The royals - Kitty Kelley [191]
Sarah never failed to amuse and entertain. She regaled her new friends with anecdotes about the royal family. Citing the Queen’s appreciation for bawdy humor, she repeated Her Majesty’s favorite jokes and included the story of the state visit of Nigeria’s General Gowon.
She said the Queen had met President Gowon at Victoria Station and was riding with him in a carriage when one of the horses lifted its tail and broke wind.
The Queen turned to President Gowon. “Oh, I do apologize. Not a very good start to your visit.”
“Oh, please don’t apologize,” said Gowon. “Besides, I thought it was one of the horses.”
After a few drinks Sarah continued with her repertoire of gamy jokes, her favorite being one about the Queen as a guest on a radio show called What Is It? The answer is given to the audience by a panel of experts before the guest appears. The guest gets twenty questions to figure out the answer.
The night the Queen appeared as a guest, the answer was “horsecock.”
The no-nonsense monarch got down to basics with her first question. “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” she asked.
“Animal,” replied the panel.
“Can you kiss it?”
“Why, uhmmmm, yes… I suppose one could kiss it, if one were so inclined.”
“Is it a horse’s cock?” asked the Queen.
Sarah howled with laughter as she delivered the punch line, which startled one of her hostesses. “She certainly wasn’t what I expected of a duchess,” her hostess said carefully, “but she was lively and always sent us a thank-you.” Sarah’s letters, mailed from Buckingham Palace, arrived on her personal stationery, which featured a small crown atop a large “S.”
An accomplished impressionist, Sarah also entertained her new friends with impersonations of her in-laws. She imitated Prince Philip by goosestepping around the room like a German soldier, barking out orders. Then she scrunched her face into a scowl and said, “This is Her Majesty when we call her Miss Piggyface.” She mimicked the Queen’s walk with her handbag dangling from her arm. Next, to the astonishment of her audience, she picked up a kitchen knife and knighted her host’s dog. As she placed the stainless steel blade on either side of the pup’s ears, she piped, impersonating the Queen, “Arise, Sir Rutherford.”
The Duchess met her match for outrageous behavior at a New York City dinner party given by her first literary agent, Mort Janklow, who seated her across from author Norman Mailer.
“I’ve never read any of your books,” she admitted, “so which one should I begin with?”
“Tough Guys Don’t Dance,” replied Mailer.
“What’s it about?”
“Pussy,” he said.
There was an audible intake of breath from the writer Tom Wolfe, but the Duchess did not blanch.
“You know, Mr. Mailer,” she said, “the most interesting thing for me at this moment is watching everyone’s face at this table.”
Mailer was impressed by her quick response. “She fielded it nicely,” he said, recalling the evening with a tinge of regret. “I had a devil in me that night…. I said the book had an interesting discussion of the differences between pussy and cunt. I must say she was terrific. A lot of people were offended, but Sarah Ferguson couldn’t have been nicer about the whole deal, making a point of telling a lot of nice Nellies she wasn’t the least bit offended, and I felt bad about it afterward because she got trashed in the papers, and I expect it didn’t do her any good in England.”
When Sarah returned to her office in Buckingham Palace, she was greeted by the unsmiling face of Sir Robert Fellowes, who had been promoted to the powerful position of the Queen’s private secretary.* He walked in brandishing a pile of press clippings.
“Well, we didn’t do very well again today, did we?” he said, shaking his head with disapproval. He dropped the stack of newspaper stories on her desk as if they were dead mice. She glared at him.
“Oh, Robert, really,” she said