Were she a circus juggler or a gastroenterologist, her job complaint would be exactly the same.
In spite of the whole Hand Thing, Daisy was grateful for her job. In fact, it was yet another tradition with her to count her blessings every night as she performed the cleanup job on the meager quantity of dishes that she had used. Another reason why Daisy was a non-practicing Jew was that she never could sit still for spirituality. It only came to her when her hands were busy doing something, like working in soapy water.
Daisy turned on the kitchen radio to catch the news as she was washing her pot, her plate, her fork, and her glass. The local segment brought a tear to her eye; the national tipped the tear over the edge of her lower lash; and the international report instigated a steady coursing down the front of her face.
As she turned off the faucet and applied moisturizer to her hands she was more grateful than ever. She gave thanks for her job. She gave thanks for the legacies that she had received from both of her parents. She gave thanks for the Lotto Lady’s generosity…
Lotto!
Daisy looked at the clock over the stove and saw that it was 7:59. Pulling the crumpled ticket from the pocket of her jeans, she hurriedly crossed to the small TV set in the combination bedroom-living room, turning it on. She performed this hopeful and energetic little dance more out of habit than out of any concrete expectations. After all, no Silverman had ever won anything. For if they had, even they would no longer be cleaning toilets.
On the screen, a lady dressed all in canary yellow let the numbered balls loose in their cage.
The digital timer on the VCR ticked over to 8:00.
And the news that Daisy Silverman heard scattered her previous thoughts, like just so many autumn leaves, out to three of the corners of the globe; while the very same news informed her that her destiny was now firmly pointed towards the fourth.
Daisy’s star was rising in the east.
6
“IT’S THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING! WE’VE DANCED THE WHOLE NIGHT THROUGH!” The chiming of the ormolu clock on the mahogany dresser signified that the Prince’s desperate rendition of the tune was at least temporally accurate, if a touch over the top in the stridently morose department.
“Aye, Sir,” said Sturgess. “But some of us are growin’ a bit old fer this. And besides, my feet are sore.”
Sturgess was wearing his most favored and favorite hat, that of confidant and friend. Just as Elizabeth had found solace in the counsel of the legendary “Bobo”—the senior dresser who had been her principal advisor and companion since nursery days—so Charles felt about his own valet-slash-bodyguard-slash-confidant. Pity, then, that he kept calling him Sturgeon.
Unlike the aforementioned Bobo, Sturgess had no delusions that he would be sitting beside his employer on the throne one day. But, sharing the same country of origin, there was a natural burr and a relaxing lilt to his manner of speech that he only allowed to creep back in when it was very late at night and he was absolutely certain that they would not be disturbed. As was currently the case.
The Prince abruptly released his partner, flopping down upon the velvet spread.
“Man delights me not.”
“Well, tha’s all right, Sir. Ye know, ye always have been known fer bein’ more of a ladies’ man.”
“Nor women neither.”
“Och, well. The whole human race then, is it? Now that could present a wee bit of a problem,” Sturgess thoughtfully replied as he removed the Prince’s oxblood leather shoes.
“Do you think that I made that up, Sturgeon? That ‘man delights me not’ nonsense?”
“Sure. Why not? I like ta believe that ye can be that creative with a turn o’ the phrase when ye want ta be, Sir.”
“Well, I didn’t. That phrase was coined by some far more intelligent blithering idiot.”
“Ah,” came the noncommittal reply.
“Do you know what it’s like to be ineffectual, Sturgeon?” the Future Defender of the Faith queried, betraying an acute level of self-awareness far greater than that which he was usually credited with possessing.
Sturgeon deemed it most prudent to stay mum on that one. Instead, he pretended to be thoroughly engrossed in the task of plumping up the pillows. He needn’t have bothered with the ruse, however.
“No, of course not,” the Prince answered his own question. “How could you? You’re the most effective person I’ve ever known. They should let you run Parliament.”
While they had been talking, the Prince had been traveling back and forth between bedroom and dressing room, and he now emerged from the latter, buttoning the top of his pajamas.
“Do you think it possible for a quite sane person to be driven mad by attending one too many embassy parties?”
“I suspect so, Sir,” the valet replied, turning down the covers.
“Do you think that will be my ultimate fate, then? To get carted away before God and everybody—starkers—just because one too many horsy debs felt impelled to query me about the world’s finest fertilizers?” The Prince climbed between the sheets.
“I suspect not, Sir. Ye’re far too practical to let tha’ happen ta ye.” And, knowing that at certain points in every man’s life, that there were desperate times that shrieked for desperate measures, Sturgess produced the universal panacea. Placing the rather ratty-looking Teddy on the bed beside the recumbent Prince, he tucked the sheets more snuggly up around both of their necks.
The Prince yawned, languorously, his emotions temporarily mollified. “Do you realize, Sturgeon,” he wondered aloud, with an almost intellectual detachment to his tone, “that during the entire hellish evening, not once did a single soul even mention world affairs? The whole bloody planet could go to hell, and do you think that any of those people would care? Do you think it possible that nobody cares?”
“At times, Sir, I suspect ye are the only one.” Sturgess crossed the room and, as if by magic, the lights went out. “Try to get some sleep now, Sir. It’s been a rather long day fer ye and, chances are, there’ll be another embassy party tomorrow.”
And the Prince who, having found that life raft of a note on his breakfast tray, had begun the day with such an elevated mood, drifted off to sleep the slumber of the damned.
7
MindyLou McKenna’s voice screeched down the telephone line. “What did you just say to me?”
“I’m sorry. Excuse me?” Daisy asked vaguely. “I got distracted there for a minute. I thought maybe I’d left something still cooking in the kitchen; but no, I realized—my mistake!—that heavenly smell is just another one of my bridges burning behind me.”
“I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about, Daisy. Could you please just tell me what the heck you’re talking about? No, on second thought, don’t. It’d probably give me a migraine. Just get over to Mrs. Reichert’s before—”
“In my heart of hearts, I always refer to you as the Bottom-Feeder, MindyLou,” Daisy interrupted. “And I don’t believe that I’ll be coming in to work anymore,” she added, just barely managing to keep the whoop bottled up inside until she had delicately replaced the receiver. She had never realized it before, but that whoop had been waiting all of her life to come out.
8
“Another day, another embassy party,” the valet said brightly, drawing the drapes and exposing a stunningly damp view of the Thames Valley.
“Please tell me that your real name is Benny Hill, Sturgeon,” the Prince requested, unable to suppress the very unregal modulations of the beggar from creeping into his voice.
9
“Pack your bags,” Daisy announced, virtually flying into the shop.
“How long are we staying for?” Bonita asked, as if she had this sort of conversation every day of her life.
“For as long as the first year’s check lasts us. If we run out before next year’s check kicks in, well… we’ll worry about that when we have to worry about it. And not a minute before.”
10
<
br /> “Same time, same place,” the bodyguard said as they entered the room.
“Fine,” his employer muttered with some degree of asperity. “If you’re not willing to be John Cleese, then how about if we just all agree to call me Bootsie and have done with it?”
11
Bonita squinted through her glasses, closely examining the extensive selection of keys that were attached to an elasticized cord around her wrist. Choosing one, she inserted it, locking the door behind them. As they strolled down the street, bags in hand, she tossed the cord and the keys into the nearest trash basket.
“Don’t you have any family that you need to tell about where you’re going?” Daisy couldn’t help but wonder out loud.
“Nope.”
“No family at all?”
“Never saw the point in it. Figured on just putting one together.” she shrugged. “Making it up as it goes along.”
12
The confidant closed the drapes.
“Are we in Bedlam yet?”
“Nae. But I’m afraid that we’re all on our way.”
13
“Just a little advice,” Bonita offered. There was a warning note in her voice that Daisy happened to miss, as she hurried through the airport, the topknot bobbing along at her side.
“Shoot.”
“Never lose sight of who you are.”
“Of course not,” came the vehement reply.
They were craning their necks, scanning the departure times on the display screen.
“And never forget where you come from.”
“Not possible.”
The childlike smile belied the underlying seriousness of the final warning that came just prior to boarding the jet. “And, whatever else you do, never stay too long at the ball.”
And Daisy, who, having never traveled very much before, had become temporarily sidetracked by the whole ticket, boarding pass, your copy, my copy process, uttered a distant, “Yeah, yeah; sure, sure,” in response.
14
“Is it the Fool’s Day again?”
“It can be if you so order it, Sir.”
15
In Heathrow Airport, on an early morning late in the month of April, an auburn-haired woman with a baseball cap jammed on her head stood waiting to pass through customs. At her side was an equally short companion, wearing a tweedy green dress and her version of a Victorian ’do made even wilder by a night’s sleep on the plane.
“And where might you be going, Miss?”
Daisy Silverman smiled, shouldering her bag as the official waved her through.
“Why, to see the Queen, of course.”
Part II
She Flies Through the Air with the Greatest of Ease
For he that talketh what he knoweth
will also talk what he knoweth not.
from “Of Simulation and Dissimulation”
~ The Essays of Francis Bacon
May
1
The gentleman holding the post of Her Majesty’s Master of the Household had, as just one of his myriad responsibilities, the task of writing up the “Court Circular” column which was, in turn, reprinted in the Times and the Daily Telegraph under the royal coat-of-arms. It catalogued the daily whereabouts of specific Royals in descending order of importance. As such, it functioned as an open beckoning gesture to any moron with the proper networking connections who could thusly obtain the appropriate invitation card. It also set the Royal Family up as sitting ducks, at least for the duration of the event, for any and all gawkers who were in possession of the metaphorical price of admission.
On an otherwise brilliantly fine Friday, smack in the middle of the often dicey month of May, the following item appeared in the column:
“… and, also to be noted, this evening there is rumored to be a positively stupendous soiree that is to take place at the Pakistani Embassy. HRH, The Prince of Wales, will undoubtedly be in attendance.”
• • •
Daisy Silverman had taken up residence in the British Library during most of her waking hours, when she wasn’t out jogging or eating. And the single thing that drew her to the interior of the structure, like a giant magnet operating on a paper clip, was—of course—the Reading Room. The rules stated that you could not gain admittance to the august enclosure unless you were at least twenty-one years of age and your research there had been recommended by a sponsor—preferably a renowned scholar. Otherwise, the best you could hope for was a micro-brief look-see with one of the warders as escort. Frustrating.
But rules, thank God, had often been made just for Daisy to break them. And when Bonita, who was fast becoming a source of constant surprise, had learned of the dilemma, she had merely shrugged the problem off. Grateful, and positively reeling from the giddiness brought about by such a voluminous windfall, the naturally inquisitive Daisy had neglected to press for details concerning the origin of Bonita’s scholarly underground connections, when the former convenience store clerk had claimed to “know somebody.”
Now situated on a regular basis where she had so badly wanted to be, Daisy didn’t care if other people found her behavior a tad bit touristy. She loved standing in the circular room, the 106-foot high, pale blue dome soaring comfortingly like a second heaven over her head; loved looking at the spines of the books, the autumnal hues of their bound leather causing her to think curiously of Halloween; loved imagining all of the great minds that had ever done their thinking here: Dickens, Gandhi, Shaw, Thackeray, Yeats. So what if back when they were around it had all been part of the British Museum over on Russell Square, and had since been moved to Euston Street, lock, stock, and carrel? It was still the Reading Room in the British Library.
Most of all, though, Daisy loved—no matter how trite—to fantasize about Karl Marx, sitting in his favorite seat, toiling away on Das Kapital.
As she took in the arched windows rising up the sides of the dome, took in the real scholars poring over their tomes at the leather-topped tables, the sight of just a mere fraction of the Library’s reputed eighteen million holdings—shelved on three floors and all in one place—was enough to knock Daisy on her literary ass.
Why, then, this special place—the Library, itself—that was always so good at elevating her spirits whenever she got feeling blue (for, in spite of her instantaneous love of the city and that enjoyment that she derived from the quirky companionship of Bonita, she still got a little homesick upon occasion) should let her down, she had no idea. But let her down it did, and badly at that. And quite suddenly, on that same day that the item—which she had not read—had appeared in the daily newspapers, she found herself running from her haven, face streaming with tears.
Her sneakers carried her out of the library, and she collapsed in a heap on the stone steps, the column that supported her back dwarfing her despondent form. So atypical was her total self-absorption on that day that she hadn’t noticed that there had been another person contemplating Marx’s chair in the Reading Room. Or that the individual had pursued her in flight, scurrying along in his own cross-trainers and straining to keep pace with her surprisingly brisk stride.
“Please. May I please be of some assistance to you, Miss?”
Startled, Daisy glanced up, seeking the source of the Indo-Iranian-based accent. As she raised her head from its dispirited resting place in her hands, her nose wrinkled unconsciously. Whole cashews? And was that, possibly, garlic-steamed artichokes? How could she possibly remain depressed now?
Her uplifted gaze took in the sight of a man about her own age, skin the color of filberts. He had close-cropped, wavy black hair, and a matching pencil-thin mustache that twitched under an inoffensive nose whenever he spoke or smiled. His body had the pear-shaped quality of a drop of water being slowly squeezed from the faucet and, amazingly enough, it did not look as though he would turn out to be any taller than she.
What a wonderful world it’s been lately, she thought, obscurely. All of a sudden, it’s as though everything were j
ust my size. She could have sworn that she smelled just a tiny whiff of a decorated gingerbread-man cookie, too. Yummy.
She wiped at her eyes with the cuffs of her sweatshirt. “Excuse me?”
“You began to cry back there,” he said, indicating the Library with his hand. “When you were looking at Marx’s chair. I thought that maybe I could be of some help to you. Perhaps you were lamenting the lot of the masses?”
“Oh, that,” Daisy replied, feeling just a trifle embarrassed at the prospect of having to speak about the idiosyncratic nature of her personality out loud. “No. I mean, that could have done it, maybe on another day. And today, it did actually start with Marx’s chair. And then, of course, I got thinking about Das Kapital—I mean, who doesn’t when they go in there? And then,” and here she sighed, “I got to thinking about how I had never even read Das Kapital—never mind having actually written anything like it. And then,” she wound up, “I got to thinking about all of the books in there and all of the books in the world—history, anatomy, tai chi, even things that I’m not remotely interested in—and I thought how it’s just not possible: I’ll never live long enough to read everything that I want to read. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind facing the thought of my own death at all. It’s just that I absolutely hate the idea that I won’t get the chance to read everything first. In fact,” she shrugged, “it’s the only thought that ever makes me feel like just throwing in the towel.”
Falling for Prince Charles Page 3
