The Ordinary Princess

‘Because I’m going to ask you to give Katerina another chance. Ground her, if you must,’ she rushed on. ‘She’s been foolish; of course she has. But even princesses need a day off now and then. An opportunity to be ordinary.’

‘Ordinary?’

‘You know. Girl-in-the-street ordinary.’

‘Oh, please.’

‘Has she ever been on a bus or the underground?’ she demanded. Then, as an afterthought, ‘Have you?’

Scarcely sure whether to be amused or affronted, he said, ‘I’ve never found it necessary.’

‘The chauffeur is on call twenty-four hours a day, I guess.’

‘Not the same one,’ he assured her, opting for amusement. He had a feeling it would be safer. ‘But, yes. It goes with the job. I am on call twenty-four hours a day, too. Seven days a week. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year.’

‘You never have a day off?’

‘I escape occasionally.’ He put on working clothes, went to his vineyard to work up an honest sweat. ‘But my pager is never switched off.’

‘Poor you, too, then,’ she responded. And sounded as if she meant it.

‘You make it sound as if I am deprived,’ he said, suddenly finding even his simulated amusement difficult to sustain. ‘I cannot believe, given the choice, that you would surrender a chauffeur-driven car in order to battle with the rush hour crowds on the underground.’

‘Maybe not, but you lose something, keeping the outside world at a distance. The underground may be crowded and dirty, but it’s real,’ she said. ‘Using it is a life skill. Like learning to use a public telephone—’

‘My niece has a mobile phone,’ he said, cutting off her nonsense. ‘And I can assure you she knows how to use it. It costs a small fortune—’

‘And if she lost it?’ she demanded, interrupting him. People did not interrupt him. ‘Or it was stolen? This evening, for instance, on her way to this club. If she got into difficulties would she know how to use a public call box?’

Now she was being ridiculous. ‘How difficult can it be?’

‘Nothing is difficult if you know how to do it. But suppose that first time she was frightened, confused, in a panic? Suppose it was one of those boxes that only takes a prepaid phone card and she didn’t have one?’