There once was a time when princesses would live in castles but when they grew older they wanted to live in ground floor accommodation or at least have lifts. The spiral staircases made them dizzy and cold flagstones chilled their feet when they crept down at night to the kitchens to make cheese on toast. As girls they would run along the corridors, dragging behind them their wooden dogs on wheels, made for them by castle carpenters. Now the corridors seemed too far to walk when they had left their glasses in the state parlour or forgotten a book tucked under the small second throne on the left, reserved for a spinster princess.
Every summer the old princesses would gather at a select seaside town and moan about castle plumbing and the ingratitude of kings. They would take the sea air. Princesses were used to taking such things, most things were theirs by right and 'please' and 'thank-yous' were taught by governesses and sharp nosed nannies only as a courtesy. These courtesies were rarely felt and peppered their conversation to make them seem gracious and of a pleasant disposition. Princesses without a pleasant disposition and a decent dowry soon forgot please and thank-you, once past marriageable age. They took delight in annoying handsome young princes that called in on their way to some duck or grouse shoot. They would tell them they were talking bollocks or point out that their endless stories about manoeuvres with the royal infantry were boring.
Relinquishing a pleasant disposition had its rewards and they harvested these moments to keep them warm when they climbed into cold castle beds in winter. In their younger days a dowry large enough to tempt a suitable prince into wedlock usually involved two minor castles and a tract of land that could support enough sheep or turnips to provide a decent income for the minor royals. Some royal families, desperate to off-load a singularly bad tempered princess, had been known to throw in a sea-port or a small band of loyal mercenaries. One very prestigious royal family, with a blood-line dating back to Biblical times had managed to procure a minor prince with significant learning difficulties for their princess by handing over the recipe for porcelain and the cure for a nasty disease caught only by frequenting brothels and fast food outlets.
The older spinster princesses always took their holiday during the same three weeks in July; block booking the best suites in the hotels. They met for coffee and cake at 11 am and for lunch in the Café Royale at 1pm. They took High Tea in the Prince Consort Hotel, which had the best éclairs this side of the Urals. They took it in turns to dine at 8pm at each others hotels on a rota basis, although their time-keeping was unreliable, never having to keep to a rota the rest of the year. The oldest of the princesses was 193 years old and enjoyed Canasta and Gin Rummy. She would insist on at least half an hour of cards after dinner. Some of the younger, less decrepit, princesses would employ thin gigolos with taut bottoms to dance with them and they tangoed in ballrooms with sprung wooden floors, especially hired for the purpose. They used a CD player rather than musicians now as violinists had complained once too often about being blind-folded. At midnight, as the clock struck twelve they would all giggle and have another Southern Comfort and lemonade. The hour held no terror for them, and much to the gigolos despair the princesses would clutch their taut bottoms and make them dance on.
Princess Vesta did not dance with gigolos, she did not play cards; she sought out the company of low-life men in low-life bars. She would drink sailors under the table and watch them go temporarily blind on Absinthe trying to out-drink her. Absinthe was her favourite drink, it was the alcohol favoured by artists and writers, it was the drink that caused them to go mad and see the world in all the colours of demons and wild angels. Princess Vesta appeared immune to its effects, she slurred her vowels just a fraction, had difficulty remembering an eight digit number but other than that she remained upright and in charge of her faculties. Low-life men were impressed and asked her maid whether this was a fluke or a honed talent on the royal part. The maid, whose job it was to follow her mistress where ever she went until she was safely tucked up in bed, assured them that she was able to drink several bottles of Absinthe. She had never seen her incapable of holding down food or a mildly boring conversation. In fact, she would tell them, she had won a great deal of money betting on her royal mistress in drinking contests the length and breadth of several countries they had visited.
I should explain that when a princess employs a maid she takes her on for life. The maid hopes that their mistress will marry some handsome prince, in which case she is often encouraged to marry the princes' valet as this allows good servants to be bred from more refined stock. Should the Princess remain single the maid grows old with her and develops a sour expression and a tendency to steal small items of jewellery. The maids accompany the princesses on their prince finding tours and are thus well travelled and fluent in several foreign insults and jibes. Princess Vesta's maid had seen several royal households and had experienced at first hand how in-breeding can affect personal habits and the ability of Kings and Princes to keep their hands to themselves near maids that smell of soap and violets.
Princess Vesta had nearly been married off twice, once to a horse-mad Prince who drew the line at marrying a woman who said she would never bestride a horse and who made it plain that any sexual encounter would not involve whips or a saddle. The second prince was handsome, quick-witted, a patron of the arts and was likely to prove a wise and fair future ruler for his principality. He took up the Princess's drinking challenge and unfortunately fell down an oubliette when trying to make his way back to bed. Although rescued three days later, after the land had been scoured for him by the army, his experience had caused him to develop a nervous twitch, and a keen dislike for Princess Vesta. That had been Princess Vesta's last chance of becoming a Queen.
That had all happened many years ago and her brother was now the King and his wife, once a bad tempered princess herself, had given Princess Vesta charge of the elderly and mad Queen Mother. She was also given her own tower in the castle and a small stipend. Her summer outing with the other Princesses was grudgingly paid for and she was given enough money to ensure she did not let the kingdom down in company by asking strangers to buy her a drink or by wearing clothes not bought from the classic Country Casuals range.
Princess Vesta had left the elderly mad Queen mother in the care of two washer- women who lived near the castle who promised they would give her biscuits, a tot of gin each day and wash her sheets whilst she was away. Princess Vesta felt her annual sea-side holiday with the other princesses was her right and guilt was not an emotion she understood readily. Guilt after all implied a desire to do the right thing in the first place.
Prince Bryant arrived in the select sea-side town by chance. He had expressed a desire to go hunting for smoked mackerel and his travel agent had, after consulting her books and brochures decided that this spot was ideal. His arrival had caused quite a stir amongst the spinster princesses. Although not quite in the first flush of youth, Prince Bryant still had a boyish swagger about him and a genuine talent for pub tricks and jokes about monkeys going into bars. Unfortunately he suffered from severe commitment phobia, despite the pills being slipped into his Ovaltine by his mother and he had never succeeded in walking some eager Princess up the aisle. Time had passed by like a monotonous state opening of Parliament and he was less and less inclined to marry, preferring the company of his valet, fishing rod and matched Purdeys. His younger brother had managed to breed successfully with a huge princess from a Northern kingdom and they now had a magnificent litter of plump children that would ensure the royal line in the future.
Prince Bryant's father, the king, was now very eccentric if not mad and insisted on having the cathedral choir sing him show tunes in his palace bedroom to lull him to sleep. A sixty-voice choir, singing Edelweiss crammed into the royal apartments each evening was difficult. Their closing number of the showstopper, 'I Am What I Am' from La Cage Aux Folles, was a bridge too far for The Lord Chancellor who was now busy trying to persuade the Prince to mount a quiet bloodless coup and remove the mad King from office. The mackerel hunt was not only an avoidance tactic by the Prince but a way of allowing him to mull over the pros and cons of replacing his mad father on the throne. Mad or not his father should be given the respect he deserved and such things set a nasty precedent for others who might think that replacing a monarch was on the menu for anyone who felt uneasy with the royal rule. The Lord Chancellor had assured him that the King could live out his days in a small bungalow in a quiet part of the kingdom and that he would personally ensure that meals on Wheels and the home-helps would visit on a daily basis and that his equally mad valet could be housed next door. The Prince did enquire whether the King would be able to keep his crown as he knew how fond his father was of wearing it. The Lord Chancellor assured him that a fake crown could be provided for the coronation and that no-one would be able to spot the difference between a fake crown and the real one. The Prince hoped the same inability would apply to the monarch.
Prince Bryant was in the low-life bar telling one of his 'monkey walks into a bar jokes' when he heard a cheer go up from a particularly dark and crowded corner. The cheer had diverted his audience, an old pirate who hoped his attention would buy him a free rum and coke. The Prince was quick enough to know when he was unlikely to deliver the punch line to an eager and expectant crowd and decided to cut his loses and investigate the source of the cheering. He discovered that it had been caused by the sight of a six foot seven professional wrestler falling flat on his back after consuming his ninth Absinthe. Opposite him, half hidden in shadows, sat a woman dressed in a very good quality pale lilac twin set. Before her on the table were ten empty shot glasses and a pile of notes, obviously bets laid by the surrounding crowd. There is a chemistry that occurs between royalty. Much like whales can find other whales by swimming across thousands of miles of ocean with only the thinnest of sounds to guide them, royalty can recognise and home in on its own species. A Prince knows a Princess by the turn of her head and the click of her handbag. The wrestler's friends were becoming a little difficult and were beginning to argue with the Princess's maid, he could spot a maid too, even by candlelight. An ugly situation was in the making. He nodded at his valet who, like a good valet, appeared out of nowhere. A Prince's valet is highly trained in the art of hostage negotiation, fine wines, ironing and if necessary the martial arts. The prince whispered in his ear and slick as butter rubbed on jug-ears to release a royal head from railings, the two women were extracted from the melee and found themselves standing on the dark low-life street outside the bar. The maid was most impressed and kept smiling at the valet who was not averse to smiling back. The princess, however, was not so easily impressed and pointed out that her maid was experienced in the art of using concealed knitting needles as defensive weapons. She had never therefore been molested, roughed up, beaten or abused by low-life men.
Quite a polite but sub textually conversation ensued in which the Prince reined in the word ingratitude and the Princess tried to squash the word presumptuous. The one word they both avoided was rescue. For both of them that word held images of towers and long hair, sleep and thorns, apples and dwarves. All Princesses secretly desire to be rescued; hence all the ridiculous tales that circulated amongst the non-royal population. The unconscious life of royalty often had Jungian ramifications and outlets elsewhere. However it was difficult to live up to such grandiose scenarios and thus small acts of unsolicited kindness such as the loan of a hanky when you had a milk moustache, or the phone number of a reliable computer consultant had to suffice to satisfy their yearning for rescue. The older unmarried Princesses had to work even harder at suppressing their need to be rescued, which increased exponentially with each passing year. Royal psychiatrists had noted this phenomenon over centuries; the less likely a princess was to be rescued the more she yearned for it and the more she fell into a spiral of self loathing about what she interpreted as her pitiful and un-royal feelings of potential neediness and sugar–coated romance. No older unmarried Princess had ever been rescued and therefore to harbour such feelings was to court disaster. There were age-old tales that circulated in royal households of Princesses locked away in isolated towers who spent their time making finger paintings of handsome princes. They were no longer allowed sharp objects; the end of a paintbrush could do incredible damage if poked in an eye. They would thin the paint with endless tears, dry it with their sighs and once finished they would tear at the picture with their French-polished nails and howl silently. Every Princess feared ending their days like that and so they prided themselves on control and a strong personality, but it cost them nights spent fighting unnamed fears. To long for a fairy tale is a recipe for disaster. A Princess learnt quickly after the last suitor had packed his Gucci luggage that fairy tales drive you mad but being realistic allows you to visit a select sea-side resort once a year to play Canasta.
Princess Vesta and Prince Bryant were astute for royalty and understood the weight of this baggage and how to carry it with dignity without tripping over their shoe laces. Princes' too had problems with the word rescue, for them it lead to the realm of quests and life threatening situations which any sane man would wish to avoid if at all possible, even if it might lead to a wife with shiny hair, child bearing hips and a pleasant disposition. Prince Bryant had in the past jumped through a few hoops in an attempt to please a Princess but had avoided those that seemed to require irresponsible bravery or involved fire. Oddly in that low-life street, sheltering under an umbrella held by his valet, Prince Bryant finally understood that this feeling of rescue that was trickling, if not flooding, over him, was not totally unwelcome. Princess Vesta, whilst sheltering under the umbrella held by her maid, finally understood that acknowledging the feeling of wanting to be rescued did not open flood-gates that would sweep her off to an isolated tower with access to an endless supply of finger paints.
If I were to lie and make life neat and tucked in like a bed, the Princess and Prince would meet up a few times over the next few days and eventually marry in a quiet ceremony in a side chapel. No such thing happened nor could it ever have done but something shifted a little in their lives, something that made a grain of difference and a grain can tip a world when it is the last one to be poured.
Prince Bryant went home and sacked the Lord Chancellor and took his father out shooting regularly, ensuring his gun was loaded with blanks. The King liked this and was happier, if still mad. The Prince also found a Princess of such a pleasant disposition she even laughed at her own reflection in the mirror. He married her, after he performed the Heimlich manoeuvre on her at a banquet when she laughed at his joke about a monkey going into a bar whilst eating nuts. That meant the princess was eating nuts, not the monkey, he would explain years later when recounting the story. Princess Vesta returned home and retrieved the Queen Mother from the washer- women. She decided to invite low-lifes back to the palace rather than wait for her annual holiday. She found low-lifes could be civil in public when given Guinness in cut-glass goblets and crisps on Wedgwood dishes. She taught them croquet and they brought her small gifts of cannabis and fake Rayban sunglasses. She grew older and eventually lost the mad Queen Mother to a draft down a chimney. She still yearned and feared that yearning but she embraced it, gave it a secret name and held it close when the cold came. Princess Vesta knew how strong she was, how far she was from finger paints and tall towers.
The maid in case you were wondering married the castle cook and lived contentedly now and then.
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