The Uncommon Reader

written not just one book or two, but at least a dozen?”
    And all, though she did not say this, in paperback and so handbag size. A postcard was immediately dispatched to Norman telling him to get those few that were out of print from the library to await her return. Oh what treats!
    But Norman was no longer there.

    THE DAY before he was due to depart for the delights of Stockton-on-Tees Norman was called into Sir Kevin’s office. The prime minister’s special adviser had said that Norman should be sacked; Sir Kevin disliked the special adviser; he didn’t like Norman much but he disliked the special adviser more, and it was this that saved Norman’s bacon. Besides, Sir Kevin felt the sack was vulgar. Norman should not get the sack. There was a neater solution.
    “Her Majesty is always anxious for the betterment of her employees,” the private secretary said benignly, “and though she is more than satisfied with your work she wonders if you have ever thought of university?”
    “University?” said Norman, who hadn’t.
    “Specifically, the University of East Anglia. They have a very good English Department and indeed a School of Creative Writing. I have only to mention the names” — Sir Kevin looked down at his pad — “of Ian McEwan, Rose Tremain and Kazuo Ishiguro…”
    “Yes,” said Norman. “We’ve read those.”
    Wincing at the ‘we’, the private secretary said that he thought East Anglia would suit Norman very well.
    “What with?” said Norman. “I’ve no money.”
    “That will not be a problem. Her Majesty, you see, is anxious not to hold you back.”
    “I think I would rather stay here,” said Norman. “It’s an education in itself.”
    “Ye-es,” said the private secretary. “That will not be possible. Her Majesty has someone else in mind. Of course,” he smiled helpfully, “your job in the kitchen is always open.”
    Thus it was that when the Queen returned from Canada there was no Norman perched on his usual seat in the corridor. His chair was empty, not that there was a chair any more or that comforting pile of books she had got used to finding on her bedside table. More immediately, there was no one to whom she could discourse on the excellences of Alice Munro.
    “He wasn’t popular, ma’am,” said Sir Kevin.
    “He was popular with me,” said the Queen. “Where has he gone?”
    “No idea, ma’am.”
    Norman, being a sensitive boy, wrote the Queen a long, chatty letter about the courses he was taking and the reading he had to do, but when he got a reply beginning ‘Thank you for your letter in which Her Majesty was most interested’ he knew he had been eased out, though whether by the Queen or her private secretary he wasn’t sure.
    If Norman didn’t know who had engineered his departure, the Queen herself was in no doubt. Norman had gone the way of the travelling library and the case of books that ended up in Calgary. Like the book she had hidden behind the cushion in the state coach, he was lucky not to have been exploded. And she missed him, there was no doubt. But no letter came, no note, and there was nothing for it but grimly to go on. It wouldn’t put a stop to her reading.
    That the Queen was not more troubled by Norman’s sudden departure might seem surprising and to reflect poorly on her character. But sudden absences and abrupt departures had always been a feature of her life. She was seldom told, for instance, when anyone was ill; distress and even fellow feeling something that being Queen entitled her to be without, or so her courtiers thought. When, as unfortunately happened, death did claim a servant or even sometimes a friend, it was often the first time that the Queen had heard that anything was amiss, “We mustn’t worry Her Majesty” a guiding principle for all her servants.
    Norman of course had not died, just gone to the University of East Anglia, though, as the equerries saw it, this was much the same thing, as he had gone from Her Majesty’s life and thus no longer existed, his name never mentioned by the Queen or anyone else. But the Queen should not be blamed on that score, on that the equerries agreed; the Queen should never be blamed. People died, people left and (more and more) people got into the papers. For her they were all departures of one sort or another. They left but she went on.
    Less to her credit, before Norman’s mysterious departure the Queen had begun to wonder if she was outgrowing him…or rather,