Chapter 13
Standing next to Lord Killearn, the British Ambassador, Philip squints into the glaring sky until he sees a dot materialise. It grows bigger and bigger until it is a plane, lowering itself onto the runway. Philip watches it land with interest. He wishes he could learn how to fly. The idea of being up, up in the sky, the freedom and the light of it, tugs at him. He would have liked to join the RAF, but with Mountbattens in the family, it would have been seen as heresy to go outside the Senior Service.
He’s feeling more than a little jaded after the night before. After his discussion with Uncle Georgie, he’d been in a rebellious mood, and he’d gone dancing and drinking into the small hours. It’s safe to say that he is regretting it now, though.
Philip adjusts his collar. He’s shaved and changed into his tropical uniform today; Uncle Dickie will expect him to look immaculate even if he doesn’t feel it.
The heat wavers up from the tarmac as the plane taxies to a halt, its propellers a blur. And then there he is, Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia, at the top of the steps, his uniform blindingly white and awash with gold braid. Urbane and smiling as always, he comes over, enveloping Philip and the ambassador in the charm he deploys like a weapon at times.
Philip salutes smartly.
‘Very good of you to let us use the embassy, Killearn,’ Mountbatten says as he shakes the ambassador’s hand.
‘Not at all, sir. We’ve laid on a light lunch for you.’
‘Excellent.’ He turns to his nephew. ‘Philip, how good to see you.’
If Uncle Dickie is downcast by the way the King has knocked back Philip’s request, he is hiding it well. He seems to be in high good humour. They exchange chit chat in the car and over lunch, and then he suggests that he and Philip have a stroll around the embassy garden. A sprinkler is hissing on the lawns and the date palms throw fractured shade over their white uniforms as they make their way along the gravel paths.
‘All going well on Whelp?’
‘Yes. What’s all this about?’
‘Philip, always so forthright,’ Mountbatten sighs. ‘You must learn a little more … finesse.’
It was a common complaint from his uncle so Philip only grins. ‘Well, what is it all about?’
‘I’ve been giving some thought to the matter of your marriage.’
‘What marriage? There isn’t going to be a marriage. Uncle Georgie tells me the King says it’s a no.’
‘For now,’ Mountbatten points out mildly. ‘One needs to play a long game in these matters. Christmas at Windsor was obviously a success and writing to the King of Greece was the correct thing to do.’
‘Much good it’s done me,’ says Philip, still miffed at George VI’s flat rejection of him.
‘That was just the first round.’ Uncle Dickie studies his nails. ‘I think it would be a good idea if you gave up your Greek nationality and became a British citizen. You need that in any case. The war is coming to an end and you won’t be able to continue your naval career if you’re not British.’
‘I don’t mind doing that. It’s not as if I have any real connection to Greece. I feel British as it is.’
‘That’s what I thought. There’s some understandable resistance to the idea of Princess Elizabeth marrying a foreign prince, particularly in view of the war, but you’ve been to a British school, and you only speak English now … That all counts in your favour. We will have to tread carefully, though, in view of Britain’s relationship with Greece, but I see no reason not to set the wheels in motion – if you’re agreeable?’ Mountbatten adds as an obvious afterthought.
It is nice of Uncle Dickie to pretend he has a choice in the matter, Philip reflects a touch cynically. ‘Fine by me,’ he says.
‘Good.’ There is a delicate pause. ‘Of course, it’s probably better not to mention a possible marriage in connection with your naturalization. We’ll tell your family it’s purely a matter of your career. If they get a whiff of a wedding, there’ll be no stopping them. Shocking gossips, the lot of them.’
Philip cocks a brow. ‘That’s rich coming from you, Uncle Dickie,’ he says in a dry voice. Gossip is the stuff of life to his uncle.
‘Don’t be impertinent, boy,’ Mountbatten says easily. They have stopped in the shade of a palm where they can look out over the Nile. ‘How are you getting on with Lilibet?’
Philip is uneasily aware that he doesn’t want to talk about Elizabeth with anyone. ‘Fine.’
‘There’s no one else? What about that pretty girl? The one with the odd name?’
‘Osla? She’s just got engaged, as it happens.’
‘Good. Don’t take up with anyone else.’
‘Dammit, Uncle Dickie, I’m not quite twenty-three!’ Philip’s hackles are rising in spite of himself. He doesn’t like being pushed around. Doesn’t like feeling that he’s not his own man. The Mountbattens have been good to him and he hates the thought of disappointing them or, worse, being rejected by them, but still …
‘I’m sorry, Philip, but you need to think seriously about your options,’ Mountbatten says, not ungently. ‘You’re a prince, and that comes with obligations. It’s no use pretending your life is your own. Nor do you have the luxury of a private income. What are you going to do if you don’t marry Lilibet? Work in a bank? Or do you want to end up like your father, living hand to mouth in some backwater?’
Philip has to clamp down on the furious reply that springs to his lips. The flicker of contempt in his uncle’s voice when he mentions Andrea stings all the more because deep down, Philip feels the same. He loves his father, but what has he done with his life? Philip doesn’t want to be like him.
He would like to defy his uncle and announce that he can make his own way as a naval officer but he would still need help to navigate the process of naturalization and, if he is honest with himself, how far will he get in the Navy without the powerful Mountbatten connection? If Philip loses that, if he alienates his uncle, what will be left to him? Can he afford to lose another family, another father, another home?
Jaw tight, he stares out over the Nile at a man and his son sailing their felucca together. They will have their own problems, Philip knows, but how simple their choices must be compared to his own!
Mountbatten lets him brood for a while. ‘You don’t dislike her, do you?’ he asks eventually.
‘No, of course not.’
But it’s a long step from not disliking a girl to being forced into marriage with her. Philip is aware he is being perverse. After all, only the night before he was feeling aggrieved at not being allowed to marry Elizabeth. It’s not the idea that he objects to but the process, he reasons, trying to rationalise his reaction to himself. He has been self-reliant for so long that he instinctively digs in his heels at putting his future in anybody else’s hands.
‘She always seems a nice girl. Quiet. Steady.’ There is a trace of wistfulness in Mountbatten’s voice. Philip assumes he is thinking of his dazzling wife, Edwina, who, like his aunt Nada, is wonderful in many ways but could by no stretch of the imagination ever be called nice or quiet or steady. ‘Pretty, too.’