Blood Lies Ali Franks Ali Franks is a teacher with ambitions to be a professional snooker player, fly bachatero or writer.
It’s been five years since the Diamond Jubilee repainting, thought Colonel Fitzjames. The Great Hall of Buckingham Palace, times of austerity or not, deserved a lick of paint. Every morning he watched the housekeepers sweeping up flakes of cream emulsion underneath the portraits around the room. A month ago a great strip had alighted on George IV’s head, instantly restyling his hair into a peroxide quiff, until curators had arrived, removed the offending scrap and carefully cleaned the remaining white powder from his forehead. A flooded upstairs guest bathroom had left a sickly yellow stain growing out of the gold-leafed trim on the ceiling. Still, the room was magnificent. Three hundred years of monarchy slung in chronological order on vast canvases along the crimson walls. Capes and furs morphed across the centuries into uniforms dripping with heroism. Wigs and collars grew and shrank, gold and jewels came and went, the pendulum swung back and forth from dainty to macho, facial resemblances ebbing and flowing through the generations, a prominent chin here, deep-set eyes there. Occasional anomalies littered the walls, a portly prince from a line of string beans, a novel hair colour or a previously unseen proboscis. And still their descendants sat on the throne, popularity untouched by state cuts and unemployment, that great boon of monarchy – stability, more cherished than ever. The colonel’s secretary waited for him in his office in the south wing. Press clippings, a daily schedule and a stack of correspondence sat on his desk. “Anything special?’ he asked, hanging his jacket and wood-handled umbrella on their rack. “No, sir. Though one slight change of schedule, just come in. Fog over the highlands has grounded air traffic, so the heir will travel by car to the agricultural show.” “All well for the assent signing?” “Yes, sir, on schedule.” “Fine, fine. Bring me a coffee, would you?” He sat behind the old desk, pulled out the Telegraph, and began reading the Ashes reports. After a lunch of Duchy pork pie, they began the ceremony. The Parliamentary clerk arrived and waited patiently in the library for ten minutes, running his hand over his Brylcreemed hair and coveting the first editions. In his hands were two copies of the bill that would keep government running during a
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