The Uncommon Reader

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 tongue-tied 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 longstanding 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, fetches 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 Her 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 Hatchards. 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 the 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, these days 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 do, 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,