all eyes to the mall

All eyes were on the Mall this morning.  Well, those of two billion people, if the news reports had it correct.  Everyone watching the newly-wed royal couple processing up to Buckingham Palace past half a million flag-waving well-wishers.  That's an awful lot of people to line one street. 

The Mall has been the official ceremonial route since the beginning of the twentieth century.  It took its name a couple of centuries earlier from a game called Paille-Maille, something like croquet, which was popularly played there in King Charles II's era.  At that point little more than a muddy track, Charles used to promenade up and down the Mall daily, his King Charles spaniels trotting at his heels, stopping for a cup of milk (fresh from the cows grazing in the park) or a game of paille-maille as he pleased.  His father had previously taken his final steps along the same track, it being the route Charles I took as he was marched to his execution at Whitehall, clad in two shirts lest the January cold make him shiver as he laid his head upon the block and the crowds mistake it for fear.  There's a lot of history associated with the Mall, and I'm afraid it doesn't all mark joy and celebration where the royals are concerned.

But anyway, it's all strangely fitting, because the Photo Story I promised to post this week features the Mall.  Maybe some of you recognised the parade of buildings in the background?  The story is set in St James's park, the royal park which borders the Mall's south side. 

I have a special affection for St James's.  The story below is not the only one I've set there.  I also happened to work on a commission a couple of years back for a project called Park Stories.  Ever since, St James's has felt like my park.  The concept behind Park Stories was to commission eight authors to write stories for each of London's royal parks; stories that would be published as individual booklets that park visitors could sit down on a park bench and read in a lunch hour - you can still find them here if you're interested.  The brief included a day with the park keeper, which is how I know so much history about St James's. 

Being commissioned to write a story is always odd.  Exciting also.  You know your subject, but initially have no idea what spark will set your imagination alight.  It feels like a challenge.  Or a puzzle you need to answer.  Often there's a word limit, sometimes weird stipulations (such as the clause in the Park Stories contract which stated that I wasn't allowed to break the Official Secrets Act; kind of scary if you're not too sure what the official state secrets are - what if I had leaked them inadvertently?!).  I know of authors who hate commissions, I guess because it feels too prescriptive, too much like a school homework assignment.  I like them.  Well, from time to time at least.  I like the fact that they give me parameters to focus my thoughts. 

Anyway, in the meantime, let me get on and give you my little story.  It's very late and I'm writing this at the kitchen table and I can hear creatures skittering under the kitchen units.  I'm hoping they're mice.  I'm okay with mice.  But once or twice I've stopped my typing at the sound of a particularly loud and heavy-sounding creature.  I desperately hope it's not a rat.  If you've read my story 'Safe', you'll know that I'm not enamoured by rats.  Either way, the noises are freaking me out, and I want to get to bed before I find out for sure what's making them.

So, as I mentioned in my last post, the story below was written as an exercise taking a random photograph for inspiration.  In turn, it inspired the Photo Stories exhibition I'm launching with Notes From the Underground in London next month.

I've posted the original photo as the header photo because they work well in parallel together.  It's titled 'Mrs Eveleigh Nash, The Mall, London, 1953' and is by the Magnum photographer Inge Morath (did you know she was married to Arthur Miller, by the way?).  I should just clarify that my story, while it takes its title from Morath's picture, is totally fictional and in no way connected with the real Mrs Eveleigh Nash.  I don't know anything about the real woman's history, but I'm sure she was a delight to her staff.  I hope you enjoy the story.

Mrs Eveleigh Nash

Mrs Eveleigh Nash travelled in an open-top car about London, with a fur rug laid over her knees and a stole about her shoulders to keep away the draughts.  Every afternoon she'd take a drive, up the Mall mostly, so she could see the ducks in the park and the children beside the boating pond.  Her driver said little.

Occasionally she would comment upon the weather - 'Unseasonably cold today, is it not, Greaves?'  'Unseasonably cold, Ma'am, it is indeed.'  He never disagreed with her.  He never attempted to engage her in discussion of another topic.  He had been in her employ for forty-three years, since he was a lad of fourteen and she had been Miss Eveleigh Wood, and he'd not once dared to contradict, nor ever suggested she close the roof of the car when the days were at their most chill, even though Greaves was not availed of a fur stole about his shoulders as she was.

When he was fifty-two he caught frost bite in his left ear and the lobe had to be amputated.  It did not affect his hearing, and he was too old to care about the physical impairment.  'Ear ache?' Mrs Nash had enquired on seeing the bandages.  'Something along those lines, Maam,' had been his response. 

So it came as a great surprise indeed, when on a brisk February fog of an afternoon, Greaves simply stopped the car on the Mall and opened his door and walked away.  'Greaves,' she called after him, 'whatever is the meaning of this?  Return to the wheel at once.  At once I tell you!'  The pitch of her voice disturbed a flock of roosting Canada geese who took to the air, momentarily obscuring Greaves from her view.  Without a word he just kept walking.  His peaked cap and uniformed shoulders retreating at a steady pace.  'Greaves!' she called again, sitting forward in her seat.  Still Greaves didn't stop.  He continued on his path, in the direction of the boating pond, until his slim dark figure had quite disappeared in the fog.

Mrs Eveleigh Nash had never learnt to drive a motorcar in her life.  She settled back stubbornly, pulled her stole up about her neck, and sat there in wait of his return, for return surely he must.  After some time the light in the sky began to fade, the ducks waddled back to the boating pond, the pedestrians passing on the pavement beside the stationary car lessened, the air became more chill.  And still there sat Mrs Eveleigh Nash, sitting proudly alone in the backseat of her open-top car, awaiting the return of her departed driver.