You or No One (part one in the Doggerland Trilogy)

Is the world ready for an openly gay king and his prince consort?

Joel is happy, confident and working class. 

Eric is shy, insecure and a member of one of the oldest aristocratic families in Europe.

When they meet in university sparks fly. 

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?

EXCERPT

CHAPTER SEVEN

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.