The Uncommon Reader: A Novella Read online

  When they arrived at the palace she had a word with Grant, the young footman in charge, who said it was security and that while ma’am had been in the Lords the sniffer dogs had been round and security had confiscated the book. He thought it had probably been exploded.

  ‘Exploded?’ said the Queen. ‘But it was Anita Brookner.’

  The young man, who seemed remarkably undeferential, said security may have thought it was a device.

  The Queen said: ‘Yes. That is exactly what it is. A book is a device to ignite the imagination.’

  The footman said: ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  It was as if he were talking to his grandmother, and not for the first time the Queen was made unpleasantly aware of the hostility her reading seemed to arouse.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Then you should inform security that I shall expect to find another copy of the same book, vetted and explosive-free, waiting on my desk tomorrow morning. And another thing. The carriage cushions are filthy. Look at my gloves.’ Her Majesty departed.

  ‘Fuck,’ said the footman, fishing out the book from where he had been told to hide it down the front of his breeches. But of the lateness of the procession, to everyone’s surprise nothing was officially said.

  This dislike of the Queen’s reading was not confined to the household. Whereas in the past walkies had meant a noisy and unrestrained romp in the grounds, these days, once she was out of sight of her house, Her Majesty sank onto the nearest seat and took out her book. Occasionally she threw a bored biscuit in the direction of the dogs, but there was none of that ball-throwing, stick-fetching and orchestrated frenzy that used to enliven their perambulations. Indulged and bad-tempered though they were, the dogs were not unintelligent, so it was not surprising that in a short space of time they came to hate books as the spoilsports they were (and always have been).

  Did Her Majesty ever let a book fall to the carpet it would straightaway be leaped on by any attendant dog, worried and slavered over and borne to the distant reaches of the palace or wherever so that it could be satisfyingly torn apart. The James Tait Black Memorial Prize notwithstanding, Ian McEwan had ended up like this and even A. S. Byatt. Patron of the London Library though she was, Her Majesty regularly found herself on the phone apologising to the renewals clerk for the loss of yet another volume.

  The dogs disliked Norman, too, and insofar as the young man could be blamed for at least some of the Queen’s literary enthusiasm, Sir Kevin didn’t care for him, either. He was also irritated by his constant proximity because, while he was never actually in the room when the private secretary talked to the Queen, he was always within call.

  They were discussing a royal visit to Wales due to take place in a fortnight’s time. In the middle of being taken through her programme (a ride on a super-tram, a ukulele concert and a tour round a cheese factory), Her Majesty suddenly got up and went to the door.

  ‘Norman.’

  Sir Kevin heard a chair scrape as Norman got up.

  ‘We’re going to Wales in a few weeks’ time.’

  ‘Bad luck, ma’am.’

  The Queen smiled back at the unsmiling Sir Kevin.

  ‘Norman is so cheeky. Now we’ve read Dylan Thomas, haven’t we, and some John Cowper Powys. And Jan Morris we’ve read. But who else is there?’

  ‘You could try Kilvert, ma’am,’ said Norman.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A vicar, ma’am. Nineteenth century. Lived on the Welsh borders and wrote a diary. Fond of little girls.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Queen. ‘Like Lewis Carroll.’

  ‘Worse, ma’am.’

  ‘Dear me. Can you get me the diaries?’

  ‘I’ll add them to our list, ma’am.’

  Her Majesty closed the door and came back to her desk. ‘You see, you can’t say I don’t do my homework, Sir Kevin.’

  Sir Kevin, who had never heard of Kilvert, was unimpressed. ‘The cheese factory is in a new business park, sited on reclaimed colliery land. It’s revitalised the whole area.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure,’ said the Queen. ‘But you must admit that the literature is relevant.’

  ‘I don’t know that it is,’ said Sir Kevin. ‘The next-door factory where Your Majesty is opening the canteen makes computer components.’

  ‘Some singing, I suppose?’ said the Queen.

  ‘There will be a choir, ma’am.’

  ‘There generally is.’

  Sir Kevin had a very muscular face, the Queen thought. He seemed to have muscles in his cheeks, and when he frowned, they rippled. If she were a novelist, she thought, that might be worth writing down.

  ‘We must make sure, ma’am, that we’re singing from the same hymn sheet.’

  ‘In Wales, yes. Most certainly. Any news from home? Busy shearing away?’

  ‘Not at this time of year, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh. Out to grass.’

  She smiled the wide smile that indicated that the interview was over, and when he turned to bow his head at the door she was already back in her book and without looking up simply murmured ‘Sir Kevin’ and turned the page.

  So in due course Her Majesty went to Wales and to Scotland and to Lancashire and the West Country in that unremitting round of nationwide perambulation that is the lot of the monarchy. The Queen must meet her people, however awkward and tongue-tied such meetings might turn out to be. Though it was here that her staff could help.

  To get round the occasional speechlessness of her subjects when confronted with their sovereign, the equerries would sometimes proffer handy hints as to possible conversations.

  ‘Her Majesty may well ask you if you have had far to come. Have your answer ready and then possibly go on to say whether you came by train or by car. She may then ask you where you have left the car and whether the traffic was busier here than in – where did you say you came from? – Andover. The Queen, you see, is interested in all aspects of the nation’s life, so she will sometimes talk about how difficult it is to park in London these days, which could take you on to a discussion of any parking problems you might have in Basingstoke.’

  ‘Andover, actually, though Basingstoke’s a nightmare too.’

  ‘Quite so. But you get the idea? Small talk.’

  Mundane though these conversations might be, they had the merit of being predictable and, above all, brief, affording Her Majesty plenty of opportunities to cut the exchange short. The encounters ran smoothly and to a schedule, the Queen seemed interested and her subjects were seldom at a loss, and that perhaps the most eagerly anticipated conversation of their lives had only amounted to a discussion of the coned-off sections of the M6 hardly mattered. They had met the Queen and she had spoken to them and everyone got away on time.

  So routine had such exchanges become that the equerries now scarcely bothered to invigilate them, hovering on the outskirts of the gathering always with a helpful if condescending smile. So it was only when it became plain that the tonguetied quotient was increasing and that more and more of her subjects were at a loss when talking to Her Majesty that the staff began to eavesdrop on what was (or was not) being said.

  It transpired that with no prior notification to her attendants the Queen had abandoned her long-standing lines of inquiry – length of service, distance travelled, place of origin – and had embarked on a new conversational gambit, namely, ‘What are you reading at the moment?’ To this very few of Her Majesty’s loyal subjects had a ready answer (though one did try: ‘The Bible?’). Hence the awkward pauses which the Queen tended to fill by saying, ‘I’m reading . . . ,’ sometimes even fishing in her handbag and giving them a glimpse of the lucky volume. Unsurprisingly the audiences got longer and more ragged, with a growing number of her loving subjects going away regretting that they had not performed well and feeling, too, that the monarch had somehow bowled them a googly.

  Off-duty, Piers, Tristram, Giles and Elspeth, all the Queen’s devoted servants, compare notes: ‘ “What are you reading?” I mean, what sort of
question is that? Most people, poor dears, aren’t reading anything. Except if they say that, Madam roots in her handbag, fishes out some volume she’s just finished and makes them a present of it.’

  ‘Which they promptly sell on eBay.’

  ‘Quite. And have you been on a royal visit recently?’ one of the ladies-in-waiting chips in. ‘Because the word has got round. Whereas once upon a time the dear people would fetch along the odd daffodil or a bunch of mouldy old primroses which Majesty then passed back to us bringing up the rear, nowadays they fetch along books they’re reading, or, wait for it, even writing, and if you’re unlucky enough to be in attendance you practically need a trolley. If I’d wanted to cart books around I’d have got a job in Hatchard’s. I’m afraid Her Majesty is getting to be what is known as a handful.’

  Still, the equerries accommodated, and disgruntled though they were at having to vary their routine, in light of the Queen’s new predilection her attendants reluctantly changed tack and in their pre-presentation warm-up now suggested that while Her Majesty might, as of old, still inquire as to how far the presentee had come and by what means, now she was more likely to ask what the person was currently reading.

  At this most people looked blank (and sometimes panic-stricken), but, nothing daunted, the equerries came up with a list of suggestions. Though this meant that the Queen came away with a disproportionate notion of the popularity of Andy McNab and the near universal affection for Joanna Trollope, no matter; at least embarrassment had been avoided. And once the answers had been supplied the audiences were back on track and finished on the dot as they used to be, the only hold-ups when, as seldom, one of her subjects confessed to a fondness for Virginia Woolf or Dickens, both of which provoked a lively (and lengthy) discussion. There were many who hoped for a similar meeting of minds by saying they were reading Harry Potter, but to this the Queen (who had no time for fantasy) invariably said briskly, ‘Yes. One is saving that for a rainy day,’ and passed swiftly on.

  Seeing her almost daily meant that Sir Kevin was able to nag the Queen about what was now almost an obsession and to devise different approaches. ‘I was wondering, ma’am, if we could somehow factor in your reading.’ Once she would have let this pass, but one effect of reading had been to diminish the Queen’s tolerance for jargon (which had always been low).

  ‘Factor it in? What does that mean?’

  ‘I’m just kicking the tyres on this one, ma’am, but it would help if we were able to put out a press release saying that, apart from English literature, Your Majesty was also reading ethnic classics.’

  ‘Which ethnic classics did you have in mind, Sir Kevin? The Kama Sutra?’

  Sir Kevin sighed.

  ‘I am reading Vikram Seth at the moment. Would he count?’

  Though the private secretary had never heard of him, he thought he sounded right.

  ‘Salman Rushdie?’

  ‘Probably not, ma’am.’

  ‘I don’t see,’ said the Queen, ‘why there is any need for a press release at all. Why should the public care what I am reading? The Queen reads. That is all they need to know. “So what?” I imagine the general response.’

  ‘To read is to withdraw. To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it,’ said Sir Kevin, ‘if the pursuit itself were less . . . selfish.’

  ‘Selfish?’

  ‘Perhaps I should say solipsistic.’

  ‘Perhaps you should.’

  Sir Kevin plunged on. ‘Were we able to harness your reading to some larger purpose – the literacy of the nation as a whole, for instance, the improvement of reading standards among the young . . .’

  ‘One reads for pleasure,’ said the Queen. ‘It is not a public duty.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Sir Kevin, ‘it should be.’

  ‘Bloody cheek,’ said the duke when she told him that night.

  A propos the duke, what of the family in all this? How did the Queen’s reading impinge on them?

  Had it been Her Majesty’s responsibility to prepare meals, to shop or, unimaginably, to dust and hoover the house(s), standards would straightaway have been perceived to have fallen. But, of course, she had to do none of these things. That she did her boxes with less assiduity is true, but this didn’t affect her husband or her children. What it did affect (or ‘impact upon’, as Sir Kevin put it) was the public sphere, where she had begun to perform her public duties with a perceived reluctance: she laid foundation stones with less élan, and what few ships there were to launch she sent down the slipway with no more ceremony than a toy boat on a pond, her book always waiting.

  While this might concern her staff, her family were actually rather relieved. She had always kept them up to the mark and age had not made her more indulgent. Reading, though, had. She left the family more to themselves, chivvied them hardly at all, and they had an easier time all round. Hurray for books was their feeling, except when they were required to read them or when grandmama insisted on talking about them, quizzing them about their own reading habits or, worst of all, pressing books into their hands and checking later to see if they had been read.

  As it was, they would often come upon her in odd unfrequented corners of her various dwellings, spectacles on the end of her nose, notebook and pencil beside her. She would glance up briefly and raise a vague, acknowledging hand. ‘Well, I’m glad somebody’s happy,’ said the duke as he shuffled off down the corridor. And it was true; she was. She enjoyed reading like nothing else and devoured books at an astonishing rate, not that, Norman apart, there was anyone to be astonished.

  Nor initially did she discuss her reading with anyone, least of all in public, knowing that such a late-flowering enthusiasm, however worthwhile, might expose her to ridicule. It would be the same, she thought, if she had developed a passion for God, or dahlias. At her age, people thought, why bother? To her, though, nothing could have been more serious, and she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.

  To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time. The next stage had been when she started to make notes, after which she always read with a pencil in hand, not summarising what she read but simply transcribing passages that struck her. It was only after a year or so of reading and making notes that she tentatively ventured on the occasional thought of her own. ‘I think of literature,’ she wrote, ‘as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but will never reach. And I have started too late. I will never catch up.’ Then (an unrelated thought): ‘Etiquette may be bad but embarrassment is worse.’

  There was sadness to her reading, too, and for the first time in her life she felt there was a good deal she had missed. She had been reading one of the several lives of Sylvia Plath and was actually quite happy to have missed most of that, but reading the memoirs of Lauren Bacall she could not help feeling that Ms Bacall had had a much better bite at the carrot and, slightly to her surprise, found herself envying her for it.

  That the Queen could readily switch from showbiz autobiography to the last days of a suicidal poet might seem both incongruous and wanting in perception. But, certainly in her early days, to her all books were the same and, as with her subjects, she felt a duty to approach them without prejudice. For her, there was no such thing as an improving book. Books were uncharted country and, to begin with at any rate, she made no distinction between them. With time came discrimination, but apart from the occasional word from Norman, nobody told her what to read, and what not. Lauren Bacall, Winifred Holtby, Sylvia Plath – who were they? Only by reading could she find out.

  It was a few weeks later that she looked up from her book and said to Norman: ‘Do you know that I said you were
my amanuensis. Well. I’ve discovered what I am. I am an opsimath.’

  With the dictionary always to hand, Norman read out: ‘Opsimath: one who learns only late in life.’

  It was this sense of making up for lost time that made her read with such rapidity and in the process now making more frequent (and more confident) comments of her own, bringing to what was in effect literary criticism the same forthrightness with which she tackled other departments of her life. She was not a gentle reader and often wished authors were around so that she could take them to task.

  ‘Am I alone,’ she wrote, ‘in wanting to give Henry James a good talking-to?’

  ‘I can see why Dr Johnson is well thought of, but surely, much of it is opinionated rubbish?’

  It was Henry James she was reading one tea-time when she said out loud, ‘Oh, do get on.’

  The maid, who was just taking away the tea trolley, said, ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ and shot out of the room in two seconds flat.

  ‘Not you, Alice,’ the Queen called after her, even going to the door. ‘Not you.’

  Previously she wouldn’t have cared what the maid thought or that she might have hurt her feelings, only now she did and coming back to the chair she wondered why. That this access of consideration might have something to do with books and even with the perpetually irritating Henry James did not at the moment occur to her.

  Though the awareness of all the catching up she had to do never left her, her other regret was to do with all the famous authors she could have met but hadn’t. In this respect at least she could mend her ways and she decided, partly at Norman’s urging, that it would be interesting and even fun to meet some of the authors they had both been reading. Accordingly, a reception was arranged, or a soirée, as Norman insisted on calling it.

  The equerries naturally expected that the same form would apply as at the garden parties and other large receptions, with the tipping off of guests to whom Her Majesty was likely to stop and talk. The Queen, though, thought that on this occasion such formality was misplaced (these were artists, after all) and decided to take potluck. This turned out not to be a good idea.