Shadows of a Princess Read online

  I knew little about what an equerry actually did, but I did not greatly care. I already knew I wanted to do the job. Two years on loan to the royal household would surely be good for promotion, and even if it was not, it had to be better than slaving in the Ministry of Defence, which was the most likely alternative.

  I wondered what it would be like to work in a palace. Through friends and relatives I had an idea it was not all red carpets and footmen. Running the royal family must involve a lot of hard work for somebody, I realized, but not, surely, for the type of tiny cog that was all I expected to be.

  In the wardroom of the frigate, alongside in Loch Ewe, news of the signal summoning me to London for interview had been greeted with predictable ribaldry and a swift expectation that I therefore owed everybody several free drinks.

  Doug, our quiet American on loan from the US Navy, spoke for many. He observed me in sceptical silence for several minutes. Then he took a long pull at his beer, blew out his moustache and said, ‘Let me get this straight. You are going to work for Princess Di?’

  I had to admit it sounded improbable. Anyway, I had not even been selected yet. I did not honestly think I would be. ‘Might work for her, Doug. Only might. There’s probably several smooth Army buggers ahead of me in the queue. I’m just there to make it look democratic.’

  The First Lieutenant, thinking of duty rosters, was more practical. ‘Whatever about that, you’ve wangled a week ashore. Jammy bastard!’ Everyone agreed with him, so I bought more drinks.

  While these were being poured, my eye fell on the portraits hanging on the bulkhead. There were the regulation official photographs of the Queen and Prince Philip, and there, surprisingly, was a distinctly nonregulation picture of the Princess of Wales, cut from an old magazine and lovingly framed by an officer long since appointed elsewhere. The picture had been hung so that it lay between the formality of the official portraits and the misty eroticism of some art prints we had never quite got round to throwing away. The symbolic link did not require the services of one of the notoriously sex-obsessed naval psychologists for interpretation.

  As she looked down at us in our off-duty moments the Princess represented youth, femininity and a glamour beyond our grey steel world. She embodied the innocent vulnerability we were in extremis employed to defend. Also, being royal, she commanded the tribal loyalty our profession had valued above all else since the days of King Alfred. In addition, as a matter of simple fact, this tasty-looking bird was our future Queen.

  Later, when that day in Loch Ewe felt like a relic from another lifetime, I often marvelled at the Princess’s effect on military people. That unabashed loyalty symbolized by Arethusa’s portrait was typical of reactions in messes and barracks worldwide. Sometimes the men gave the impression that they would have died for her not because it was their duty, but because they wanted to. She really seemed worth it.

  So this is where she lives, I thought. I stood by the gates to Kensington Palace (or ‘KP’ as I came to call it) and looked up the long drive to where another set of gates – the security barrier – guarded the entrance to what is in fact a kind of royal compound.

  The usual picture the public sees of KP is only one short face of a rectangular complex of buildings. Behind this facade – the favoured backdrop of TV reporters doing a Princess Di story – lies a warren of courtyards and gardens. Around these are an assortment of grand state apartments and smaller private apartments where the Waleses, Princess Margaret and other royal people have their London homes.

  I suppose, if you have to live in a palace, this is the one to choose, in London at least. It sits at one end of Hyde Park, and if you look out of a window facing north, east or south the view is mostly of trees and grass. If you look west you can see the smart houses in ‘Millionaires’ Row’. Insulated from the noise of London’s traffic, I discovered that it was a tranquil spot, especially in summer. On a fine day the only noise was of birds and crackling police radios – sometimes punctuated by the shouts of William and Harry riding their bikes, or by the penetrating laughter of the Princess of Wales, as she stood at the front door telling a new joke to her personal protection officer before revving up her convertible and racing off.

  I had imagined that the heir to the throne and his family would live somewhere elegant and spacious, in an atmosphere of restrained grandeur. I pictured French windows leading onto a lawn and perhaps a smaller version of the terrace I knew they had at Buckingham Palace. In fact, their apartment did not have much of a view at all. Tucked into the heart of the Palace complex, it was surprisingly dark. The Princess had a love–hate relationship with it. It was convenient for her public work and for shopping, and it was secure. But by 1987 it was the backdrop to a dying marriage and its walls had heard too many angry words.

  Not only was the apartment dark and viewless, it was also surprisingly small. Everybody could hear everybody else. If you needed to get away from someone, there was just not enough space. The reception rooms were no bigger than you would expect in any smart town house and the private quarters were very unpalatial. Although I did not yet know it, the Prince had already moved out of the matrimonial bed and into his dressing room.

  Most of the time the house was still. The Prince and Princess were usually out and the staff retreated to their places behind the scenes. Bursts of sudden activity broke the stillness, however. Every royal arrival or departure was marked by the slamming of doors, the bustle of domestic staff and, as often as not, the anxious pacing of the private secretary. Meanwhile, in the sewing room, the pantry, the kitchen and the nursery (not to mention the brushing room, the police room and the cellar) a large staff unobtrusively maintained a style of life that had changed little in a hundred years. Yet if you sent the staff home, closed the curtains and forgot to turn on all the lights, no amount of TV channels, loud music or ringing telephones could keep the darkness at bay.

  Of course the house had been made comfortable – especially if you like lime-green carpet – but unless you had all the lights on, even in daytime it was gloomy. The Princess’s sitting room was the sunniest in the house. Its tall windows looked down on a pretty walled garden where she sometimes relaxed on summer evenings (though her favourite place for sunbathing was on the roof terrace). It also looked down on the front door so she could see or hear everybody approaching. She had very acute hearing. Inside, it was a grown-up version of a teenager’s room. There were two pink sofas by the fire and a smart writing desk by the window, but there were also soft toys, cushions that said ‘Good girls go to heaven – bad girls go everywhere’, and children’s school paintings on the walls. Every flat surface had photos, Halcyon Days enamel boxes or Herrend figurines crammed on to it. It was cheerful, girlish and very cluttered. It smelt good too. There were always flowers – lilies were a favourite – as well as potpourri and scented candles.

  She must have been in her sitting room that day as I made my cautious approach to the anonymous black door that was to be my entrance to the world of the Waleses. I tried to look calm on the outside, as if I turned up at palaces every day, but inside I was quaking … and curious.

  Before going back to the reality of my very different life in the Navy, I decided to enjoy this unexpected opportunity for as long as it lasted. I would use the chance to find out as much as I could about this woman who fascinated millions of people who had never met her and never would do so. I was not fascinated myself; not really. I already knew that would not be an advantage for anyone trying to work for her. But if I was going to have to meet this beauty, about whom I had unavoidably read and heard so much, I might as well make the most of the experience.

  Nervously, I tried to check my reflection in the opaque window of the front door. I had an idea that equerries to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales were several inches taller than me in their Gucci loafers and carried a reassuring air of labradors and sports cars. They certainly did not lose their cuff links.

  Summoning up all my stiffening thoughts, I pres
sed the bell. I could not hear if it had rung, so after several minutes I pressed it again, just as the door opened to reveal the Prince of Wales’s butler. He was about my height and wore a dark blue jacket with the Prince of Wales’s cypher on the lapels. He looked politely unimpressed. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Come in.’

  Later, I came to know Harold Brown well and grew to admire his professionalism. At home and abroad, he quietly bore the hundreds of little stresses that came with dealing with his royal employers at their less attractive moments. His gift as a mimic had me crying tears of laughter into my whisky on many foreign tours. That afternoon, however, he was every inch the guardian of his master’s privacy and impassively allowed me to follow him to the Equerries’ Room where I was to await the royal summons.

  Like so much of the apartment, although undeniably comfortable and well appointed, the Equerries’ Room was dark. Clever effects had been achieved with concealed lighting, pastel colourings and flowers, but the over-riding impression was one of pervasive gloom.

  Two people were already there – the Princess’s lady-in-waiting, Anne Beckwith-Smith, and her current equerry, Richard Aylard. They were there to examine me as a possible recruit to their exclusive way of life. During the last few days they had been examining five others as well, of course, so they were understandably distant, if polite.

  I was polite too – this was surely part of the selection process – and determined, like the butler, to look unimpressed. But I did need to go to the loo. Badly.

  Groping in the semi-gloom of the cloakroom, I became the latest visitor to fumble for the trick light switch on a fiendish trompe l’oeil before finding the real switch on the wall behind me. The humour continued on the other walls, where original cartoons celebrated the Prince of Wales’s talent for self-deprecation. Other pictures showed the Prince and Princess in mostly military group shots, and the image of country-house-style domestic harmony was completed with some equestrian prints. Looking more closely, however, I could not help noticing that even the most recent photograph must have been at least five years old and all the cartoons featured a distinctly bachelor Prince.

  Of course I had read the tabloid rumours about the marriage – there had recently been a furore about a visit to a badly flooded area of Wales, when the couple’s visible estrangement had been more of a story than the floods themselves. Like practically everyone else in the wardroom, I had also tittered over Sylvie Krin’s imaginatively romanticized reports in Private Eye. But nobody really knew what was happening. Everybody just assumed that, whatever their private difficulties, the Prince and Princess would stoically maintain the outward unity that was expected of them.

  Although schooled by my upbringing to view the monarchy with reverence – and still very much in awe of my surroundings – I already felt an inkling of critical detachment. Later, it was this ability to put some distance between myself and the job that helped keep me sane. Having no strong English ‘county’ background made this easier, I thought. So did the years I had spent living in the Irish Republic. Nevertheless, I happily accepted that if I was to become even a temporary member of the courtiers’ charmed circle I had to accept that royal people by definition exercise a supreme authority. It was an article of faith.

  This was obviously a historical anachronism, but I rather liked that. Anyway, I felt quite sure that somewhere wise heads must long ago have worked out the answer to a nagging question. How, I wondered, would I reconcile that historical anachronism with the harsh realities of a world which did not swallow articles of faith quite as readily as it had in more deferential times? Perhaps, from my seat on the sidelines, I would learn how it was done.

  Without apparent warning, we were on the move. Following the impassive butler up KP’s broad staircase – a steep hill of lime green with pink fleurs-de-lis – our conversation seemed suddenly too loud. As we approached the summit our voices fell to the self-conscious level you might hear in a church or a ward for the gravely ill. We were led into the drawing room, blinking against the sudden bright sunshine. In the glare I registered the room only as an overexposed negative. Impressions of family photographs, great art and pastel fabrics swam at me against the light. Conversation dwindled to nothing as we stood and fidgeted.

  Suddenly a door at the far end of the room opened and the Princess of Wales entered at speed. Squinting horribly against the sun, I prepared to make my bow while trying desperately to see if she was even looking in my direction.

  She was. I had seen the blue-eyed gaze in photographs, of course, and it lost none of its unsettling power at close range. When I looked again, though, I saw the gaze was tempered by an undeniable friendliness mixed with frank appraisal. In my peripheral vision I noticed some incidental details. She was wearing a cream cotton suit that set off her tan nicely. A bit too many rays on the chest, I thought absently, noticing a rosy tint to the even golden appearance. No jewellery.

  Her handshake was cool and firm, my bow instinctive. In the distance somebody was introducing me. ‘It’s good of you to come all this way, Jeph,’ said the Princess. Even as I realized she had only misheard the introduction, I thought how nice it was that she used an old family nickname. As I was to learn, she seemed to have a knack for attracting such happy coincidences.

  We went through to the dining room for lunch, and the same sun that had dazzled me in the drawing room bathed our small round table in a golden light. The Princess sat on my left, while Anne and Richard arranged themselves in the other seats. I took stock of my surroundings, trying not to goggle too obviously.

  The KP dining room was tall and square, furnished with antiques and softened with pink and peach pastel fabrics. A complicated flower arrangement seemed to burst out of the middle of the table. Silver and crystal sparkled against the crisp whiteness of the napkins. Portraits from the Royal Collection looked down at the scene and I was just practising meeting their regal gaze unblinkingly when a voice on my left diverted my attention to the real thing.

  ‘I hope you like chicken,’ said the Princess. ‘I’m afraid we seem to have it all the time.’ This was true, I discovered later. At the time I was only aware that, for all I cared, I might have been eating the royal underfelt that no doubt lay beneath the deep-pile carpet. There were tiny potatoes and salad with the chicken, and white wine. I watched the Princess covertly for signs of an eating disorder, even though I had no idea what those signs might be. She seemed to eat like anybody else, and drank the wine too.

  I now realized that the energetic flurry of our introduction was an affectation. As she probably intended, her breezy bonhomie blew away our nervousness. It also seemed to dispel an air of preoccupation that had hung about her as she entered the room. In later years I came to recognize the technique, which she often used to shrug off – however temporarily – the cares that beset her.

  It was time to practise my small talk. ‘Are you looking forward to going to Germany, Ma’am?’ I had done some research and knew that she and the Prince were due to go on a tour the following week.

  She nodded, but without much enthusiasm. ‘It’s an outing for my husband really,’ she said. (It was strange to hear him described like that, and it was the same when I first heard her mention ‘my mother-in-law’ or ‘Granny’.) ‘He gets a chance to meet his old rellies. Half the royal family’s German!’ She giggled. Later, when she was in trouble for buying a German rather than a British sports car, she joked, ‘Well, I’ve got a German husband, why can’t I have a German car?’

  For me this was daring stuff. ‘Better be careful,’ I said. ‘Don’t mention the war.’

  She laughed again – not because she recognized my Basil Fawlty quote but because she recognized that I had been trying to tell a joke. She laughed as a reflex, whether she understood it or not. Later I learned that she would laugh at anything. Sometimes I thought you could read her the phone book in a funny voice, then look at her expectantly, and she would laugh. She was that desperate to be happy. Happy people laugh a lot, so she wo
uld laugh whenever she could – and often when she should not.

  This made her a quick pupil for anyone who had the nerve to tell her something really filthy or offensive. That was a double thrill for her – she could be shocked and amused at the same time. Smut was a sure-fire way of getting her to laugh. It would not be a natural, convivial sound, however, but a great, honking, nasal guffaw. The more offensive the joke, the more unattractive would be her reaction. She also enjoyed the shock she could achieve by repeating the worst from her collection. Needless to say, we did not plumb quite those depths on the first day. It took a week at least.

  If I had expected a lively, informed debate about the function and purpose of a modern constitutional monarchy, I was wrong. This was a relief, although as a politics graduate I was keen to study the reality at close quarters. I felt like a medical student with a theoretical understanding of anatomy who is suddenly confronted by a real patient. Only in this case, I suspected that the patient was free to prescribe her own treatment.

  Our conversation cantered along at a surprisingly easy pace. I gleaned little about my prospective duties, except that one of them at least was to fill a lunchtime with polite chat. Nor was I asked to reveal much about my own background. I assumed this was because she was already well briefed on my personal details, but later I realized she was not really very interested in where I came from, only in whether I would be bearable to have around for a year or so.

  Like many of the family into which she had married, she only reluctantly acknowledged that her staff had a life either before or beyond their contact with her. Employees came and went with such rapidity that this was possibly an understandable reaction. Sometimes she certainly did make a conspicuous and generous effort to be a concerned employer – more so, in fact, than most other royal people – but it did not come naturally. In any case, nothing enforces the concept of royalty being different more effectively than a bit of healthy indifference towards the underlings.