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This is one failed couple that will never be free of each other, both because their son will one day be King and because the press and the public seem permanently obsessed with them. Charles' future has been dictated from his birth, but the latest wave of Di-mania focused on speculation about what will become of her. Not only does no one know what her life will be like, it's hard to picture her as anything other than the world's most famous royal princess.
One thing can be said with certainty: Diana will go on being famous. She will also probably continue some version of what she is supremely good at: working with disadvantaged or afflicted people. She knows this is her area of strength; that is why she has said she wants to be "queen of people's hearts." Lately, doubtless because of her stressful situation, she has not been very active, at least in the public eye. After the divorce she will need some kind of channel for her enormous energies. Her detractors never tire of saying that she will end up in Texas or California--precincts of hell to Establishment toffs--but that is unlikely. No one has ever claimed that Diana is indifferent to her sons, and she will continue to be based in England, if only because the Queen would not allow the heir and the spare to spend much time anywhere else.
To see a future for Diana only in good deeds, however, is to ignore her other genius: the ability to surprise. Only a beclouded seer would limit her future to charitable work or any other single strand of activity. As she adjusts to the single life, she may explore options, possibly even commercial ones. Who knows--in health, fashion or, like Jackie Onassis, in publishing? Diana's siren song is, Stay Tuned.
One thing no longer alive is the dream that dies so hard. Charles and Diana are two people who stumbled into a fantasy fervently embraced by millions. She embodied it; he was swept up in it, much against his will. When the so-called fairy tale began, all Charles wanted was more of what he already had: a comfortable life of conscientious royal duty, shooting, polo, painting pictures--and a nice, quiet double standard. But people may never forgive him for puncturing their dream.
The divorce announcement, however muddled, only served to reopen the scrapbooks of memory, reminding people of the fairy tale that was too good to be true. The shy teenager in the diaphanous skirt. The wedding shot--he in his dashing dress uniform, she in her silly, billowing gown. He looking every inch Prince Charming, she gazing at him in rapture.
The crown sent them forth to conquer the world, and they did. In just a year or so, they rejuvenated the royal family. Nights on television, mornings in the papers, there were pictures that made the rest of the news look meager and soiled: whirling around the dance floor in Australia with Diana's emerald necklace subbing as a headband, kicking up their heels at a White House ball and back home, kissing at a polo match. In her interview last November on the BBC's Panorama program, Diana spoke repeatedly about their effectiveness as a team. Was it intended as rebuke to her husband? Probably, but it was true.