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.
In the lobby they were selling souvenirs of the Royal Visit. How had they had time to prepare these paperweights and medallions and letter openers and postcards saying Craw's Nest Hotel — Souvenir of the Royal Visit?
"We knew about it in January, but we had to keep it a secret until May," Eira said. "We kept praying that nothing would go wrong. We thought the Falklands might finish it."
So they had been putting the place in order and running up souvenirs for almost seven months. The royal lunch had lasted an hour.
That night they held a celebration party in the hotel parking lot. It was a way of giving thanks. The hotel invited the whole town, or rather two — Easter Anstruther and Wester Anstruther. They had a rock band and eight pipers and some drummers. The racket was tremendous and continued until two o'clock in the morning, hundreds of people drinking and dancing. They sold sausages and fish and chips, and there were bales of hay for people to sit on. The band was bad, but no one seemed to mind. There were old people, families, drunks, and dogs. Small boys smoked cigarettes in a delighted way and sneaked beer from the hotel. Girls danced with each other, because the village boys, too embarrassed to be seen dancing, congregated in small groups and pretended to be tough. There was a good feeling in the air, hilarity and joy, something festive, but also grateful and exhausted. It wasn't faked; it was like the atmosphere of an African village enjoying itself.
At eleven I took a walk down to the beach. I passed a man in rubber waders standing alone and looking puzzled on the road. A girl and her grandmother were eating ice cream cones in the half-dark. I passed a cottage; inside, a family of five was singing out loud. I saw more children smoking behind a wall. In another house a man and woman seemed to be proposing a toast. There was moonlight on the water, and this moonglow had settled on the waves and made them stand out like the ribs of a washboard. I walked toward this light, and on the stony beach, just below the seawall where I was standing, a boy was clumsily fucking a girl, his buttocks plum-blue under the bright moon and her upraised legs almost luminous and seeming to steady him. It was chilly, he was having a little trouble, but he was so eager, he did not see me. They made me feel invisible, but I left them there and I thought of the band and the dancing and beer and the hay bales and the moonlight and the smell of seaweed and the young couple fucking where the Queen had just been — it was like a mural, an allegorical painting, but a funny one, a Gully Jimson or a Stanley Spencer.
The cleaning ladies were buzzing early the next morning.
"I couldn't believe it," Mrs. Ross said. "It didn't seem real. It was like a dream."
I said, "What will Willie Hamilton think?"
Willie Hamilton was their Member of Parliament and noted for being in favor of abolishing the monarchy.
"Willie Hamilton can get stuffed."
After breakfast, I set off for Leven. It was a gray morning, and rather chilly. After I had walked a few miles, it began to rain. I kept walking and heard a throstle, as it was called here. Then the rain was too much for me. I hurried to a village and waited for the bus to Leven. The villages on the coast of Fife had a quiet beauty, and the farmhouses and barns were built like fortresses in flat stone.