Falling for Prince Charles

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  6

  “His Highness is greatly changed,” Sturgess conceded. “He seems so much less melancholy than he used to be.”

  “Mine’s changed too. More like a Sills now.”

  Sturgess favored this cryptic remark by bestowing a confused smile upon the redoubtable Miss Chance. Perhaps she meant to imply that Charles had the pleasing effect of making Daisy become more herself than ever?

  It was the night after the afternoon before, and the two were jointly pacing the Picture Gallery, holding their own postmortem. They were both relieved to find that, in fact, nobody had died.

  “Never been so happy.” Sturgess hurried along, the gleaming black tops of his leather shoes reflecting back up upon the man who moved with his hands clasped behind his back. This way of speaking, with its reliance on pure ideas and its refusal to accept the necessity for subjects in the world, was rather catching.

  “Made for each other,” Bonita responded in kind, as always finding that, in a world without subjects, meaning was clear if you knew what you meant. And if you didn’t? Well, ambiguity could be comforting too, sort of like the intellectualized equivalent of Creole cooking.

  Somewhere, in the United Kingdom, a dog conveniently chose that moment to howl at the moon.

  Distracted by the sound, they each turned away from the other and, in turning simultaneously, caught sight of their side-by-side reflections in a pair of old looking glasses.

  Bonita saw that the blurred quality of Sturgess’s glass reflected an image of him that, while it also made him seem pudgier, had the happy effect of foreshortening his form until he was brought down to manageable size.

  For Sturgess’s part, he could plainly see that Miss Chance’s glass had the equal and opposite fun-house effect. Why, he thought to himself, she looks practically like any normal person now.

  Amazing how perfect everything can be once you distort reality, Bonita thought.

  Or, maybe it was the real world that warped everything, transforming perfection into something less, was the spin that Sturgess gave to it.

  Sturgess sniffed the air. And was that satay he was smelling? Why, of course it was. He’d know that scent anywhere! It was gingered beef satay over hot brown rice. Yummy.

  Without taking the time to think first before speaking, they both uttered the exact same words at the exact same time:

  “Make an interesting couple.”

  And, again:

  “So do they. Maybe help?”

  They turned again, so that they were now standing face-to-face.

  “Make it Bonita,” the shorter of the two suggested, by way of a peace offering. An abrupt bob of the topknot invited reciprocation.

  “Not on your life,” Sturgess laughed his refusal. He had no desire, at this late juncture, to have the world learn that his mother had saddled him with Pierpont.

  “Ye really are a scary wee person, are ye not, Bonita?” Sturgess stated more than he asked, but with an attractively accepting smile.

  Glint of firelight on eyeglasses; flash of teeth.

  “Like to think so.”

  7

  How absurd! Daisy thought. How ridiculous and how absolutely boring it all was. Talk about routine!

  It was to be her last full day at Holyrood, and she was standing at one of that cold building’s tiny windows waving to her new little friend—the Queen—as the other departed in the rain to carry on with her prescribed duties.

  On the prior evening, over a private supper of plump pheasants that the Duke had not shot, the Queen had confided to Daisy about how the annual visit to Holyrood was more of a duty call, crammed full with garden parties, factory openings, and excursions to inspect the regiments. And how she hated it all.

  Balmoral, which lay 150 miles to the north, was really so much nicer, she had added. That was where they all usually headed at the end of summer, extending their stay until well into the fall. It was serene there, but also ever so much fun. Less work, more play. And Philip was never a dull boy there.

  In fact, during the supper, where the lights had miraculously remained on throughout, Daisy had behaved herself so well—having assumed the all-ears position—that the Queen had decided that she made for very good company indeed. And, having arrived at that relatively snap assessment of the younger woman’s virtues, she had made the questionably sound gesture of extending an invitation for Daisy to join them at summer’s end at Balmoral.

  Poor you, Daisy thought now, sketching a last little wave at the receding grim figure in her regimental dress, as the Queen trudged off to do her duty at a jam factory opening. How pathetically tedious it all was. After all, the Little Inspectress (as Daisy had come to think of her) was Colonel-in-Chief to so many, meaning that that particular woman’s work was never done. Why, there weren’t enough jewels in the crown to get Daisy to do that job.

  At least, Daisy thought, if the Queen had to go out into such dreary weather, why couldn’t it have been to a distillery opening? Now, there was a cheerier prospect.

  “Ah, there you are,” the Prince said in a relieved tone of voice as he entered the room, coming up behind her at the window. “I have been listening for your voice everywhere, but you have been so quiet of late.”

  It bears mentioning here that Daisy, oddly enough for one so otherwise diminutive, was possessed of the enticingly graceful neck of a gazelle. And that, after all of these months of resisting, the Prince could restrain himself no longer.

  He commenced to nuzzling her neck and, as he fell to, all thoughts of sympathy for the Queen fled from her as so much pixie dust. And, as Daisy turned from the window and into him as it were, her undeniably remarkable nose at last making contact with The Ear, which could only be termed sui generis—both in its sheer size and the intricacy of its whorls—the dicey lights at Holyrood flickered and went out.

  Considering how gloomy the day had become on the outside, even the most acutely sight-advantaged fly on the wall would be hard-pressed to make out anything but mere shadows on the inside.

  8

  The Queen stood in the rain and gave one final backward glance at Holyrood, taking in the windows that now revealed only darkness. She could not for the life of her decide where she would be worse off: back there, or out here.

  Ah, well, she sighed, adjusting her gloves just a smidgen so that no draft could get in there, and moving her handbag higher along her wrist. The Bag kept falling down onto the top of her hand, and there seemed to be no getting around it. This was just going to be one of those hopelessly dreadful days that one must merely endure; a day when The Bag would insist on behaving as though it had a mind of its own. There was simply nothing for it, but to head on off to work.

  The Queen had been on the job for nearly half a century. No way was she going to let a little thing, like a spot of bad weather or the whimsically sullen nature of The Bag, stand in the way of the fulfillment of her duties.

  9

  What with all of Daisy’s Harrods’ glad rags, a case might be made that she was now looking too good.

  But, could it likewise be claimed that she was talking too wise?

  Only time would tell.

  10

  Just as Daisy was closing the door to the room behind her, on her way to gather up Bonita for their short trip to the train station, a servant hand-delivered a letter to her. Slicing through the rather Byzantine seal, it was revealed to be a message from the long-silent Pacqui:

  My Dearest Daisy,

  Oh, why must you insist on behaving in such an American fashion? It will soon prove most unfortunate that you have refused to pay heed to my well-intended sentiments, which spring only from the depths of my heart. But you are listening too much at the wrong times and you are not listening at all at the right times and soon the whole world will know anyway, so it will not matter anymore that you have failed to pay just attention to your most loving servant,

  Pacqui

  Postscript: Perhaps, I have always been the wrong person to help anyway, sin
ce falling in love usually has the crazy side effect of making me behave like a homicidal maniac. Ha-ha!

  Post-postscript: The consequences of your actions will be dire.

  Post-post-postscript: I would help you more if I could, but your heart-wrong spurnment of my previous efforts have left me spent. And, anyway, a person pays the paper only by going solo. Lotsa luck.

  Daisy carefully folded up the page, feeling completely safe again only once its peculiarly eerie message had been forcibly sealed back into the envelope.

  She thought about it and she thought about it, but she just couldn’t figure Pacqui out. Had she led him on somehow? But he had seemed like such a nice man—one would even go so far as to be unimaginatively condescending, and testify that he had seemed as harmless as a mouse.

  Was it possible that he was stalking her?

  11

  As the rest of the Holyrood holiday-makers performed last-minute personal packing preparations just prior to departure—stowing away an ermine stole here, the inevitably stray fifth of whiskey there, perhaps a less recalcitrant Bag finding its way into a third—there was seen to occur a shift in the skies over Edinburgh. And, as they each boarded their various transportation forms of choice, with the intention of scattering to their several destinations—Clarence House for the Q.M., Kensington Palace for Princess Margaret, and Buckingham Palace for the Queen and Duke—for the first time in a week, the sun chose to finally put in an appearance.

  As for Prince Charles, so far as anybody could make out, all that could be stated with any degree of certainty about his ultimate spatial goal at this point in time was that he now had his very own agenda.

  12

  When she and Bonita disembarked the train at Euston Station, not far from the Hotel Russell, Daisy noted from the clock on the wall that not even ten hours had passed. The vehicles serving under the Queen were performing as though they believed that Mussolini was running the show. And, as they emerged from the building, they found that the breath of fresh air that they had been waiting for did not last for very long. For, before they even knew what they were about, the two were engulfed within a sea of reporters.

  That cruel stepsister, the press, was doing its level best to transform Daisy’s previously unimportant existence into a living hell.

  But Miss Chance, rising to her full lack of height, silenced them all by obscurely saying that “Miss Silverman” did not “consider her identity as being that of Prince Charles’s girlfriend,” but rather, that of “a devoted reader of fictions.” And, seeing as how the Prince had been known to crack the occasional spine, they’d had a thing or two to discuss from time to time.

  Once it was firmly established that Daisy refused to gossip about her relationship with the Prince, the members of the Fourth Estate resolved to settle for what they could get, and allowed Daisy to field a couple of ridiculously easy questions concerning her favorite topic of conversation: reading.

  13

  Prince Andrew had rarely found either occasion or inclination to phone his brother, but he found himself moved to do so now.

  “Is it true that your girlfriend said those things to the press?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” the elder of the two replied. “What are they saying she said?”

  “Let me see, I’ll read it to you. Now, what paper was it in? Ah, yes. Here it is, the Times:

  When asked her opinion of the trend of books-on-tape, Miss Sills replied, ‘I find them to be the literary equivalent to the vibrator. It’s just not nearly as fulfilling as the real thing.’ When pressed for further details, she added with an obvious display of energy, ‘I prefer something that I can wrap both of my hands around!’

  “Would she really say something like that, Charles?”

  “Mm.” It sounded as though he might actually be smiling down the wire. “That sounds like it could be her.”

  For the first time in the history of their relationship, a note of respect for his elder brother crept into the voice of the one who had been formerly known as Randy Andy.

  “I’d say you finally found yourself a real live wire this time.” Then he paused for the briefest of moments before adding in a jealously pettish tone of voice, “Are you sure you’re up for it?”

  14

  In fact, there was only one person who was disturbed by Daisy’s comments.

  There would have been two, but the man who was a Prince of Corfu by birth, but a Prince of England merely by error, had elected to take a slower form of transport, riding the Royal yacht down the coast back towards London. Once there, he would finish out the month at Buckingham Palace and attend the Royal Regatta at Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire being the place to go for Pimms. Aside from being at sea while Daisy was fending off the reporters, he was also far too busy with two books—that he had requisitioned from the British Library, and which they had promptly shipped up—to pay any heed to the daily wags. One of the books was entitled Bagging Your Bird Every Time, while the other was a book on hard-to-trace poisons, with a view towards doing away with his wife’s wretched bagpiper once he had arrived safely back at the palace.

  That left only one person to be disturbed by it.

  And that person just happened to be Daisy’s newest friend, the one who chose to sign much of her correspondence: E II R.

  15

  Everyone was in agreement, however, down to a queen, that it was distinctly odd that the Times should be so far off the mark in regard to their quoting of Miss Chance, re: Daisy’s family name. It was further agreed upon, by one and all, that something really must be done about those sloppy copyeditors of theirs.

  16

  That evening, the BBC aired a new radio program, called “The Bloke on the Corner.” An experiment, it was designed to provide the man in the street with a forum for their opinions. The first question ever to be placed by the program for the due consideration of the general populace was, what do you make of Prince Charles’s new so-called friend?

  Freddie Crumpet, age 96, from Dover, who was only in the city to visit his granddaughter, had the following trenchant observations to make: “Looked nice enough, though you can’t always tell sod all from a picture in the paper. Looked a little shell-shocked, maybe. Reminded me of some of the men in my regiment during the Great War. At any rate, I like the idea of anybody associated with the Royal Family reading something other than the racing column.”

  To which, Erika Swythe, 33, identified as a working mother of three from Liverpool, added: “Wha’s all o’ this here friends nonsense? They’re not foolin’ anyone, ya know? I mean, the woman said vibrators right there in print for cryin’ out loud… Mus’ be noice bein’ a toff. Yeah, I loik that. Why, how’d it be iffin’ I was to be doin’ jus’ wha’ever I bloomin’ well pleased all o’ the time? Me husband’d ’ave me locked away for nutters, ’e would. Jus’ the excuse he needed! An’ whydja hafta call this program ‘The Bloke on the Corner’ anyway? I mean, tha’ seems right sexist, it does. Now then, iffin’ you’re askin’ me, a much better name’d be ‘The Blokette on the Corner,’ yeah, that’d be better. Or even maybe ‘The Bitch in the Street.’ An’ wha’s all o’ this man on the street bullshit? Never ’eard o’ the woman on the street then, hmm? Why, next thing ya know, you’ll be askin’ us ta pee standin’ up.”

  Being only the second person whose opinion was ever solicited for “The Bloke on the Corner,” and having once obtained possession of the microphone, it seemed a distinct possibility that Mrs. Swythe had no intention of relinquishing it ever again. In point of fact, as the nation listened (or, maybe not), she maintained her grip for the remainder of the half hour.

  One week later, needless to say, this experiment in broadcasting was not replicated.

  August

  1

  In August, even the persistently (some might say, disgustingly) perky Dr. Johnson might be hard-pressed to find London anything other than dull. Traditionally speaking, nothing much happened there during that month. The annual invasion of t
ourists having, like ants, already descended upon the city in droves, the residents—not to mention, psychotherapists the world over—had reacted by fleeing in droves, like lemmings. The elitist tedium that was embodied by Wimbledon was in the past for the one, while increased suicide rates—whether for one’s patients or for one’s self was really anybody’s coin toss—still lay in wait in the post-holiday future of the other. Everybody was biding their time between Pimms cups and, once again, those same everybodies—or, at least, the ones who were anybodies—were on vacation. In fact, if you swung a stick around London now, the only people of import that you were likely to hit would be the Statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square and your own Aunt Tillie from Gary, Indiana.

  For excitement and psychotherapy, then, one was forced to seek them out in less conventional venues.

  2

  Tap, tap, tap. Stop.

  Tap, tap, tap. Stop.

  Daisy, taking the roundabout way home to the Hotel Russell from the British Museum, paused in front of the frozen yogurt shop. The day was hopelessly overcast, and the relentless drizzle made the umbrella that Bonita had forced upon her a necessity, as she cupped one hand around her eyes, pressing her face against the window to see if she could discern any welcoming lights from within, inviting refuge from the encroaching gloom.