The royals - Kitty Kelley [150]
The Princess of Wales was not resigned to giving up her husband to his mistress. Diana was determined to cement her marriage by getting pregnant. She packed accordingly for her honeymoon, taking a green bikini bathing suit that Charles liked, six satin lace teddys, and several sheer nightgowns. He took his fishing tackle. He also packed one book by Arthur Koestler on parapsychology and five scholarly books by Laurens Van der Post, which he said he wanted to share with his bride. She took two paperbacks by Danielle Steel, although she knew Charles disapproved. “He doesn’t like me reading trash novels,” she said. “But I love them.”
Years later she read a psychological profile about the Unabomber, whose crimes were attributed to his being a loner. A mathematical genius at the age of ten, he took a book on vacation entitled Romping through Mathematics from Addition to Calculus. Diana said, “Sounds like Charles on his honeymoon.”
Aboard the royal yacht, Britannia, the Princess charmed the crew of 256 navy men, especially the galley staff, whom she pestered for extra desserts. Near the royal stateroom, attendants wore rubber-soled slippers so as not to make any noise that might disturb the royal couple. “We were told to fade into the background,” said seaman Philip Benjamin. “We were to act like air. Unless spoken to, we said nothing, just looked straight ahead. Bit difficult at times to look straight ahead with the Princess of Wales dashing about in her nightgowns.
“I remember her coming out of the royal suite one afternoon in a filmy white negligee with a pink satin bow at the bosom, which was untied and open. She was trying to lure the Prince away from his books.
“ ‘Chulls,’ she said in a sexy singsong, ‘come here and do your duty.’ He was reading in a deck chair and she wanted him to go inside and produce an heir. I was standing guard a few feet away and looked straight ahead. She giggled when she realized I had heard her, but she was unembarrassed. She just kept teasing Charles to go to bed with her. She teased him a lot. I never saw the awful moods that His Royal Highness complained about later.”
Prince Charles told his authorized biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby, that he learned on the honeymoon his young wife was suffering from bulimia. Charles said it triggered sudden mood shifts, leaving Diana cheerful one minute and morose the next. After two weeks aboard the yacht, the couple joined the royal family at Balmoral. At times Diana felt overwhelmed by the heavy presence of her in-laws and excused herself from meals to throw up. Charles became so concerned about her eating disorder that he contacted Laurens Van der Post and implored him to help. The older man, whom Diana trusted, talked gently with her at each session, but he quickly realized that she needed more professional help than he could provide. He gave Charles the name of a psychiatrist, who made discreet visits to counsel the couple. The therapist met them in their suite at Balmoral at eleven A.M. for an hour every day. He spent thirty minutes with them together and then thirty minutes alone with Diana, trying to address her anxieties. Charles said he worried about her emotional state. “She’s so high-strung,” he said. He wondered whether or not his wife was suffering from manic-depression. “What else can explain the moods—vivacious charm in the morning and verbal assaults in the evening?” The therapist recommended tranquilizers. After the honeymoon, Diana continued psychotherapy in London but resisted taking sedatives. For eleven more years her bulimia haunted her.
“It’s an insidious disease from which to recover,” she said years later. “You inflict it