Jogging, growing roses, chess or rock climbing, cake decoration, model aeroplanes. It was a hobby and it was in the nature of her job that she didnt have hobbies. She read, of course, as one did, but liking books was something she left to other people. Shed never taken much interest in reading. The Queen hesitated, because to tell the truth she wasnt sure. Though now that one is here I suppose one ought to borrow a book. Shut up this minute, you silly creatures, which, as had been the moves intention, gave the driver/librarian time to compose himself and the boy to pick up the books. Neither of them took any notice of the new arrival, so she coughed and said, Im sorry about this awful racket, where-upon the driver got up so suddenly he banged his head on the Reference section and the boy in the aisle scrambled to his feet and upset Photography & Fashion. The driver was sitting with his back to her, sticking a label on a book, the only seeming borrower a thin ginger-haired boy in white overalls crouched in the aisle reading. This wasnt a part of the palace she saw much of, and she had certainly never seen the library parked there before, nor presumably had the dogs, hence the din, so having failed in her attempt to calm them down she went up the little steps of the van in order to apologise. It was the City of Westminster travelling library, a large removal-like van parked next to the bins outside one of the kitchen doors.
Today, though, for some reason they careered along the terrace, barking their heads off, and scampered down the steps again and round the end along the side of the house, where she could hear them yapping at something in one of the yards. They were snobs and ordinarily, having been in the garden, would have gone up the front steps, where a footman generally opened them the door.
Vraiment? The president put down his spoon. Jean Genet, said the Queen again, helpfully. But she was being addressed by the Archbishop of Can-terbury. Unbriefed on the subject of the glabrous playwright and novelist, the president looked wildly about for his minister of culture. Homosexual and jailbird, was he nevertheless as bad as he was painted? Or, more to the point, and she took up her soup spoon, was he as good? The Marseillaise and the national anthem made for a pause in the proceedings, but when they had taken their seats Her Majesty turned to the president and resumed. Now that I have you to myself, said the Queen, smiling to left and right as they glided through the glittering throng, Ive been longing to ask you about the writer Jean Genet. At Windsor it was the evening of the state banquet and as the president of France took his place beside Her Majesty, the royal family formed up behind and the procession slowly moved off and through into the Waterloo Chamber.
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