The Elephant to Hollywood - Michael Caine [128]
Once Shakira and my daughters were shown to their seats in the ballroom, I was taken to a back room to practise. There was a wooden apparatus with a cushion for kneeling on. ‘The right knee only!’ my usher instructed me firmly. ‘I know how to kneel,’ I said. ‘It’s not the kneeling we’re worried about,’ he replied. ‘It’s the getting up again!’ He pointed out a rail on one side of the cushion. ‘This,’ said the usher – he really did know everything – ‘is for the older recipients who might have trouble getting to their feet again.’ He then gave me detailed instructions on the protocol. It seemed enormously complicated and I realised that – unlike the movies – I’d have to get it right first time: there wouldn’t be a chance for another take. ‘When your name is called,’ he said, ‘you will walk straight in and turn right on the line directly in front of Her Majesty. You will not at any time speak unless you are spoken to. You will kneel on your right knee until the queen has knighted you with her sword. You will then stand and again not speak unless spoken to by Her Majesty. She will then stretch out her hand and shake yours and at that point you are done – not another gesture or word – and you will immediately turn right and walk smartly out of the room. Do you understand, sir?’ I was reeling by this time, but I told him I did and stood there on my own waiting for my turn. When it came, I did everything I had been told to do and in the correct order (I could sense my usher anxiously watching me from the wings) and stood in front of Her Majesty. ‘I have a feeling that you have been doing what you do for a very long time,’ she said. I stifled the temptation to say, ‘And so have you, Ma’am,’ and just said, ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ went down on one knee and was knighted. I got to my feet, and she put out her hand without another word. I noticed that in her handshake there is a very slight push towards you in case you have forgotten it is over. It’s all clever stuff. I turned right as I had been instructed and was met by my usher who seemed very pleased with my performance – as for me, I was walking on air. I was a knight! Just like all those men I had read about in comics and books when I was a kid. I couldn’t believe it and I went to join my family for the rest of the ceremony in a daze. I thought of my mother and of my father and of all the generations of their families stretching back behind me over the centuries and I felt that it was for them as well as for myself and Shakira and the girls that I was there.
I watched the Queen as she continued the ceremony, awarding medals and honours of gradually diminishing importance. She was, of course, indefatigable, but she was also incredibly kind. She had had a brief word with the four of us who were knighted that day, but as the grandeur of the honour lessened, she spent more and more time talking to the recipients and putting them at their ease. It was a lovely touch.
A couple of years later I was walking down Piccadilly one day when I bumped into Charlie Watts, of the Rolling Stones. We hadn’t seen each other for years and were busy chatting when my phone suddenly went and I took the call. ‘Who was that?’ Charlie asked when I’d finished. ‘Roger Moore,’ I said. ‘He’s on the way to Buckingham Palace to be knighted and he’s worried about the kneeling bit because he’s got a bad knee and he thinks he might get stuck down there and have to ask the Queen to help him up.’ Charlie looked a bit sceptical, but I explained what I had told Roger. ‘There’s a contraption there to practise,’ I said, ‘and a rail a bit like one of those handgrips you get in disabled showers to help you up if you get stuck.’ I could see Charlie didn’t really believe a word I was saying!
20
The Quiet American
Just as I was getting comfortable with my leading