What did that make her?

The Old Stables, Kensington Palace, September 1978

Tommy took the front door key out of its lock and stepped into his hallway. It was good to be home from Scotland. Balmoral never changed, its tartan-clad chill unbeatable no matter his old thermal long johns. It still had its grandeur. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh never failed to invite him for the Glorious Twelfth and its start of the massacre of red grouse and ptarmigan. He didn’t shoot now. At the age of ninety-one, why would he? But the picnics in the heather and gentle fly fishing with Her Majesty the Queen Mother brought him enormous pleasure. She had always been kind and loyal to him and they had many shared stories to recall.

He had travelled home earlier today, sleeping on the train even as he tried to keep his eyes open to watch the scenery go by and imprint it firmly in his memory. This might be his last journey back from Scotland. He was getting old, and you never knew when the grim reaper might take you.

Setting his suitcase down, he closed his front door and wandered into his study.

His daily woman had placed a bowl of bright chrysanthemums in a vase on his desk. He tutted. He hated them. They seemed to him like streetwalkers or barmaids, too blowsy and garish. Joan never grew them and P-T – the dear girl was now married with twin sons and two daughters – would never have put them in his office.

He sighed and sat behind his desk, ready to tackle the neat pile of post that Mrs Wilmshaw had placed there.

He flicked through the circulars and bills, a postcard from a cousin and a note of fees from his club, until he came to an envelope in a hand that he recognized but was unable to think why. He opened it, intrigued.

My dear Tommy,

It is a long time since we have spoken. Seeing you, and your acknowledgement of me, brought back so many emotions.

Firstly, I want to apologize for my mistakes and for not listening to your advice all those years ago. Youth and naivety are my only defence.

You were right about George. He was all the things that you told me, but I loved him then and couldn’t believe you. Can you understand that? Love is foolish and blind. I paid for my error, though – not financially, obviously; I have a house and money in the bank. I can live very well – if a life without friends is living well.

George died a few years ago. We had long forgotten to be kind to each other. In his will he specified that I was to be kept away from the scattering of his ashes. By then I didn’t care. Is that very bad of me?

Life when you and I knew each other, with Lilibet, Margaret, Alah and Bobo seems almost unreal to me now: the disbelief of the abdication, our nights in the castle dungeons during the air raids, the books we shared and the whiskies in your office … I think of these things with gratitude and they lift my spirits, just as the sight of you today did.