Witnessing Britain’s grief as an immigrant, I have surprised myself

A lot of people have money set aside for retirement or a deposit, or even for future holidays. I don’t. What I had, for many years, was half a grand set aside for when the Queen died.

I moved here in 2009; around 18 months later, Kate and William got married. It was unbearable. I’d always known I wasn’t a royalist – few French people are – but that wedding really tipped me over the edge. It felt unavoidable, suffocating, absurd.

A few months after it – finally, mercifully – ended, I told myself I had to start saving up. The Queen would die at some point and I just couldn’t be in the country for it. I needed to have a pot of money in my account that would allow me to leg it to the airport and not look back for at least a week.

I didn’t think of it as particularly offensive; you can move to a country and love it very much but still be baffled by some of its customs. It’s a bit like a relationship; if I were to fall in love with someone who loves beetroot tomorrow, that would not magically make me start to love beetroot.

The Queen died last week and I am writing this from my desk in Soho, where I sit every Monday. I’ll forever remember where I was a few days earlier, when Nadhim Zahawi passed a little note to the front benches and everyone could feel that something was wrong. I’ll forever remember how I felt that day: curious, then anxious, then sad and angry that I would have to cancel some important evening plans, then… well.

I’m not sure how I felt when the news did come out. It wasn’t grief, but it wasn’t nothing either; like being weighed down by the sadness of those around you. It didn’t even occur to me to throw three dresses in a bag and run to Gatwick. Instead, I went home and watched a documentary about her reign, alone, in the dark.

Friday was odd as well; I’d taken the day off for unrelated reasons and so had accidentally given myself a three-day mourning weekend. It’s funny how life works out sometimes. I still don’t really know how I feel about the Queen dying, but I know that I am feeling something.

Last week marked the 13th anniversary of the day I moved to Britain, and it feels oddly fitting. You have no idea who you are at 13 and yet you spend a lot of time thinking about the person you may or may not be, the person you may or may not become.

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I’ve been here for 13 years and I have no idea how I feel about this country anymore. My grandmother called me yesterday and lightly poked fun at the naff pomp of it all – and my first instinct was to defend it. They’ve just lost a monarch, I wanted to tell her; you can’t understand. Just leave them be.

That doesn’t mean I will never poke fun at the silliness of Brits with her; it’s one of our favourite pastimes, and I’m only human. I just didn’t have it in me to join in on this, because it’d touched me too.

Still, I wonder if King Charles will have the same effect on future generations of immigrants. It really did feel like a part of Britain died on Thursday, and you didn’t have to be a royalist or to have been born here to recognise that. It felt like the beginning of the end. I’m glad I was here to witness it.