Shadows of a Princess. Patrick Jephson

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      As the helicopter’s rotor blades wound slowly to a stop, she undid her seatbelt and stooped by the door, waiting for it to be slid open, poised like an athlete before the starting gun. She gave a final tug to her jacket, smoothed her skirt and caught my eye. ‘Another episode in the everyday story of royal folk!’ she laughed, putting the newcomer at ease. Look, she was saying, I’m human, friendly, approachable. You’re really lucky to be working for me…

      As I watched her step nimbly out of the helicopter into the excited noise and good-natured bustle of a busy day of good works, I had no trouble agreeing. Disenchantment – hers and mine – came only slowly. That day, the picture was brand new, glossy and colourful. As she visited a factory, a hospital and an old folks’ home I saw the royal celebrity at work: professional to her fingertips but still a flirt; ready to laugh with those who laughed – and ready to make them laugh when nerves got the better of them; ready to comfort those who were weeping.

      Halfway through the day we stopped for lunch. Lunches on an engagement were usually planned as buffets so that she could circulate among as many guests as possible. But circulating and eating do not mix – you risk spraying sausage roll over people when you speak – so the Princess would ‘retire’ to a private room for a loo stop and a quick bite before joining the throng.

      These short breaks were a great relaxation for her in the middle of a tiring day. ‘Have a drink, boys!’ she would say to me and the policeman if a bottle of wine had been left for us. She would usually restrict herself to fizzy water and nibble a sandwich, but if she was tense she might do real justice to the caterer’s pride and joy and eat forkfuls of salad and cold meat followed by pudding – or sometimes the other way round.

      Without warning, she could be ravenous for sweet things. The wise lady-in-waiting carried fruit gums in her handbag and the chauffeur kept a stock of emergency chocolate in the car. I frequently watched her eat a whole bar of fruit-and-nut between engagements. Suddenly aware of her behaviour, she would insist on everyone else eating sweets too. No wonder I spent much of the time feeling queasy.

      It was not until later that I recognized these mini-binges as comfort eating, vain attempts to console herself for her emotional hunger. The roots undoubtedly lay in childhood unhappiness. The broken home of her early years has been well documented and she spoke to me often of tensions with her father. ‘Once when he took me to school,’ she said, ‘I stood on the steps and screamed, “If you leave me here you don’t love me!”’

      I did not probe into the Princess’s childhood, but in a way I had no need to. Photographs of the teenage Diana Spencer show her at a glance to be knowing, dull-eyed and self-conscious. Throughout my time with the Princess there were occasional signs of the scars of earlier traumas: insecurity in her attractiveness, a passionate need for unconditional love, an obsession with establishing emotional control, and a sabotaging approach to relationships. The distrust of men and the chronically poor image she had of herself told their own story.

      The Princess was bulimic for most of the time I knew her. Despite a continuous battle with the condition, which she was popularly supposed to have won, she often suffered recurrent attacks. These were most frequent when the strains in her marriage were simultaneously driving her to comfort eating while fuelling her innate self-doubt.

      Once – on a hungry day – she took a big bite at a prawn sandwich. A solitary prawn escaped and fell with deadly accuracy down her front, disappearing into her cleavage. She squeaked with surprise and looked inside her jacket. I waited for the prawn to reappear, but it failed to do so.

      ‘Bloody thing’s stuck!’ she said through a mouthful of sandwich.

      ‘Poor prawn,’ I said lamely.

      ‘Bloody lucky prawn!’ she corrected me, turning away to deal with the intruder. I took the hint. Modesty was for her to indulge in when she wanted to. It was not for me to question her absolute desirability, even in fun, even by a syllable.

      Perhaps surprisingly, there was never a ban on food jokes. Maybe it was her way of dealing with the potential embarrassment of the whole subject. I was later struck by the courage – or foolhardiness – of her self-mocking reference to constantly ‘sticking my head down the loo’.

      Later that day we flew back to London. As the helicopter lifted from the town park, so the tensions of the day lifted from her shoulders. It was instant party time. Now came the jokes and the gossip. Nobody cared about shouting. My newcomer’s ears struggled to believe what they heard. Was this the same Princess who an hour ago had been the saintly hospital visitor?

      ‘What d’you get if you cross a nun with an apple?’ she yelled above the engine noise.

      ‘I don’t know, Ma’am. What do you get if you cross a nun with an apple?’ I replied, looking dumbly at the lady-in-waiting to see if this was normal behaviour. Her determined smile indicated that it was.

      ‘A computer that won’t go down on you!’ shrieked the Princess, doubling up with mirth.

      Even as I obediently joined in the laughter, I noted the sadness behind my new boss’s taste in humour. She would not know how to switch a computer on, let alone use it for long enough to see it crash; and as for the oral sex … as a joke, it was reassuringly remote. The daring and crudity gave her the necessary thrill. Even if she did not fully understand what she was saying, she knew it would shock and that was what she wanted. It was the safest of safe sex.

      The theme of sex was a standard feature of her joke repertoire. She seemed immune to the embarrassment it might cause others. Careful never to exceed the bounds of good taste while in the public eye, her reticence was thrown to the winds as soon as she felt she was in relatively safe surroundings. Even then her judgement was erratic. Many times I cringed as her crude jokes and braying laughter scandalized the delicate ears of outsiders such as Queen’s Flight crews, diplomats and charity officials. The desire to shock outweighed any possible pleasure she might have gained from the humour of what she said.

      The same desire was apparent in her infantile mockery of other members of the royal family – though only behind their backs. Thus her husband was referred to as ‘The Boy Wonder’ or ‘The Great White Hope’, while her father-in-law was labelled ‘Stavros’ and her in-laws generally as ‘The Germans’.

      Even the objects of her compassion were considered fair game. All this I could laugh off, however uneasily, as her way of coping with stress. However, the looks of worried disbelief on strangers’ faces – and those of junior staff too, worst of all – made me realize that other people’s feelings were less important to her than her desire for gratification.

      By the time we were back at the Palace front door the Princess was cool and controlled again. We stood awkwardly, waiting to be dismissed. Each in turn, she held our eyes and inclined her head. We bowed.

      This, I learned, was when she looked back over the day and judged our loyalty. If she failed to make eye contact – ‘blanked’ you, in the jargon – you had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Suddenly the jokes in the helicopter seemed a long time ago. I tried to guess if I had laughed enough.

      ‘Thank you all very much,’ she said, her voice now carefully neutral. But I got the message. Yes, I can be fun, but I can also choose to be an imperious madam – and now I own you.

      She disappeared back up the stairs. In the silence I heard her footsteps once again, heading towards her bedroom. The door slammed. Slowly I let out my breath. This job was going to be interesting.

      I drove home slowly, my mind filled with images of the day. Most vivid, СКАЧАТЬ