Paul Theroux - The Kingdom by the Sea - A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain

Today the streets were scrubbed, flags flew, the whole town gleamed with flowers and bunting. And there was a heightened hum, a vibration racing in the air, the equivalent in sound of twinkling light, something electric and almost visible. It was genuine. I felt it as soon as I entered the cobbled streets. It was as if the town had been refreshed with a blessing. In a way it had, for that atmosphere was the spirit left by the progress of the Royal Visit. The Queen of England had left just a moment ago.

"What a pity you missed her," Freda Robertson said. Mrs. Robertson owned the largest bookstore in St. Andrews, and she looked dignified and indestructible in her Scottish way, her voice half-inquiry and half-reprimand and full of the precise ironies of a headmistress. She loved books. She recognized me. Did I want a cup of tea?

With her finger tracing upon the sharp panes of her mullioned window, Mrs. Robertson described how Her Majesty rode up here in her Rolls-Royce, and got out there, and walked over there near the barriers.

"I hung out of the window with a pair of binoculars and my camera," Mrs. Robertson said. "I didn't know which one to look through. I'm sure my pictures will have fingers and thumbs on them. But you should have heard the cheers!"

Was this Falklands feeling, I wondered? No, Freda Robertson said, it was for the Queen's being a grandmother. The child had been born when I was in Mallaig, and now he had a name: Prince William. One of the largest St. Andrews signs said, health to PRINCE WILLIAM.

"What brings you to St. Andrews?" Mrs. Robertson asked.

I said that I was making my way around the British coast, clockwise.

"Aye, so we're on your itinerary."

"And a man in Guardbridge told me that the Queen was here."

It was then that Mrs. Robertson said what a pity it was that I had missed her. "Her Majesty just left for Anstruther."

That was only eight miles away and also on the coast.

I said, "I think I'll go to Anstruther and see her."

"I hope you do see her," Mrs. Robertson said. "This is a great occasion. Do you know that this is the first time the Queen and Prince Philip have ever come to St. Andrews?"

"Ever?"

"Aye," Mrs. Robertson said. "Now I want you to do me one favor, if you will."

"Gladly," I said.

She went on, "As you're traveling around the British coast, so you say, you are seeing a great many places. I have never been to half those places, and I don't suppose I shall. What I want you to do is write me a nonfiction book about traveling around the British coast. I think it would do very well in my shop, but that's not the important thing. I mean to say, I want to read it."

I said I would do my best, and started toward Anstruther, thinking: That was a page, and here's another page, and there's probably a page in Anstruther.

I tried to hitchhike in order to get to Anstruther in time to see the Queen, but no one picked me up. I fell in with a farm laborer on the road. He was coming from St. Andrews. He had gone there for the Royal Visit.

"I saw the Queen," he said, and he winced, remembering.

"How did she look?"

He winced again. His name was Dougie. He wore gumboots. He said, "She were deep in thought."

Dougie had seen something no one else had.

"She were preoccupied. Her face were gray. She weren't happy."

I said, "I thought she was happy about her new grandson."

Dougie disagreed. "I think she were worried about something. They do worry, you know. Aye, it's a terrible job."

He began to walk slowly, as if in sympathy for the hard-pressed Queen.

I said, "Being Queen of England has its compensations."

"Some compensations and some disadvantages," Dougie said. "I say it's half a dream world and half a nightmare. It's a goldfish bowl. No privacy! She can't pick her nose without someone seeing her."

Dougie said this in an anguished way, and I thought it was curious, though I did not say so, that he was pained because the monarch could not pick her nose without being observed.

He then began to talk about television programs. He said his favorite program was "The Dukes of Hazzard," which concerned hijinks in a town in the American South. This Scottish farm laborer in Fifeshire said that he liked it because of the way the character Roscoe talked to his boss. That was very funny. American humor was hard to understand at times, he said, but every farm laborer in Scotland would find Roscoe funny for his attitude.

At last a bus came. I flagged it down. It was empty. I said I wanted to go to Anstruther to see the Queen.

"Aye. She's having lunch there," the driver said.

I wondered where.

The driver knew. "At the Craw's Nest. It's a small hotel on the Pittenweem Road."

He dropped me farther along and I followed the bunting into Anstruther, sensing that same vibrant glow that I had felt at St. Andrews — the royal buzz. It was a holiday atmosphere. The schools were out. The shops were closed. The pubs were open. Some men were wearing kilts. People were talking in groups, seeming to remind each other of what had just happened — the Queen had already gone by, to the Craw's Nest.

I cut across the harbor sands and went up the road to what seemed a very ordinary hotel — but freshly painted and draped in lines of plastic Union Jacks. There were more men in kilts here — they had such wonderfully upright posture, the men in kilts: they never slouched and hardly ever sat down.

"She just left," one said. His name was Hector Hay McKaye.

But there was something of her still here, like perfume that is strongest when a woman leaves suddenly. In the Queen's case it was like something overhead — still up there, an echo.

Mr. McKaye turned to his friends and said, "They had two detectives in the kitchen—"

"Do you want to see the flowers?" Mrs. Hamilton said.

Everyone was whispering excitedly.

It seemed to me that if the Queen and Prince Philip had eaten here, the food might be good. I seldom had a good meal in my traveling, not that it mattered much: food was one of the dullest subjects. I decided to stay the night at the Craw's Nest. And this hotel, which had just received the blessing of a Royal Visit, was a great deal cheaper than any hotel in Aberdeen.

"She never had a starter," the waitress Eira said. "She had the fish course, haddock Mornay. Then roast beef, broccoli, and carrots. And fresh strawberries and cream for dessert. Our own chef did it. It was a simple meal — it was good. The menu was printed and had bits of gold foil around it."

Much was made of the good plain food. It was English food — a fish course, a roast, two boiled vegetables, and fruit for the sweet course. The middle-class families in Anstruther — and everywhere else — had that every Sunday for lunch. She's just like us, people said of the Queen; of course, she works a jolly sight harder!

What was difficult for an alien to see was that this was essentially a middle-class monarchy. Decent philistines, the royal couple liked animals and country-house sports and variety shows. They never mentioned books at all, but they were famous for preferring certain television programs. Newspapers had published photographs of the Royal Television Set: it had a big screen and a sort of shawl on the top, but it was just like one you could hire for two quid a week up the High Street. Over the years the Queen had become shrewder-seeming, an even-tempered mother-in-law and a kindly gran. Prince Philip was loved for being irascible. He was noted for his grouchy remarks. He used the word bloody in public, and after that it was hard for anyone to find fault with him. The Queen was his opposite, growing smaller and squashier as he seemed to lengthen and grow spiky — the illusion had sprung out of his having become vocal. The Queen and the Prince were well-matched, but it was less the sovereign and her consort than the double-act that all successful middle-class marriages are.