The Queen's Corgi

‘I’m quite sure it is.’ The other woman seemed altogether unruffled by her reaction.

‘We don’t breed duds,’ insisted Mrs Grimsley.

‘A floppy ear is only a problem if you plan to show. We have no such plans.’

‘Don’t know where this tittle tattle comes from.’

‘Mr Grimsley, actually. At The Crown.’

‘The bloody idiot!’ screeched Mrs Grimsley in a voice that was definitely not Kennel Club.

‘Look.’ The other woman’s voice was firm. ‘I’ll pay you a thousand pounds for him.’

The pause that followed didn’t last very long before I heard the sound of approaching footsteps. The kitchen door opened. For the first time since I was a very new puppy, Mrs Grimsley picked me up. ‘He’s actually our little favourite,’ she crooned in a voice she’d never used before with me—the one she only adopted when cuddling her favourites. As she turned, I found myself looking into the kindly face of a very beautiful woman in her late thirties. I pricked up my ears—well, the left one, and half of the right.

‘Good.’ The woman reached into her handbag and retrieved a clip of crisp, new banknotes, which she held out.

Mrs Grimsley looked at the notes only briefly before taking them in her right hand and thrusting me into the visitor’s arms. ‘Promise not to say where you got him,’ she demanded, in her smoker’s voice.

‘Fine.’

r /> ‘I never want to hear of him again.’

‘You won’t.’

I immediately felt safe in the arms of the visitor. She held me to her chest in a manner that suggested she was used to holding dogs. Along with a faint scent of lavender, I sensed a calm reassurance that couldn’t have been more different from Mrs Grimsley.

‘If you mention me . . .’ Mrs Grimsley was following us out of the house, ‘I’ll deny all knowledge. I’ll say you’re a lying toerag.’

‘Oh, you needn’t trouble yourself on that score, Mrs Grimsley,’ said the woman, stepping across the short front yard and into the street. ‘I’m quite happy to forget that we ever met.’

The drive from the Grimsleys’ terrace house in Slough to Windsor Castle wasn’t a long one. Fewer than twenty minutes in the car separated what was to become my new life from my old. But even though I was in a dog carrier in the back of a car—both unfamiliar experiences—driven by a woman who was a complete stranger, I felt a powerful sense of relief; compared to being taken down to the shed, it couldn’t be as bad. Could it?

I won’t pretend to remember much of my first arrival at Windsor Castle. In the twilight, it was all a confusion of gates and security checks and dark passages smelling of beeswax until, all of a sudden, I was in a spacious, red-carpeted hallway, hung with paintings and lit by chandeliers. My rescuer, who I discovered was called Lady Tara, the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, walked purposefully along the hallway, with me still in the carrier, before making her way up a staircase.

These were nothing like the stairs I was used to. Not only were they very much wider and more luxuriously carpeted, there was not a single pile of unwashed laundry, not even a crushed beer can to be seen. Nor was there the faintest tang of kipper. My first impression of the castle was also how vast the rooms were . . . and how empty of corgis.

I was suddenly startled by a soldier, armoured in ancient chain mail, who was standing at attention on the staircase landing. And I was somewhat surprised that Tara completely ignored him, brushing past him as if he weren’t there.

After walking along another broad corridor, similarly void of dogs, Tara took me into a suite of rooms before coming to a door that was slightly ajar. Reaching into the carrier, she lifted me out, before knocking gently.

We walked across a very large room, at the other side of which a short, silver-haired woman was working at her desk. The room had dark, wood-panelled walls, the only light coming from a desk lamp, which glowed warmly, illuminating the woman’s features. Even at first glance, my fellow subject, I knew there was something different about her—something that set her apart. It didn’t have to do with her appearance so much as an invisible—but no less tangible—sense of presence.

As soon as she saw us approaching, she rose to her feet. ‘So, this is him?’ she asked, coming to meet us.

‘Yes ma’am.’ Him, I noted, not the it by which Mrs Grimsley had always referred to me.

Stepping closer, the lady, who I would soon learn was the Queen, beamed as she reached out to stroke my head. ‘Handsome little chap. Beautiful markings.’

I responded to her attention by pricking up one and a half ears.

‘Oh, I see. Gives him such character, don’t you think?’

Too young to understand exactly what she meant, I knew from her tone of voice that the Queen seemed to be saying that my floppy ear was a good thing. What an utterly amazing and wonderful idea! I was immediately licking her hand. She chuckled. ‘Friendly little fellow.’

‘Hard to believe what they were planning to do to him,’ observed Tara.

‘Yes, but we shouldn’t judge,’ replied the Queen. ‘Not everyone enjoys our circumstances.’