Spare (53 page)

Your Royal Highness, Her Majesty.

Pa sat bolt upright.
Oh, yes.
He reached for the phone.

I’m sorry, sir, but she’s calling for the Duchess.

Oh.

We all looked stunned. Meg tentatively reached for the phone.

It seemed Granny was calling to talk about Meg’s father. She was responding to a letter Meg had written her, asking for advice and help. Meg said she didn’t know how to make the press stop interviewing him, enticing him to say horrid things. Granny now suggested that Meg forget the press, go and see her father, try to talk some sense into him.

Meg explained that he lived in a Mexican border town and she didn’t know how she’d ever get through the airport, through the press surrounding his house, then through that part of town, and back again, quietly, safely.

Granny acknowledged the many problems with this plan.

In that case, perhaps write him a letter?

Pa agreed. Splendid idea.

Meg and I went down
to the beach in front of the castle. Chilly day, but the sun was bright.

We stood on the rocks, looking out at the sea. Amid all the silky islands of seaweed we saw…something.

A head.

A pair of soulful eyes.

Look! Seal!

The head bobbed up and down. The eyes very clearly watched us.

Look! Another!

Just as Pa instructed, I ran to the water’s edge, sang to them. Serenaded them.

Arooo.

No answer.

Meg joined me, and sang to them, and now of course they sang back.

She really is magic, I thought. Even the seals know it.

Suddenly, all over the water, heads were bobbing up, singing to her.

Arooo.

A seal opera.

Silly superstition, maybe, but I didn’t care. I counted it a good omen. I took off my clothes, jumped into the water, swam to them.

Later, Pa’s Aussie chef was horrified. He told us that this had been a supremely bad idea, more ill-advised than diving heedless into the darkest water of the Okavango. This part of the Scottish coast was teeming with killer whales, the chef said, and singing to seals was like calling them to their blood-soaked deaths.

I shook my head.

It had been such a lovely fairytale, I thought.

How did it get so dark so fast?

Meg was late.

We bought two home pregnancy tests, one for a backup, and she took them both into the bathroom at Nott Cott.

I was lying on our bed, and while waiting for her to come out…I fell asleep.

When I woke, she was beside me.

What’s happened? Is it…?

She said she hadn’t looked. She’d waited for me.

The wands were on the nightstand. I only kept a few things there, among them the blue box with my mother’s hair. Right, I thought, good. Let’s see what Mummy can do with this situation.

I reached for the wands, peered into their little windows.

Blue.

Bright, bright blue. Both of them.

Blue meant…baby.

Oh wow.

Well.

Well then.

We hugged, kissed.

I put the wands back on the nightstand.

I thought: Thank you, selkies.

I thought: Thank you, Mummy.

Euge was getting
married, to Jack, and we were deliriously happy for her, and for ourselves, selfishly, since Jack was one of our favorite people. Meg and I were supposed to head off on our first official foreign tour as a married couple, but we delayed the departure several days, so we could be at the wedding.

Also, the various gatherings connected to the wedding would give us a chance to pull aside family members one by one and tell them our good news.

At Windsor, just before a drinks reception for the bride and groom, we cornered Pa in his study. He was sitting behind his big desk, which afforded his favorite view, straight down the Long Walk. Every window was open, to cool the room, and a breeze was fluttering his papers, which were all stacked in squat little towers, each crowned with a paperweight. He was delighted to learn that he was going to be a grandfather for a fourth time; his wide smile warmed me.

After the drinks reception, in St. George’s Hall, Meg and I pulled Willy aside. We were in a big room, suits of armor on the walls. Strange room, strange moment. We whispered the news, and Willy smiled and said we must tell Kate. She was across the room, talking to Pippa. I said we could do it later, but he insisted. So we went and told Kate and she also gave a big smile and hearty congratulations.

They both reacted exactly as I’d hoped—as I’d wished.

Days later the
pregnancy was announced publicly. The papers reported that Meg was battling fatigue and dizzy spells and couldn’t hold any food down, especially in the mornings, all of which was untrue. She was tired, but otherwise a dynamo. Indeed, she felt lucky not to be suffering severe morning sickness, since we were embarking on a hugely demanding tour.

Everywhere we went, enormous crowds turned out, and she didn’t
disappoint them. All across Australia, Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, she dazzled. After one especially rousing speech, she got a standing ovation.

She was so brilliant that midway through the tour I felt compelled…to warn her.

You’re doing too well, my love. Too damn well.
You’re making it look too easy. This is how everything started…with my mother.

Maybe I sounded mad, paranoid. But everyone knew that Mummy’s situation went from bad to worse when she showed the world, showed the family, that she was better at touring, better at connecting with people, better at being “royal,” than she had any right to be.

That was when things really took a turn.

We returned home to jubilant welcomes and exultant headlines. Meg, the expectant mother, the flawless representative of the Crown, was hailed.

Not a negative word was written.

It’s changed, we said. It’s changed at last.

But then it changed again. Oh, how it changed.

Stories rolled in, like breakers on a beach. First a rubbish hit piece by a hack biographer of Pa, who said I’d thrown a tantrum before the wedding. Then a work of fiction about Meg making her staff miserable, driving them too hard, committing the unpardonable sin of emailing people early in the morning. (She just happened to be up at that hour, trying to stay in touch with night-owl friends back in America—she didn’t expect an instant reply.) She was also said to have driven our assistant to quit; in fact that assistant was asked to resign by Palace HR after we showed them evidence she’d traded on her position with Meg to get freebies. But because we couldn’t speak publicly about the reasons for the assistant’s departure, rumors filled the void. In many ways that was the true start of all the troubles. Shortly thereafter, the “Duchess Difficult” narrative began appearing in all the papers.

Next came a novella in one of the tabloids about the tiara. The article said Meg had demanded a certain tiara that had belonged to Mummy, and when the Queen refused, I’d thrown a fit:
What Meghan wants, Meghan gets!

Days later came the coup de grâce: from a royal correspondent, a sci-fi fantasy describing the “growing froideur” (good Lord) between Kate and Meg, claiming that, according to “two sources,” Meg had reduced Kate to tears about the bridesmaids’ dresses.

This particular royal correspondent had always made me ill. She’d always, always got stuff wrong. But this felt more than wrong.

I read the story in disbelief. Meg didn’t. She still wasn’t reading anything.
She heard about it, however, since it was the only thing being discussed in Britain for the next twenty-four hours, and as long as I live I’ll never forget the tone of her voice as she looked me in the eye and said:

Haz, I made her cry? I made HER cry?

We arranged a second
summit with Willy and Kate.

This time on our turf.

December 10, 2018. Early evening.

We all gathered in our little front annex, and this time there was no small talk: Kate got things rolling straightaway by acknowledging that these stories in the papers about Meg making her cry were totally false.
I know, Meghan, that I was the one who made you cry.

I sighed. Excellent start, I thought.

Meg appreciated the apology, but wanted to know why the papers had said this, and what was being done to correct them? In other words:
Why isn’t your office standing up for me? Why haven’t they phoned this execrable woman who wrote this story, and demanded a retraction?

Kate, flustered, didn’t answer, and Willy chimed in with some very supportive-sounding evasions, but I already knew the truth. No one at the Palace could phone the correspondent, because that would invite the inevitable retort: Well, if the story’s wrong, what’s the real story? What
did
happen between the two duchesses? And that door must never be opened, because it would embarrass the future queen.

The monarchy, always, at all costs, had to be protected.

We shifted from what to do about the story to where it came from. Who could’ve planted such a thing? Who could’ve leaked it to the press in the first place? Who?

We went around and around. The list of suspects became vanishingly small.

Finally,
finally
, Willy leaned back and conceded that, ahem, while we’d been on tour in Australia, he and Kate had gone to dinner with Pa and Camilla…and, alas, he said sheepishly, he
might’ve
let it slip that there’d been strife between the two couples…

I put a hand over my face. Meg froze. A heavy silence fell.

So now we knew.

I told Willy:
You…of all people…should’ve known…

He nodded. He knew.

More silence.

It was time for them to go.

It kept on and on.
One story after another. I thought at times of Mr. Marston ceaselessly ringing his insane bell.

Who can ever forget the spate of front-page stories making Meg out to be singlehandedly responsible for the End Times? Specifically, she’d been “caught” eating avocado toast, and many stories explained breathlessly that the harvesting of avocados was hastening the destruction of the rainforests, destabilizing developing countries, and helping to fund state terrorism. Of course the same media had recently swooned over Kate’s love of avocados. (
Oh, how
they make Kate’s skin glow!
)

Notably, it was around this time that the super-narrative embedded within each story began to shift. It was no longer about two women fighting, two duchesses at odds, or even two households. It was now about one person being a witch and causing everyone to run from her, and that one person was my wife. And in building this super-narrative the press was clearly being assisted by someone or multiple someones inside the Palace.

Someone who had it in for Meg.

One day it was: Yuck—Meg’s bra strap was showing. (Classless Meghan.)

The next day: Yikes—she’s wearing that dress? (Trashy Meghan.)

The next day: God save us, her fingernails are painted black! (Goth Meghan.)

The next day: Goodness—she still doesn’t know how to curtsy properly. (American Meghan.)

The next day: Crikey, she shut her own car door again! (Uppity Meghan.)

We’d rented a house
in Oxfordshire. Just a place to get away now and then from the maelstrom, but also from Nott Cott, which was charming but too small. And falling down around our heads.

It got so bad that one day I had to phone Granny. I told her we needed a new place to live. I explained that Willy and Kate hadn’t simply outgrown
Nott Cott, they’d fled it, because of all the required repairs, and the lack of room, and we were now in the same boat. With two rambunctious dogs…and a baby on the way…

I told her we’d discussed our housing situation with the Palace, and we’d been offered several properties, but each was too grand, we thought. Too lavish. And too expensive to renovate.

Granny gave it a think and we chatted again days later.

Frogmore, she said.

Frogmore, Granny?

Yes. Frogmore.

Frogmore House?

I knew it well. That was where we’d taken our engagement photos.

No, no—Frogmore Cottage. Near Frogmore House.

Sort of hidden, she said. Tucked away. Originally home to Queen Charlotte and her daughters, then to one of Queen Victoria’s aides, and later it was chopped into smaller units. But it could be reassembled. Lovely place, Granny said. Plus, historic. Part of the Crown Estate. Very sweet.

I told her that Meg and I loved the gardens at Frogmore, we went walking there often, and if it was near those, well, what could be better?

She warned:
It’s a bit of a building site. Bit of a shell. But go and have a look and do tell me if it works.

We went that day, and Granny was right. The house spoke to us both. Charming, full of potential. Hard by the Royal Burial Ground, but so what? Didn’t bother me or Meg. We wouldn’t disturb the dead if they’d promise not to disturb us.

I rang Granny and said Frogmore Cottage would be a dream come true. I thanked her profusely. With her permission we began sitting down with builders, planning the minimum renovations, to make the place habitable—piping, heating, water.

While the work was being done, we thought we could move into Oxfordshire full time. We loved it out there. The air fresh, the verdant grounds—plus, no paps. Best of all, we’d be able to call upon the talents of my father’s longtime butler, Kevin. He knew the Oxfordshire house, and he’d know how to turn it quickly into a home. Better yet, he knew me, held me as a baby, and befriended my mother when she was wandering Windsor Castle in search of a sympathetic face. He told me that Mummy was the only person in the family who ever dared venture “below stairs,” to chat with staff. In fact she’d often sneak down and sit with Kevin in the kitchen, over a drink or snack, watching
telly. It had fallen to Kevin, on the day of Mummy’s funeral, to greet me and Willy on our return to Highgrove. He stood on the front steps, he recalled, waiting for our car, rehearsing what he’d say. But when we pulled up and he opened the car door I said: