This Warrior

I haven’t travelled with Piccolo for a while now. The winter nights are too cold and my bones are feeling heavy and clunky beneath layers of leather as I move. The other night I rode along the royal mile that stretches up between Buckingham Palace and St James Park. The late afternoon light was sliding under a blanket of dusk and all along the mile black metal lanterns burned against the evening hue and smoky air. I could see the steam rising up from grates on the side of the road and inhaled the distinctive smell of damp tarmac.

As I plunged through two lanes of traffic, head bent against the wind and my breath lightly throwing a shy fog on my helmet lid, I looked up and marvelled at the site of Hyde Park Corner looming before me. Majestic is too small a word to describe it. It’s beautiful and as the light fades the shadow of a winged warrior, body rippled in anticipation, is clear to see. She’s an awesome site in her chariot, drawn by four gallant horses and guided by the small, innocent hands of a youthful boy. Wild and tamed, humble and belligerent all at once.

I’ve loved this view always. I’ve loved the ferocious courage it wells up in me and the way my skin ripples in response when I see her. I used to think she was Boadicea – a warrior Queen who died AD60. She was the leader of her people (The Iceni) and went, bare breasted and with her fiery red locks flying loose, into battle. On closer inspection, I discovered she is in fact the opposite – she is the Angel of Peace descending on the Chariot of War!

This has always been the part of my journey home that I loved the most. It feels magical and surreal. I imagine footmen racing about inside the palace to my left, while Elizabeth and Philip sip tea and watch the evening news. I think of the cooks in the kitchen preparing supper and wonder if Lizzy ever digs about in the fridge in the middle of the night to make herself a pastrami sandwich.

I wonder if on weekends the royal family ever gather in the grounds of Buck Pal and play football, while drinking from bottles of freshly opened beer and gorging on salt and vinegar crisps. There are days when I scoot back to our Mews house, passing the glorious grounds of royal gardens and public parks like Hyde and Green and wonder at all that space. What I would do with a garden of that grand size in the middle of London. Endless parking for all my friends when they come to visit and a vast open carpet of luminous green grass to sprawl out in.

I think of summers in Hyde Park our picnic blanket nearly touching our neighbours. The ever present knowledge that the lottery of the tennis/Frisbee/football landing in your hummus becomes ever greater as the sun rises higher in the sky. I think of that sound we all make when we head out to the country. The way we lap up the oxygen like it’s rare and spread our arms like eagles before dancing in circles as we worship the god of space.

I’m going home soon. Back to Australia. I’m taking G with me. He’s excited and so am I. But suddenly the Royal Mile and all those other special places are bigger and brighter and I’m sorrier and sadder to leave them. I realise that the lack of space and the compromises we make for lifestyle is all relative. I’m going to miss you – my warrior for peace.