I.
Hi boss! – I just wanted to offer you my apologies, because I won’t be in to work today. Yes, I know it’s last minute, and you probably can’t replace me at such short notice. Unfortunately, I also can’t replace the love which has broken me into a million tiny pieces, so it’s for the best that I don’t come in.
I know it’s in my contract, but really, would you want me about the place now anyway? I wouldn’t be able to fulfil my responsibilities, and I’ve spent most of the morning singing Lana Del Rey’s ‘Let me Love You Like a Woman’, which is borderline creepy coming from a 41-year old man. I genuinely do believe it’s for the best if I just lie in this bed in the dark and hold this dirty bed sheet over my eyes.
What’s that, certainly, I should give thanks that it happened at all, but having been briefly lit up by another human and feeling my life had some kind of sublime transcendence for once, I feel I might struggle getting back to my emails. And as for completing the spreadsheets… The problem too is that this brief taste of the greatest of human experiences has reminded me that I’m going to die very soon, and being honest, if that is indeed the case, I’m not sure I want to come into the office.
Working from home? No, I’m not sure that’s going to cut it – I’m much more in the mood to not work at all from the Mojave desert and instead drive across it in a vintage red Corvette while I sing along to the radio and try to forget they ever existed, they, the only one who set a fire in my soul. Obviously that means I won’t be in Wednesday either. Indeed, I don’t think you can really expect me any other Wednesdays either, as I need to expunge the flame in my heart that still burns with futile undying ardour before I’m even ready to contemplate our annual performance review.
I’ll try and make Tim’s leaving drinks next week tho. Such a nice guy, Tim. But before that, I’m heading to Vegas to try and kill this love inside and – what’s that, you’d like to come too?
II.
I rarely cry at films. You can keep your Shawshanks and your Brief Encounters, very few things touch my withered little heart. Yet there’s one film and one scene which will always bring a tear to my calloused eye.
It is, of course, the 1991 comedy King Ralph, in which John Goodman plays Ralph Hampton Gainsworth Jones, a slovenly nightclub singer who, following the freak electrocution of the entire British establishment, ascends to the British throne. His mother, you see, had had an affair with the Duke of, er, Warren – what a tangled web we weave!
And yet, the perfidious British establishment don’t appreciate dearest Ralph. They reject his coarse and bumptious ways. At one point he creates a diplomatic incident with an impromptu performance of ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly’. Finally, in a moving scene, Ralph abdicates the Crown in a location which appears to be an unholy amalgam of the Houses of Lords and Commons.
Well, that scene never fails to occasion a tear in my eye. Many’s a hard day that I, oppressed by my own workplace superiors, have turned this scene on and watched the monarch’s moving final speech. It rends my spirit to see brave, good Ralph so betrayed by the monstrous Lord Percival Graves (John Hurt). To see the nobs’ resentment of the man who showed them life with his homespun, plain-spoken ways, who livened up these stiffs and brought trade deals to the UK despite that not really being his constitutional role.
We lost a man who in his own words will always consider himself American, but came to feel like he was English. Who just wants us all to have the kind of King we deserve, which is obviously slightly inconsistent with the concept of hereditary monarchy.
Ralph will always be the only sovereign I recognize. And I know, like Arthur Pendragon who sleeps somewhere in the dense slate of deepest Wales, that King Ralph will one day return.
III.
Last summer I had two job offers. I had already accepted the first when the second came through; it was for a role in Brussels working for the agricultural lobby here. The Brussels role was permanent, you see, and could potentially lead to better things, and the other role was just a short summer job, albeit a potentially fun one, being at of all places Buckingham Palace.
So I accepted the Brussels job and rejected Buckingham Palace. Feeling vaguely treasonous, I sent the Palace an email conveying my regrets and why I felt obliged to accept the offer abroad.
‘That’s fine,’ came the reply, ‘but you have to come and tell the King personally.’
‘What?’
‘Yes,’ they said, ‘Come in Tuesday morning.’
So I did. I put on my best tuxedo and headed off to the Palace. I was surprised when I got there the door was open and the King was sitting at his breakfast table.
‘Ah yes,’ the King said, ‘You must be James. Well, do come in, do come in.’
I went and sat by the King. He had a row of papers, his trademark big chunky pen, and two boiled eggs in front of him.
‘So, what’s all this about?’ the King asked.
‘Well, right, the thing is – I er, got a job.’
‘That’s marvellous. What’s it got to do with me?’
‘It means I can’t come and work at the Palace at the summer.’
‘Well why ever not?’
‘My new job is in Brussels. I have to move there.’
‘Oh. Well. What a bother.’
The King looked at me for an uncomfortably long period.
‘Move to Brussels.’
‘Right.’
‘The capital of Belgium.’
‘That’s the one.’
‘They have a King, don’t they.’
‘Yes they do.’
‘Belgium does have a King, yes. I vaguely knew him. Phillipe, I think. King Phillipe. You’re some kind of Eurofederalist, are you?’
‘I wouldn’t exactly say that.’
‘I’m all for it myself. Get rid of the national competencies and develop cross-continental political architecture. It’s a logical strategic development.’
The King sat looking into space for a minute, and then cast a covetous eye at his two boiled eggs. One of them seemed to be particularly attracting his attention.
‘If that’s the case then, I suppose you had better go. In fact, if it’s best for you and your family, you must go dear boy, you must.’
He was being nice.
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.
‘Now off you go!’ The King clapped his hands. ‘That’s enough, chop chap, clap clap, off we trot!’
I stood up, halfway unsure as to whether to bow or the like, but he only had eyes for his boiled eggs now. I turned and walked back across the floor, leaning back to look over a final time as I closed the door; it was only then that I noticed Charles was wearing his crown.