Spare (43 page)

Except she didn’t call me Spike. By now Meg had taken to calling me Haz.

Every moment of that week was a revelation and a blessing. And yet every moment also dragged us closer to the wrenching minute when we’d have to say goodbye. There was no way around it: Meg had to get back. I had to fly to
the capital, Gaborone, to meet the president of Botswana, to discuss conservation issues, after which I was embarking on a three-phase lads’ trip, months in the planning.

I would cancel, I told Meg, but my mates would never forgive me.

We said goodbye; Meg began to cry.

When will I see you again?

Soon.

Not soon enough.

No. Not nearly.

Teej put an arm around her and promised to take good care of her until her flight, several hours away.

Then one last kiss. And a wave.

Mike and I jumped into his white cruiser and headed to Maun airport, where we climbed into his small prop plane and, though it broke my heart, flew away.

There were eleven of us.
Marko, of course. Adi, of course. Two Mikes. Brent. Bidders. David. Jakie. Skippy. Viv. The whole gang. I met up with them in Maun. We loaded three silver flat-bottomed boats and set off. Days of floating, drifting, fishing, dancing. In the evenings we got fairly loud and very naughty. In the mornings we cooked bacon and eggs over open fires, went for cold swims. I drank bush cocktails, and African beer, and ingested certain controlled substances.

When the weather got really hot, we decided to break out the Jet Ski. I had the presence of mind, beforehand, to remove my iPhone from my pocket and stow it in the Jet Ski console. I congratulated myself on being so prudent. Then Adi jumped on the back of the Jet Ski, followed by a very anarchic Jakie.

So much for prudent.

I told Jakie to get off.
Three’s too many.
He wouldn’t hear me.

What could I do?

Away we went.

We were cruising around, laughing, trying to avoid the hippos. We roared past a sandbar on which a ten-foot crocodile was sleeping in the sun. Just as I curved the Jet Ski to the left I saw the croc open its eyes and slither into the water.

Moments later, Adi’s hat flew off.

Go back, go back,
he said.

I did a U-turn, not easy with three onboard. I brought us alongside the hat, and Adi leaned over to snatch it. Then Jakie leaned over to help. We all fell into the river.

I felt my sunglasses slip from my face, saw them plunk into the water. I dived after them. The moment I came up, I remembered the croc.

I could see Adi and Jakie thinking the same thing. Then I looked at the Jet Ski. Floating on its side. Shit.

My iPhone!

With all my photos! And phone numbers!

MEG!

The Jet Ski came to rest on the sandbar. We flipped it right and I grabbed my phone from the console. Soaked. Ruined. All the photos Meg and I had taken!

Plus all our texts!

I’d known this lads’ trip would be wild, so I’d sent some photos to Meg and other mates before leaving, as a precaution. Still, the rest were surely lost.

More, how was I going to be in touch with her?

Adi said not to worry, we’d put the phone in rice, a surefire way to dry it out.

Hours later, the moment we got back to camp, that was just what we did. We submerged the phone in a big bucket of uncooked white rice.

I looked down, highly dubious.
How long will this take?

Day or two.

No good. I need a solution now.

Mike and I worked out a plan. I could write a letter to Meg, which he’d take home with him to Maun. Teej could then photograph the letter and text it to Meg. (She had Meg’s number on her phone: I’d given it to her when she first went to collect Meg from the airport.)

Now I just had to write that letter.

The first challenge was finding a pen among that bunch of muppets.

Does anyone have a pen?

A what?

A pen.

I’ve got an EpiPen!

No! A pen. A biro! My kingdom for a biro!

Oh. A biro. Wow.

Somehow I found one. The next challenge was finding a place to compose.

I went off under a tree.

I thought. I stared into space. I wrote:

Hey Beautiful. OK you got me—can’t stop thinking about you, missing you, LOTS. Phone went in river. Sad face…Apart from that, having an amazing time. Wish u were here.

Mike left, letter in hand.

Days later, wrapping up the boat part of the lads’ trip, we returned to Maun. We met up with Teej, who immediately said:
Relax, I’ve already had a reply
.

So it hadn’t been a dream. Meg was real. All of it was real.

Among other things, Meg said in her reply that she was eager to speak to me.

Jubilant, I went off on the second part of the lads’ trip, into the Moremi forest. This time I brought a sat phone. While everyone was finishing dinner I found a clearing and climbed the tallest tree, thinking the reception might be better.

I dialed Meg. She answered.

Before I could speak she blurted:
I shouldn’t say this but I miss you!

I shouldn’t say this as well but I miss you too!

And then we just laughed and listened to each other breathe.

I felt enormous pressure,
the next day, sitting down to write the next letter. A paralyzing case of writer’s block. I just couldn’t find the words to express my excitement, my contentment, my longing. My hopes.

The next best thing, I figured, in the absence of lyricism, would be to make the letter physically beautiful.

Alas, I wasn’t in a location conducive to arts and crafts. The lads’ trip was now moving into phase three—an eight-hour game drive into the arse end of nowhere.

What to do?

At a break I jumped out of the truck, ran into the bush.

Spike, where you going?

I didn’t answer.

What’s with him?

Wandering wasn’t advisable in these parts. We were deep in lion country. But I was hell-bent on finding…something.

I stumbled, staggered, saw nothing but endless brown grass.
Are we in the bloody Outback?

Adi had taught me how to look for flowers in the desert. When it came to thornbushes, he always said, check the highest branches. So I did. And sure enough: Bingo! I climbed the thornbush, picked the flowers, put them into a little bag slung over my shoulder.

Later in our drive we came into a mopani forest, where I spotted two bright pink impala lilies.

I picked them too.

Soon enough I’d assembled a small bouquet.

We now came to a part of the forest scorched by recent fires. Within the charred landscape I spotted an interesting piece of bark from a leadwood. I grabbed it, nestled it into my bag.

We got back to camp at sunset. I wrote the second letter, singed the paper’s edges, surrounded it with my flowers and placed it inside the burned bark, then took a photo of it with Adi’s phone. I sent this to Meg and counted the seconds until I got a reply, which she signed “Your girl.”

By means of improvisation, and sheer determination, I managed somehow, throughout that lads’ trip, to stay in constant contact. When I finally returned to Britain I felt a huge sense of accomplishment. I hadn’t let soaked phones, drunken mates, lack of mobile reception, or a dozen other obstacles, scuttle the beginning of this beautiful…

What to call it?

Sitting in Nott Cott, bags all around me, I stared at the wall and quizzed myself. What is this? What’s the word?

Is it…

The One?

Have I found her?

At long, long last?

I’d always told myself that there were firm rules about relationships, at least when it came to royalty, and the main one was that you absolutely must date a woman for three years before taking the plunge. How else could you know about her? How else could
she
know about you—and your royal life? How else could both of you be sure that this was what you wanted, that it was a thing you could endure together?

It wasn’t for everybody.

But Meg seemed the shining exception to this rule. All rules. I knew her straightaway, and she knew me. The true me. Might seem rash, I thought, might seem illogical, but it’s true: For the first time, in fact, I felt myself to be living in truth.

A frenzy of texting and
FaceTiming. Though we were thousands of miles apart, we were never actually apart. I’d wake up to a text. Instantly reply. Then: text, text, text. Then, after lunch: FaceTime. Then, throughout the afternoon: text, text, text. Then, late at night, another marathon FaceTime.

And still it wasn’t enough. We were desperate to see each other again. We circled the last days of August, about ten days away, for our next meeting.

We agreed it would be best if she came to London.

On the big day, just after her arrival, she phoned as she was walking into her room at Soho House.

I’m here. Come see me!

I can’t, I’m in the car…

Doing what?

Something for my mum.

Your mum? Where?

Althorp.

What’s Althorp?

Where my uncle Charles lives.

I told her I’d explain later. We still hadn’t talked about…all that.

I felt pretty sure she hadn’t googled me, because she was always asking questions. She seemed to know almost nothing—so refreshing. It showed that she wasn’t impressed by royalty, which I thought the first step to surviving it. More, since she hadn’t done a deep dive into the literature, the public record, her head wasn’t filled with disinformation.

After Willy and I had laid flowers at Mummy’s grave, we drove together back to London. I phoned Meg, told her I was on my way. I tried to keep my voice nonchalant, not wanting to give myself away to Willy.

There’s a secret way into the hotel,
she said.
Then a freight lift.

Her friend Vanessa, who worked for Soho House, would meet me and usher me in.

All went according to plan. After I’d met the friend and navigated a sort of maze through the bowels of Soho House, I finally reached Meg’s door.

I knocked and suspended breathing while I waited.

The door flew open.

That smile.

Her hair was partly covering her eyes. Her arms were reaching for me. She pulled me inside and thanked her friend in one fluid motion, then slammed the door quickly before anyone saw.

I want to say we hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.

But I don’t think there was time.

In the morning we needed sustenance.
We phoned room service. When they knocked at the door, I looked around frantically for a place to hide.

The room had nothing. No cubbyhole or wardrobes, no armoire.

So I lay flat on the bed and pulled the duvet over my head. Meg whispered to go into the bathroom but I preferred my hiding place.

Alas, our breakfast wasn’t delivered by just any anonymous waiter. It was brought by a hotel assistant manager who loved Meg, and whom she loved, so he wanted to chat. He didn’t notice that there were two breakfasts on the tray. He didn’t notice the prince-shaped lump under the duvet. He talked and talked, and caught her up on all the latest, while I, in my duvet cave, started to run out of air.

Thank goodness for all that practice riding in the boot of Billy’s police car.

When the man finally left, I sat up, gasping.

Then we both gasped, we were laughing so hard.

We decided to have dinner that night at my place, invite some friends over. We’d cook. Fun, we said, but it would mean food shopping first. There was nothing in my fridge besides grapes and cottage pies.

We could go to Waitrose,
I said.

Of course we couldn’t actually go to Waitrose
together
: that would cause a riot. So we drew up a plan to shop
simultaneously
, in parallel, and in disguise, without visibly acknowledging each other.

Meg got there minutes before me. She wore a flannel shirt, a bulky overcoat and a beanie, but I was still surprised that no one was recognizing her.
Plenty of Brits watched
Suits
, surely, yet no one was staring. I’d have spotted her in a crowd of thousands.

Also, no one looked twice at her trolley, which was filled with her suitcases, and two large Soho House bags containing fluffy dressing-gowns she’d bought for us on checking out.

Equally anonymous, I grabbed a basket, walked casually up and down the aisles. Beside the fruit and veg I felt her stroll past me. Actually, it was more a saunter than a stroll. Very saucy. We slid our eyes towards each other, just an instant, then quickly away.

Meg had cut out a roasted-salmon recipe from
Food & Wine
and with that we’d made a list and divided it in two. She was in charge of finding a baking sheet, while I was tasked with finding parchment paper.

I texted her:
What the F is parchment paper?

She talked me onto the target.

Above your head.

I spun around. She was a few feet away, peering from behind a display.

We both laughed.

I looked back to the shelf.

This?

No, the one next to it.

We were cackling.

When we’d got through our list, I paid at the checkout, then texted Meg about where to meet.
Down the parking ramp, under the shop, people-carrier with blacked out windows.
Moments later, our shopping snug in the boot, Billy the Rock at the wheel, we roared out of the car park, heading for Nott Cott. I watched the city going past, all the houses and people, and I thought:
I can’t wait for you all to meet her.

I was excited to
welcome Meg to my home, but also embarrassed: Nott Cott was no palace. Nott Cott was palace adjacent—that was the best you could say for it. I watched her as she walked up the front path, through the white picket fence. To my relief she made no sign of dismay, gave no indication of disillusionment.