by David Michie
I thought of Winston, snorting and wheezing in his basket, unable to sleep. The missed opportunities to mix and mingle, such as this one. It was only then, my fellow subject, when the penny began to drop.
Dr. Axel Munthe had visited Winston several times already. There had been talk of canine influenza and its wide variety of symptoms. The topics of secondary respiratory infections and the role of antibiotics had also been raised. Winston had already had a blood test, but the results had been inconclusive.
When he suddenly became weaker, going off his food almost entirely, Her Majesty consulted Dr. Munthe once again. This time, poor Winston had to go into the clinic overnight for further blood tests, as well as an X-ray.
When Dr. Munthe reappeared, his news was not reassuring. Once again, he had to tell the Queen that the tests hadn’t ruled out one thing or another. For the first time, he mentioned that there was a chance of something ‘sinister’, indicating Winston’s advanced age. But he was not in a position to confirm this. Further diagnostic tests were possible, including an MRI scan. And the very best way of finding out why Winston wasn’t eating, he said, would be to open him up and see exactly what was going on inside his digestive system. However, given his weakened condition, it would take Winston a long time to recover from such invasive action. And besides, Dr. Munthe said, if they were to find the worst, there wasn’t much they could do with that information. He feared the ultimate prognosis would be the same.
While most of this medical talk was incomprehensible to us dogs, his tone of voice and body language were all that we needed. Dr. Munthe clearly had no idea what was wrong with Winston. And although he was no pessimist, in his own measured way he was telling the Queen to prepare herself for the worst.
It was on the evening of Dr. Munthe’s visit that we had retired to the private sitting room at Windsor, where the Queen and Philip sat playing Scrabble. A fire glowed in the hearth and we three corgis were scattered about it, dozing contentedly. At one point I looked up, and found Winston’s gaze fixed on me. He motioned for me to join him.
As I made my way over and lay down beside him, I couldn’t ignore how laboured his breathing had become—even more so than in the past few weeks. It was with some effort that he propped himself up in his basket to face me. ‘Nelson.’ He looked me straight in the eye. ‘I am dying.’
I was startled. ‘Don’t be silly, Winston. That must be the painkillers talking.’ Dr. Munthe had administered a dose that he said would help Winston cope with the attacks of coughing.
‘I can feel it in my bones.’
I knew better than to contradict Winston, when it came to the subject of his intuition. And because he had rarely been so direct with me, I knew I had to take him seriously.
‘But you can’t die!’ I said, feeling helpless.
‘Oh, it’s the most natural thing in the world,’ he said. ‘Every one of us must die and, if you live well, you have nothing to fear.’ From the way he spoke, it was evident that Winston had no concerns about what he faced. ‘Death is simply the transition to adventures new.’
There was the longest silence, interspersed only by the occasional crack of a burning log in the fire. Eventually I told him exactly how I felt. ‘But I don’t want to lose you!’ I said, with feeling.
‘Sweet of you to say so, dear boy,’ he replied in a kindly tone. ‘But parting is inevitable. We come into the world not knowing anyone. And when we leave, it is on our own too. We separate from everyone who has ever been important to us and from every one of our possessions.’
My mind went to the pile of bones stacked near the flowerpots that Winston had been wise to keep hidden in plain sight before he continued, ‘It’s the same for us all. On the day she dies, even the Queen herself will leave this life with as much as you or me or a beggar in the street.’
I considered this bleak prospect for a moment before I asked, ‘Doesn’t that make our whole life a bit pointless?’
‘Not at all.’ He had to pause to take in a few laboured breaths before he said, ‘It only focuses the mind on what we do take with us.’
I cocked my head, staring at him intently.
‘Consciousness,’ he spluttered. ‘That’s what continues. We should take every opportunity we have in this life, to make sure that it continues in a positive way.’
‘How do you do that?’ Winston was revealing a subject I had never thought much about—but which was assuming a sudden, very great importance.
‘By creating the true causes of a happy mind.’
I listened to this with interest.
‘Can anger lead to contentment?’ he asked.
‘I . . . I don’t think so.’ I didn’t want to disappoint him with my answer.
‘Never,’ he confirmed, his voice weaker than in the past, but still defiant. ‘Nor can jealousy lead to peacefulness, or self-pity to joy. Our main purpose in life is to develop the positive causes of positive mental effects. This is the best way to be happy, not only now, but in the future, when this life ends.’
As so often before, I was struck by Winston’s very great wisdom. He knew the answers to questions that I hadn’t yet even thought of. But as I mulled over his words, something troubled me. I found myself turning my nose away from him.
‘What is it, dear boy?’
‘It’s . . . I don’t suppose it’s anything much.’
‘No time to lose,’ he managed, before succumbing to a violent attack of coughing. ‘Spit it out.’
‘It’s just that, what if there is nothing after this life?’ I felt bad asking such a thing of a corgi who was not only my mentor, but who was himself seriously ill.
‘Yes,’ he nodded sagely. ‘I suppose we all wonder this sometimes. But the energy we possess cannot be destroyed. It may change shape, but it has to go somewhere.’ It was a while before he added, ‘Like trapped wind.’
I was relieved that Winston hadn’t been upset by my indelicate question. ‘Better out than in?’ I repeated his very personal liturgy. ‘Winston’s First Dictum?’
‘Look sharp, dear boy,’ he wheezed, humour lighting up his grizzled features as he spluttered in his basket. ‘Watch how the most enlightened beings choose to spend their time. What do they hold to be important? That should give us a clue about life’s greatest purpose.’
My thoughts turned immediately to Her Majesty and to how I owed her everything. If it hadn’t been for her kind-heartedness and swift resolve, I wouldn’t even be alive, let alone one of her canine representatives. I thought about Charles’s work to reconnect people with the natural world and with each other: how eager he was for people to focus on what is meaningful. And then I reflected on the younger family members with their Royal Foundation. Each one of them, in their own way, spent a great deal of time and energy creating the causes for a happy mind and, from the way Winston explained it, for great future happiness beyond this life.
When my thoughts turned back to myself, however, I felt uncomfortable. ‘I know I’m still quite young,’ I confessed to Winston. ‘Barely out of puppyhood. But I wouldn’t know where to start, you know, creating the true causes of a happy mind. You are a very wise corgi, you understand things. And Margaret . . .’ I glanced in her direction ‘she keeps things organised and shipshape. But I am a corgi with no special abilities. What can I do to help others?’
‘Listen to your heart,’ said Winston. ‘It will become clear. You don’t need any special ability to care for the wellbeing of others. Anyone can practise generosity, giving support to those around us. We all have plenty of opportunities to practise patience. The wonderful paradox is that the more we make the happiness of other beings our priority, the happier we become ourselves.’
I was following him closely as he then very quietly added, ‘But you are wrong to think you don’t have a special ability that you will develop over time. It’s a great relief for me to know that I can pass these particular duties onto you. You will inherit a sacred mantle that has been handed down, from one royal cani
ne to the next, for the past thousand years.’
I looked at Winston, uncomprehending. Special ability? Sacred mantle? What was he on about? Blinking heavily, he observed my bewilderment. ‘Think of my name, dear boy. That may give you a clue.’
‘Winston,’ I replied. We will fight them on the beaches. I remembered very well the story about his willingness to defend his Queen against the onslaught of rottweilers on a beach near Balmoral. ‘And because they thought you liked cigars.’
A rueful smile crossed his face as he remembered. ‘Yes, indeed. But there’s another, more esoteric reason for my name.’
‘Go on,’ I urged him.
‘Long before my namesake, Winston Churchill, became prime minister, he was a British soldier fighting in South Africa. He was captured by the Boers, but managed to escape. In the darkness, he found his way to the only house in a thirty-mile radius that was sympathetic to the British cause. He was guided, dear boy. Intuition. Any other house and he would have been recaptured and shot dead for trying to escape.’
My eyes widened as I listened to this incredible tale.
‘There were other occasions. Once he had to get into his ministerial car. A staff member held the door open for him. But instead, he stepped round to the opposite side of the vehicle and climbed in. During the journey, a bomb exploded on the side where he usually sat, blasting the car onto just two wheels. He told his wife later that an inner voice had directed him where to sit. Again, it was intuition that saved his life.
‘This same ability was useful in helping others. Like the time he ordered all the staff at 10 Downing Street to evacuate the kitchen immediately. A short while later, the place was destroyed by an enemy bomb.’
It was the first time I had heard any of these stories. As I took them in, I wondered how they tied in with the reason for Winston’s name and with what he had said to me.
‘That’s amazing, Winston!’ I said. ‘Do you also have intuition?’
‘Let’s just say that I’m sensitive,’ he intoned this last word with great deliberation. ‘As are you.’
‘Me?!’ In that moment, the only images that sprang to mind were of the embarrassing variety. Knowing my story as intimately as you do, my fellow subject, I’m sure there’s no need for me to recite that litany of shame yet again.
‘You don’t think you came into this family by chance?’ he challenged. He seemed to be suggesting a level of action behind my rescue from the Grimsleys—a subject I’d never even thought about, but which had my mind whirring.
‘This intuition—being sensitive,’ I pressed him. ‘How do you know I have it?’
Instead of replying, Winston succumbed to an attack of coughing, his whole body so wracked that the Queen got up from the Scrabble board and came over to the basket to reassure him. It took the longest time for him to recover, the coughing subsiding to a deep gasping, before he was finally able to breathe more easily. I turned, leaving him so that he could slip into much-needed rest. But despite the coughing spasm, he hadn’t forgotten my question. ‘All in good time, dear boy’ he whispered, closing his eyes. ‘We will speak before I go. But never forget: you are a divine creation of energy and consciousness. Understand this and you will know what endures after this life ends.’
Winston’s illness had a profound effect and not only on me. He became the focus of the whole royal household, from the Queen down to the most junior footman—his every action monitored and the subject of discussion. Everything he ate . . . or didn’t. His every lap of water. A short walk in the garden was now considered the most felicitous of events, suggesting that he wouldn’t be leaving us just yet.
For the truth was that we had all come to realise that he would be leaving. Gone was all talk of a recovery. Instead, when Dr. Munthe made his now less frequent visits, all talk was of keeping Winston as comfortable as possible, increasing his pain medication to whatever was needed.
For increasing periods of time, Winston slept. When he did wake up, he’d slip in and out of normal consciousness and everyone would watch him with deep concern, because the coughing spells had become lengthier and more violent than ever. At the end of each one, he seemed close to drowning, because he was so short of breath. There were moments of horror, when we’d all watch him struggle to take in air, with his increasingly frail body shuddering with the effort. Over the days, he became less and less himself.
I had had plenty of time to reflect on our fireside conversation. In particular, Winston’s observation about how the most enlightened people in our community focus on cultivating positive qualities of mind, rather than simply on material wellbeing. The more audiences with Her Majesty on which I eavesdropped, the more I became convinced that this was true. The Queen herself was constantly emphasising the importance of inner qualities rather than outer trappings. Although I hadn’t fully grasped why, I now began to understand: those same qualities were the true causes of happiness in life. And if what Winston said about consciousness was true, they would be the causes of happiness in the future too.
Little by little, it dawned on me that there was a purpose to life. I started to appreciate that we had the chance to use this precious existence to develop our most altruistic motives and compassionate instincts—to be the best that we could be!
As for that other part of the conversation, where Winston seemed to be saying I had some special ability, I put it down to the drugs. Nothing otherworldly had ever happened to me, apart from that one encounter with Queen Elizabeth I . . . and that hadn’t been in the least bit spooky. Even at the time of that encounter, I had known there was something different about the presence of the first Queen Elizabeth compared to the second. But it hadn’t felt as I imagined a psychic encounter would feel. There had been nothing supernatural about it. Neither the Queen nor I had left the royal library feeling in the least bit unnerved.
There can come a time, witnessing the decline of a loved one, when the peace of physical death starts to seem preferable to the torture of continued living. Winston spent most of each day asleep—the effect of the heavy medication Dr. Munthe had prescribed for maximum comfort. During his rare moments of wakefulness, we all hoped he wouldn’t succumb to an especially violent spasm of coughing. Following each of these, we’d witness his agonising struggle for breath. One day, we all knew he would no longer have the fight in him to survive.
It was late one afternoon in the Queen’s private sitting room when he surfaced from the deep sleep in which he’d spent all morning. Her Majesty was downstairs giving an official audience and Margaret had accompanied her. So it was just the two of us in the soft, lamplit quietude. With the benefit of hindsight, I realised that this was just how Winston had planned it.
I looked up as I saw him lift his head in his basket. This action alone took all his energy. His face was now gaunt, with his once-sleek coat lying lank. When he looked at me, there was still that spark of humour in his brown eyes.
‘It’s time,’ he said simply.
‘Oh, Winston!’
‘For the best,’ he gasped.
It took all my strength to retain my composure. ‘You have been the most inspiring and wonderful mentor a corgi could ever have. I can never repay your kindness.’
Winston wheezed, before managing: ‘I’m handing the bones over to you.’
‘Yes.’ I chose to agree with whatever would help him remain at peace.
After a period of laboured breathing he continued, ‘Her Majesty’s sensitive canine.’
‘Well, I suppose I did see Elizabeth the First,’ I said, somewhat surprised that he had returned to this unlikely subject.
‘And the others.’
I cocked my head. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I didn’t want to unsettle him.
He closed his eyes heavily and his head slumped in the basket. His breathing was slow but regular and I thought he must have drifted off to sleep. But after some time had passed he murmured, ‘The soldier on the stairs.’
I recalled the fig
ure in chain mail, who seldom seemed to move. How I’d been struck by the way that other members of the household paid him so little attention. ‘You mean he’s . . .’
‘Yes. But not the main one.’
At this point Winston began coughing, but fortunately not deeply. But it was enough to make the rest of what he said indecipherable. I gathered there was some other being who held a position of great significance, from whom I had much to learn.
Winston’s spluttering subsided and his breathing became regular and gentle. A sense of tranquillity came into the room. Even though it was late in the afternoon, the light coming through the window changed in a way I would have found hard to imagine had I not experienced it for myself. It was as if we had been caught in a forest and had found our way to a clearing where the canopy above us had opened. We were illuminated in a light that had the clarity of dawn. Along with the light was an aroma I recognised, but couldn’t immediately place: the aromatic fragrance of primordial woodlands.
‘He’s come to fetch me. As I live, so shall I die,’ Winston said, quite clearly, before exhaling with a shudder.
I stared at him, knowing instinctively what had happened, but unable to believe or accept it. I willed him to breathe in again, but there was no movement in his body—only the tranquil radiance of that clear light. A sensation of boundlessness pervaded the whole room; I knew that Winston was passing. There was no time in that vivid brightness, as though it had been there all along, but I was only, for a short while, able to perceive it. Then the light began to fade.
I stared out the window. I will never know, my fellow subject, if what I saw was actually there or just a figment of my imagination. But it seemed as if the clear light was being swiftly gathered into a figure who was standing directly outside, holding Winston in his arms. With his blue eyes, snowy white hair and moon-silver cloak, I instantly recognised Michael. And it suddenly occurred to me that he might be an angel.
Both he and Winston looked at me with expressions of the deepest love and reassurance. Then they dissolved rapidly upwards.