The Last Thursday

It came in the Realm’s box on Wednesday, at the bottom, by itself, with sign on the corner in pencil, and under sign, smaller, in the same hand, at last.

California Reconstruction Act 2030.

He did not need to read it. He had read it at every stage, in the box, since September: the bill as introduced, the bill as amended in committee, the bill as it came back from the Lords on the first of November with four words added after persons, the Commons’ reasons for disagreeing, the Lords’ insistence in February, the Commons’ second disagreement in March, the Lords’ second insistence in April, and on the Tuesday of last week, a single line in the Cabinet Office’s pencil on a note at the bottom of the box: Lords do not further insist. 211 to 187.

He read it anyway. From the first word, the way he read everything.

Clause fourteen was on page nine.

Assistance under this Part shall be assessed on the damage suffered by persons, and not on the value of property held.

Fourteen words. No having an insurable interest after persons. Nothing after persons at all but and not.

He sat at the desk in the north wing with the lamp on, and the window over the Axis still light at nine in June, and the blackbird somewhere on the railings, and read clause fourteen four times.

Then he turned to the last page and signed it.

George R.

Not the I. This was the Realm’s, and only the Realm’s, and the Realm had no Emperor in it.

---

On Thursday at a quarter to six he watched the Prime Minister walk down the Axis from the window of the small study for the last time before the summer.

The far end of the Axis, by Parliament House, at a quarter to six, a tall figure in a dark suit, small. The officer twenty yards behind. The satchel. Coming on down the mile under the trees in full leaf now, past the museums and the memorials and the Monument, getting bigger, stopping, as he always did, at the windows, and looking in.

Forty-one Thursdays. He had not counted them. Dame M had, and had told him at lunch.

At five to six the railings. The north side. The door.

---

“Sir.”

“Prime Minister.”

Lord Whitlock sat down in the chair he always sat in and put the satchel on the floor and did not open it.

He was twenty-eight now. He had been twenty-seven in September. He did not look older, quite; he looked like somebody who had been carrying a great many things in his head for a long time and had put one of them down on Tuesday of last week.

“Four things, sir,” said Lord Whitlock. “Two you know, one you’ll like, and one I’ve been carrying since June.”

---

The two he knew were short.

The Act: assent given, last night, at nine forty-one, by the Clerk’s note on the signature, which the Clerk had added in pencil with no comment. I noticed the time, sir. So did the Clerk. Neither of us said anything. In force from the first of July. Ten years.

And the summer: the House rising on the twenty-eighth, the Cabinet meeting twice in July and once in August, and the Prime Minister himself in New Westminster throughout, except for four days in the Adirondacks with a tent, which the Household need not know about and he had now told the King.

“Which means the Household knows,” said Frederick.

“Which means Dame M knows, sir, which is the same thing,” said Lord Whitlock, “and is why I told you.”

The one he would like was Pico-Union.

“The Treasury’s first allocation under clause fourteen went out this morning,” said Lord Whitlock. “For the year. I asked to see where it went. Not the totals. The streets.” He did not take out a paper. “Oxnard first. The flats behind the strawberry fields. Then the farm towns up the valley behind Ventura. Then the river mouth at Ventura. Then the eastside of Los Angeles, Boyle Heights and Pico-Union and the streets round them, which had been hurt less and were poorer to start with.” He paused. “And last, sir. Last. Santa Monica.”

Frederick waited.

“Santa Monica got less than anywhere,” said Lord Whitlock. “Because it had more to start with, and because its people had insurance, and because the clause says on the damage to persons and not on the value of property. The Mayor of Santa Monica has written me a letter of complaint. It’s four pages. It’s very well drafted.” He looked entirely satisfied. “I’m going to frame it next to Mr Abernathy’s.”

---

“And the fourth thing.”

Lord Whitlock did not answer at once.

He reached inside his jacket, which he had done in that room once before, in October, on the night before the Lords sat, and took out a sheet of paper, folded in four, soft at the folds, the edges gone grey from being carried.

He did not unfold it. He held it for a moment between two fingers.

“The first of June last year,” he said. “Half past eight in the morning, your time. A principal’s office in a school in Santa Monica, on a satellite telephone, with the Governor and the State Chancellor on the line.” He looked at the paper. “I wrote it down while you were saying it. In pencil. On the back of a Cabinet minute. Word for word, as near as I could. Where the damage is, not where the property is. Not where the King was. Not where the cameras are.”

He put it on the small table between them.

“I’ve had it on my desk since, sir, and in my pocket on the days that mattered. On the front bench in the Lords on the first of November, when they carried the four words by four votes. In February, when they insisted. In April. On Tuesday of last week, when they gave way.” He looked at it. “I don’t need to carry it now. The Act’s signed. The clause is the law. It’s in the statute book for ten years whether I remember it or not.”

He looked across the small table at the King.

“I don’t know what to do with it,” said Lord Whitlock. “That’s the fourth thing. The one I’ve been carrying. I thought you’d know.”

---

Frederick looked at the folded paper on the table.

He thought about a drawer in a flat four floors up over a bus depot that was full of folded things a boy meant to give to a sergeant, and a pocket of a grey suit that had a folded carton in it once, and a brown jacket buttoned over a list, and a zipped pocket in a school bag with a letter about an arm.

“Keep it,” said Frederick.

Lord Whitlock looked at him.

“Ten years is ten years,” said Frederick. “In ten years somebody will try again. With better drafting.” He looked at the paper. “It won’t be you. You’ll have gone. Next summer. The agreement says so.”

“The thirtieth of June 2031, sir, or when the business is done, whichever comes first. Written down. I’ll go.”

“So give it to whoever’s next,” said Frederick. “Before you go. Not in a box. On the desk. Folded.” He thought about it. “And tell them to carry it on the days that matter. And tell them it isn’t the King’s. It was once. It isn’t now. It’s the Prime Minister’s. It’s whoever’s remembering.”

Lord Whitlock was quiet.

Then he picked the paper up off the table and put it back in the inside pocket of his jacket, carefully, like something given back, and buttoned the jacket.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll do that.”

---

He stood up at a quarter to seven, as he always did, and picked up the satchel, and bowed his head, and went to the door, and stopped at it with his hand on the handle, as he always did now.

“Sir. What are you doing this summer?”

Frederick looked at him. In a year of Thursdays the Prime Minister had never once asked the King anything that was not business.

“Solliden,” said Frederick. “In July. All of us. Two aircraft, an hour apart.” He thought. “And in August, Pomona. A man has a lemon tree and I owe him a visit. And Twenty-Second Street, in Santa Monica. A house is going up. I said I’d come when it had walls.” He paused. “It has walls.”

Lord Whitlock looked at him for a moment.

“Will you go on the six-oh-two?”

“If he’ll let me sit in the second car.”

“He’ll make you sit in the cab,” said Lord Whitlock, “and tell you everything the boy at Alhambra is doing wrong.” He opened the door. “Good night, sir. Have a good summer.”

“You too. Mind the tent.”

He went down the stone stairs, and Dame M’s voice at the bottom, and the north wing door.

From the window, after a while, Frederick watched him walk back up the Axis in the long June evening, the officer twenty yards behind, the satchel on his shoulder, tall and getting smaller, under the trees, past the Monument, past the museums, stopping at every window, looking in, all the way to the far end, where Parliament House stood on Charter Hill in the last of the sun with its flag over it, and the Realm’s law in it, fourteen words longer than it had been.