A Queen in Exile: Without Us
by James Dye, by the Grace of God, QUEEN
The tulips and jonquils have bloomed and faded in the Royal Gardens at Gannwaithe. We have had reports from our relations, trooping in and out of our august sanctuary, that this is so. Thinking to get into our good graces again (and back into our will), a dear niece even sent a photograph to distant Pontus (1), where we are banished, showing lovely flowers before our stately home. She also sent pictures of the family enjoying, in our enforcèd absence, the fruits of our labour. The babies were lolling about on our divan. Numerous kinfolk in hard-soled shoes shuffled across our heartwood pine floors. A well-intentioned auntie had prepared a lasagne, which was served on flimsy paper plates to people standing around on our Persian rug. We experienced a blepharospasm (2) in response.
There is a song from My Fair Lady, “Without You,” wherein Eliza, realising that she is her own person and that Professor Higgins is now insignificant, assures him, melodically:
There’ll be spring every year without you.
England still will be here without you.
There’ll be fruit on the tree
and a shore by the sea.
There’ll be crumpets and tea without you.
It would be vulgar to suggest that our family, although themselves quite musical, have actually voiced this sentiment. We are, after all, a product of good breeding. But their actions belie their words. They are charged with safeguarding our investment. To this end they have installed our college-age nephews, the issue of our older sisters, in our domicile. That those once-hallowed chambers are now the scene of toga parties and socialist plots is unthinkable. But our protestations are bootless (as their feet should be on our heartwood pine floors). What can one do when one’s own family hold all the trumps?
Our niece, the photographer, could not resist sending us a picture of her young daughter carting around a skull, a memento mori, which we keep on our credenza. Laughing amidst our tears, she related how her daughter continued to carry the skull long after the “Alas, poor Yorick” jokes had grown stale. We could not imagine such humour ever growing old, we answered, still with the aforementioned spasmodic wink.
We felt we must speak with a responsible relation and therefore telephoned our eldest sister, Anastasia. “Stasi, darling,” we began, “how does our garden grow?”
“Oh, your tulips were lovely,” she replied.
“Were? Are they gone already?”
She quickly invented a crisis and rang off. We immediately called Locusta, the second-eldest, and mother of one of the freeloading tenants. We explained to her the truncated conversation with Stasi and soon found her evasive. We asked after Yitzhak, her son, to see if he required any gardening implements. She assured me he didn’t. It did not require further conversation with Florence and Ælia, our other sisters, to determine that our tulips and jonquils met an untimely end in vases on our family’s various mantles.
We should be very alone and desolate in our exile were it not for art. Seeing ourself rendered obsolete in our family’s eyes, we take solace in the creative process and, with the music and lyrics of Messrs Lerner and Loewe ringing in our ears, we composed:
There’ll be scuffs on our floors without us
There’ll be scrapes on our doors without us.
While you’re carving your runes
and stealing our spoons,
All the rooms are cold tombs without us.
Despite Eliza’s momentary self-assertion, we note, she did, in the final act, bring Professor Higgins his slippers.
When she isn’t arguing with her relatives or gazing wistfully at other people’s gardens, the Dread Sovereign James responds to e-mail sent to HRMQueenJames@aol.com.
2. A blepharospasm (from Greek: blepharo, eyelid, and spasm, an uncontrolled muscle contraction), is any abnormal tic or twitch of the eyelid.
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