I had underestimated France’s affection for our monarch

The end that we knew must come eventually, the end we dreaded so much that we could barely think about it, was signalled by a momentously upraised forefinger, diverting our attention to an announcement on the French radio news station. The announcement was in English, live from Balmoral castle. ‘Following further evaluation this morning, the Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health.’

Previous medical bulletins in the past few weeks on the Queen’s ‘mobility issues’ had made us glance sideways at one another suspiciously. Thank goodness they had turned out to be no more or less than the truth. But two days ago, in that photograph of her standing alone in front of a blazing fire in that faultless room, she had looked negligible, just spirit, and somehow extrinsic to her background. But nobody had suggested that there was anything untoward concerning her health and her stick appeared to be an optional aid rather than a prop.

We were four passengers in the Marseille-bound taxi. In front, Gilles driving and beside him an alarmingly thin Frenchwoman with a straggly perm whom we’d picked up in Brignoles. In the back, me and Catriona. Another hospital run. Me for scan results at one hospital; the straggly perm for a consultation at another. Catriona was present to offer consoling words if my results were bad.

We’d just hit the motorway. On the left, the primeval white stone plateau of the Massif des Maures. To the right the hectic greens of an umbrella pine forest. A warning road sign showed a gracefully leaping deer in silhouette. It was about here that Gilles’s momentous forefinger told the universe and his passengers to stand by while he turned up the volume so that we could all hear.

‘…and have recommended she remain under medical supervision.’

The buck was returned to the studio presenters. Their tone of voice was significantly altered from the usual jaunty cynicism to the sombre anxiety one associates with wartime. Gilles smashed the steering wheel with the heel of his palm three times. ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ he said. ‘That’s it, she’s going,’ said Catriona, her eyes shining with tears. The skinny French lady listened to the report politely, without curiosity. The death of a British monarch was outside her sphere of interest.

Gilles turned the volume down slightly and resumed his conversation with her on mundane matters. The news station had cleared its decks to concentrate on reports from London and Balmoral and comment from Paris. ‘She is the great oak tree that shelters us all,’ observed some venerable old French commentator in a quaking, sonorous voice. ‘If she falls, we will be naked before the elements.’

Once again I had underestimated the world’s affection for the royal family and the reality of a media-led global consciousness. I was in Melbourne, Australia, when news broke that Princess Diana had died. The immediate outpouring of grief on the other side of the world amazed this provincial English sensibility. Perhaps, after 25 years, it shouldn’t have been so surprised by the stunned reaction in France to the breaking news.

Thereafter the news station’s normal schedule was set aside. The presenters’ funereal tone suggested that France had been struck by a catastrophe. In Marseille we negotiated steep, narrow, atmospheric streets and dropped off the thin lady at her hospital and then Catriona and me outside mine. We held hands in the waiting room. Seated opposite, a horribly skeletal woman dying of throat cancer, we guessed, harangued and utterly dominated her meek husband and son with theatrical gestures and the sheer force of her shining will. Then the oncologist appeared, humorously clicked his heels together, and led us to his office.

As usual he came straight to the point. We drew our chairs up to the edge of the precipice. I wanted to stall him by discussing the far more important news about Her Majesty, but his trousers-on-fire delivery of his own news, pertaining to my insides, lent no opportunity. Good news and bad news, he finally concluded, balancing an imaginary weight in either hand. If you’d asked me, the scales had tipped towards the unwelcome side of the equation, but I suspended disbelief and tried to look glad.

Then we were back in the taxi climbing the narrow atmospheric streets to pick up the thin woman from her hospital before setting off on the return leg. From time to time Gilles turned up the radio. Harry and Meghan were on their way to Balmoral. Charles and Camilla were already there. Correction: only Harry was going. A French commentator said it was possible that the Queen had already passed away. Gilles treated himself to another torrent of swearing in French and Anglo-Saxon, finishing in English with: ‘The Queen is dead. Long live the King!’ His evident sincerity shocked me. Though in truth an Englishman, a Frenchman and a Scots woman had perceived the awful truth the moment the Frenchman had raised that minatory forefinger.