“Don’t worry, I will,” said Joyce, sounding as if she was enjoying the whole exercise. “If we find something perhaps we can think of starting a family,” she added tentatively.
“Perhaps,” said Raymond brusquely.
Charles eventually received a call on the Monday night, not from No. 10 Downing Street but from No. 12, the office of the Chief Whip. Because the Chief Whip’s is not an official post, he is paid as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and he works from No. 12. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, being the first and second Lords of the Treasury, live at Nos. 10 and 11 Downing Street respectively.
The Chief Whip had phoned to say he hoped that Charles would be willing to soldier on as a junior Whip. When he heard the disappointment in Charles’s voice he added, “For the time being.”
“For the time being,” repeated Charles and put the phone down.
“At least you’re a member of the Government. You haven’t been left out in the cold,” said Fiona gamely.
“True,” he replied.
“People are sure to come and go during the next five years.”
Charles had to agree with his wife but it didn’t lessen his disappointment. Returning to the Commons as a member of the Government, however, turned out to be far more rewarding than he had expected. This time it was his party that were making the decisions.
The Queen traveled early that July morning to the House of Lords in the Irish State Coach. An escort of the Household Cavalry accompanied her, preceded by a procession of lesser state carriages in which the Imperial State Crown and other royal trappings were transported. Charles could remember watching the ceremony from the streets when he was a boy. Now he was taking part in it. When the Queen arrived at the Upper House she was accompanied by the Lord Chancellor through the Sovereign’s entrance to the robing room, where her ladies-in-waiting began to prepare her for the ceremony.
Charles always considered the State opening of Parliament a special occasion for members of both Houses. As a Whip he watched the members take their seats in the Commons and await the arrival of Black Rod. Once the Queen was seated on the throne the Lord Great Chamberlain commanded the Gentleman Usher of Black Rod to inform the Commons that: “It is Her Majesty’s pleasure they attend her immediately in this House.” Black Rod, wearing his black topcoat, black waistcoat, black knee-breeches, black stockings, and black shoes, resembled the devil’s advocate rather than the Queen’s messenger. He marched alone across the great tiled floor joining the two Chambers until he reached the doors of the House of Commons which were slammed in his face when he was just two paces away from them.
He struck the door three times with the silver tip of his long thin black rod. In response a little window in the door was flicked back to check on who it was — not unlike a sleazy nightclub, Charles’s father had once observed. Black Rod was then allowed admittance to the Lower House. He advanced toward the table and made three obeisances to the chair before saying, “Mr. Speaker, the Queen commands this Honorable House to attend Her Majesty immediately in the House of Peers.”
With that, the Serjeant-at-Arms, bearing the mace, led Mr. Speaker, in full court dress, a gold embroidered gown of black satin damask, back toward the Lords. They were followed by the Clerk of the House and the Speaker’s chaplain, behind whom came the Prime Minister, accompanied by the leader of the Opposition, then Government ministers with their opposite numbers, and finally as many backbenchers as could squeeze into the rear of the Lords’ Chamber.
The Lords themselves were waiting in the Upper House, dressed in red capes with ermine collars, looking somewhat like benevolent Draculas, accompanied by peeresses glittering in diamond tiaras and wearing long evening dresses. The Queen was seated on the throne, in her full Monarchical robes, the Imperial State Crown on her head originally made for George IV. She waited until the procession had filled the Chamber and all was still.
The Lord Chancellor shuffled forward and, bending down on one knee, presented her with a printed document. It was the speech, written by the Government of the day, and although she had read over a copy of the script earlier that morning she had made no personal contribution to its contents, as her role on this occasion was only ceremonial. She looked up at her subjects and began to read.
Charles stood at the back of the cramped gathering, but with his height he had no trouble in following the entire proceedings. Their lordships were all in their places for the Queen’s speech, with the law lords seated in their privileged position in the center of the Chamber, an honor bestowed upon them by an Act of 1539. The Lord Chancellor stood to one side of the Woolsack, which was stuffed with wool from the days when it was the staple commodity of England. When the Lords are in session he acts much as the Speaker does for the Commons.
Charles could spot his elderly father, the Earl of Bridgwater, nodding off during the Queen’s speech, which promised that Britain would make a determined effort to become a full member of the EEC. “My Government also intends to bring in a bill to enact trade union reform,” she declared. Charles, along with everyone else from the Commons, was counting the likely number of bills that would be presented during the coming months and soon worked out that the Whips’ office were going to be in for a busy session.
As the Queen finished her speech Charles took one more look at his father, now sound asleep. How Charles dreaded the moment when he would be standing there watching his brother Rupert in ermine. The only compensation would be if he could produce a son who would one day inherit the title, as it was now obvious Rupert would never marry.
It was not as if he and Fiona had not tried. He was beginning to wonder if the time had not come to suggest that she visit a specialist. He dreaded finding out she was unable to bear a child.
The speech delivered, the Sovereign left the Upper House followed by Prince Philip and Prince Charles to a fanfare of trumpets. At the other end of the Chamber the procession of MPs, led again by the Speaker, made their way back in pairs from the red benches of the Lords to the green of the Commons.
The leader of the Opposition, having formed his own team, invited Andrew to cover the Home Office brief as number two. Andrew was delighted by the challenge of this new responsibility, especially when he discovered Simon Kerslake was to be his opposite number in Government.
Louise once again became very large in a short period, but Andrew tried to keep his mind off the pregnancy, as he dreaded her going through that amount of pain and sorrow for a third time. He telephoned Elizabeth Kerslake and they agreed to meet privately.
“That’s a hard question to answer without ifs and buts,” she told Andrew over coffee in her room the following day.
“But what would your advice be if Louise were to lose the third child?”
Elizabeth took a long time considering her reply. “If that happened I cannot believe it would be wise to put her through the same ordeal again,” she said flatly. “The psychological repercussions alone might affect her for the rest of her life.”
Andrew sat staring in front of him.
“Enough of this morbid talk,” Elizabeth added. “I checked Louise last week and I can see no reason why this shouldn’t turn out to be a routine birth.”
As the first weeks of the new Tory administration took shape, Simon and Andrew became locked in battle over several issues and were soon known as “the mongoose and the rattlesnake.” When either of the names “Kerslake” or “Fraser” was cranked up on the old-fashioned wall machines indicating one of them had risen to speak, members drifted back into the Chamber. Andrew found himself a constant visitor to the table office, a tiny room in the corridor behind the Speaker’s chair where members tabled their questions, usually scribbled on yellow sheets, but still acceptable to the omniscient clerks had they been written on postage stamps.