The royals - Kitty Kelley [143]
“No, not at all,” she said brightly. “It’s just that I’ve pins and needles in my bottom from sitting still so long.”
Her spontaneity charmed everyone. “She was enchanting then,” said British journalist Victoria Mather. “So fresh and beguiling. At that reception, she spilled a little red wine on her gloves, held up the stain for us to see, and laughed. ‘Oops,’ she said, ‘Guess I’ll have to nip round to Sketchley’s [a London cleaner].’ ”
Seconds later Diana showed off her engagement ring and offered to let an admirer try it on. “I’ll have to have it back, though,” she quipped. “Otherwise they won’t know who I am.”
The woman gazed at the ring on her finger. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen such a large stone.”
“I know,” said Diana. “The other day I even scratched my nose with it. It’s so big—the ring, that is.”
Someone asked what it was like now that she had moved from Clarence House to Buckingham Palace. “Not bad,” she chirped. “But too many formal dinners. Yuck.”
A young man stepped forward. “May I kiss the hand of my future Queen?” he asked.
Diana smiled coyly and tilted her head. “Yes, you may,” she said, extending her hand.
The young man kissed her wrist lightly and everyone clapped. He blushed with pleasure.
“You’ll never live this down,” Diana said, teasing him.
Delighted reporters crowded around her, and the cameramen bore in, jostling guests and pushing them to the edge of the room. Prince Charles headed off to greet someone, expecting the media to follow him, but they were taken with Diana. Feeling self-conscious about the disturbance she was causing, she excused herself and escaped to the powder room with Grace Kelly. The Princess-to-be confided her distress over the unrelenting press coverage and asked Her Serene Highness how she coped with it. The movie star who became a princess comforted the teenager, who would become royalty’s movie star. Princess Grace, accustomed to unwelcome media attention, told Diana to treat it like the weather. “It’ll get worse,” she said with a warm smile.
And it did—the very next day. The tabloids were full of breathless reviews of Diana and her gown, accompanied by revealing photographs and suggestive headlines. “Lady Di Takes the Plunge,” blared the front page of the Daily Mirror. “Di the Daring,” exclaimed the Sun. “Shy Di Shocks,” the Daily Express reported. Even establishment newspapers noted the dress that seemed so startling for the modest kindergarten teacher. “Shy Di R.I.P.,” read the photo caption in the Times.
Diana was puzzled. “I don’t know why everyone is making such a fuss,” she said to Prince Charles’s valet. “It’s the sort of dress I would have worn anyway.”
The valet lowered his eyes. “Well, it certainly caught everyone’s attention,” he said disapprovingly. He was fired a month after the wedding.
The Daily Express reporter praised Diana’s decision to go strapless. “Her Gone-With-the-Wind dress… takes courage, and a lot more, to uphold it,” wrote Jean Rook. “All Di must learn to watch, which the TV cameras noticed, is the ounce or two of puppy fat which boned bodices tuck under a girl’s arms.”
Diana cringed as she read the reviews of her “bounteous figure” and “blooming physique.” She shrieked when she saw the television coverage.
“I look hideously fat,” she wailed. “Fat as a cow. I can’t stand it.”
Charles, who never forgot the embarrassment of being called “Fatty” by his classmates, kidded her. Fanatic about staying slim, he exercised like a fiend and ate like a monk. On tours he carried snack bags filled with wheat germ, linseed, and prunes. His dinners at home consisted of two strips of dried fish or a yolk-free mushroom omelet. That was followed by green salad and a drink of lemon squash and Epsom salts, which Diana pronounced “revolting.” Charles said he needed the concoction “to keep regular.” He twitted her about her passion for sweets and called her “Plumpkin.” As she agonized over her newspaper photographs, he teased her again. “No more puddings for you,” he said. He had tossed