THE NOT-SO-GREAT PRETENDER

Lloyd Evans meets Crown Prince Alexander

of Yugoslavia and finds him to be a solid company chap

IT'S been a quiet New Year in the Balka- ns, hasn't it? Arkan, the playboy terrorist, was gunned down in broad daylight; there are rumours that Albania is about to invade Montenegro; sporadic murders continue in Kosovo; and the Serb defence minister has just been sieved with bullets in a Belgrade chop-house. Apart from that, peace reigns supreme. Very weird. One theory is that this is the calm before the storm and that Serbia's democratic opposition is about to oust Milosevic for good. If so, the man who may become head of state is biding his time in the com- paratively action-packed environs of Cur- zon Lane near Hyde Park.

Crown Prince Alexander — son of King Peter II who was deposed in 1945 and died in 1970 — is keen to promote the revived monarchy as a cornerstone of the new democratic Yugoslavia. The Prince gives interviews wherever he can — Newsweek, the Daily Telegraph, BBC News 24, the International Herald Tribune, not to men- tion, last year, The Spectator. And his mes- sage is always the same: democracy, democracy, democracy. It's not about him; he's doing this for the proud and defiant people from whom he has been exiled for most of his life.

At first I was pencilled in to join the Prince on a visit to Republika Srpska the Serb enclave in Bosnia — but when his spin doctor checked my last piece for this magazine (the one in which I stitched up the News of the World) the plan was shelved. A meeting in London was arranged instead.

`An issues-based interview,' the spin doctor ordered, 'rather than that "colour- ful" sort of style. Otherwise we'd prefer not do it.'

`Okey-cokey, squire,' I responded grave- ly. 'You're the boss. Nuff said. By the way, what's the form, name-wise?'

`Oh, he's very casual. Just call him "Prince Alexander".'

I received a press pack and a video of the Prince's visit to Belgrade in 1991. Grainy colour footage shows his emotional arrival in Yugoslavia after 46 years in the wilder- ness. He comes out of the departure lounge wearing a tight blue suit. A beaming, oval chap with a fine mop of dark hair, he looks like the kind of behind-the-scenes nonentity you might find in charge of a privatised gas firm. With him are his Greek-born wife and 11-year-old son. Waving, he walks towards a symbolic window-box that has been placed on the ground. It is full of watercress and represents his people's proud and defi- ant tradition of market-gardening. The Prince halts, kneels and kisses the water- cress, rubbing his face tenderly on the green, earthy shoots. Then he gets up, straightens his trousers and wipes away a proud and defiant tear. He is deeply moved. Either that or the window-box was full of chives.

Next we see him in the capital. Thou- sands crowd the pavements. Every rooftop and every jam-packed balcony is a serious safety hazard, but the mood is joyous. There is ecstatic chanting. On the sound- track an iffy Balkans commentator describes the scene: 'Ent now he is com- panied by jeers off "Vee bont the king".' The Prince makes a speech, then passes the microphone to his cherub-voiced son who addresses the crowd with amazing aplomb. Impressive stuff. I can't help thinking, if Dad blows the monarchy gig, that kid could easily cut it in a boy band.

And so, one blustery Tuesday, I find myself in Mayfair. It's hardly an address that inspires much confidence, but the Prince has taken a set of rooms away from the dodgy doorbells of Shepherd Market (`Basement Suzy Takes Amex') and works in a street of discreetly imposing terraces. A greying Serberella opens the door. I sit in an ante-room while she makes coffee. A younger girl taps away at a keyboard. All of a sudden she leaps to attention. The Prince has emerged from his suite. He `This is me and the kids with PY Gerbeau.' shakes my hand and ushers me in and I throw a smile at the erect typist. Tough call, that, having to stand up every time the boss pokes his nose round the door. I won- der how she does her job. Unless of course that is her job.

The Prince's office is decorated expen- sively but with restraint. The only ostenta- tious touch is a huge portrait of King Peter II in a flamboyant, gold-braided uniform with a fat crimson sash across his breast, the kind of thing Jimi Hendrix favoured during his acid-crazed decline. Otherwise all is tasteful and dignified.

I sit on a spongey beige sofa. The Prince doesn't seem at all nervous, which gratifies me as I've always prided myself on my knack of putting royalty at its ease. And so we get down to the nitty-gritty — which means him giving me exactly the same interview he gives everyone: democracy, an end to sanctions, a Western aid package, Serbia to join the EU and so on.

His accent, like the proud and defiant people he seeks to rule, is an uneasy cock- tail of influences. The Gordonstoun- educated English has a marked foreign lilt with more than a touch of American. The studied meticulousness of his diction hints at a'lack of ease in English: Tom Stoppard combined with Martina Navratilova.

Soon we are on to Milosevic, or Slobo' as the Prince prefers to call him. In the past he has dubbed him a thug, a mafioso and 'an emperor living in my palace'. He speaks of him with insulting relish, almost as if poor old Slobo were some doomed workplace rival who's messed up on a major account and is about to get the knife. It still rankles with the Prince that in the early Nineties the West sent its ministers to Belgrade, and that they were schmoozed by Milosevic and pho- tographed in the luxurious royal palace seat- ed on those rococo sofas with their scalloped finials and gilded swirls. The Prince's bitter- ness is understandable. Bad enough to lose your throne; worse still to see your parents' dreadful taste in furniture beamed around the world on CNN.

One thing that puzzles simple Western folk like me is the Serb opposition. Why can't they forget their differences, I ask, and unite against the tyrant who's destroyed half the country? The Prince is a mite reluctant to brief me on their dis- agreements, which is probably just as well. Serb politics are as dense and convoluted as the impenetrable names of the charac- ters involved — those vowel-free tangles of letters that look to the naked eye as fasci- natingly misshapen as cathedral gargoyles. In March, he tells me, he will go to Athens to host yet another conference starring such gnarled monsters as Istvan Ispanovic, Branislav Kovacevic, Dragoljub Keneze- vic and Krijstmy Varukasic (well, maybe I made that one up); and he says he's look- ing forward to it. He has the air of a man resigned to a long Christmas with his bick- ering relatives.

It is the people rather than the politi- cians who hold the key. The Prince's pro- democracy website has had 10,000 hits, he tells me, and is a vital tool against Slobo's propaganda. Ten thousand, I'm thinking: is that all? Then I realise that's practically every computer between Austria and Greece. When I ask about pro-monarchy opinion polls I'm told that these things are hard to measure, given Slobo's grip on the media. But once Milosevic goes, I ask, will there be a referendum? Apparently not. This surprises me. The Prince argues that Tito (and therefore Milosevic) usurped power illegally. All he is doing is restoring the legitimate constitution. Yes, indeed, but you can't help feeling that if there were a thumping majority in favour of a monarchy, the Prince would throw a refer- endum just for the hell of it. The Prince is a great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria and is related to the British, Greek, Russian, Spanish, Romanian . . . in fact every royal house between the Aegean and the Arctic Circle. Until 1989 he enjoyed careers in advertising and insurance, and before that he trained at Sandhurst and served as a captain in the British army. When I raise the possibility of toppling Milosevic by force he suddenly comes over all John Lennony on me. He wants peace, he says, an end to bloodshed. In the 21st century let's live together. And so on. I'm tempted to join in. 'Imagine there's no Slob- oh. It's easy if you try-eye.' He is noticeably vague about how Milosevic might be removed. When I turn to what will happen afterwards he reverts to the script: free elec- tions, truth and reconciliation, rebuilding the infrastructure. . . .

Yes, yes. 'But what about the corona- tion?' I ask. 'What church will it be in?' An innocent query, but he vehemently sweeps aside the whole topic. 'Me? Never mind me. Democracy will be crowned.' An impassioned look grips him for a moment as he repeats this completely spontaneous soundbite. I almost feel he's about to biff the table. 'Democracy! It's very important to me,' he insists. 'Yes, yes,' I murmur, while privately cursing the fact that he's just scuppered my next seven questions. Has he measured himself for the robes? Will he commission Elton John to write the corona- tion shanty? Any chance of a sneak preview of the guest list? Slobo's out, of course, but will there be Tara? Will there be Tiggy? Will there be Taki? Will there be Tony?

But he's far too smart to step into that elephant trap. Royalty is all about method acting and he knows his character inside- out. As I leave he shows me a photograph of George VI hanging on the wall. It is framed along with a letter from our late king to King Peter II, congratulating him on the Prince's birth in London in 1945. (In Suite 212 of Claridge's, incidentally, for any Serbs interested in a bit of theme-park-style royalist nostalgia.) The Prince points out to me the elaborate style of address which begins, 'Sir, my Brother and beloved Cousin'. He laughs a little and twinkles. His attitude to the letter encapsulates his atti- tude to the monarchy. He is proud of it, but not fiercely so. He finds it quaint and amus- ing, as we all do. Brother and Cousin, I find myself thinking. If they went round calling each other things like that, no wonder they got a reputation for being inbred.

In the outer office the Republika Srpska sisters are on their feet again. 'Keep in touch,' commands the Prince. 'Good luck,' I respond, borrowing his habit of evading a completely candid reply when the occasion suits. The heavy door lumbers into its frame behind me and I'm out in the gusty street wondering whom I have just met. Not a pretender in the romantic sense. Not a king either, but a solid company chap playing the king's part. A reliable face to wave at a cheering crowd. An adman good at admin. His weapons are the aid pack- age, the opinion poll and the EU applica- tion form. The days of hiding up oak trees are gone, along with the candle-lit cabals and the skiffs full of kilted rebels landing on deserted beaches. No more 'Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing'; nowa- days it's 'Speed, bonny press release, like a byte on the Web.'

His problems are far greater than he will admit, but he has powerful Western institu- tions behind him: the White House, Down- ing Street, Modt et Chandon. So it's not inconceivable that before long the Prince will be back in his palace in Belgrade drink- ing a proud and defiant toast. Ciao, Slobo and hello, Hello!. Oh yes, and, let's hope, doing something about that furniture.