The Men in her Life

wearing mini skirts that got shorter each time Mo saw her.
    ‘I wonder what they’ll do with her now that she’s done her duty,’ Holly had mused, looking at the photo on the front of the paper when she came to Sunday lunch.
    ‘What do you mean?’ Mo had asked naively.
    ‘She’s produced an heir, so she’s fulfilled her function,’ Holly had said, ‘I expect they’ll make her have a couple more and then put her out to charity pasture...’
    Mo had scolded her for her cynicism, but now that she thought about it, Holly had been right all along. She’d tell her that when they next spoke. It was funny not to have talked to her all the week. Often weeks would go by without a phone call, but not when there was big news like this.
    As she walked smartly along Piccadilly, Mo wondered whether Holly had been sad. With all the conspiracy theories changing by the day, Mo had missed her daughter’s incisive comments on the whole thing. You could always rely on Holly for an opinion even though she pretended not to have the slightest interest in royalty. She had once let slip that she had phoned the Squidgy-tape line, and when Mo had visited her with the annual copy of Hello ! that had pictures of all Diana’s outfits, Holly had thoroughly perused the entire issue before disagreeing vehemently with the judgement of the team of fashion experts.
    Mo reached Hyde Park just as the funeral procession was leaving Kensington Palace . The low murmur of the crowd suddenly ceased as the gun carriage carrying the draped coffin appeared on the screen, and silence reigned. Mo felt a lump rise in her throat. She had never heard London so quiet.

    Thirst had driven Philippa into the first bar she found open in a narrow old street near the cathedral. The contrast between the glaring sunshine and the shade was so sudden, she had to push up her sunglasses to see where she was going. The suntan oil on her arms felt like a baste under the grill of the sun. The bar was the sort of place that usually had a bullfight on the television screen and men sitting on stools drinking fino, occasionally shouting advice to the toreadors. On the walls there were posters, bandillas with coloured streamers and a wreathed portrait of a local hero, all interspersed with faded colour photographs of the snacks available. Fried egg with chips, calamares in a roll, a circle of pink chorizo slices. Did people not know what a fried egg looked like, Philippa wondered, her eyes pausing on the unappetizing photo before being drawn to the screen. The sombre pageant taking place in London seemed a million miles away from this dingy place.
    At first Philippa thought that the sound of the television set was turned off, but then she became aware of the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves and the slow dull toll of the Abbey’s bells as the coffin was pulled along the roads lined with people. There were three arrangements of white flowers on the top of the coffin. The round cushion of roses at the front had a card stuck into it. Infuriatingly the camera did not zoom in immediately to show what it said. The familiar landmarks of London sparkled in the morning sunshine, but South America had come to England since she had been out of the country. People had never wept openly and thrown flowers at a State funeral before. How green everything was there. She could imagine a BBC voice running a quiet respectful commentary over the pictures, giving sober information about the ermine on the Royal Standard, the height of the guardsmen and the exact distance their legs would cover today escorting the Princess on her last journey. The Spanish commentator had little to say. The horses trotted dutifully on. Finally the cameraman zoomed in on the card on the smallest wreath.
    One word.
    Mummy.
    Philippa’s sight blurred with tears.
    Diana’s death had shocked her, but it had seemed an unreal event, as far away as England , and as unconnected with her. She had seen the flowers and shrines photographed in the English newspapers, and read about the drunken driver and the paparazzi’s chase much as she would read about a distant event, the Bosnian conflict, or the British withdrawal from Hong Kong . She had been too preoccupied with her own loss to be saddened by the loss of a woman she had never met.
    Mummy.
    Now she had seen it, she could not look at the progress of the coffin without focusing on the plain white rectangle stuck into the circle of rosebuds.
    Mummy.
    The most glamorous