meish dot org: life, unfolding

Eleven years ago (eek!), I went to an international college in Canada, with two hundred students from eighty-seven different countries in attendence. I represented the UK, which was an oddity for someone who had never identified herself as being especially British before.

I was born abroad and brought up in Nigeria and in the heady racial and cultural mixing bowl of Notting Hill in the seventies and eighties. My family travelled often, and picked up bits of the cultures we encountered along the way. As a seven year old I could jabber away happily in seven or eight languages (wheras now I struggle with just one). I was (and still am) just me, not defined by my language or passport or nationality – at least not from within.

And so it came as a shock to represent a country I didn’t necessarily agree or identify with – politically, culturally, linguistically, historically – in front of the world. I’m not going to go into the whole nationality thing here, though there’s a lot to say about it, except to point out that for a lot of formal functions (special events, performances, concerts, fundraisers etc) all the students at the college were expected to wear national dress, to represent the rich cultural diversity of the institution.

Let’s just stop and think a minute, shall we. What exactly was I supposed to wear? Jeans? A Beefeater outfit? A Bowler hat? Morris Dancing costume? Er, none of the above. I had no costume.

So of course I improvised. In my first year I wore a sari a few times, then graduated on to a Kazakh waistcoat and hat and black polo neck (I was reading a lot of Satre at the time). At verious choir performances and fundraisers I was Polish, Basque, Pakistani, Texan, Norwegian. Often, after the performance, we met with the audience – and frequently, I simply could not be arsed to explain
a) that I was English (the person I would talking to would invariably say “Oh, do you know John Brown, from London?” which would force me to get evil and say “oh yes…terrible about the divorce, wasn’t it?” and watch their faces fall in horror…but that’s a different story) and
b) why I was dressed up in the Thai national costume. So I began to act. Well, okay, lie. If I thought I could get away with pretending to be from another country, then I would (of course, the irony that I actually was from another country was completely lost on me). So I would put on outrageous accents and swear blind that I was from Portugal, Italy, Iceland, Paraguay.

It was Paraguay that got me into trouble.

[I've always wanted to say that. Makes me feel like a spy.]

We were singing for some charity event at the Empress Hotel in Victoria. I was wearing the Paraguayan costume that I’d borrowed from a girl on my floor, and afterward, milling around with the audience and a cup of lukewarm tea, an old man came up and said “Hello, where are you from?”

I summoned my best outrageous accent and said “I yam frrrrom Parawaaay”

“De veras?” he asked “No me diga! Que raro! Trabajaba en Paraguay por unos trece años. De que parte eres?“

Gah. My face fell. I had found a flaw in my plan. The fact that I didn’t speak any spanish at all (apart from a few choice phrases) and understood even less. Like, in fact, none. At all. Eek. So I mumbled something about the coach leaving, and ran for the door, resolving next time to stick to my own nationality, whatever that nebulous item was.

Sure enough, ten months later, I managed to be British at another fundraiser. It was two years before the Commonwealth games were due to come to Victoria, and the international choir was again singing at some press junket fundraiser thing, providing local commonwealth-flavoured colour to what was essentially a royal visit by Prince Edward, patron of the Commonwealth games committee or something. The point being that we got on stage, sang a bit about world peace and jolly old international group hugs or something, and then afterwards, suddenly, instead of milling around with lukewarm tea and rapidly cooling enthusiasm with the audience, I was dragged into a line-up (a shaking-hands-with-royalty type one, not a police identification one – that’s another story…) to meet Prince Edward.

I was wearing a particularly horrible floral Laura Ashley type creation which I’d borrowed from a Canadian, and which made me look like a strangely camp american football player (I’d shaved most of my head in Mexico, a few weeks earlier, and the dress had enormous shoulderpads). I think it was supposed to look country-garden-ish, but it actually reminded me more of the sort of product pattern that would emerge if you gave Ermintrude a rather powerful emetic. I was also wearing stupid heels, which made me at least six foot tall. So picture a tall butch amazon in heels and a pool of floral vom, and you’ve pretty much got the picture.

Anyway, Prince Edward was working his way along the line-up, greeting people and exchanging a few words with them as he went. I always imagined (because I gave it soooo much thought) that royalty had a standard two or three lines which they used in rotation along the line-up, so it looked as if they were having new and original thoughts and covnersations the whole time, in much the same way as I used to play three songs when busking on Portobello Road – two songs was the optimum passing time for people who were walking slowly and browsing at the stalls, and three meant I avoided repetition, bumped out the set and didn’t have to bother expanding my repetoire. Besides, people only ever gave money for the Beatles or the Smiths anyway.

Edward got closer. I don’t care much for royalty, but that wasn’t the issue in this particular situation. My palms would have been equally sweaty if I’d been meeting my boyfriend’s parents, or an MP, or whatever. I’m prone to momentary gasps of nervousness just before I meet someone – even if it’s someone I already know, but haven’t seen for a while. I get a huge adreneline rush, my heart hammers in my chest, and I get a bit shaky – but it all passes within seconds, usually. As soon as I open my mouth, I relax and it’s all fine – I’m in my element taking control of strange situations, talking to people, making things work. As soon as the waiting is over, I’m fine, which is why I so detest people saying they’ll come over or call some time on saturday afternoon. I hate waiting, because it means that sense of anticipation, expectation, goes on far too long.

And now I’m making you wait for this story. Oops, sorry.

So eventually, Edward gets to me, and his Aide says “This is Meg Pickard, she’s a student at Pearson College. She’s the British one.” which is a funny old introduction, if you ask me – but he didn’t. So I stick out my hand, and then remember and do a little curtsey, though I feel like a complete and utter tube. He opens his mouth to say what I imagine is going to be the usual little bon mots or simple question, and then he says

“So, have you ever met royalty before?”

“No,” I reply, honestly, “this is my first time.”

“Ah,” he says, in his weird strangulated-plum accent, “what do you think of it so far?”

My brain goes into hyperactive WHAAAT THE FUUUUUCK mode. What kind of a dumbass question is that? What? Is there any kind of protocol for answering such a question, I wonder, and as I’m wondering, trying to formulate my response, I hear the words just sort of slip out.

“Well, you’re shorter than I thought,” I say, because he is, “and you’ve got less hair,” which he most certainly does.

All that’s going through my head at this point is that he’s a short, balding plummy little man, and I just insulted him and I really didn’t mean it, well, I did, but I didn’t mean it to come out like that and now I’m wondering whether they’re ever going to bring back hanging as a punishment for treason and/or insulting the royals.

He sort of snorts with laughter, and I wonder if he’s even heard me, and then he sort of raises one hand to smooth the back of his hair and says “Yes, I suppose I am…” at which point the aide grabs him by the elbow and firmly guides him to meet the old lady next to me, who is the chair of some committee or other, wearing an awful lot of cat-wee flavour perfume, and was fishing her knickers out of her crack three minutes earlier. She, of course, follows protocol to the letter, giving me a snooty glance as Eddie moves on to the next guest. She bloody would, because he didn’t ask her any unexpected questions, oh no. He asks her the equivalent of the busker’s Panic – safe, secure, everyone can sing along, no threat whatsoever – he asks her something about the weather, in other words, and she answers smugly. Silly cow.

So there we have it. My first and only brush with royalty, and I called him short and bald within the space of about thirty seconds. Bring on the queen mum, I say, I’ll bloody well ‘ave ‘er!

My brother gave Princess Di some lilies in his underpants, once, but that’s a different story entirely…..

Have you ever met royalty? Or made a protocol faux pas? Or said something embarrassing in public? Make me feel better. Please.