The Low-Down on the Higher-Ups

Even though I have a perfectly good coffee maker, I often go to the nearest Seven-11 to get my daily brew. I justify the extra expense by reminding myself how this daily outing gives me a chance to socialize and to see what's happening in the neighborhood. For a while, a few decades ago, my daily junket to the Seven-11 even provided me with a window onto the wider world. In particular, it became my pipeline into the intimate doings of England's Royal Family. While others were only left to guess about the dynamics of Prince Charles' deteriorating marriage to Princess Di and to the private conversations of other members of the Royal Family - I had the inside dope. There, all the way away in Chicago, I was able to keep my finger on the pulse of the people at Buckingham Palace.

For the better part of a year, I found a young man with a marked Irish accent often presiding at the counter of the Seven-11. After I had become enough of a regular to be on a first-name basis with him, I started to be the recipient of snatches of his personal history. He told me that he had been a member of the elite Coldstream Guards, the unit that had been especially assigned to surround the Royal Family with security. In the course of these duties, he had gotten to be especially close to the Queen Mother, the mother of the long-reigning Queen Elizabeth. Sean told me that the Royals had appreciated his services and still kept in touch with him, even after he had emigrated to the U.S. So he knew exactly what was going on in the Palace at all times.

When he felt he could further trust me, Sean started to give me daily updates on the activities of the Royal Family in camera. He would lean across the counter to tell me the latest, out of earshot of the mere riffraff who patronized the convenience store. I learned that, "The Queen Mum is rather put out with Princess Di. She's not at all happy with Di's incessant dieting. Really, it seems as if the girl has a case of anorexia, and that kind of calling attention to oneself with such problems doesn't sit well with the matriarch. The Queen Mum herself enjoys her kippers, and she believes that every proper young woman should have a good healthy appetite. She doesn't approve of keeping yourself bone thin the way Di is doing. Of course, she can't come out and say as much to Charles or Di. She has to be diplomatic - but between you and me, she's not happy with Di, not happy at all."

Then I heard that "Prince Philip is not the silent partner the press often makes him out to be. I tell you, he rules the roost on the home front. The Queen has to go along with his wishes. You know they put him in charge of some animal protection fund. But the truth is, he only cares about preserving animals so he can hunt them. He went traipsing out and shot a big 12-point stag on the Balmoral south forty today. It made Queen Elizabeth cringe. But what can she do? When it comes right down to it, the Queen is only a woman, and Philip is a man and still the head of the household."

I learned that whenever the Queen Mother had a cold or some other minor health problem, "you won't hear her complain. She believes it's the duty of a Royal to keep up a good front at all times, to be cheerful and always have the people's well-being as her primary concern. She wouldn't think of canceling her appearance at the Museum to see the Elgin Marbles this afternoon. She has to make some statement, some conciliatory statement to the Greeks, since they're complaining again about how Lord Elgin took those statues. She'll never let on when she has a twinge, or let up on her royal duties, no matter what. When she gets a touch of arthritis like she did today, she just has a bit of liniment rubbed on her shoulder, and she goes right on. A real trooper, she is. You wouldn't know she was over eighty, the schedule she keeps."

I heard about a dust-up that had occurred when the Palace cook made a rum cake to be served at a reception honoring Sheikh Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates. Since Muslims are strictly opposed to all alcoholic beverages, the gaff "almost caused an international incident, I can tell you. Cedric, the dessert chef who put that item on the menu, got quite a dressing down. He left the Queen's presence almost in tears."

And so it went, the intimate day-by-day drama of Buckingham Palace unfolded before me for the better part of a year. But then the reports started to taper off. Sean looked more and more down in the dumps. He seemed to have lost his old eagerness to relate the Royal Family's conversations. Sean would often just silently ring up my coffee purchase, without offering even a tidbit of the latest palace contretemps.

Then Sean began to look as if he was declining physically as well as emotionally. It seemed as if he might be losing a dangerous amount of weight. On cold winter mornings, he would be standing there behind the cash register, shivering, more and more just a rattling of bones under his smock. I was tempted to remind him that the Queen Mum wouldn't be pleased with such weight lose - that she would surely advise him to keep up a healthy appetite, to treat himself to some hearty servings of fish and chips. But Sean seemed too removed and mechanical these days to take kindly to such personal remarks.

Then it got worse. One morning I was shocked to see that Sean had a terrible black eye. He didn't try to disguise his sorry state with sunglasses. But he kept his head tucked down in his smock as he rang up my coffee without a word of news from his home front. He looked like a duck tucking its head into its feathers against a wounding world. Just as that black-and-blue started to fade, Sean appeared with a lot of bruising along one arm. He was all-around becoming a mere shadow of his former chipper self.

One day when an older woman was checking me out at the counter, I realized I hadn't seen Sean at all in over a week. On a subsequent visit, I caught the manager's eye and asked him what had happened to Sean. The manager rolled his eyes in exasperation and said he'd had to "let Sean go." He said that Sean had essentially been homeless, living on the streets, getting into fights as he started acting crazier and crazier. In spite of it all, Sean had been performing acceptably as a clerk, and the manager had wanted to give him a chance. But really, it got to be too much. When Sean had started to come in late, looking all beat up, talking so crazy - he really had to be let go.

I never saw Sean again. As the Royal Family went through all the dramatic changes that rocked it during the eighties and nineties - the divorce, death, scandal, marriage, birth - I never knew any more than was reported in the newspapers. I missed my pipeline into the Family's private chambers. I especially wondered what the Queen Mum had really thought about it all, there at the end.