MARGARET (cutting him off). And I don’t think they’ll fit in there with you. You could get one choirboy in with you maybe, but you know how people would talk…

MARGARET writes.

JAMES. I thought we could have them behind a screen in our bedroom, dearest. To distract me during the most vulgar, the most unpleasant of my royal duties.

MARGARET says nothing. JAMES registers her expression.

Oh, that wasn’t funny, was it? What is it?

Margaret?

Margaret, come on, look at me.

She does so.

What?

MARGARET. What do you think!?

JAMES realises.

JAMES. Oh! I was angry.

MARGARET. Yes!

JAMES. Did I frighten you?

MARGARET. Do I look frightened?

JAMES. What then?

MARGARET. You disappointed me, James.

JAMES. Oh, no no no no no. Never that.

JAMES turns away, struggling with his feelings.

JAMIE. Why does he hate me?

ANNABELLA. It makes him angry to think about you sometimes.

JAMIE. Why?

ANNABELLA. Because you’re the end of him. If you live.

JAMIE. But I’d never harm him!

ANNABELLA. No. But you’re what’s coming next.

JAMES. I’ll try and be more patient with the brat. I’ll try. Alright?

MARGARET. Thank you.

ANNABELLA. His mother loved him so dearly, you know, like her most precious treasure. It was cruelty. You shouldn’t love a child like that unless you can promise to live for ever.

I let all my children run away from me like water. But, here I am. Still alive. What a cruel joke life played on me there.

Just stay away from him, Jamie. As far away as you can.

JAMIE. But Mum’s always wanting to be with him.

ANNABELLA. I’ll talk to her, alright?

MARGARET. Do you ever think about your father?

JAMES. Sometimes.

He was… energetic. Always kicking something, throwing something… rushing around…

He loved football. Football and fighting.

I think I was too slow for him… too…

Well, you can only run so fast when your legs are just the length of a twig.

He was… noisy… huge voice… huge laugh. That mark on his face.

(Shows her.) Didn’t scare me. Kids get used to anything, don’t they?

My mother… my mother was my whole world… When I think of her face now… Christ, she was so young…

She had me crowned on the battlefield. I didn’t really understand that my father was dead. Then I thought… will I have to see him dead?

Mum was shaking when she led me out. I could feel her hand vibrating.

They were all kneeling in this mud and there were puddles… puddles of blood on the muddy ground. They did the coronation right where the fighting had been fiercest so…

I was looking at these pools of blood… I’d heard people saying that a gun had exploded and ripped him apart…

I thought, is that my father’s blood?

It might have been. It might have been, of course.