A beautiful day with the ghost of sadness
This was my column in The Malta Independent on Sunday, 1 May.
Like millions of other people around the world, I was glued to the television last Friday. We held a mini-‘watching party’ at home and my mother, my sisters and my nieces came along with cupcakes decorated with ‘William and Catherine’ pins, champagne and Love Hearts.
The men took shelter at the office, except for one of my sons, still here on holiday, who was woken by the cacophony and then found himself with no choice but to get involved, wearing an air of patience as we dissected The Dress (perfect), the relationship (fingers crossed), the legs of the mother of the bride (fabulous at any age, let alone 56), Victoria Beckham’s mourning-wear (tsk tsk) and Princess Beatrice’s hat (unfortunate choice), while reminiscing about the incomparable beauty of the bride at that other royal wedding in 1981, which we watched (oh, days of deprivation) on the colour television owned by our next-door neighbours, West German diplomats.
Throughout it all was the underlying feeling of wonder at the unpredictability of life. Would Carole and Michael Middleton – a pilot and an air hostess at the time – ever have imagined, as they watched the 1981 spectacle, that the daughter they had yet to have would grow up to marry the son that the ‘fairytale’ couple had yet to have too?
That is the happy side of unpredictability, the lucky-strike side of things, where the good fortune of some does not have its flipside in the misfortune or tragedy of others. But sometimes, events can be seen as erratic, devoid of meaning, unfair and frightening in their intimation of unholy chaos, when what we would prefer to know is that there is some grand plan.
Worse still, they can sometimes seem to be deliberately vicious and cruel, strings pulled by some heartless monster dicing with human lives for amusement, which leaves us unsurprised that this is exactly how the ancient Greeks saw it. It is from that – the desire to avoid confrontation with what we fear might well be the utter pointless randomness of life and death – that most religious faith springs.
Parallel with the good fortune of Catherine Middleton, which is not built on the misery of others, runs the story of the astonishing luck of her stepmother-in-law, great good luck which was the immense bad luck of another woman, who was eliminated from the equation by a wholly unexpected twist, and whose sons have had to bear the burden since.
Death having removed the main obstacle from her path, Camilla Parker Bowles as the Duchess of Cornwall was able to slip smoothly into her present life in a way that would have been impossible had her rival – not in love, for she was always going to be the winner there, but certainly in public life and in the life of the dead woman’s sons – been alive still.
The complete victory of the Duchess of Cornwall, who has now taken over what should have been the life of another woman, dead these last 14 years, falls into the category of inexplicable menace, of those situations which cause us to ask disturbing questions about the strange cruelty of life. It is the opposite of a morality tale: a parable in which wrong-doing triumphs permanently and utterly, and as if that were not enough, the one who deserved to triumph is instead punished in the most horrible way possible.
Though things clearly did turn out for the best there, they did so only for the individuals we think least deserved it, and at the cost of a great deal of suffering to others. For those others, it was a worst-case nightmare scenario: the boys who saw their parents’ marriage fall apart and their mother fall to pieces and then die while flirting with an unsuitable lover, the woman who died, her own mother bereft and dying not long afterwards.
This upsets our sense of justice, and our childlike need to believe that everything that happens does so for a reason, and the reason is a good and a just one which does not involve rewarding bad behaviour and egocentric indifference to others.
The sight of the Duchess of Cornwall replacing her rival so completely, playing the role that the mother of the groom should have played, cast a pall over the spectacle for many of us. It was the sad centre of the event.
While Diana is long dead, deprived of the joy and pride of watching her son be married in such a wonderful way, the woman she hated and feared more than anything was there instead of her, sitting where she should have sat in the cathedral, playing a starring role, giving advice to her son’s bride, having her little Parker-Bowles grand-daughter inserted into the entourage as a bridesmaid, and waving from the palace balcony.
On Friday, two women were clearly triumphant. The other one was the Duchess of Cornwall.
Though broadcasters were careful to avoid mentioning the obvious while talking through the day, the spectre of Diana must have floated through the mind of everyone old enough to remember her, and you couldn’t help but think how she must have felt if, in some misty and half-imagined afterlife, she were able to see the rest of the story unfold.
I’ve always thought that if there is a heaven, it cannot possibly involve being aware of what happens after we have gone, for that would make it hell.
The awkwardness for the groom was that, because of his stepmother’s presence at the celebrations, he could make no official reference to his dead mother, could not pay tribute to her in any way or include her memory in the proceedings. This contributed to the sense of betrayal, the feeling that somebody who should have been central to the ceremony, even if only as a ghost or a memory, had instead been airbrushed out. Yet Diana was the spectre at the feast, made more damningly present by the determination to keep her absent. One of the Italian broadsheets had no qualms about saying it, headling its report of the marriage as being ‘nell’ombra di Diana’ – in the shadow of Diana.
The groom was left unable to say even something informal – that he hoped how in some way his mother was there in spirit or that she was watching the greatest day of his life – because he must have in fact hoped for the opposite, that she had no way of knowing, and no way of seeing.
What he must have truly wanted – if we can hazard a guess based on normal human desires – must remain unvoiced except in private moments with nobody other than his new wife and his brother: that he wished his mother were there instead of the Duchess of Cornwall.
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So beautifully written
Daphne, what you write about above is a true story of our times. One day in the future, however, future generations will read it and think it was a fairytale.
Wonderful, Daphne. Another esteemed journalist picked up on your theme on Sunday. From Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11122/1143406-109-0.stm
Daphne, as you know, I can, at times, be somewhat ‘coarse’. Being Canadian, I have a weird sense of humour, not always understood by the Maltese.
Each morning I usually listen to a Canadian radio station to revel as their traffic jams up driving into Toronto (endured that myself). On Monday, the guys were talking about the royal wedding. They remarked that so many highways and cities in Canada were named after the royals. The Queen Elizabeth Way in Ontario, Victoria in B. C. etc. One of them then jumped in with a comment that a city in Saskatchewan, called Moose Jaw was named after Camilla. Mean, I know, but I laughed out loud.
I echo that…so nice to have you back :)
Brilliant. You never cease to surprise me.
despite knowing of Charles’s underground relationship with Camilla, Diana thought that he was using Camilla as his real love was with Tiggy. Diana really hated Tiggy more than Camilla.
So Charles was a jerk – but I’m sure his parents knew he didn’t love Diana and still loved Camilla/Tiggy yet they encouraged him to marry the teenage Diana. I’m sure they realised how unsuited their characters were.
I think they should carry much of the blame.
How I wish I could write so well! The flow, creative use of simple words, appropriate use of symbolisms and master use of frame line magnetism. I don’t know if you do this intentionally, if not I am even more envious!
Too many text books have probably fatally suppressed my creativity, bringing on a sense of frustration and depression – and such good pieces do not help my despair.
You nearly made me like this wedding!
The Duchess
looked like a man dressed as a woman ! Did you notice the hideous taste of the Brish in clothes ! What a difference from the italian taste !
[Daphne – Italian taste as in…..? If you mean the Eurotrash look, then it’s entirely inappropriate for a wedding like that. Maltese weddings – even the smart sort – look so ghastly largely because most of the women think they are emulating ‘Italian style’, which is frequently an oxymoron. Few Italians now have style – what they mainly have is a set of formulaic conventions which no longer work. Never underestimate the influence of Silvio Berlusconi’s television shows. It’s all been for the bad. ]
Thank you. I’m so sick and tired of the Maltese constantly gushing about everything Italian and saying that everyone else (especially the Brits) have terribly lower standards, mostly in style (whatever that is) and cuisine.
No, not every Italian is stylish.
No, not everything Italian is perfect.
Not even their much praised food is the be all and end all in cuisine.
[Daphne – Italian style, like Italian cuisine, have run into a brick wall. Both are fossilised, a recipe for death and irrelevance. The restaurants of London and New York have long since taken over from those of Rome and Milan and left them straggling far, far behind. Fashion and product design are rapidly following suit. The Italian fashion houses which still have a major edge – Gucci and Prada, for instance – do so only because they are tailoring their product for the British and American markets, and for the Japanese market which follows slavishly anything the British and New Yorkers do. Italy’s crisis is not just due to political chaos and lack of proper democracy but to the inability to innovate because traditions are preserved intact rather than refreshed and made newly relevant.]
The Italians keep on harping on the “Made in Italy” style be it in fashion, food, cars but they have stopped short of innovation; they prefer standing still while others overtake them.
The Italians keep on harping on the “Made in Italy” style be it in fashion, food, cars but they have stopped short of innovation. They prefer standing still while others overtake them.
‘Daphne – Italian taste as in…..? ‘
I seem to remember you (Daphne) saying something about how your Italian (male) friends thought Maltese women were gorgeous (and Maltese men hideous). No doubt this was an exception to the rule.
[Daphne – I said style, not taste.]
Now, let Diana rest in peace. Much has been said and I think, bringing her into discussion now, would verge on lack of charity
Oh, the hats, the hats ! Better than Ladies Day at Ascot.
The bridesmaid and bestman (no translation in Italian, for them it’s “groom’s witness” ?) nearly stole the show.
The introduction to the article veils the depths to which you go. Firstly, I must compliment you on the lucidity of your article. But to stay in the shallows, I would suggest that Princess Beatrice’s hat was part of a devious plan to gain her media coverage, and indeed it did that well. And how can you fail to mention Pippa Middleton and her superb body. I’m sure that most men noticed that she has an admirable behind!
[Daphne – Maybe because I’m neither a straight man nor a lesbian, and so unlikely to fancy the admirable behinds of women? In fact, I didn’t even notice, perhaps because I was too busy – like all the other straight women (and gay men) looking at the handsome men in handsome uniforms, and the women’s clothes. But if you want my opinion as a lay observer, neither sister has sex-appeal, despite the perfect bodies (it sometimes happens), while their mother has pots of it at 56. Pippa Middleton strikes me as having ‘spinster’ – that old-fashioned word – written all over her. I can’t work out why. Just a gut reaction.]
Hahaha, she’s up for the rear of the year award and there’s also a Pippa Middleton Ass Appreciation Society on Facebook, evidently she’s made quite a splash:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/columnists/mcgovern/2011/05/05/pippa-middleton-s-bottom-favourite-to-win-rear-of-the-year-for-115875-23107640/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pippa-Middleton-Ass-Appreciation-Society/183120471735513
[Daphne – Shades of Tara PT. I hope she’s not going to walk or be pushed down that road.]
I disagree with you here, Daphne. I find Kate absolutely stunning and I thought she looked beautiful on the day.
[Daphne – Yes, she is. But sex appeal is something else.]
I wouldn’t kick either sister out of bed for eating crackers.
….or perhaps she was very present. Had it not been for the Diana-Charles-Camilla mess then perhaps William wouldn’t have had a chance to marry his commoner wife…
And Kate, now Catherine, broke with recent tradition and didn’t leave the bouquet on the tomb of the unknown soldier – leading many to conclude that it was destined for Diana’s resting place.
Just a thought.
“The awkwardness for the groom was that, because of his stepmother’s presence at the celebrations, he could make no official reference to his dead mother, could not pay tribute to her in any way or include her memory in the proceedings.”
Daphne, this is pure conjecture on your part. The Abbey, the route from the Abbey (the same as Diana’s funeral route), the Spencers on the front row and especially the engagement ring are all references to Diana or could be interpreted as such. I suspect (of course this is my conjecture now) that no actual mention of Diana was made because there was no appropriate moment during the service to do so and also because that would certainly have added too much of a note of sadness to the happy occasion. We don’t know whether Diana was mentioned in the speeches during the private receptions after the service.
The Duchess of Cornwall, as Prince Charles’s legitimate wife and William’s stepmother had every right to be there in that role. Charles and Camilla are a great love story and an example of how happiness can be attained a second time round and in later years. If we have to apportion blame then yes, Charles made a mistake in marrying Diana, however, and to add further to the underlying theme of conjecture in your article, I reckon they were so unsuited that the marriage wouldn’t have lasted even without Camilla on the scene.
Of course had Diana been alive Camilla wouldn’t have taken on that role at William’s wedding but Diana is dead, killed in a car accident through no fault of anyone’s except that driver. To imply that Camilla felt triumphant and victorious to be in her place is just more of that conspiratorial gossip.
I would like to think that had Diana lived, Charles and Camilla would still have got married, everyone would have moved on and William would have wanted all three at his wedding instead of one over the other. We’ll never know.
I had much better things to do than gawk at The Wedding but I seem to recall reading somewhere that William gave Kate his mother’s ring to make a clear statement that he wanted his mother (symbolically of course) present. I think you’re reading far too much into his ‘silence’. He made his statement with great dignity, intelligence and sensitivity. Men are like that sometimes.
[Daphne – What statement? There wasn’t one. Oh you mean at the engagement press call! That was different. Dignity, intelligence and sensitivity are not qualities particularly associated with men, Tim, but with individuals,whether men or women, who have the genes for intelligence and the nature/nurture combination for dignity and sensitivity. I don’t say that men are inclined to stab their wives just because there was YET ANOTHER ONE last night. You didn’t ‘gawk’ at the wedding not because you had better things to do – don’t we all, unless we are Michelle Muscat – but because you’re a man. Most women like such things, and most men don’t.]