which sometimes bears the marks of dogs (I remember an old chintz that had been shredded and was waiting repair) Highgrove is a genuine home, full of family photographs and treasured mementos.
Camilla was driving herself from her own home, and was late. The Prince fixed us drinks from the trolley, and as always I sensed a hunger within him to talk to someone like J about the issues he cares about: agriculture, the environment, education and so on. As on many previous visits he seemed strangely lonely: a good man marooned in a difficult role, frequently misunderstood and feeling it too keenly for his own good. At last Camilla blew in like a gust from a rather more robust world. My diary observed: ‘She is warm and full of mirth – rejoicing that the Panorama programme about her is on TV tonight but she doesn’t have to watch it because she is with us!’ While the men talked about serious things she and I perched on the leather fender and smoked a cheeky cigarette, puffing the smoke up the chimney as we chatted.
It was a good evening – and when the time came for Robin to pick us up, we were surprised to see Bonnie scamper into the room. With advance warning from the gate the staff had opened the front door and in she went – small dogs do not stand on ceremony. Robin told us later he hadn’t had the heart to leave her behind, since she made such a pathetic fuss as he put on his coat. Astonished by her size (very small compared to a Jack Russell) the Prince and Camilla gave her maximum attention and were fascinated by her story of abandonment and rescue. Camilla’s elderly, almost-blind terrier smelt the sweet young female and noticeably perked up, chasing her about. Bonnie responded flirtatiously and, vastly entertained, the Prince roared his contagious, bellowing laugh of which Falstaff would have been proud.
On the way home J and I agreed how much we liked ‘doggy’ people. At last I was including myself in their number.
The Royal Family’s traditional affection for dogs might well be an antidote to the fuss that surrounds them. The Prince of Wales is, to his dog, just an owner, a human companion who offers treats and strokes and is always ready to stride out into the indescribably thrilling grass and trees. The dog is always there, always loyal. He will not sell his memoirs; nor will he bite the hand that feeds him. There are no complications; the dog does not have to say ‘sir’ or bow, and yet he will obey. I can imagine the Prince striding over the countryside he loves and telling a dog everything, knowing that whatever he says will never get back to the newspapers, nor be captured by any paparazzo’s telephoto lens.
I would be telling lies if I told you that at this stage in my life I looked at my small white lapdog and saw in her a teacher. Yet I should have done, for the lessons were already beginning. For example, one day I hit her – for the first and last time. It was not a savage blow. The big dogs would not have noticed such a swat and the cats would have easily avoided it. But a padded envelope arrived containing a copy of my latest children’s book – the first off the press. It is always an exciting moment for an author – that pause of satisfaction when you hold the fruit of your labour in your hand, look at it, admire your own name and think, I made this. That day I had put the book down on the futon in my study, gone to make coffee and returned to find that the young dog (less than one year old after all) was chewing the corner of my new book. And so I picked it up, swatted her and yelled, ‘No!’
I did not know (neophyte that I was) that ‘No!’ is the cruellest word you can shout at a dog, even if sometimes you must. Nor could I have predicted that she would shrink back, raise just one paw as if for protection and shiver with terror. The lesson I learnt that day, as I cried with remorse and bent to cuddle her, was how quickly she could forgive. She licked me as if to say she was sorry, it was all her fault, it was all right, I shouldn’t upset myself any more, all was well. There were no sulks. The tiny creature was bigger than I could have been – and I was astonished. Much has always been written about the fidelity of the dog, and yet this quality of forgiveness should not be underestimated.
Saturday 12 October was beautiful. The sun glittered on the pond, where water spurted into the air from the spring swollen with autumn rain. The trees in the beech wood had crisped to russet, and the silver birch by the pond was weeping gold, like a metamorphosed princess in myth. J and Robin decided to go logging on our land, ready for winter. The big dogs raced, because they liked nothing else than to be down in the rough fields, smelling rabbits, foxes and badgers and rolling in mud. As always, the cats glided around on the perimeter of the action. But I had to leave the gang and drive the one hour to Cheltenham to take part in a discussion on marriage at the Literature Festival. As I backed my car from the car port I saw J scoop Bonnie up, then turn with her in his arms to tramp down to where the tractor waited in a gilded landscape.
I had contributed to a short book called Maybe I Do: Marriage and Commitment in Singleton Society, published by the Institute of Ideas. Over the years, as a prolific journalist, I have written many thousands of words on this subject, and in 1989 I compiled an anthology of poetry and prose about marriage. It had started as a silver wedding present for J, but ended by being published and dedicated to him. We had perfected a double act: reading a selection from the book at festivals and for charity. I liked being married and saw (as I still do) the institution as the bedrock of society – although with no illusions about how difficult it is. ‘The greatest test of character any of us will have to face,’ was how I described it in my anthology introduction.
Now a group of us were gathering to discuss marriage before a sold-out audience in the Town Hall in Cheltenham: the novelist Fay Weldon, journalist and novelist Yvonne Roberts, radical journalist Jennie Bristow, Claire Fox from the Institute of Ideas (my publisher) and me. It was a good, wide-ranging discussion and as usual I was the most conventional of all the speakers, banging a drum for what I truly believe in: the importance of stable marriage to the upbringing of children. That is, when it works. My chapter in the book was called ‘For the Sake of the Children’ and ended with these words – which sum up the essence of my platform contribution:
Of course marriages go wrong, but I do not believe anybody has the right to put their own needs/feelings/wants before those of their children. Most of us could have skipped out of our marriages at some time or other, in pursuit of romance – by which I mean, fresh sex. ‘Staying together for the sake of the children’ became a much derided mantra, but I see it as a potential source of good. Who knows – by putting Self on the back burner, many a married couple may find they weather the storms and ease themselves into the best of friendships, to share old age together, in married love.
Now I regret the trite cynicism of that phrase ‘fresh sex’ but admit that the last sentence is pure autobiography, not theory. It was where I thought we both were, what I most wanted.
That night we went to a dinner party near Bath. Beautiful converted barn decorated with impeccable taste. Schubert floating through the scented air. Logs roaring in the wood burner. Excellent champagne, cold and biscuity in tall glasses. So many people; we didn’t know them all. Such a buzz. Conversation about the arts amongst (mostly) practitioners. Delicious food cooked and served by our perfectionist writer-hostess and free-flowing wine to match its quality. The long, long table, lined with merry faces, as the laughter rose to the ceiling.
How many such evenings had we enjoyed, by the autumn of 2002? How many people had we met, talked to, flirted with, become friends with, forgotten in time? Both social beings, J and I always enjoyed gatherings where conversation was sparkling yet unstuffy – and this one was one of the best. He was sitting at the opposite end of the long table, between our hostess and a blonde woman whom I had not noticed during the pre-dinner drinks. I did not even notice her face in the candlelight; she was too far away. And why indeed would I notice? J and I had come too far together to fret that the person next to one or other of us at dinner might come to mean something.
Yes indeed, the moments do come when the universe smiles and plays a trick. Yes indeed, you get up one morning with no inkling that the day will bring a life-changing moment. The face of a future lover seen across a room, a sudden stumble which leaves you with a black eye … There can indeed be no knowing what will pop out from under the lid of the scary jack-in-a-box, to shake the foundations of the world you know. As we drove home, exchanging details of conversations and swapping gossip and opinion as we always did, J told me about his neighbour at dinner. He liked her a lot but was, he confessed, slightly bothered because it turned