WE ARE ALL PROSTITUTES

I was constantly beside the princess — morning, noon, and night. 

"Come on, we're going for a drive," said The Princess, one evening after dinner. We jumped into her She headed out down the backstreets of Bayswater and Queensway, and toward Paddington Green, near the railway station — Right. Left. Right. Left. Side street after side street. She knew The Shortcuts. 

“You don't need to do The Knowledge!" I joked, “You could take on any London cabbie." 

She smiled, the peak of her baseball cap shadowing her face. We arrived at a street corner. The Princess pulled over but kept the engine running. Then she dropped the electric window on my side. 

Two heavily made-up girls in short skirts had been talking to each other on the corner. When our car pulled over, they stopped, looked, caught my eye, and tottered over in their high heels. 

The Ladies of The Night were Working Their Corner. The larger maintained eye contact with me as I shuffled in my seat. She placed both hands on the roof of the car, bent down, and leaned in. 

“Hi, Princess Di. How are you?” she said, speaking across me. My head swiveled right and The Princess was leaning in toward me. 

She called The Girl by name and said, "I'm fine. Have you been busy?" 

The second, slimmer girl bent down to join in the conversation. "Nah, it's been quiet, but we'll stick around. Gotta work, Princess," she added.

Good God, I thought. The Princess knows them. 

“Who’s this, then?" said one, looking at the rather nervous character who was saying nothing. 

“This is Paul.”, she introduced me. We shook hands. It was all very formal.

The Boss reached into her pocket and got out two crisp £50 notes. 

“Girls, have The Night off. Go Home to your children," she said, "IJOOk, into two eager hands. The Princess asked about their stuffing the notes One had been coughing. Was he better? children. After a brief conversation, the larger woman patted the roof of the car, and the two were off lured away by a pair of braking headlights a hundred yards down the road. A load of good that £100 handout just did. What a waste, I thought. "This is absolutely You cannot afford to be here, Your Royal Highness," I said. "DI AND BUTLER CAUGHT KERR- CRAWLING" was the imaginary headline that had raised my voice by e-sMcken octave or two. "Oh, Paul," said the princess, as she pulled away, "lighten Those girls need help, and that's all I'm doinghelping them." The naiveté of her mission was astonishing, but her heart, as always, was in the right place. the princess had been faced with an avalanche, I think she would have tried to stop it. She wanted to help everyone. The sick. The poor. The homeless. The starving. AIDS sufferers. The infirm. Prostitutes. Drug addicts. Drunks. If it was up to her, and increasingly it seemed that it was, her mercy missions would have been endless. How he?§' dl333 of' duty didhear those earnest words: "I feel I can n o o w We returned to the PA ddingtcein 3218 $332 ? es in the summer and To st€frooIt*lltu996. IthNovember, we pulled over at the same street corner. vide thetrieand oldchildren at home was working Me streets to pro- The princessco even afford in coat on. such a cold night. this woman £100 other roadsidecounseling" sessions, had given coat the next 0\*% yourself a coat, and I want to see you in that I'm here," she said, almost motherly. Within a weeks, we saw the woman again looking a lot warmer--wearing dick waist-length black coat. In there was a floor-length fur coat that she had once One after e had accepted it graciously as a but she never wore fur. noon, I saw her leave KP with it tucked under her She returned home without it. She told me how she had been driving through Victoria when she spotted a Dumpster on the side of the mad.