That autumn the influence of good friends encouraged the Princess to make another trip to the USA’s east coast. Having spent part of the summer at Martha’s Vineyard, her natural affinity with much of American life was at a high pitch. There were several reasons for going to America this time, each of them a soothing antidote to the simmering acrimony of her daily life in London.
One of these was a dinner given by the portrait painter Nelson Shanks, now back in his native land and with his reputation enhanced by his completion of a work which many thought was the finest portrait ever painted of the Princess. The event given in her honour was held at the National Arts Club. To her amusement, the Princess found that she had arrived before her host, but so had one of the other guests and she was happy to be swept up in a bear-like embrace by Luciano Pavarotti. So, slightly to my consternation, was I.
The evening was as relaxed, convivial and flattering as she could have wished. As she returned to her suite at the Carlyle Hotel – which, under the direction of James Sherwin, quickly assumed the status almost of a second home for her – the Princess’s contentment was all the better to see after the ordeals of the previous year.
It was heightened the next day when we flew from Teterboro to Washington in a G IV private jet belonging to the Forstmann Little Corporation. The Princess’s sunny mood was at odds with the weather. Our typically overstated convoy inched its way noisily through the Manhattan traffic in a steady drizzle before ducking under the Hudson River in the Lincoln Tunnel.
The head of her security detail, a worthy successor to the legendary Doug of earlier visits but rather more forthcoming, made an inconsequential remark that on emerging from the tunnel the Princess would be in the State of New Jersey.
Equally inconsequentially, the Princess politely expressed her pleasure at the prospect. ‘I’ve never been to New Jersey before,’ she said.
Our other special agent, at the wheel of the borrowed Range Rover, was prompted to speak the first words we had heard him say. ‘Don’t worry, Ma’am, it’s just a state of mind,’ he said before lapsing back into silence.
At Teterboro, a sophisticated little airport at which executive jets parked like taxis at a cab rank, the G IV was awaiting our arrival. The tasteful eye that had overseen the cabin decorations had even extended to the cockpit, where leather and chrome had transformed the utilitarian workspace into something like a flying Bentley.
The aircraft had been lent to the Princess by Teddy Forstmann, partner of Forstmann Little and chairman, among other things, of Gulfstream. An occasional visitor to KP, he had also entertained the Princess at English restaurants such as the Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in Oxfordshire. He was a bachelor – generous, warm-hearted, discreet and in many ways an ideal companion for a Princess in need of dependable male company. Apart from his unselfish concern for my employer’s wellbeing, the dapper tycoon endeared himself to me by referring to me as ‘Boss’ and, both then and later, proved to be a welcome source of typically candid American advice.
I think it was his common sense, delivered straight and with the worldly wisdom that only experience and pots of self-made money can bring, that was his greatest service to the Princess. It may also have been why the relationship never developed beyond friendship and mutual respect. That it might have developed into something more – after all, Teddy was one of the most eligible men in America – was an unusually agreeable subject to ponder. They looked good together, I thought, especially if you discounted a slight disparity in height. What’s more, he was kind to her. Sadly, Teddy’s common-sense advice would probably have proved no more welcome in the long run than anybody else’s. The friendship and mutual respect endured, however, albeit at long distance. It never failed to raise her spirits.
In Washington we stayed with the Brazilian Ambassador and his wife, Paulo Tarso and Lucia Flecha de Lima. It seemed to me that the Flecha de Limas, in the course of a friendship which lasted until her death, were a source of true companionship to the Princess. In good times and bad they gave her the kind of support that never questioned her actions without offering wise alternatives. They did not judge her without also understanding the reasons behind her misjudgements, and they did not demand anything of her other than that she should be free to be herself.
From a natural generosity of spirit, they gave her the kind of encouraging words and open-handed, practical support that might characterize the best type of family relationship. Indeed, their home in Washington, as in London, became a refuge for the Princess and a place of comfort and tranquillity where she could rediscover and tentatively exercise those parts of her personality that had not been taken over by her celebrity and responsibilities.
We stayed at the Brazilian residence for three nights. On the morning after her arrival the Princess called on Elizabeth Dole, wife of the Senator then preparing to run for President and a formidable figure in her own right in the worlds of politics and charity work, notably with the American Red Cross. She seemed to find an affinity with the Princess, having succeeded (as my boss sadly never would) in putting good intentions and original ideas into practice in a way that brought her personal fulfilment as well as public recognition and respect.
That evening the Princess was guest of honour at a dinner given by the redoubtable Katherine Graham, owner of the Washington Post. She was able to rub shoulders with many of the leading political figures in Washington, particularly from the Democratic Party, which was preparing itself for office.
The Princess’s glamour, coupled with Kay Graham’s polished but informal hospitality, created an atmosphere in which anything seemed possible. The presence of so much power and wealth in a form so refreshingly devoid of the undercurrents of equivalent gatherings in London gave the Princess’s confidence wings. When she rose to thank her hostess in a few well-chosen words, she could, as she later told me, feel the enormous energy gathered in that old Virginian mansion.
In her own speech Kay Graham had spoken with some tenderness about the public dissection suffered by the younger woman, towards whom it seemed she felt an almost maternal concern. If the guests had expected self-pity from the Princess, then they were in for a surprise. When it was her turn to speak, she joked about the newsprint that had been devoted to speculation about a person she said she could hardly recognize as herself. Then she ended on a high note which seemed to strike the right response from her hard-bitten fellow guests. ‘So I will always remember tonight,’ she said. ‘This is a warm and welcoming city in a great country. It symbolizes hope and the promise of better things to come.’
The next day we attended a lunch given for the Princess by Sir Robin and Lady Renwick at the British Embassy. Prior to that lunch, the Princess had a private meeting with Hillary Clinton at the Ambassador’s residence. I lurked outside the door, through which came indistinct sounds of animated discussion and occasional bursts of laughter. After about 20 minutes the door flew open and the two most photographed women in the world emerged, radiating mutual admiration like an electrical charge. ‘She’s very intuitive,’ confided the Princess later. ‘A very strong lady!’ This was high praise from someone who so longed to be thought the same.
The guest list for lunch was of a similar calibre. The eminent figures assembled on the terrace in the autumn sunshine included General Colin Powell, only recently retired as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He and the Princess hit it off immediately.
‘Do you miss wearing all the uniforms then, General?’ she asked him brightly. ‘I expect they’ve all been put away in wardrobes.’
‘Well almost, Ma’am,’ the victor of the Gulf War replied with a wink. ‘But I did keep a pair of overalls handy. Alma likes me to use them when I’m working on the car.’
We returned to London the following day. The day after that, with typical speed and courtesy, the Princess wrote me a letter of thanks. The positive tone of the note was a clear indication of the exuberant confidence which she appeared to have discovered on her trip. For once, her own re
quirement for happiness had been satisfied to the point where she felt there was enough spare to pass around. ‘What an incredible experience we have just been through during our 5 days in America!’ she wrote. She thanked me for my ‘strength and support’ and ended by saying that she was exhausted, but ‘thrilled by the new path we are treading’.
As I once heard the eminent psychologist Dr Brian Roet remark, ‘If you’re going to have delusions they might as well be positive ones.’ There was little doubt that the Princess’s ‘new path’ was a delusion. She had no idea where it was leading, it originated by chance from a happy trip to America and, looking ahead, it seemed distinctly rocky to me. It was at least a positive delusion, however, and I did not begrudge her any of it.
The upturn in her morale may also have been connected with the drubbing the Prince was still receiving in the press after the autumn’s serialization and publication of Jonathan Dimbleby’s book. Even establishment voices such as Charles Moore, writing in the Spectator on 22 October 1994, was able to say,
When the Royal couple separated I wrote a column in this space which criticized the Princess for indulging her ‘craving for private happiness’ and ended ‘how do you know some will object that the Prince does not suffer from this same debilitating craving? I do not know but since he is the next King I do not think we should discuss the matter.’ Now he is forcing us all to discuss it, wrenching the conversation back, just when we hoped it might stop, to him and his woes.
On the heels of this, the Princess was sent a quotation from David Thoreau’s writings by an admirer who had proved just as ready to send messages of reproof when he thought them necessary:
Do a little more of that work which you have sometime confessed to be good which you feel that society and your judge rightly demands of you. Do what you reprove yourself for not doing. Know that you are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with yourself without reason. Let me say to you and to myself in one breath, cultivate the tree which you have found to bear fruit in your soil. Regard not your past failures or successes – all in the past is equally a failure and a success. It is a success in as much as it offers you the present opportunity … if you can drive a nail and have any nails to drive, drive them.
David Thoreau, 1845
Inspired by the sentiment if not by the detail of such an exhortation, the Princess embarked on two further projects which ended her year on a note higher than we had ever had reason to believe could have been achieved during the weeks of aimlessness that followed her precipitate ‘withdrawal’ from public life in December 1993.
Once again, it was possible to question her motives. She was always uneasy knowing that the latest photograph on the picture editor’s desk was of some glamorous foreign jaunt, however distinguished the company. She was therefore anxious to be seen to be back at work after her American trip, preferably delving into something pretty gritty. A focus on mental illness seemed appropriate, so I quickly went to work.
During visits in rapid succession to the special hospitals at Broadmoor and at Carstairs in central Scotland, it was her concern for the welfare of the patients – even these ones – that once again left the strongest impression on me. I was less charitably inclined to check the height of the perimeter fence and the proximity of the nearest member of what I still found hard to think of as the nursing staff.
The management of both establishments were enlightened and confident enough to welcome the Princess’s visit with its attendant publicity as a constructive contribution to a vocation that few might have envied. In the case of Carstairs, the publicity was further heightened by the Princess’s travelling companion for the day, Jayne Zito, who was already a prominent campaigner for improvements in the care of the mentally ill.
At Broadmoor the Princess attended a meeting of the patients’ council, an internal representative body whose activities sometimes drew the ill-informed criticism of certain sections of the press. I watched her take her seat in what was to be a private session of the council, surrounded by men who were thought to be a serious threat to the public. As the door closed, I heard her voice and whatever she said raised an immediate warm laugh of greeting. No wonder rarefied gatherings of politicians in Washington failed to intimidate her.
As her finale for the year, the Princess returned to Paris. In a short programme of engagements in support of her presidency of the children’s charity Barnardo’s, she visited community projects in some of the poorer districts of the city, followed by an emphatically less austere experience at a grand banquet in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.
There, over a microscopic portion of what looked like raw pigeon, the Princess traded doucements with the incorrigible Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Finally, she drew a thunderous standing ovation from 900 diners as she made a majestic exit in a style that might have won approving nods from the ghosts of the Bourbons, who (on that night at least) you could believe still inhabited the home of the Sun King.
EIGHTEEN
PLUMMET
The final year of my life with the Princess of Wales opened auspiciously enough. She still rode the crest of a wave of confidence typified by the reception she had received in Versailles. Aided and abetted by a private secretary never happier than when climbing onto an aeroplane, she then set her rather vague sights on a programme of international stardom, drawing on whatever charity links were conveniently to hand.
In many respects it was a parallel of the path trodden by the Duchess of York, at least on the surface. As long as I was going to be involved, however, I was determined that it should be a path that protected the Princess’s unique status. She was still at that time the wife of the future King; she was still technically the future Queen herself; and she was indubitably the mother of a future King.
Despite my fine ideas, her continuing lack of a coherent personal strategy, plus her readiness to be easily swayed by a fashionable opinion one minute and obdurately stubborn for no logical reason the next, made it difficult for me to plan a strategy for her public life. To be taken seriously, I suggested to her on several occasions, she should limit herself to a few well-defined objectives. These could be flexibly contrived so that almost any of her favourite activities could be related in the public mind with a couple of central themes.
The amount of self-discipline and application required would have to be kept to a minimum, I realized. This was just as well. As I also suggested, she had been through enough purgatory in recent years and was now in a position to be able to start enjoying herself. If she was happy in her work, I believed she would be more resistant to temptations – never far from her shoulder – to indulge her pathological craving for victimhood and self-justification.
Man, as they say, but proposes. In reply, woman in the form of the Princess of Wales listened politely, made numerous flattering references to my foresight, wisdom, loyalty, etc., and then proceeded a few months later to draw up very secret plans for her calamitous Panorama broadcast.
Panorama has often been cited as the reason that I, among others, resigned from the Princess’s service. In my case, however, it was only one (albeit a heavy one) of several straws that ultimately broke the camel’s back of my loyalty. With several years’ close-hand experience of my boss’s capricious and occasionally cruel approach to personnel management, I was more than ever aware of my professional mortality. However much I might appear to be in favour, I knew my shelf life was akin to that of the organic yoghurt with which the KP fridge was so well stocked.
The subject was never discussed between us and on the surface we remained, I hope, the picture of benign Princess and devoted servant. Meanwhile, on a subliminal level my working life had become a complicated game of chess in which, with increasing certainty, I was waiting only for the right opening to present itself in order to make my escape.
With ears everywhere, the Princess was constantly updating her mental intelligence file on a huge cast of characters, including me. This gave her a sense of control which was, I o
bserved, a kind of substitute for self confidence. She felt able to move people like pieces round a board.
She would, for example, make a casual remark to a secretary such as, ‘I know it’s an unfair question to ask … but has Patrick had lunch with X recently?’ The result was the same as if she had asked me directly, but the desire to manipulate was sometimes overwhelming. The bond of complicity thus established with the secretary could be more deeply exploited next time. By just such means, the Princess discovered and attempted to thwart my tentative plans to find another job during my last days in office.
In order to deter this game of divide and rule, I made it a policy that everybody should share information with everybody else. It was not much of a safeguard. Also, the habit of trying to guess an ulterior motive behind every innocent remark – however necessary for survival – was a hard one to break.
Perhaps because of this increasingly convoluted existence, I had a growing sense of the opportunities and obligations that lay just outside my work-centred field of view. The chance of a proper holiday would be welcome, for a start. More importantly, I was pressingly aware of obligations to friends and family, too long postponed due to the job’s constant number-one spot in my disordered list of priorities.
A life spent teetering on the high wire of royal approval, however thrilling the view and however tempting the prospects for personal involvement in historic events, seemed less and less defensible. The glow of self-importance that I distantly remembered from my early days as an equerry had long ago been replaced by a dogged belief in the Princess as a force for good, whatever her human shortcomings. This in turn was being replaced by an undeniable cynicism as I wearily contemplated the task of shoring up her public credibility in the face of her self-destructive instincts. Our outing on the night-time streets of King’s Cross with which I opened these reminiscences dates from this uneasy period.
Shadows of a Princess Page 48