King Rich by Joe Bennett

Author:Joe Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Prince William was coming. He had been dispatched on a condolence tour of bits of the former empire that had been thumped by calamity. Christchurch was his last stop. He would be taken on a tour of the central city, a place still forbidden to those who lived or worked there, and he would be guest of honour at a memorial service in North Hagley Park. They were building the stage for it now.

On her way to the hospital Annie was typically early. Though it was now officially autumn, the sun retained the intensity it rarely seemed to achieve in Turnpike Lane, biting at her forearms with carcinogenic seduction. Annie loved it. Who was the character in a Mansfield story, stuck in a London winter, whose whole being unfurled and reached towards the memory of sunshine, the idea of warmth?

Three trucks stood by Victoria Lake, scaffolding poles on their flatbeds, wiry men tossing them onto the grass with a clang. Was that a wolf whistle? She looked around. A skinny guy in jeans and singlet on the back of the truck was smirking at her.

She couldn’t remember when she’d last heard such a whistle, and as for one aimed at her, well, she’d never been the type. She’d always supposed it was something to do with her height, the curly hair that she kept cropped short, her long, quick stride. In her experience, the women men whistled at, or used to, were doll-like creatures who flaunted breast and hair and hips but who were also small enough to be dominated or protected. But what was the guy on the truck expecting? Why bother? Did he imagine it was a compliment? Or was there some sort of irony to it?

But the man did not seem troubled by any thoughts of this nature, indeed by thoughts of any nature. He had apparently forgotten Annie already – that was more true to form – and was now blithely and usefully lobbing clamps onto a pile, each landing with a satisfyingly metallic clunk.

With time to kill Annie took a seat by the little artificial lake to watch the stage being built, the stage that in a few days’ time would be trodden by a future king.

That king was engaged to be married. His Kate, who would not be accompanying him on this tour, had done what a million girls had fantasised about, especially when William was at university and briefly boy-band beautiful. (Though how rapidly that beauty had faded. His hair had thinned, his cheeks had lost their roses and month by month you could just see him becoming his own heavy-jawed uncle. It had been almost cruel to watch.)

Kate nevertheless remained in the role of Cinderella, that most enduring piece of mental furniture for girls. At home in London now, preparing for their wedding and imprisoned by a phalanx of telephoto lenses in the street below like a machine-gun battery trained on her night and day for the rest of her life, Kate was about to embark on the good ship Happily Ever After.

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