The light in the dining room of the Royal Inn was neither warm nor cold. It was simply present, a thin grey wash that made everything look as though it had been wiped with a damp cloth. Fran\u00e7ois sat on the edge of the chair, with his knees together and his hands flat on his thighs. He was seventy-one years old and his knees had begun to look like knotty birch boles, but he was wearing his third-best suit because the best one was at the dry cleaner and the second-best had a smudge of egg on the lapel from Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You have six minutes,\u2019 said the young woman from the Ministry. She was standing by the laminated table with a small plastic bottle of still water in one hand and a clipboard in the other. Her badge said HERITAGE & MEDIA,<\/em> though the second word had been partly scraped off by a key or a nail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I don\u2019t need six,\u2019 Fran\u00e7ois said. \u2018I have eleven lines.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018The Vice-Marshal is very keen that we keep to the protocol. The TvC are already outside with the satellite dish. If you go over three minutes on the reading, we lose the sat window for the North East.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fran\u00e7ois looked down at his shoes. They were dark brown, polished until the leather had the dull gleam of an old horse chestnut. He had bought them in 1984 for his sister\u2019s wedding in Bordeaux-en-G\u00e2tinais.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018She liked the one about the pike,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Pardon?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018The late Queen. In ninety-seven. After the famous bridge opening. I read the piece about the river mist and the pike under the weeds. She looked at me for three seconds. A very dry look. Like a magpie considering a tin lid.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n The girl checked her watch. It was a digital one with a pale pink strap that looked too small for her wrist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018We need to move through to the holding area. The Lord Chamberlain\u2019s representative is coming up in the lift now.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n The poem was written on a sheet of cream lay-laid paper he had taken from his study two days ago. He had used an old Parker fountain pen with blue-black ink that took five minutes to dry on the hard surface. There were no long words in it. He had tried three different adjectives for the gravel drive and had deleted all of them, leaving only the stones.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the corridor, the carpet was a dark crimson with a small repeat pattern of gold keys. A man in a high-collared coat was standing by the ice machine, reading something on an iPad. When Fran\u00e7ois passed, the man did not look up, but his thumb moved twice across the glass, swift and silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Here,\u2019 the girl said, opening a door marked SYNDICATE 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside, there was a small table, two folding chairs and a tall black microphone on a heavy iron base. The wire ran across the carpet like an adder, disappearing under the skirting board near the radiator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fran\u00e7ois stood by the table. He did not sit. He touched the edge of the paper in his pocket with the tip of his middle finger, feeling the crisp deckle edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018When the red light comes on,\u2019 the girl whispered from the door, \u2018you have four seconds before the feed goes live to Radio 4. Don\u2019t mention the rain.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Why not?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018It\u2019s not in the briefing.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fran\u00e7ois nodded once. He looked at the black furry head of the microphone. It smelled faintly of stale tea and someone else\u2019s aftershave. He wondered if the old King had ever sat in a room that smelled of carpet cleaner while three people with lanyards watched him through a small square of double-glazed glass in the door. The red light on the wall gave a small click and began to glow like a dying coal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fran\u00e7ois took out the paper, unfolded it slowly and cleared his throat into the silence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The poem was written on a sheet of cream lay-laid paper he had taken from his study two days ago. He had used an old Parker fountain pen with blue-black ink that took five minutes to dry on the hard surface. 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