FATHER LIKED TO whip you up into a frenzy of frustration before he told you what you wanted to know. In the summer of 1980 a hush had fallen on Cavendish Avenue. Mother and Father went about whispering to each other as if they were afraid to awake some djinn from its bottle; they quietly vibrated with a suppressed secret.
Attempts to worm it out of Father were doomed to failure. It would, in any case, only have spoiled his fun. He only did it to annoy because he knew it teased. For him a great deal of pleasure was to be extracted by the simple expedient of rolling his eyes until the whites showed, putting a finger to his lips and saying mysteriously, ‘All in good time.’
Time was rarely good with Father in this mood. It trundled along in a most laggardly fashion. On this occasion, though, it put on Mercury’s winged sandals. Within an hour, Father had confessed; he could no longer keep it, in his trembling excitement. He clasped my hand and asked,
‘Little Petronella. Can you guess who is coming to dinner next month?’
‘No.’
Father paused. He spoke the following words like an invocation. ‘The last Empress of India.’
Initially I was baffled. The Empress of India? India didn’t have an Empress. It had a prime minister who was called something like Mrs Bandy. Father was not impressed by my grasp of political history.
‘Don’t they teach you anything in that expensive school? The last Empress of India is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.’
I gasped in surprise. The Queen Mother? Coming for dinner? It could barely be imagined. I knew Father had met her on the racecourse. I knew, too, that they had exchanged letters. But this deity placing her gold and ivory foot through our front door? Indeed I could not have been more incredulous if Father had said that Julius Caesar was dropping in for a cup of tea.
Truth of course is not always what is believable. In fact I have found that this is very seldom the case. In a few days, preparations had already begun for the occasion. Mother had to submit a list of proposed guests to Clarence House, the Queen Mother’s residence, for approval. I supposed if she had written the names Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy magazine, and Reggie Kray, convict, the Queen Mother would have cancelled. But Clarence House sent back a reply to the effect that all the guests were perfectly satisfactory.
After that, Mother was entirely preoccupied with the menu. Never before had she set her dainties before a Queen. It wasn’t as if one could say, oh sod it, and open a can of Heinz ravioli. For people who like this kind of thing, a cheese soufflé was chosen as the first course, followed by roast veal and summer vegetables arranged on huge trays almost the size of bath tubs. The pudding was soft white peaks of meringue adorned with berries. As for the wine, father rootled around in the cellar until he found a magnum of Grand Vin Château Lafite. He decided to serve Imperial Hungarian Tokaji with the pudding as a gesture to both his guest’s majesty and my mother’s forebears.
How I wished I was old enough to participate in the regimented magic kingdom that our normally chaotic household had become. After tearful pleading on my part, Mother said I might watch the Queen Mother arrive, from the top of the stairs.
At eight o’clock I was in my eyrie. The other guests had already arrived; the men grave and resplendent, I thought, in black tie, the women, gay and even more resplendent, in many-coloured evening dresses.
It began with the gentle hum of a motor. A large black car drew up outside the front gate, held open by a nervously nodding waiter. The door of the car was flung open and out she stepped, the last Empress of India. The last Empress of India stepped out and I was amazed.
What a piece of magic to set before a child. She wore a long chiffon dress that might have been fashioned out of icing, it was so slippery-shiny and light. Her eyes were like emeralds, but without their mineralised remoteness. Her complexion seemed to be made not of ivory and gold but ivory and rose petals. Her smile was like the benediction. And the jewels. She appeared to be wearing the treasures of King Solomon’s Mines. A ruby necklace nestled on her breast, each stone glowing with a divine fire. The piece was matched by an exquisitely crafted pair of earrings, the gift of some long-dead potentate. A diadem glittered in her hair. If Hera had come down from Olympus, the sight could not have been more glorious.
I watched Father bow low like a willow, awed by the splendour of the sun, and lead her into the drawing room. How I longed to be among the others. In my fanciful mind I imagined that just by touching that lily-pale hand one acquired a sort of immortality, a talisman against evil.
Mother said afterwards that she asked for a martini, a drink to which she was very partial. Father was no adept at the art of the cocktail, but he executed the task without mishap. The Queen Mother liked it so much she asked for another. She giggled and said,
‘I hope you don’t think I’m naughty, Sir Woodrow.’ Father was entranced. He danced before her, hopeless, as she played her merry pipe.
Afterwards Father was delighted by the way the evening had gone, for Queen Elizabeth asked if she might come again. He was not the only person so affected. Mother told me later that Luisa, our cook, was so overcome that not only did she swing perilously from a connecting door to take a look at Queen Elizabeth but she refused to wash any of the glasses out of which she had drunk. As the Queen Mother had drunk out of six, Mother became exasperated.
‘You can’t keep these glasses dirty for ever. We need them.’
The cook looked at Mother as if she had uttered the most devilish of heresies. She placed a hand on her breast in an ancient and thrilling pledge.
‘I will never clean them,’ she said. ‘It would be like putting the Shroud of Turin in the washing machine.’
Father was in high spirits during the next few days, and he even bought Mother a ring as a present. A few days later he received a handwritten thank you letter that ran to four pages. It was the longest thank you letter he had received from anyone. That it came from a Queen was even more remarkable. He showed it to me.
‘How on earth did she find the time to write all this?’
‘Because she is a lady,’ said Father, his eyes brimming.
His love for Queen Elizabeth rivalled his passion for Mrs Thatcher. I think he loved the Queen more purely, just as Melbourne loved Queen Victoria. It was a crystalline devotion, the waters of which were never seweraged by argument or politics. They continued to exchange letters and sometimes Father sent her books. She derived particular enjoyment from E.F. Benson, and thrillers. But the highbrow also had its appeal. Father was asked if he might introduce her to the elderly philosopher Isaiah Berlin. He enquired if she knew the story about Isaiah Berlin and Churchill.
Apparently, during the war Churchill was told that a Mr Berlin was coming for lunch and assumed it must be Irving Berlin, the American songwriter. When Isaiah arrived, his scholarly mien left his host a little mystified, as did his heavy European accent and his references to Hegel.
‘Never mind that,’ said Churchill. ‘When are you going to play the piano for us?’
Berlin was astonished.
‘The piano?’
‘Yes, I had a Steinway specially put into the drawing room for you to entertain everyone.’
Berlin thought he must be joking but that he must humour the great man. ‘But really, I don’t play the piano.’
‘Don’t be shy, Mr Berlin. We are especially looking forward to your playing “This is the Army, Mr Jones”.’
At last Berlin rose up and defied him. ‘Really. I am sorry to make a fuss. But I have never played the piano in my life. I am a philosopher.’
‘But aren’t you Irving Berlin?’
‘No, I’m Isaiah Berlin.’
‘Oh God,’ said Churchill.
Queen Elizabeth enjoyed jokes, particularly when they pertained to other people’s embarrassment. Yet I have never known anyone so graceful at putting people at their ease. When I was twelve, Father finally consented to allow me to meet her. I was permitted to come in for drinks before dinner and then told to slip away uncomplainingly upstairs. All day Father had me practise my curtsies.
‘Down, up. No! Don’t stick your knees out. You look like a pantomime horse.’
Apparently the mode of address was Your Majesty on being introduced and thereafter Ma’am. Ma’am, but that was what they called all the female protagonists in Westerns, including those who, for some mysterious reasons were Ma’am, but not ladies.
At seven o’clock Mother put me into a black dress, the material of which seemed to have been geometrically rolled on and off again. Promptly at quarter past eight I was led trembling with fear into the drawing room. It was not that I wasn’t pleased with the way I looked; examining myself in the mirror had been a reassuring experience. I was still unsure of my curtsy. But it was too late for doubts. Suddenly I was in the room. I heard Father mumble something and then I saw her walk towards me. She looked even more magnificent than before, indeed close to her eyes were larger and more vital. She smiled and held out a plump hand. I had a wild impulse to bury my face in her bosom.
‘How do you do, Ma’am,’ I said.
Then I remembered the curtsy. The carpet was thick. One of my heels caught in its threads. Fate propelled me on to my inevitable humiliation. I fell over. What is more, in the process I had capsized one of Mother’s pot plants. Earth was everywhere. I hoped the carpet would swallow me up. Then I heard her laugh. It at once commanded mirth in the mouths of others. My Father didn’t shout at me, he laughed too. I felt like a heroine. Someone helped me to my feet. I was flushed with excitement.
Queen Elizabeth said, ‘Have a little drink. There’s nothing like it to get one over an awkward moment.’
And so it was I came to taste my first martini.
Over the years Father and the Queen Mother developed a conspiratorial relationship. They had in common a consuming passion for horseracing. By the Seventies Father was Chairman of the Tote, and in this capacity entertained regularly at racecourses. One of Queen Elizabeth’s favourite meetings was – and is – the Cheltenham Gold Cup which the Tote sponsored. When Father asked her to give away the prize, she agreed with childlike delight. The race was run in March, never a clement month in that part of England, but no matter how execrable the weather – on one or two occasions it snowed – this extraordinary woman was one of the first to arrive and the last to leave.
It was true that the crowd, which included many Irish, was one of the most pleasant in British racing. The atmosphere was reminiscent of Thomas Mann’s fabled description of an evening in a Munich beer hall; buoyed up by jollity, good humour and a seamless camaraderie. As soon as the Queen Mother appeared the cheers were like a twenty-one-gun salute, reverberating around the wintry stands.
It is not often that one has the chance to walk with kings – and to talk with crowds – but I was fortunate enough to do both. On one occasion I walked beside as Father escorted her to the paddock. The throng parted at once in a tacit gesture of affection. Elderly men and young swells; middle-aged Dubliners and Irish priests began to whoop like Indians. ‘We hope you live to 120, Ma’am!’ ‘We love you Ma’am, you’re the greatest.’ The Queen Mother flushed with pleasure. But her excitement could hardly have equalled mine. It was as though they were cheering me too, willing me on to a sort of glorious immortality by simply being there. My feet felt lighter: they barely seemed to touch the ground. Since then I have walked behind prime ministers and pop stars but I have never again experienced such invocations. She could have asked them all to die for her and they would have done so.
She was, of course, no push-over. She knew that men and women, morally, are a strange amalgam of angel and devil, and recognised this in herself and in others. She knew we can feel the loveliness of the night, the tender emotion of family love and the respect and loyalty for those we place on pedestals. For the institution of monarchy this impersonal love, she sensed, was being eroded. For there was another side to the coin. This was cruelty, greed, envy, and an irresistible impulse to dash the gilded ones to pieces. Thus the idea that was foremost in her mind was duty, or devoir, as she sometimes called it. It was only through devotion to duty that the monarchy could survive. Thus she took a poor view of the Princess of Wales for the same reason, so many decades before, that Mrs Simpson had been reviled.
Each stranger that she met was treated equally. The ancient Orphics believed in transmigration, that a soul which in one life inhabits the body of a beggar may in another inhabit that of a great king. Therefore both share the dignity belonging to an immortal soul. There was never talk of her putting someone down; not making them feel of value in their own right. There was no reason for her to take an interest in me, but she did. Moreover she remembered everything one had said, even if the conversation had occurred a year before.
She liked to have fun. One afternoon, during a blustery day’s racing at Sandown Park, I sought refuge in the VIP box to find Father and her sitting together over a plate of egg sandwiches. They were left untouched. As I approached I realised that they were singing. Father and the last Empress of India were belting out a chorus of Glenn Miller’s swing hit, ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’. ‘Choo, choo, choo,’ she yelled delightedly as Father, quite out of tune as usual, shouted ‘Track twenty-nine! Boy, you can give me a shine.’
‘Well done Lord Wyatt,’ she beamed.
As she approached ninety, parties began to tire her, so Father gave lunches instead. The last time she came to Cavendish Avenue was in the summer of 1997. I had recently bought a small dog called Mimi. Mimi was a Papillon, so called because of the breed’s huge butterfly-shaped ears. She was nine months old and no respecter of persons. When the Queen Mother arrived, Mimi leapt at her and began to tear at the silk ribbon that hung from her collar. Father reacted with a cowardice of which he should have been ashamed. ‘It’s not my dog, Ma’am. It’s Petronella’s.’ The Queen Mother merely giggled. She took a shine to the silly creature and would not part from her even during lunch.
I am not sure whether it struck me at the time, but that lunch was like a valedictory. Some intuition must have moved her, because when the champagne was served in silver goblets, she insisted on passing hers around the table for every guest to take a sip. ‘We will have a loving cup,’ she said. When it came to Father’s turn I was surprised to see that he had tears in his eyes. Everyone was strangely moved: it was if we had leant over a pool in some enchanted place and had seen in the water’s silent silver a marvellous and mournful reflection.
After Father took her to her car and bade goodbye he walked slowly back to the house. ‘I don’t believe I shall see her again,’ he said. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I rejoined, with a scorn that wasn’t truly felt.
He was right, of course. Within four months Father was dead. The last Empress of India sent a wreath of pink and silver roses to the funeral. We took it home with us to Cavendish Avenue. With the flowers now dried it crowns the head of a marble statue in the dining room like a ghostly Ascot hat. Sometimes, when people ask what on earth it might be, I think this would amuse her.