He and the Queen step out first and then Elizabeth and Margaret follow to stand on either side of their parents, Susan having been firmly commanded to stay inside. The cheer that goes up startles the pigeons pecking around the forecourt or hunched on the rooftops, oblivious to the drama. They flutter up and circle indignantly before returning, ruffled, to their perches. The sound hits the royal family like a great wave, a buffet of air that almost makes Elizabeth stagger back, such is its force. Overwhelmed, she lets out a shaky breath and smiles and lifts her hand to wave as her heart swells.

The balcony is draped in crimson and gold; beyond, the seething mass of people stretches far back along the Mall. What would it be like to be down there? she wonders. To be part of the crowd, looking up instead of looking down? Why are you cheering us? Elizabeth wants to call down to them. You are the ones who have stuck it out and survived. You are the ones who have taken every blow. I have just learnt to change a tyre.

She wishes she could tell every single person down there how proud she is of them, and how desperately, desperately glad she is that the long war with Germany is over and that they can all start living rather than surviving.

For Elizabeth this is the beginning. She has spent the entire war cloistered at Windsor, but now she is eighteen and ready to become a woman.

Her only regret is that Philip is not there to share this incredible moment with her.

Chapter 15

‘Isn’t the crowd marvellous?’ the Queen says when they step back inside, wrists aching from waving.

‘It’s going to be quite a night in London,’ Peter Townsend says. ‘I don’t think anybody is planning on going home tonight.’

‘I wish we could join in,’ Elizabeth says wistfully. All at once the thought of sitting tamely in the palace having supper while outside the capital celebrates is unendurable. She looks at her father. ‘Later, when it gets dark? We’d be perfectly safe. No one would hurt us, not tonight. There’ll never be another night like this.’

‘I don’t think—’ the King begins, but Margaret interrupts him, hanging around his neck as she used to when she was a little girl.

‘Please say we can, Papa. Please!’

‘But Margaret, what if someone recognises you?’

‘They won’t,’ says Margaret confidently. ‘We can slip out of the side exit. Lilibet’s right, this is a special night. We’ve missed out on so much, Papa. Please let us have tonight, at least?’

‘Poor darlings,’ their father sighs, a sure sign he is relenting. He has never been any good at resisting Margaret. ‘You’ve never had any fun. Very well, you can go – but not alone.’

‘I’ll go with them.’ Her mother’s brother steps forward as Margaret claps her hands in delight. ‘They deserve to be part of this.’

‘Thank you, David. That would make me feel much better. Take Miss Crawford as well – she’s a sensible woman.’ The King glances around. ‘Major Phillips? Porchester? Would you go with them all and make sure no harm comes to them?’

They both salute smartly. ‘It would be an honour, sir.’

Again and again, they are called back to balcony. At five o’clock, the King asks Mr Churchill to join them. There is a strange moment of silence when the Prime Minister steps out between the King and Queen, as if in the midst of the celebrations, everyone is struck, suddenly, by just how much is owed to one man. Unfazed by the eerie silence, Churchill bows to the crowd, an expression of acknowledgement and gratitude for their support, and Elizabeth’s chest tightens at the roar of response.

As the light fades, she and Margaret and their escorts slip out of the side door of the palace. It’s easier than Elizabeth thought to simply walk out. She and Margaret exchange thrilled glances as they mingle with the crowds and let themselves get swept up the Mall and into Piccadilly. They link arms with Crawfie, Porchey and Major Phillips acting as buffers at either end, but it’s impossible to stay six abreast and their line soon breaks apart, much to Crawfie’s distress.

Elizabeth doesn’t care. They are all giddy with a sense of liberation. For almost everyone else, it is freedom from war and all the grief and destruction it has brought, but for Elizabeth it is liberation of a different kind. For this one night, she has been allowed to step out of the palace, out of a world where every day is planned with precision and her privileged life is hedged about with convention and duty.

It is as if walking through that gate has unlocked something inside her. Where usually she keeps herself tightly controlled, now she is free to shout, to open her mouth wide and sing, not caring what she sounds like. Her chest expands and she fills her lungs with air, feeling dizzy with the power of it.

‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run!’ she sings, yelling along with everyone else. ‘Don’t give the farmer his fun, fun fun!’ She can feel Crawfie’s startled glance. Elizabeth is so quiet normally, so restrained. So guarded. No wonder her governess is puzzled at the change in her.

She will go back to the palace, Elizabeth knows. Her guard will go back up. But for now, for this one incredible night, she wants to let herself go.

Once or twice, she meets a stranger’s eyes and they do a double take, recognising her. Elizabeth just smiles brilliantly and dances on into the crowd.

The streets are jammed with people singing, cheering, banging dustbin lids together, anything to make a noise, as the light fades and searchlights sweep joyfully across the sky above London. Broken chairs and tables are dragged out of bombsites and tossed onto bonfires. The crowd is a living thing, surging up and pausing to warm itself at a fire before circling and swirling on. Elizabeth finds herself at a bonfire and holds her hands out to the flames. She isn’t cold, but the fire has a mythic power to which she cannot help but respond. The city has been dark for six years, and now they are allowed to make light and warmth once more.

It is a carnival where all the rules about being the restrained, polite, stoical British are abandoned. Strangers hug and kiss each other. At first, it is true, Elizabeth stiffens at finding herself clapped on the back or swept against some khaki jacket in an embrace so brief she barely has time to register a face. She is not used to being manhandled. But then, nor is anyone else, she remembers. Theirs is not a society where anyone touches easily. Tonight, though, it is a different world, with different rules. In this world, she is not a princess, just an ordinary young woman celebrating the end of a time of terrible tension.

So she lets her hand be grabbed, lets an intoxicated young soldier pull her into a circle so they can jitterbug. Breathless and laughing, she exchanges caps with a sailor and thinks fleetingly of Philip, but there is no time for sadness, not tonight. Before the sailor’s hat is securely on her head, she is swept into a conga line and singing ‘Roll out the Barrel’ at the top of her voice.

The noise and the energy in the streets is extraordinary. Porchey and Major Phillips struggle to keep their little party together. Even Crawfie is letting her hair down and singing along with everyone else. ‘We’ve got the blues on the run,’ she joins in with Elizabeth, laughing, while David Bowes-Lyon keeps a firm hold on an exhilarated Margaret’s belt.

‘We should try and stick together,’ Porchey shouts in Elizabeth’s ear.