped into the room. It was a large, bright
room. The breakfast was laid out on a buffet table, but no one was eating. The king
sat in an armchair, a newspaper on his lap. He was in his fifties; a handsome
man with a full head of hair, brown and slightly curled, with a dignified
sprinkling of grey on his temples. He wore corduroy trousers – like me – a
green cardigan, and a gold-and-black-chequered cravat.
The queen and Petra sat next to
each other on a sofa. The queen had a stern face. I could tell that she had
been a great beauty in her youth, but time had been unkind to her. The wrinkles
around her mouth gave her a permanently sour expression, and her blonde hair,
tied tightly into a bun, did nothing to soften her image.
Petra smiled at me. Radiantly. Encouragingly. Both ladies held a
steaming mug of tea in their hands while they stared at us.
“Mother… Father…” Eric’s voice
cracked, and he stopped to clear his throat. “This is my friend… my dear friend
from Oxford. Joel Bottomley.”
I turned towards the king, placed my arms by my sides as instructed, and
nodded slowly. Then I turned towards the queen and did the same.
“Joel is a first year PPE student,” Eric continued. “He has been a great
companion to me at Oxford and has helped me out on numerous occasions.”
“Pleased to meet you, Joel,” the king said. “Do sit down.” He pointed at
a chair opposite the sofa. I took my seat. Eric sat down next to me.
“Now, Bottomley…” the queen said, looking me up and down. She spoke with
a thick German accent. “Are you the grandson of Lady Bottomley?”
I was confused. “Beg your pardon, your majesty?”
“Of Kelston in Somerset?” the queen clarified.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know who that is.”
Petra frowned and rolled her eyes. “He’s not related to Lady Bottomley, Mother.
You know he’s not. Lady Bottomley doesn’t have any grandchildren.”
“Well, whose child are you, then?”
“You don’t know his family, Mother,” Eric said. “He comes from Wales.”
“Wales? Where in Wales?”
“A village called Tonypandy, ma’am.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Not many people have.” I smiled. I hoped that remark would break the
ice, but it didn’t. The queen seemed offended that I had the gall to come from
a village she’d never heard of.
“You’re very skinny,” she said, looking me up and down again. “That
jumper looks like a potato sack on you.”
Eric’s jaw dropped, and Petra almost choked on her tea. Even the king
was forced to raise his eyebrows.
“I had to borrow this jumper, ma’am. My shirt got wrinkled in the
suitcase.”
“Who gave you that jumper?”
“It was… um…” I had to be careful. I’d been calling him Button-eyes for
so long, I’d almost forgotten his real name. “Mr Boersma. Mr Boersma gave it to
me.”
“How long have you known each other?” the king asked.
Eric answered. “Since September.”
“That’s only four months.”
“Yes, but we’ve become good friends during that time.”
There was a pause in the conversation. A long, awkward pause. Eric
nervously bounced his knee up and down. The king gently tapped his fingers
against his newspaper, and the queen kept playing with the pearls around her
neck.
“So…” the queen said, finally. “What is this thing you want to tell us?
Why have we been summoned back from Denmark so suddenly?”
“Well…” Eric sat up nervously. “I wanted you to meet Joel.”
“Why?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“Is he ill?”
“Ill?”
“Well, he looks so skinny in that jumper.”
Petra rolled her eyes. “Mother, he already told you that he had to
borrow that jumper.”
“Well, what is it then?” The queen frowned with impatience. “Why have we
been forced to interrupt our tour?”
Eric took a deep breath and blurted it out. “Joel and I are in love. We
want to get married.”
A quiet fell over the room. Eric, Petra, and I kept staring at the king
and queen, wondering who would answer first. The king cast his eyes to the
ceiling while he thought of a reply, but it was the queen who finally spoke.
“Marry? You want to marry?” She laughed. A fake, bitter laugh. “I
thought at first that you were ill. That this friend of yours had given you AIDS
or something. That we’d been summoned back from Denmark to help you with that.
But it turns out you want to marry.”
“Surely that’s better than getting AIDS,” Petra chipped in, looking as
astonished by her mother’s inappropriate remark as I was. But the queen was not
amused.
“You can’t marry a man, Eric. It’s ridiculous!” she said.
“Why can’t I?” Eric protested. “It’s legal, isn’t it?”
“Not for us, Eric! Not for people like us! I’ve had enough of this!” She
slammed her tea mug onto the glass coffee table and stood up. “How dare you
interrupt our tour for something like this! How dare you!” She stormed out of
the room.
Petra called after her. “Mother, stay. Please. Hear him out.” But it was
of no use. The queen had gone.
The king finally turned to face Eric. “Your mother is stressed and
tired. You know how she gets when she’s on tour.” He didn’t look angry or
shocked. He was the complete antithesis to his wife: calm, mild, collected. “Perhaps
you should’ve waited with this news until the tour was over.”
“Why should I wait?” Eric protested peevishly. “I’m tired of having to
do everything on my own. I want Joel by my side. He gives me strength. He gives
me confidence.”
“It was inconsiderate of you to summon us back for this. You’ve only
known this boy for a few months.”
“His name is Joel!”
“Sorry, Joel.” Finally, the king turned to face me. “What do you make of all this? You’ve been very
quiet.”
“Well… I… I don’t know.” Not the most eloquent answer, I know, but what
else could I say? I wasn’t expecting such drama.
“Do you think it’s wise to marry someone you’ve only known for a few months?”
Eric answered before I got the chance.
“I’m not asking to marry him now. I can wait a year. Or two years. I
just want to know if it’s possible.”
“That’s not for me to decide, Eric. It’s the prime minister who decides that.”
“Yes, but the prime minister will need your approval first. What I want
to know is, will you support me? Will you help persuade the prime minister?”
The king thought about this. “I’m not sure the government will think it’s
in the country’s best interest for the crown prince to marry another man.”
“Why not?” It was Petra who asked. She was leaning forward on the sofa,
her elbows resting on her knees, preparing herself for a good argument. “It’s
the prime minister who legalised same-sex marriage in Doggerland. He made a
whole speech about how he wanted everyone to have the same chance of happiness.
He can’t turn around now and deny this opportunity to Eric.”
The king looked at his daughter and frowned. “I suppose you’re the one
who put him up to this.”
Petra looked indignant. “I did not put him up to this. It was his idea.
I’m just supporting him.”
“It’s not about being gay, Eric.” The king leaned in towards his son. “I
don’t mind you being gay. Your great uncle was gay. Uncle Dagobert. I don’t
know if you remember him. He was in a relationship with a man for nearly forty
years. Walter, his name was. Nice chap. The whole family knew about it, and
nobody cared. But then Dagobert had a wife, too. Frida. Do you remember great
aunt Frida? She knew about Walter when she married him, but she didn’t care.
She was happy just to be a countess and to live in a castle. They had separate
bedrooms. And she had her lovers. But they lived together. That was the
important thing. They were seen together. They attended events together. They
went on holidays together.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Eric asked.
“I’m just telling you that it is possible to be gay without breaking
from tradition. We are one of the oldest royal families in Europe. We represent
stability and continuity. We are not like ordinary people. What would be the
point of us if we lived like ordinary people? We’d be redundant.”
“Are you suggesting I have a sham marriage?”
“You can call it a sham marriage, but you can also call it a marriage of
convenience.”
“I call it a sham marriage!”
“Come on, Eric. Be reasonable. You can’t marry another man. What will
the Church think of this? What will the other royal families think?”
“What the devil do I care what they think!”
“You should care. When you’re king, you will be representing the people
of Doggerland. You will be the defender of the Christian faith in these
islands. You will be head of this family. What people think of us is important.”
“The reason we’re important, Father,” it was Petra speaking again, “is because
we have influence. I think we should use this influence. Imagine how we can
help change attitudes towards homosexuality if Eric comes out. And marries his
boyfriend. And tours the world with him on diplomatic visits.”
The king frowned. “Eric is not one of your political causes, Petra! He’s
your brother.”
“Listen to her, Pa,” Eric said.
“I read a report recently,” Petra continued. “About how the young people
of Doggerland perceive the royal family. They see us as pointless. As
irrelevant. They don’t understand why we exist. We need to change if we want to
survive. Eric and Joel can become gay rights ambassadors at a time when
homophobia is rearing its ugly head again. Joel Bottomley could be the best
thing that has ever happened to this family.”
They all turned to face me. I think I blushed.
“Has Eric met your parents?”the king asked me.
“My parents?” I felt as if I’d been struck by lightning. Not once,
throughout this whole whirlwind, had I given my parents any thought. But the king
was right, of course. They’d have to get involved at some point. The very
thought of it filled me with terror.
“No, I haven’t,” Eric replied.
“What sort of people are they?”the king asked me.
“What sort of people?” Well, what could I say? I broke out in a sweat. “They’re
simple people.”
“What do they do?”
“My mother is a housewife.”
“And your father?”
“He… um. He’s dead.”
Oops! That just came out.
“I didn’t know that,” Eric said. “You never told me.”
“Oh, it was a long time ago.”
“What did he die of?”
“Cancer.”
I felt sweat beads form on my head. My father was an arsehole, but I
didn’t wish him dead.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the king said. “Do you get on well with your
mother?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. She’s a wonderful woman.”
“Does she know about you and Eric?”
“Well…” I looked at Eric. “Eric and I decided to keep things secret
until we talked to you.”
“Quite right.” The king leaned back in his chair. “Family is very
important to me. You’ll need the support of your family if you’re going to join
our clan. It’s not easy being a royal.”
Eric sat up in his seat. “Does that mean you accept?”
The king frowned at the interruption and gestured for his son to sit
back down. “In the past, of course, the custom was to marry people from other
noble families. I myself married a German countess, and, although she is a
little temperamental, as you have seen, she has served me well. But nowadays,
there aren’t enough royals to go round, so some royal families have had to let
in commoners. This hasn’t always gone smoothly. It’s hard to adjust to our
lifestyle when you’ve not been brought up in it. It can all go to your head.
You can lose yourself in this life. Lose all idea of who you are. Try to become
someone you’re not. I don’t know, Joel, if you are strong enough not to let
that happen to you.”
“He is,” Eric said, but the king ignored him and continued to stare at
me.
“The way you’ve been brought up is key to this. Have you been brought up
to be confident, strong, self-assured? Will you be able to retain a positive
image of yourself, even when the press does nothing but demonise you and
publish lies about you? Will your family be able to cope with your newfound
fame? Or will they use your celebrity to profit from it?”
“Joel is strong, Pa. Stronger than me. And he’s honest.”
“Well, I want corroboration of that, Eric. I’d have to meet his family
before I can make a decision.” He turned his attention back to me. “If you
marry into the royal family, it won’t just be you who’ll be thrust into the
media spotlight. Your mother will too. Do you think your mother is strong and
courageous enough to face that prospect?”
I gulped. My mother? My poor, anxious, pill-popping mother? She wasn’t
even strong and courageous enough to step outside her own house.
“Well… I… um…” I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my neck. “It’s hard
to say.”
“I must be sure of that before I can make a decision,” the king said. “I
won’t be able to speak to the prime minister until June, so I suggest you speak
to your mother and introduce Eric to her in the meantime. Maybe you can invite
him over for Easter? And in the summer, you can come and visit us in Doggerland
again. And bring your mother.”
Eric looked at me, gleaming with happiness.
I wish I could’ve felt the same, but my God! The thought of my mother
meeting the king of Doggerland! This whole thing was turning into a nightmare.
