Impossible Owls

by Brian Phillips

  Who can say why anything happens? The kingdom needed an heir. The choice of Charles’s wife had to be guided by certain proprieties. The Duke of Windsor had been dead less than a decade; Wallis Simpson was still alive, though afflicted with dementia and unable to speak. The king who put love ahead of duty was a living memory for many Britons. The family knew what a slender step it was from A king can marry anyone he pleases to Then why are royals special? Order depends on obligations. Charles was in love with someone else, but the someone he was in love with could not pass through the moment’s filter of decorum. Diana could. That was who she was to them. She was the woman who was permissible.

  Whom are you allowed to love? Isn’t that always the question? Power begins as a means of realizing desire, but power once obtained necessitates desire’s curtailment: first in small ways, then in larger and larger ones, until, generations on, there is no distinguishing between power itself and the restraint required to preserve it. We will make these alliances, honor these covenants, uphold this church, practice these courtesies. A few big houses and the forms of self-abnegation remain long after the day when command of the armies passes to someone else. But desire is imperious. What the heart wants is beyond the grasp of Parliament. She was meant to understand that in joining them, she was consenting to their way of seeing things, their symbols, their duty. But having entered into royalty, unwittingly, as nothing more than the outward proof of Charles’s inner surrender, she appeared to the rest of the world as the image of the very vitality royals were supposed to give up: the sacrificial virgin, startlingly unsacrificed. She thought she could stay herself. She thought she was going to be happy. She thought—imagine—that her children would be her children. They could never have anticipated that degree of naïveté. It was as if the spirit they had staked their survival on suppressing had emerged, fully formed, in view of all the world’s cameras.

  If you don’t behave, my girl, Philip told her, we’ll take your title away. But what good is a title if it dictates everything you can do? The threat she posed to them went deeper than media savvy or a grasp of modern celebrity. There was one thing their entire system, as she saw it, could not allow her to be, and that was what she was determined to remain: a real person.

  2. THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE IN THE YUKON TERRITORY

  Her Entrance (Whitehorse International Airport)

  She comes out of the plane and of course it is like this: steps, soldiers, tarmac, cameras. A bouquet waits for her at the bottom of the stairs, presented by a girl in a wheelchair, and then another, offered by a young Syrian refugee. Two small posies of orange blooms. She bends to speak to each girl, smiling. Hands to shake: the governor-general of Canada, whose name is David Johnston; white-haired men; red-haired women; husbands, wives; a soldier in camouflage; she holds the orange flowers at her waist, moving slowly down the line, smiling. The day is cold. She is wearing a deep green coat whose provenance—it came from Hobbs and cost £279—will be broadcast across the Internet before she arrives someplace warm enough to take it off. Behind the big government plane, surprisingly close, the pines begin, then the low line of purple mountains, resting against the horizon like a reclining nude by Matisse. The press cordon is some way off, facing the white-tipped peaks: so the photographers can have them behind her, in their shots.

  She stands under the Yukon flag while the governor-general—David Johnston; his name is David Johnston—gives his speech. This vast country humbles and inspires us. Welcome to our beautiful land. Then William inspects the rangers: men with rifles over their shoulders, in red jackets and camouflage pants. Not quite professionals: standing in ragged military lines. William is much taller than the tallest ranger. She waits, under the flag, with the many dignitaries. Waiting is a part of what she does. There is an art to waiting. It can be practiced, like anything else. How to pay delighted attention to rituals whose tedium could kill a snail. When to lean back and make a small joke to the dignitary beside you, or when to chuckle at your dignitary’s small joke. Alternately, when to look on with profound respect as William, say, puts a wreath on the ground while gazing at a torch. This is not a trivial thing. Waiting performed properly can invest an empty ceremony with meaning. The people with whom she waits will remember standing near her, waiting with her, for the rest of their lives.

  The pool photographers are outside the press cordon, kneeling or lying supine on the tarmac with their big lenses aimed at William or, more often, at her. William is stopping in front of each individual ranger, asking questions. She is too far away to hear the questions or answers. She can hear the photographers confined in the press area yelling at the pool photographers to quit blocking their line of sight. “Oi! Get down, mate, lower, lower, lower!” The purpose of this phase of the royal tour is to emphasize the crown’s commitment to Canada’s First Nations peoples and communities. Many of the rangers William is speaking to are First Nations people. Yesterday—was it just yesterday?—she stood on a wooden bridge in the Great Bear Rainforest, watching screaming seagulls dive onto rotting salmon carcasses. The smell was astonishing. The ceremony took place afterward in a First Nations village called Bella Bella. William unveiled a plaque. The premier of British Columbia—her name is Christy Clark—gave a speech announcing the formation of a new environmental trust in honor of the royal visit. Then aboriginal men in sweatshirts and big jeans came to present William and her with a pair of red and black canoe paddles. One of them, a man called Ian, told her that if you dipped your canoe paddle into the water, it meant you would one day come back.

  Life is quite fascinating when you think about it. There was a time when simply flying to Mustique seemed exotic. Now she is here. But then, given what her life is now, sometimes it is her past experiences, the experiences of so-called normal people, that seem exotic. She has borrowed books from a library! She has ridden the Tube alone. She has worked on yachts, other people’s yachts, for money, serving drinks. She has bought frozen chicken at Waitrose, and stood in line for it herself, and cooked it herself. How could she help feeling, at times, as if she, too, were a tribal emissary, newly appointed to bring greetings to the crown from some vast and unfamiliar continent? This is a Roomba, Your Highness, my people use it to tidy their floors. My people, the upper-middle class.

  When they were young and she was first in London, she and William and their set used to spend Tuesday nights at a club called Boujis, in Kensington. Pulsing purple dance floor, sleek booths, champagne in buckets. A bottle of vodka cost £250, but the owner let them drink for free. The royal comp, people called it. Their favorite shot was called the crack baby: passion-fruit juice, vodka, and champagne, served in a test tube. A crack baby cost £8 without the comp. She wore short print dresses and when her car pulled up outside the club she would climb out of the backseat into a shimmering horseshoe of paparazzi. No one knew then, though people wondered, whether she would someday be queen of England.

  William has finished reviewing the rangers. Now it is time to move, slowly, toward the line of black SUVs waiting to carry them to the town. Shaking hands, smiling just so. She meets some rangers herself: interested in each of them, no hurry. How did you first decide to volunteer? What a joy it must be to spend time in this marvelous landscape. Outside the airport, just visible, the crowd that has come to see them from Whitehorse is waiting behind steel barricades. A faint cheer rises when they spot her. Quite a small crowd really, but then, this territory is a wilderness: not forty thousand people in the space of two United Kingdoms. And they have all braved the cold. She will keep her window down as the SUV drives past, regardless of the chill. They will see her wave to them. She was not born to her position but she knows how to do her job. She knows, by instinct, what William’s mother never understood, and what William’s grandmother only partly does: that to be royal is to be yearned for, and that yearning is a thing to be managed. They will project onto you the fantasies whose reality they most long to see confirmed. They will love you if you reflect those fantasies back to
them. But if you respond to their yearning with yearning, if you turn to them with your own need as they turn to you with theirs, you will lose your power to protect yourself, and then, voilà, thanks for playing, good night. Diana left herself too open. The queen keeps herself too removed. She intends to repeat neither mistake. Royalty is the technique by which longing is redeemed through confidence.

  Her Pageant (Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre, Whitehorse)

  The time has come for her to thank the breakdancers. She walks out of the cultural center into the night: still wearing her green coat. The performers have been ushered onto a round, stepped patio surrounding a fire pit. The fire’s rust-gold circle glows like a Byzantine icon. Sky strewn with infinite stars. Singers and storytellers and musicians stand close together, warming themselves by the blaze. She begins at the near end of the circle, taking hands and smiling. Sincere appreciative smiles. Such a marvelous welcome to the territory: William and I are really touched. So fortunate to have this chance to learn more about your culture. What a marvelous show. William is with her, clasping nearby hands. This afternoon they were at a university being shown a volleyball exhibition. Now they are standing under the dark Yukon sky. When she comes to the breakdancers she says, “William has some moves of his own, you know,” and he agrees, Yes, it’s true, I wanted to get up and dance with you. Breakdancers laugh. William may not have his brother’s sense of mischief, but he can be teased: one of his really good qualities.

  The river is close behind them, a darkness veined with glimmer, like what you see when you suddenly close your eyes. Whitehorse: because the foam of the rapids made the first gold prospectors think of running horses. But now the sound of conversation drowns out the sound of water. She has been a performer herself and understands something of how these people are feeling. They are silly, happy, easy to put at ease. She knows how to speak to them. Once, when she was thirteen, she starred in a school play called Murder in the Red Barn. Her character, Maria Marten, met a fortune-teller who told her that “a rich gentleman” would fall in love with her, marry her, and take her away to London. “It is all I ever hoped for!” she whispered. Soon a lover indeed appeared, a tall young man named William. Video from the play has been posted on the Internet; some people have been inclined to view it as a real prophecy. (The William of the play murdered her, however, and hid her body in a barn.) People search for significance in the events of her youth because her life looks, from the outside, like magic, and things that look like magic are easier to explain the more like magic they look. Here is a girl on the road, here a gypsy midwife; see, it was a fairy tale all along.

  They search, too, because she is a contradiction, a mote of instability in the unchanging order she is meant to renew. If anyone can be a princess, can a princess mean anything? Yes: if we convince ourselves that fate took a hand in choosing her.

  She knows what it is to be a performer, but she is not performing now. It is all a matter of consideration for others. She has always had an instinct for carrying things off. Her family’s party-supply business is sometimes the butt of jokes, but they are successful because they know how to make people feel good. It is a rare gift, the ability to take any situation and ease it toward the pleasantest outcome, the kindest, the most beautiful; to make it a little more relaxed, a little more memorable. Royalty, in that regard, is only one variable among many, a matter of perspective. At St. Andrews, she and William were both Sallies: residents of the hall called St. Salvator’s. They were friends before they were anything more. William, of course, was the center of attention then. The world’s most eligible bachelor: girls forever flinging themselves at his feet. One night at a party, her friends noticed that he was having trouble extricating himself from a particularly determined girl. No one was doing anything to help him. She strode across the floor, threw her arms around his neck, and pretended to be his girlfriend. In light of everything that happened afterward, who is to say whether that was a performance or not? Perhaps a true performance calls its own reality into being, the way a great painting teaches you how to see it. Conniving, people called her. But haven’t things worked out for the best?

  They have come almost to the end of the line: time now to make their goodbyes. Soon they will be in an SUV on their way to the hotel, and they will check in with Maria, the nanny, about their children, who have stayed behind at Government House in Victoria, and they will hear from Miguel, the secretary, about what to expect from tomorrow’s events.

  Their tour so far has carried them through several small storms. The crown’s outreach to First Nations communities has hit a snag in the form of First Nations communities who would prefer not to be reached out to. Some First Nations communities see the whole tour, their tour, as empty theater. Last night, at a ceremony at Government House, William added a symbolic silver ring to the Black Rod, the ebony staff that represents the presence of the queen or her representative in the legislature of the province. The Black Rod had three symbolic rings already, symbolizing the government of British Columbia, the government of Canada, and their link to the government of Great Britain. But this symbolic ring, the new one, was particularly important, because it was meant to symbolize reconciliation between the government and aboriginal people. But one important chief boycotted the ceremony. Another who participated made a speech about cultural genocide. Poverty among First Nations people remains high; the government continues to push forward gas drilling and dam projects that the communities oppose. William has struck a humble tone: We are here to learn and listen. Everywhere they have gone, the people have been delighted to see them. Still, there is perhaps the smallest strain in the mood of the occasion, the slightest hint of a mismatch between the ceremonial and the real. Last night she wore a red dress and a maple-leaf brooch lent to her by the queen. The headline in the Daily Mail ran, “The Lady in Red: Kate Stuns in Dazzling £1,000 Preen Dress at Historic Ceremony of Reconciliation with Canadian First Nations.”

  The cars are ready. It is time to begin the slow progress toward them. Across the fire, where the press is cloistered, cameras are watching her. They will watch her exit, as they have watched her pass around the flames; as, indeed, they watched her enter. Once she might have wondered how the photographers could have been in place for her arrival, when she left the airport ahead of the press. But there are always photographers. Photographers travel faster than light, expand like gas, and clone themselves like cells. The incentive to take her picture creates its own quantum effect. If she woke up, to her own surprise, on the moon, having teleported accidentally in her sleep, she would find her first amazed look documented from every angle by the photographers already massed around her, who had camped out all night for the shot.

  Her Gallery (Media Van to Carcross, Yukon)

  This photographer wants to know about Indian chiefs. He has some questions, if you don’t mind. He calls them “chieves”: “Chief” rhymes with “leaf.” The duke and duchess are off on their morning tour of Whitehorse, but the photographer is going on ahead to their next stop. He’s on a van to some little village, bumping through Yukon backcountry. In no mood to be patient: up too early, coffee scalding, schedule confused, gear jostled. White bent nose, two flyaway croissants of gray hair. Khaki vest hanging open around the thunderous sag of his belly. Englishness somehow aggravated by profound distance from England: If I’m frank, mate, these yokels are useless. Sucking his lower lip, thumbs hooked through his vest’s utility loops. He is here for The Sun, or the Standard, or the Mirror, or the Star, shouldering his tripod through the hind end of godforsaken nowhere to beam the royal latest back to civilization, and like his colleagues, battle-tested palace correspondents from the Standard, or The Sun, or the Star, or the Mirror, he packed light: He left his illusions in London. Every event on a royal tour has two purposes, the palace one and the real one, and the real one is always the same. Have I got to spell it out, sunshine? Art therapy for drug-addicted teen moms is fine and lovely, sure; you think we’re selling an excessive number
of papers? No? Then find out what the duchess is wearing.

  Carcross: short for “Caribou Crossing.” The future dread majesty of the British Empire and his future queen are en route to look at Native dancers. They will be greeted by a chief, perhaps more than one, the media guide isn’t clear on that, and what the photographer wants to know is: Will these chieves be wearing their feathers? Or you know—their full … gear and things? Beads and … with their big sort of headdresses and all? He gestures down his back: their feathers. He has identified a young volunteer from the Yukon government and is addressing loud inquiries to her as the coach jostles forward. Emerald Lake is visible in the window, but Gaffer is no neophyte and is not looking out the window. In the clear light of his mind’s inner eye, he sees a Plains Indian from a 1950s Western, wearing a full warbonnet, probably holding a tomahawk, with bright war paint under his eyes, and he sees a photograph, his photograph, of Kate Middleton standing next to this astonishing specimen: That photo would play. Her so delicate and prim, surrounded by let’s say two or even three fierce chieves. He can see it shining down from the front page of The Sun. Teepees and buffalo! So when he is told no, he is thousands of miles too far north for that sort of costume, the traditional dress of the local First Nations is something quite different, he does not surrender his vision without a fight. When the van stops, he clatters out, hugging his gear, and makes for the next press liaison he sees. Excuse me—miss? Yeah. Quick question about these chieves …

  Her Exit (Montana Mountain)

  Morning: She puts on a bright red Carolina Herrera coatdress. Amanda styles her hair in a simple twist. She and William have a long day ahead, but there is a reward at the end of it: They will fly back to Victoria and see their children. This leg of their tour, the Yukon leg, is the only stretch when their children are not with them. Their children have been marvelous. Photos of George and Charlotte looking darling have circulated almost as widely as photos of her have done. Little Charlotte toddling. George peeping out of the plane with huge safety muffs over his ears. When the prime minister of Canada came to greet them at the airport, George refused to give him a high five. Everyone who saw the photos melted. No one can predict what children will be like, yet her position, impossibly, requires that her family be exemplary. She has walked this tightrope without the slightest wobble; she has made it look effortless, the way she has made so many things look effortless, and has created a perfect family, a catalog family, a family whose very being suggests the golden future ahead. How to make people love you: Keep them at a distance, but give them back their dreams.