The Kids Who Lived In a Hole Read online

  “Shall we see Francine about dinner?”

  LONDON

  The booklet in Marcus’s room mentioned that breakfast was available between 8 and 9 each morning, unless otherwise requested. They had an earlier start in mind than that, and had got up at 7 am to have a full cooked English breakfast perched on stools at the counter between the kitchen and the dining area. Marcus had slept like a log as soon as his head had hit the pillow, waking when the sun had peeked through the blinds and then dozing for another hour before the alarm went off. Zoe also reported having had a satisfactory night’s sleep. Francine quizzed them on what they were going to see and why, finding out their itinerary and offering her opinions which were long on “that's a beautiful building” and short on any sort of critique. She was quickly becoming a favourite of both Zoe and Marcus.

  After washing and brushing their teeth, they re-assembled at the garage and following a last-minute check that they each had their phones, they got into the cavernous Land Rover with William once again navigating the country roads. Marcus noticed that while Francine was all friendly warmth and bustle, William was more taciturn, not offering much in terms of opinion, but pleasant enough. After a five minute trip, he dropped them off at East Felstead train station and, with a tip of his cap, drove off back towards the Manor.

  Uncle Reggie bought the tickets at the counter, handing them each their Oyster cards, admonishing them not to lose them and, before he knew it, Marcus was on the train heading into London. Being brought up on Harry Potter, he was a little disappointed that the train was modern and not steam-driven, and that they wouldn’t be arriving at one of the more famous stations like Kings Cross or St Pancras. But he could feel excitement rising as they left the pastures and farmland behind and started to pass through the city suburbs with their trackside allotments, then semi-industrial areas, and finally restricted views of high rise apartments. Marcus noticed two other things as they got closer to the city—they’d started on a double line well above ground level with the occasional bridge over the road and by the time they’d reached the city they were looking at embankments on either side of the rail line as if they were descending into the earth. The sheer number of rails beside theirs had also exploded in number.

  They emerged from the train in Victoria Station, a cavernous space teeming with other passengers streaming off other trains or running to catch trains about to leave. The chaos was a little overwhelming. Marcus made sure to keep one eye on Zoe to ensure she didn't wander off, while he kept the other on Uncle Reggie. It helped that Uncle Reggie was taller than most of the other people around so served as a good navigational aid. Having an eye on two different people meant he wasn’t really watching where he was going and almost walked into an armed policeman.

  “Steady on, pal,” the policeman warned in a deep Scottish accent, both hands on his automatic weapon and watching with a steely gaze. Behind him was another similarly-armed policeman, also keeping a wary eye on him. As he manoeuvred past them, he noticed that they both had bulletproof vests on. It was a bit of a shock as the policemen back home weren’t normally armed and here they had machine guns! He caught up with the others and they got through the ticket barriers and headed towards the exit.

  “Our Visitor cards mean we can go on any bus, Underground or ferry in the city all day,” Uncle Reggie told them. “We don’t know what time we’ll start getting tired, so it’s good to have a backup plan for getting around. Onwards ho!” He seemed to be enjoying himself. Marcus didn’t know whether it was the planning or playing tour leader, but there was a distinct bounce in Reggie’s step. He led the way out of the station, through the crowds and onto the streets. A steady stream of black cabs and red buses made their way past the station, some of them disgorging passengers at random locations and times, others picking up people without rhyme or rhythm. Marcus found the chaos marginally easier to manage than inside the station and easier to keep close to Uncle Reggie by tucking into the slipstream that he made as he walked down the street. Zoe followed straight after him and Aunty Meredith brought up the rear. They progressed in formation until the crowds diminished a little and Marcus could look around more. The pavement they followed had some sort of historical buildings on the other side of the street, but this side was non-stop souvenir shops and fast-food takeaways. Then, without warning, the road turned slightly and the demeanour of the neighbourhood changed entirely. From the bustling commercial feel of the area around the station where they’d arrived to the tourist shops of the preceding section, now there was the side of a grand building on the left-hand side of the road and enormous stately homes on the right. The stately homes were all in variations of the same colour scheme, with the pillars and walls painted a slightly off white and the metal railings painted a contrasting black. Both sides of the street were now lined with mature trees and the streets themselves were teeming with tourist buses, big red TFL buses, black cabs and delivery vans. They could now walk near each other and Marcus caught Uncle Reggie’s eye.

  “What is that place over there?” he asked, indicating the grand building on the left side of the road.

  “Ah, that's the side of Buckingham Palace,” he answered. “I took your grandmother there when she came over and visited.”

  Marcus snorted and then saw that Uncle Reggie was serious.

  “Yeah, before they locked down the Royal family, they would let the public through the State Rooms and have a look around the Palace. Not while the Queen was in there or anything, and they kept a sharp eye on the groups, but it was a nice little earner for them. Granny loved it! You know she loves the Royal family so she was in her element. Can’t do that now of course.”

  They’d reached an intersection and crossed over the road to the left, leaving the shelter of the trees lining the footpaths to walk on the path. The road was now coloured a rust red and exposed to the sun. There’d been some sort of gate or barrier which prevented vehicle access, so now the street noise was just what their fellow tourists were making. Marcus was surprised at the difference that made. The fencing on their left hiding the Palace was almost twenty feet high and was stout black metal topped with gold. It wasn’t much of a walk before they were in the gigantic plaza with a huge fountain in the middle of it which offered the familiar views of Buckingham Palace that Marcus recognised from TV and film. The gates and fences emblazoned with the royal family’s crest were maybe thirty feet high. On the other side of the fence, there was a broad expanse of open area before the Palace proper. Guardsmen stood in the shade of little boxes against the wall of the Palace, occasionally stomping a little way from the box, then doing an elaborate turn and then returning, their rifle bayonets glinting in the sunlight.

  The four of them formed a little knot near the fence so that the kids could see the Palace in all its glory and they could hear each other. It was a truly huge building and with the open area in front of it they could fully appreciate its size. Marcus noticed more armed police at one end of the building, manning a station a little way removed from the Guardsmen’s boxes.

  “Uncle Reggie, why do they need the police if they have the army?”

  “Good question,” responded Uncle Reggie, looking around to see if anyone was listening and crouching down so he could reply quietly. “So I don’t know the reason, but the police are the only ones allowed loaded firearms. The Guardsmen you can see there are ceremonial.”

  “But does that mean if bad men try and do anything that they won’t be able to protect the Queen?” Zoe asked.

  “Oh, no!” replied Uncle Reggie. “See that shiny bit on the end of their gun? Now that's real. And sharp. So that will do some damage. And whether they’re loaded or not, you’ve got a hundred guys who are chosen for their loyalty and who are constantly training in hand-to-hand combat whose job it is to protect the Queen and they’re all between her and the bad guys. So if they manage to get past the armed police, they still have to deal with the army guys. So they don’t have to be loaded. It was fun
ny when Granny and I visited. The ending of the tour dumps you into the cafe on the other side of the building and you can sit there and look out at the grounds for as long as you like. When you’re finished they take you through to this side on a golf cart and drop you off at that gate over there. When we got dropped off, there was a tourist group who were convinced we must have been semi-royalty leaving after seeing the Queen, so they were taking all sorts of photos of us. Mum gave them all her best Royal wave.”

  “I wish they still let people inside.”

  “Maybe one day, Zoe. Have you guys seen enough?”

  “What’s the statue?” Marcus had turned his back on the Palace and was facing the centre of the plaza.

  “That’s Victory,” answered Uncle Reggie. “This is where Britons come to celebrate the end of wars, weddings, births, that sort of thing.”

  “I thought it was the Queen Victoria Monument,” frowned Aunty Meredith.

  “...anyways, have we seen enough, kids?” Uncle Reggie asked, one eye on his watch. After a chorus of “Yes” and “I guess”, they headed away from the statue-of-many-names into the nearby park. A large lake lay in the centre of it, periodically obscured from view by the wide variety of trees and bushes, making the walk along the path through the park a delightful change from all the man-made mansions, roads and traffic. There was still a steady stream of tourists heading in both directions, some groups with a guide at the front, holding an umbrella or a sign or in one case a stick with a stuffed unicorn on top. Occasionally the tour guide would have a headset and the group would be a little more dispersed, listening intently on headphones. Marcus expected at any time they would break out into synchronised dance steps, equating the microphone on the headset with the stage microphones used by performers at concerts.

  The early morning cloud cover had started to lift and the breeze was soft enough to still be pleasant, so all their jackets were still in Uncle Reggie’s backpack.

  “What’s this park called?” asked Zoe, as they passed a group of tourists feeding swans from the bank, in direct contravention of the sign right beside them explicitly prohibiting the practice.

  Uncle Reggie sounded very sure of himself as he answered that it was very definitely St James’ Park, and Marcus noticed the corner of Aunt Meredith’s mouth twitch into a semi-smile. Before long, they left the park and headed back into the streets, marvelling at the huge mansions looming over the traffic below. Periodically Zoe would read a plaque or date embedded in a building and exclaim how old the building or event was. There were fewer tourists along these roads, but the level of pedestrian traffic hadn’t decreased, and most of the flow was heading in the direction that they were headed. Marcus noticed a worried look flash between Uncle Reggie and Aunty Meredith as they too detected a change in the air.

  At the end of the street that they were walking along, they saw two large trees, one on each side of the road, their leaves and branches intertwined high above. Their archway seemed to indicate the entrance to somewhere grand and beyond Marcus could make out an expanse of blue sky indicating some sort of square or open park ahead. As they got closer they could hear a low hubbub of crowds talking like you’d get at a fete or a fair and when they reached the trees they had a better idea of what was going on.

  A square park was surrounded by the road, and in the middle of it was a growing crowd. Some people were preparing placards with various slogans on them, some were standing around talking and some were listening to a man on a stone step who was giving an impassioned yet indecipherable speech. Marcus couldn’t tell at this distance whether he was even speaking English, let alone making sense, and judging from the body language of those around him, the audience was similarly confused. The vibe in the square was relaxed, with maybe an undercurrent of anticipation. The roads had no traffic on them, so they skirted the park proper and made their way around to the other side.

  “That’s Westminster Abbey,” said Aunty Meredith, pointing to the enormous church set back from the footpath and surrounded by a lovely flat lawn. A snake of tourists waiting for entry wended its way along the outside wall, under the watchful gaze of a couple of unarmed police officers. “That’s where the Royal family gets married and christened.”

  They continued on, turning right away from the square and pulled up short. It seemed that they had found the epicentre of the protest. About the same number of people who were on the square behind them, preparing placards, were in front of them at the gates of the ornate palace which Marcus instantly recognised as the Houses of Parliament.

  “And that's where Parliament sits,” Aunty Meredith said.

  “I think that's as close as we should probably go,” said Uncle Reggie. In the distance, beyond the mass of protestors, Marcus could make out police vans and mounted police officers. Behind the black wrought iron fences (lower than those around Buckingham Palace) were clusters of pairs of police officers displaying relaxed body language with their firearms slung across their chests, but with wary eyes endlessly moving this way and that under their peaked caps.

  “Where’s Big Ben?” asked Zoe.

  “Good point, it's back this way,” said Uncle Reggie and they headed back towards the square before hanging right. Ahead of them was a bridge over the Thames and to the left a weird building that combined Tudor style with a modern metal and glass construction, but their attention was taken by the towering clock tower to their right. They stood to the side of the footpath to let others past and stared.

  Beside them, a couple of young men were also discussing the clock tower and Marcus couldn’t help but overhear their conversation.

  “Did you know that what we’re seeing is not actually Big Ben?” started the first.

  “It certainly looks like all the photos I’ve seen,” countered the second.

  “I mean that Big Ben is actually the bell inside the tower that we’re looking at,” elaborated the first.

  “But when people talk about Big Ben they mean the tower and the bell.”

  “Well then they’re wrong - the bell is Big Ben and the tower which holds it is the Elizabeth Tower.”

  “Meh, sometimes words change meanings and names change what they refer to. Like Gary used to mean ‘my mate’ and now it means ‘pedantic knob-end’.”

  Uncle Reggie cleared his throat and asked the children if they were ready to move on, and so they headed towards the bridge. More souvenir kiosks lined the footpaths, Union flags, I love London sweatshirts, hats and scarves hung from makeshift stalls.

  “We’ll go to Number 10 Downing Street a different day,” suggested Uncle Reggie. “I had a look down towards it when we crossed the street and it looked like the street was blocked with protestors, so we’ll come back when things are a little less hectic.”

  “Ooh! A ferris wheel!” exclaimed Zoe, indicating the London Eye on the other side of the river.

  “Um, look I don’t want to be cheap, but it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. You pretty much see the same view of London for an hour, admittedly from a slightly different height. Let’s keep going.” Uncle Reggie led them down the Embankment along the riverside, partly shaded by tall trees. This side of the river was less crowded than the side with the Eye. They could see that even this early in the morning there were significant crowds. Zoe spotted the ferry stop on their side of the river.

  “Oh! Can we go on the boat?” she squealed.

  “Maybe later. It does connect a lot of the things on our list, and it is covered by our ticket,” admitted Uncle Reggie. That seemed to satisfy Zoe and they continued along, enjoying the openness of being by the River.

  As they came opposite the Eye, they noticed the rumbling noise of many people yelling to their left. Uncle Reggie craned his neck and told them that they were hearing the protest outside Number 10. The yelling didn’t sound too angry and periodically there was laughter as well, so Marcus figured it was the warm-up act for whatever else the protestors had in mind for the Houses of Parl
iament.

  Onwards they walked, past a ship in the river which had been repurposed as a pub, and turned left parallel to a rail line which had just crossed the river in front of them. They were now back in what Marcus was realising was standard inner-city London. Wide footpaths with trees embedded in them, five or six storey grand buildings built between two and three hundred years ago, and very well kept.

  They popped out the end of the road into an enormous open area. Directly in front of them was a roundabout with a statue of a man on a horse in the middle of it, but the larger open area on the right was what held their attention.

  “The Lions!” shrieked Zoe and as soon as the lights at the intersection changed she was off across the road and clambering aboard one of the giant lion statues at the base of Nelson’s column. The other three wandered over in good time and as they did so Marcus’ attention was attracted by yet another large gathering of people, clustered at the other end of the Square under the pillars in the middle of the statuesque building. On the steps, a man with a megaphone was yelling to a group of hundreds of placard carriers. Marcus watched for a while but the message was lost as the noise drifted across the Square, so he turned back towards Zoe. She had apparently become bored on the Lion and was heading back down.