Spare (49 page)

I wondered now what came of that suggestion.

I turned to Willy, gave him a look that said:
You listening to this?

His face was blank.

Pa didn’t financially support Willy and me, and our families, out of any largesse. That was his job. That was the whole deal. We agreed to serve the monarch, go wherever we were sent, do whatever we were told, surrender our autonomy, keep our hands and feet inside the gilded cage at all times, and in exchange the keepers of the cage agreed to feed and clothe us. Was Pa, with all his millions from the hugely lucrative Duchy of Cornwall, trying to say that our captivity was starting to cost him a bit too much?

Besides which—how much could it possibly cost to house and feed Meg? I wanted to say, She doesn’t eat much, you know! And I’ll ask her to make her own clothes, if you like.

It was suddenly clear to me that this wasn’t about money. Pa might have dreaded the rising cost of maintaining us, but what he really couldn’t stomach was someone new dominating the monarchy, grabbing the limelight, someone shiny and new coming in and overshadowing him. And Camilla. He’d lived through that before, and had no interest in living through it again.

I couldn’t deal with any of that right now. I had no time for petty jealousies and Palace intrigue. I was still trying to work out exactly what to say to Granny, and the time had come.

The Land Rover stopped. We piled out and lined up along the hedge being placed by Pa. We waited for the birds to appear. The wind was blowing, and my mind was all over the place, but as the first drive began I found that I was shooting well. I got into the zone. Maybe it was a relief to think about something else. Maybe I preferred focusing on the next shot, rather than the Big Shot I was planning to take. I just kept swinging that barrel, squeezing that trigger, hitting every target.

We broke for lunch. I tried, repeatedly, but wasn’t able to get Granny by herself. Everyone was surrounding her, talking her ear off. So I tucked into the meal, biding my time.

A classic royal shooting luncheon. Cold feet warming by the fires, toasty potatoes, juicy meat, creamy soups, staff overseeing every detail. Then perfect puds. Then a little tea, a drink or two. Then back to the birds.

During the day’s final two drives I was constantly sneaking peeks in Granny’s direction, to see how she was doing. She seemed good. And very locked in.

Did she really have no idea what was coming?

After the final drive the party scattered. Everyone finished picking up their birds and returned to the Land Rovers. I saw Granny jump into her smaller Range Rover and drive out to the middle of the stubble field. She began looking for dead birds, while her dogs hunted.

There was no security around her, so this looked to be my chance.

I walked out to the middle of the stubble field, fell in alongside her, began helping. While we scanned the ground for dead birds, I tried to engage her in some light chat, to loosen her up, and to loosen up my vocal cords. The wind was stronger, and Granny’s cheeks looked cold, despite the scarf wrapped tightly around her head.

Not helping matters: my subconscious. It was popping. The full
seriousness of all this was finally starting to sink in. If Granny said no…would I have to say goodbye to Meg? I couldn’t imagine being without her…but I also couldn’t imagine being openly disobedient to Granny. My Queen, my Commander in Chief. If she withheld her permission, my heart would break, and of course I’d look for another occasion to ask again, but the odds would be against me. Granny wasn’t exactly known for changing her mind. So this moment was either the start of my life, or the end. It would all come down to the words I chose, how I delivered them, and how Granny heard them.

If all that wasn’t enough to make me tongue-tied, I’d seen plenty of press reports, sourced to “the Palace,” that some in my family didn’t quite, shall we say,
approve
of Meg. Didn’t fancy her directness. Didn’t feel altogether comfortable with her strong work ethic. Didn’t even enjoy her occasional questions. What was healthy and natural inquisitiveness they deemed to be impertinence.

There were also whispers about a vague and pervasive unease regarding her race. “Concern” had been expressed in certain corners about whether or not Britain was “ready.” Whatever that meant. Was any of that rubbish reaching Granny’s ears? If so, was this request for permission merely a hopeless exercise?

Was I doomed to be the next Margaret?

Oh. A biro. Wow.

I thought back over the many hinge moments in my life when permission was required. Requesting permission from Control to fire on the enemy. Requesting permission from the Royal Foundation to create the Invictus Games. I thought of pilots requesting permission from me to cross my airspace. My life all at once felt like an endless series of permission requests, all of them a prelude to this one.

Granny started walking back to her Range Rover. I quick-stepped after her, the dogs circling my feet. Looking at them, my mind began to race. My mother used to say that being around Granny and the corgis was like standing on a moving carpet, and I used to know most of them, living and dead, as if they were my cousins, Dookie, Emma, Susan, Linnet, Pickles, Chipper, they were all said to descend from the corgis that belonged to Queen Victoria, the more things change the more they stay the same, but these weren’t corgis, these were hunting dogs, and they had a different purpose, and I had a different purpose, and I realized that I needed to get to it, without one second more of hesitation, so as Granny lowered the tailgate, as the dogs leaped up, as I
thought of petting them but then remembered I had a dead bird in each hand, their limp necks nestled between my fingers, their glazed eyes rolled all the way back (I feel you, birds), their bodies still warm through my gloves, I turned instead to Granny and saw her turn to me and frown (Did she recognize that I was afraid? Of both the request for permission and of Her Majesty? Did she realize that, no matter how much I loved her, I was often nervous in her presence?) and I saw her waiting for me to speak—and not waiting patiently.

Her face radiated:
Out with it.

I coughed.
Granny, you know I love Meg very much, and I’ve decided that I would like to ask her to marry me, and I’ve been told that, er, that I have to ask your permission before I can propose.

You have to?

Um. Well, yes, that’s what your staff tell me, and my staff as well. That I have to ask your permission.

I stood completely still, as motionless as the birds in my hands. I stared at her face but it was unreadable. At last she replied:
Well, then, I suppose I have to say yes.

I squinted. You feel you
have
to say yes? Does that mean you are saying yes? But that you want to say no?

I didn’t get it. Was she being sarcastic? Ironic? Deliberately cryptic? Was she indulging in a bit of wordplay? I’d never known Granny to do any wordplay, and this would be a surpassingly bizarre moment (not to mention wildly inconvenient) for her to start, but maybe she just saw the chance to play off my unfortunate use of the word “have” and couldn’t resist?

Or else, perhaps there was some hidden meaning beneath the wordplay, some message I wasn’t comprehending?

I stood there squinting, smiling, asking myself over and over: What is the Queen of England saying to me right now?

At long last I realized: She’s saying yes, you muppet! She’s granting permission. Who cares how she words it, just know when to take yes for an answer.

So I sputtered:
Right. OK, Granny! Well. Fabulous. Thank you! Thank you so much.

I wanted to hug her.

I longed to hug her.

I didn’t hug her.

I saw her into the Range Rover, then marched back to Pa and Willy.

I took a ring
from Meg’s jewelry box and gave it to a designer, so he’d know her size.

Since he was also the keeper of Mummy’s bracelets, earrings and necklaces, I asked him to harvest the diamonds from one particularly beautiful bracelet of Mummy’s and use those to create a ring.

I’d cleared all this in advance with Willy. I’d asked my brother if I could have the bracelet, and told him what it was for. I don’t recall him hesitating, for one second, in giving it to me. He seemed to
like
Meg, despite his oft-cited concerns
.
Kate seemed to like her too. We’d had them over for dinner during one of Meg’s visits, and Meg cooked, and everything was good. Willy had a cold: he was sneezing and coughing, and Meg ran upstairs to get him some of her homeopathic cure-alls. Oregano oil, turmeric. He seemed charmed, moved, though Kate announced to the table that he’d never take such unconventional remedies.

We talked about Wimbledon that night, and
Suits
, and Willy and Kate weren’t brave enough to admit to being superfans. Which was sweet.

The only possibly discordant note I could think of was the marked difference in how the two women dressed, which both of them seemed to notice.

Meg: ripped jeans, barefoot.

Kate: done up to the nines.

No big deal, I thought.

Along with the diamonds from the bracelet I’d asked the designer to add a third—a blood-free diamond from Botswana.

He asked if there was a rush.

Well…now that you mention it…

Meg packed up
her house, gave up her role in
Suits
. After seven seasons. A difficult moment for her, because she loved that show, loved the character she was playing, loved her cast and crew—loved Canada. On the other hand life there had become untenable. Especially on set. The show writers were frustrated, because they were often advised by the Palace comms team to change lines of dialogue, what her character would do, how she would act.

She’d also shut down her website and abandoned all social media, again at the behest of the Palace comms team. She’d said goodbye to her friends, goodbye to her car, goodbye to one of her dogs—Bogart. He’d been so traumatized by the siege of her house, by the constant ringing of the doorbell, that his demeanor changed when Meg was around. He’d become an aggressive guard dog. Meg’s neighbors had graciously agreed to adopt him.

But Guy came. Not my friend, Meg’s other dog, her beat-up little beagle, who was even more beat-up of late. He missed Bogart, of course, but more, he was badly injured. Days before Meg left Canada, Guy had run away from his minder. (Meg was at work.) He’d been found miles from Meg’s house, unable to walk. His legs were now in casts.

I often had to hold him upright so he could pee.

I didn’t mind in the least. I loved that dog. I couldn’t stop kissing him, petting him. Yes, my intense feelings for Meg spilled over onto anyone or anything she loved, but also I’d wanted a dog for so long, and I’d never been able to have one because I’d been such a nomad. One night, not long after Meg’s arrival in Britain, we were at home, making dinner, playing with Guy, and the kitchen of Nott Cott was as full of love as any room I’d ever been in.

I opened a bottle of champagne—an old, old gift I’d been saving for a special occasion.

Meg smiled.
What’s the occasion?

No occasion.

I scooped up Guy, carried him outside, into the walled garden, put him down on a blanket I’d spread on the grass. Then I ran back inside and asked Meg to grab her champagne flute and come with me.

What’s up?

Nothing.

I led her out to the garden. Cold night. We were both wrapped in big coats, and hers had a hood lined with fake fur that framed her face like a cameo. I set electric candles around the blanket. I wanted it to look like Botswana, the bush, where I’d first thought of proposing.

Now I knelt on the blanket, Guy at my side. Both of us looked up searchingly at Meg.

My eyes already full of tears, I brought the ring out of my pocket and said my piece. I was shivering, and my heart was audibly thumping, and my voice was unsteady, but she got the idea.

Spend your life with me? Make me the happiest guy on this planet?

Yes.

Yes?

Yes!

I laughed. She laughed. What other reaction could there be? In this mixed-up world, this pain-filled life, we’d done it. We’d managed to find each other.

Then we were crying
and
laughing, and petting Guy, who looked frozen solid.

We started for the house.

Oh, wait. Don’t you want to see the ring, my love?

She hadn’t even thought about it.

We hurried inside, finished our celebration in the warmth of the kitchen.

It was November 4.

We managed to keep it secret for about two weeks.

Ordinarily, I’d have gone
to Meg’s father first, asked for his blessing. But Thomas Markle was a complicated man.

He and Meg’s mother split when she was two, and thereafter she divided her time between them. Monday to Friday with Mum, weekends with Dad. Then, for part of high school, she’d moved in with her father full-time. They were that close.

After college she’d traveled the world, but always stayed in constant contact with Daddy. She still, even in her thirties, called him Daddy. She loved him, worried about him—his health, his habits—and often relied upon him. Throughout her run on
Suits
she’d consulted him every week about the lighting. (He’d been a lighting director in Hollywood, won two Emmys.) In recent years, however, he hadn’t been working regularly, and he’d sort of disappeared. He’d rented a small house in a Mexican border town and wasn’t doing well overall.

In every way, Meg felt, her father would never be able to withstand the psychological pressures that come with being stalked by the press, and that was now happening to him. It had long been open season on everyone in Meg’s circle, every current friend and ex-boyfriend, every cousin, including those she’d never known, every former employer or former co-worker, but after I proposed there was a frenzy around…the Father. He was considered the prize catch. When the
Daily Mirror
published his location, paps
descended on his house, taunting him, trying to tempt or lure him outside. No fox hunt, no bear baiting was ever more depraved. Strange men and women dangled offers of money, gifts, friendship. When none of that worked, they rented the house next door and shot him day and night through his windows. The press reported that, as a result, Meg’s father had nailed plywood over his windows.