Spare (41 page)

We waited for Batman to indulge as well. But he didn’t. Not his thing, or something. Howdya like that? we said. This bloke’s just sent us by ourselves into the fucking Batcave!

We took ourselves outside, sat down by a firepit, and waited.

I remember after a time standing up and wandering back into the house to use the loo.

It was hard to navigate the house, with its angular modern furniture and clean glass surfaces. Also, there weren’t many lights on. But in time I managed to find a loo.

Lovely room, I thought, shutting the door.

I looked all around.

Beautiful hand soaps. Clean white towels. Exposed wood beams.

Mood lighting.

Leave it to the Yanks.

Beside the toilet was a round silver bin, the kind with a foot pedal to open the lid. I stared at the bin. It stared back.

What—staring?

Then it became…a head.

I stepped on the pedal and the head opened its mouth. A huge open grin.

I laughed, turned away, took a piss.

Now the loo became a head too. The bowl was its gaping maw, the hinges of the seat were its piercing silver eyes.

It said:
Aaah.

I finished, flushed, closed its mouth.

I turned back to the silver bin, stepped on the pedal, fed it an empty packet of cigarettes from my pocket.

Open wide.

Aaah. Thank you, mate.

You’re welcome, mate.

I left the bathroom, giggling, and walked straight into my mate.

What’s so funny?

I told him he needed to walk into that loo right now and have the experience of a lifetime.

What experience?

Can’t describe it. You have to see for yourself. Meeting Batman pales by comparison.

He was wearing a big puffer jacket with a furry collar, exactly like the one I’d worn to the North and South Poles. Without taking it off he walked into the loo.

I went to make myself another tequila.

Minutes later my mate appeared at my side. His face was white as a sheet.

What happened?

Don’t want to talk about it.

Tell me.

My puffer jacket…became a dragon.

A dragon? In the loo?

And tried to eat me.

Oh dear.

You sent me into a dragon’s lair.

Shit. Sorry, mate.

My delightful trip had been his hell.

How unfortunate. How interesting.

I led him outside gently, told him it would all be OK.

The next day we went
to another house party. Inland, though the air still smelt like ocean.

More tequila, more names thrown at me.

And more mushrooms.

We all started playing some kind of game, some kind of charades—I think? Someone handed me a joint. Lovely. I took a hit, looked at the rinsed creamy blue of the California sky. Someone tapped me on the shoulder, said they wanted me to meet Christina Aguilera. Oh, hello, Christina. She looked rather mannish. No, apparently I’d misheard, it wasn’t Christina Aguilera, it was the guy who co-wrote one of her songs.

“Genie in a Bottle.”

Did I know the lyrics? Did he tell me the lyrics?

I’m a genie in a bottle

You gotta rub me the right way

Anyway, he’d made a boatload from those lyrics, and now lived in high style.

Good for you, mate.

I left him, set off across the yard, and the memory trails away for a time. I seem to remember yet another house party…that day? The next?

Eventually, somehow, we made our way back to Monica’s. That is, Courteney’s. It was night. I walked down some stairs to her beachfront and stood with my toes in the ocean, watching the lacy surf come forward, recede, come forward, for what felt like ages. I looked from the water to the sky, back and forth.

Then I stared directly at the moon.

It was speaking to me.

Like the bin and the toilet.

What was it saying?

That the year ahead would be good.

Good how?

Something big.

Really?

Big.

Not more of the same?

No, something special.

Really, Moon?

Promise.

Please don’t lie to me.

I was nearly the age Pa had been when he’d got married, and he’d been considered a tragically late bloomer. At thirty-two he’d been ridiculed for his inability or unwillingness to find a partner.

I was staring thirty-two in the face.

Something has to change. Please?

It will.

I opened my mouth to the sky, to the moon.

To the future.

Aaaah.

I was sitting
around Nott Cott, scrolling through Instagram. In my feed I saw a video: My friend Violet. And a young woman.

They were playing with a new app that put silly filters on your photos. Violet and the woman had dog ears, dog noses, long red dog tongues hanging out.

Despite the canine cartoon overlay, I sat up straighter.

This woman with Violet…my God.

I watched the video several times, then forced myself to put down the phone.

Then picked it up again, watched the video again.

I’d traveled the world, from top to bottom, literally. I’d hopscotched the continents. I’d met hundreds of thousands of people, I’d crossed paths with a ludicrously large cross-section of the planet’s seven billion residents. For thirty-two years I’d watched a conveyor-belt of faces pass by and only a handful ever made me look twice. This woman stopped the conveyor-belt. This woman smashed the conveyor-belt to bits.

I’d never seen anyone so beautiful.

Why should beauty feel like a punch in the throat? Does it have something to do with our innate human longing for order? Isn’t that what scientists say? And artists? That beauty is symmetry and therefore represents a relief from the chaos? Certainly my life to that point had been chaotic. I can’t deny hungering for order, can’t deny seeking a bit of beauty. I’d just come back from a trip with Pa, Willy and Kate to France, where we’d marked the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, honored the British dead, and I’d read a haunting poem, “Before Action.” It was published by a soldier two days before he’d died in action. It ended:
Help me to die, O Lord.

Reading it out, I realized I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live.

A fairly staggering revelation for me just then.

But this woman’s beauty, and my response to it, wasn’t based merely on
symmetry. There was an energy about her, a wild joy and playfulness. There was something in the way she smiled, the way she interacted with Violet, the way she gazed into the camera. Confident. Free. She believed life was one grand adventure, I could see that. What a privilege it would be, I thought, to join her on that journey.

I got all of that from her face. Her luminous, angelic face. I’d never had a firm opinion on that burning question: Is there just one person on this earth for each of us? But in that moment I felt there might be only one
face
for me.

This one.

I sent Violet a message.
Who…is…this…woman?

She answered straightaway.
Yeah, I’ve had six other guys ask me.

Great, I thought.

Who is she, Violet?

Actress. She’s in a TV show called
Suits
.

It was a drama about lawyers; the woman played a young paralegal.

American?

Yeah.

What’s she doing in London?

Here for the tennis.

What’s she doing at Ralph Lauren?

Violet worked for Ralph Lauren.

She’s doing a fitting. I can connect you guys, if you like.

Um, yes. Please?

Violet asked if it would be all right to give the young woman, the American, my Instagram handle.

Of course.

It was Friday, July 1. I was due to leave London the next morning, heading to the home of Sir Keith Mills. I was to take part in a sailing race on Sir Keith’s yacht, around the Isle of Wight. Just as I was stuffing the last few things into my overnight bag I glanced at my phone.

A message on Instagram.

From the woman.

The American.

Hello!

She said she’d got my info from Violet. She complimented my Instagram page. Beautiful photographs.

Thank you
.

It was mostly photos of Africa. I knew she’d been there, because I’d studied her Instagram page too; I’d seen photos of her hanging out with gorillas in Rwanda.

She said she’d done some aid work there as well. With children. We shared thoughts about Africa, photography, travel.

Eventually we exchanged phone numbers, and migrated the conversation over to text, going late into the night. In the morning I moved from Nott Cott to the car, without a pause in the texting. I texted with her throughout the long drive to Sir Keith’s place, continued through Sir Keith’s hall—
How you doing, Sir Keith?
—and up the stairs and into his guestroom, where I locked the door and remained holed up, texting. I sat on the bed texting like a teenager until it was time to have dinner with Sir Keith and his family. Then, after dessert, I quickly returned to the guestroom and resumed texting.

I couldn’t type fast enough. My thumbs were cramping. There was so much to say, we had so much in common, though we came from such different worlds. She was American, I was British. She was well-educated, I was decidedly not. She was free as a bird, I was in a gilded cage. And yet none of these differences felt disqualifying or even important. On the contrary, they felt organic, energizing. The contradictions created a sense of:

Hey…I know you.

But also: I need to know you.

Hey, I’ve known you forever.

But also: I’ve been searching for you forever.

Hey, thank God you’ve arrived.

But also: What took you so long?

Sir Keith’s guestroom looked out onto an estuary. Many times, mid-text, I’d walk over to the window and gaze out. The view made me think of the Okavango. It made me think also of destiny, and serendipity. That convergence of river and sea, land and sky reinforced a vague sense of big things coming together.

It occurred to me how uncanny, how surreal, how bizarre, that this marathon conversation should have begun on July 1, 2016.

My mother’s fifty-fifth birthday.

Late into the night, while waiting for her next text, I’d tap the American’s name into Google. Hundreds of photos, each more dazzling. I wondered if she was googling me too. I hoped not.

Before turning out the light I asked how long she was going to be in London. Damn—she was leaving soon. She had to get back to Canada to resume filming her show.

I asked if I could see her before she left.

I watched the phone, waiting for the answer, staring at the endlessly fluttering ellipsis.

…

Then:
Sure!

Great. Now: Where to meet?

I suggested my place.

Your place? On a first date! I don’t think so.

No, I didn’t mean it like that.

She didn’t realize that being royal meant being radioactive, that I was unable to just meet at a coffee shop or pub. Reluctant to give her a full explanation, I tried to explain obliquely about the risk of being seen. I didn’t do a good job.

She suggested an alternative. Soho House at 76 Dean Street. It was her headquarters whenever she came to London. She’d reserve us a table in a quiet room.

No one else would be around.

The table would be under her name.

Meghan Markle.

After texting
half the night, into the wee hours, I groaned when that alarm rang at dawn. Time to get on Sir Keith’s boat. But I also felt grateful. A sailing race was the only way I’d be able to put down my phone.

And I needed to put it down, just for a spell, to collect my wits.

To pace myself.

Sir Keith’s boat was called
Invictus
. Homage to the games, God love him. That day it had a crew of eleven, including one or two athletes who’d actually competed in the games. The five-hour race took us around the Needles, and into the teeth of a gale. The wind was so fierce, many other boats dropped out of the race.

I’d sailed before, many times—I recalled one golden holiday, with Henners, trying to capsize our little Laser boat for laughs—but never like this, on open
sea, in conditions so squally. The waves were towering. I’d never feared death before, and now I found myself thinking: Please don’t let me drown before my big date. Then another fear took hold. The fear of no onboard loo. I held it in for as long as I possibly could, until I had no choice. I swung my body over the side, into the tossing sea…and still couldn’t pee, mainly thanks to stage fright. The whole crew looking.

Finally I went back to my post, sheepishly hung from the ropes, and peed my pants.

Wow, I thought, if Ms. Markle could see me now.

Our boat won our class, came in second overall. Hooray, I said, barely pausing to celebrate with Sir Keith and the crew. My only concern was jumping into that water, washing the pee off my trousers, then racing back to London, where the bigger race, the ultimate race, was about to begin.

The traffic was terrible.
It was Sunday night, people were streaming back into London from their weekends in the country. Plus I had to get through Piccadilly Circus, a nightmare at the best of times. Bottlenecks, construction, accidents, gridlock, I ran into every conceivable obstacle. Again and again my bodyguards and I would come to a full stop in the road and we’d just sit. Five minutes. Ten.

Groaning, sweating, mentally shouting at the mass of unmoving cars.
Come! On!

Finally it couldn’t be avoided. I texted:
Running a bit late, sorry.

She was already there.

I apologized:
Horrible traffic.

Her reply:
OK.

I told myself: She might leave.

I told my bodyguards:
She’s gonna leave.

As we inched towards the restaurant I texted again:
Moving, but still slow.

Can’t you just get out?

How to explain? No, I couldn’t. I wasn’t able to go running through the streets of London. It would be like a llama running through the streets. It would make a scene, cause security nightmares; never mind the press it might attract. If I was spotted high-stepping towards Soho House, that would be the end of whatever privacy we might briefly enjoy.

Also, I had three bodyguards with me. I couldn’t ask them suddenly to take part in a track-and-field event.

Texting wasn’t the way to convey this, however. So I just…didn’t answer. Which surely irritated her.

At last I arrived. Red-cheeked, puffing, sweaty, half an hour late, I ran into the restaurant, into the quiet room, and found her at a small sitting area on a low velvet sofa in front of a low coffee table.

She looked up, smiled.

I apologized. Profusely. I couldn’t imagine many people had been late for this woman.

I settled into the sofa, apologized again.

She said she forgave me.

She was having a beer, some sort of IPA. I asked for a Peroni. I didn’t want beer, but it seemed easier.

Silence. We took it all in.

She was wearing a black sweater, jeans, heels. I knew nothing about clothes, but I knew she was chic. Then again, I knew she could make anything look chic. Even a bivvy bag. The main thing I noticed was the chasm between internet and reality. I’d seen so many photos of her from fashion shoots and TV sets, all glam and glossy, but here she was, in the flesh, no frills, no filter…and even more beautiful. Heart-attack beautiful. I was trying to process this, struggling to understand what was happening to my circulatory and nervous systems, and as a result my brain couldn’t handle any more data. Conversation, pleasantries, the Queen’s English, all became a challenge.

She filled the gap. She talked about London. She was here all the time, she said. Sometimes she just left her luggage at Soho House for weeks. They stored it without question. The people there were like family.

I thought: You’re in London all the time? How have I never seen you? Never mind that nine million people lived in London, or that I rarely left my house, I felt that if she was here, I should’ve known. I should’ve been informed!

What brings you here so often?

Friends. Business.

Oh? Business?

Acting was her main job, she said, the thing she was known for, but she had several careers. Lifestyle writer, travel writer, corporate spokesperson, entrepreneur, activist, model. She’d been all over the world, lived in various countries, worked for the US embassy in Argentina—her CV was dizzying.

All part of the plan, she said.

Plan?

Help people, do some good, be free.

The waitress reappeared. She told us her name. Mischa. East European accent, shy smile, many tattoos. We asked about them; Mischa was more than happy to explain. She provided a needed buffer, a tapping of the brakes, a moment to take a breath, and I think she knew she was filling this role, and embraced it. I loved her for it.

Mischa left us and the conversation started to really flow. The initial awkwardness was gone, the warmth from our texting returned. We’d each had first dates on which there was nothing to talk about, and now we both felt that special thrill when there’s too much to talk about, when there isn’t enough time to say all that needs to be said.

But speaking of time…ours was up. She gathered her stuff.

Sorry, I have to go.

Go? So soon?

I have dinner plans.

If I hadn’t been late, we’d have had more time. I cursed myself, got to my feet.

A brief goodbye hug.

I said I’d take care of the bill and she said in that case she’d foot the bill for thank-you flowers to Violet.

Peonies
, she said.

I laughed.
OK. Bye.

Goodbye.

Poof, she was gone.

Compared to her, Cinderella was the queen of long goodbyes.

I’d made plans to meet
my mate after. Now I phoned him, told him I was on my way, and half an hour later I was barging into his house off the King’s Road.

He took one look at my face and said:
What’s happened?

I didn’t want to tell him. I kept thinking: Do not tell him. Do not tell him. Do not tell him.

I told him.

I recounted the entire date, then pleaded:
Shit, mate, what am I going to do?

Out came the tequila. Out came the weed. We drank and smoked and watched…
Inside Out.