Spare (54 page)

How are you holding up, Kevin?

So polite, he said.

So repressed, I thought.

Meg adored Kevin, and vice versa, so I thought this could be the start of something good. A much-needed change of scenery, a much-needed ally in our corner. Then one day I looked down at my phone: a text from our team alerting me to huge splashy stories in
The Sun
and the
Daily Mail,
featuring detailed overhead photos of Oxfordshire.

A helicopter was hovering above the property, a pap hanging out of the door, aiming telephoto lenses at every window, including our bedroom.

Thus ended the dream of Oxfordshire.

I walked
home from the office and found Meg sitting on the stairs.

She was sobbing. Uncontrollably.

My love, what’s happened?

I thought for sure we’d lost the baby.

I went to her on my knees. She choked out that she didn’t want to do this anymore.

Do what?

Live.

I didn’t catch her meaning at first. I didn’t understand, maybe didn’t want to understand. My mind just didn’t want to process the words.

It’s all so painful, she was saying.

What is?

To be hated like this—for what?

What had she
done
? she asked. She really wanted to know. What sin had she committed to deserve this kind of treatment?

She just wanted to make the pain stop, she said. Not only for her, for everyone. For me, for her mother. But she
couldn’t
make it stop, so she’d decided to disappear.

Disappear?

Without her, she said, all the press would go away, and then I wouldn’t have to live like this. Our unborn child would never have to live like this.

It’s so clear
, she kept saying,
it’s so clear. Just stop breathing. Stop being
.
This exists because I exist.

I begged her not to talk like that. I promised her we’d get through it, we’d find a way. In the meantime, we’d find her the help she needed.

I asked her to be strong, hang on.

Incredibly, while reassuring her, and hugging her, I couldn’t entirely stop thinking like a
fucking royal
. We had a Sentebale engagement that night, at the Royal Albert Hall, and I kept telling myself: We can’t be late. We
cannot
be late. They’ll skin us alive! And they’ll blame her.

Slowly—too slowly—I realized that tardiness was the least of our problems.

I said she should skip the engagement, of course. I needed to go, make a quick appearance, but I’d be home fast.

No, she insisted, she didn’t trust herself to be at home alone for even an hour with such dark feelings.

So we put on our best kit, and she applied dark, dark lipstick to draw attention away from her bloodshot eyes, and out of the door we went.

The car pulled up outside the Royal Albert Hall, and as we stepped into the blue flashing lights of the police escort and the whiteout lights of the press’s flashbulbs, Meg reached for my hand. She gripped it tightly. As we went inside, she gripped it even tighter. I was buoyed by the tightness of that grip. She’s hanging on, I thought. Better than letting go.

But when we settled into the royal box, and the lights dimmed, she let go of her emotions. She couldn’t hold back the tears. She wept silently.

The music struck up, we turned and faced the front. We spent the entire length of the performance (Cirque du Soleil) squeezing each other’s hands, me promising her in a whisper:

Trust me. I’ll keep you safe.

I woke to
a text from Jason.

Bad news.

What is it now?

The
Mail on Sunday
had printed the private letter Meg had written to her father. The letter that Granny and Pa urged her to write.

February 2019.

I was in bed, Meg was lying next to me, still asleep.

I waited a bit, then broke the news to her softly.

Your father’s given your letter to the
Mail
.

No.

Meg, I don’t know what to say, he’s given them your letter.

That moment, for me, was decisive. About Mr. Markle, but also about the press. There had been so many moments, but that for me was The One. I didn’t want to hear any more talk of protocols, tradition, strategy. Enough, I thought.

Enough.

The paper knew it was illegal to publish that letter, they knew full well, and did it anyway. Why? Because they also knew Meg was defenseless. They knew she didn’t have the
staunch
support of my family, and how else could they have known this, except from people close to the family? Or inside the family? The papers knew that the only recourse Meg had was to sue, and she couldn’t do that because there was only one lawyer working with the family, and that lawyer was under the control of the Palace, and the Palace would never authorize him to act on Meg’s behalf.

There was nothing in that letter to be ashamed about. A daughter pleading with her father to behave decently? Meg stood by every word. She’d always known it might be intercepted, that one of her father’s neighbors, or one of the paps staking out his house, might steal his post. Anything was possible. But she never stopped to think her father would actually offer it, or that a paper would actually take it—and print it.

And edit it. Indeed, that might have been the most galling thing, the way the editors cut and pasted Meg’s words to make them sound less loving.

Seeing something so deeply personal smeared across the front pages, gobbled up by Britons over their morning toast and marmalade, was invasive enough. But the pain was compounded tenfold by the simultaneous interviews with alleged handwriting experts, who analyzed Meg’s letter and inferred from the way she crossed her Ts or curved her Rs that she was a terrible person.

Rightward slant? Over-emotional.

Highly stylized? Consummate performer.

Uneven baseline? No impulse control.

The look on Meg’s face as I told her about these libels rolling out…I knew my way around grief, and there was no mistaking it—this was pure grief.
She was mourning the loss of her father, and she was also mourning the loss of her own innocence. She reminded me in a whisper, as if someone might be listening, that she’d taken a handwriting class in high school, and as a result she’d always had excellent penmanship. People complimented her. She’d even used this skill at university to earn spare money. Nights, weekends, she’d inscribed wedding and birthday-party invitations, to pay the rent. Now people were trying to say that this was some kind of window into her soul? And the window was dirty?

Tormenting Meghan Markle has become a national sport that shames us,
said a headline in
The Guardian.

So true. But no one was shamed, that was the problem. No one was feeling the slightest pang of conscience. Would they finally feel some if they caused a divorce? Or would it take another death?

What had become of all the shame they’d felt in the late 1990s?

Meg wanted to sue. Me too. Rather, we both felt we had no choice. If we didn’t sue over
this
, we said, what kind of signal would that be sending? To the press? To the world? So we conferred again with the Palace lawyer.

We were given a runaround.

I reached out to Pa and Willy. They’d both sued the press in the past over invasions and lies. Pa sued over so-called Black Spider Letters, his memos to government officials. Willy sued over topless photos of Kate.

But both vehemently opposed the idea of Meg and me taking any legal action.

Why? I asked.

They hummed and hahed. The only answer I could get out of them was that it simply wasn’t advisable. The done thing, etc.

I told Meg:
You’d think we were suing a dear friend of theirs.

Willy asked for
a meeting. He wanted to talk about everything, the whole rolling catastrophe.

Just him and me, he said.

As it happened, Meg was out of town, visiting girlfriends, so his timing was perfect. I invited him over.

An hour later he walked into Nott Cott, where he hadn’t been since Meg first moved in. He looked piping hot.

It was early evening. I offered him a drink, asked about his family.

Everyone good.

He didn’t ask about mine. He just went all in. Chips to the center of the table.

Meg’s difficult,
he said.

Oh, really?

She’s rude. She’s abrasive. She’s alienated half the staff.

Not the first time he’d parroted the press narrative. Duchess Difficult, all that bullshit. Rumors, lies from his team, tabloid rubbish, and I told him so—again. Told him I expected better from my older brother. I was shocked to see that this actually pissed him off. Had he come here expecting something different? Did he think I’d agree that my bride was a monster?

I told him to step back, take a breath, really ask himself: Wasn’t Meg his sister-in-law? Wouldn’t this institution be toxic for any newcomer? Worst-case scenario, if his sister-in-law was having trouble adjusting to a new office, a new family, a new country, a new culture, couldn’t he see his way clear to cutting her some slack?
Couldn’t you just be there for her? Help her?

He had no interest in a debate. He’d come to lay down the law. He wanted me to agree that Meg was wrong and then agree to do something about it.

Like what? Scold her? Fire her? Divorce her? I didn’t know. But Willy didn’t know either, he wasn’t rational. Every time I tried to slow him down, point out the illogic of what he was saying, he got louder. We were soon talking over each other, both of us shouting.

Among all the different, riotous emotions coursing through my brother that afternoon, one really jumped out at me. He seemed
aggrieved
. He seemed put upon that I wasn’t meekly obeying him, that I was being so impertinent as to deny him, or defy him, to refute his knowledge, which came from his trusted aides. There was a script here and I had the audacity not to be following it. He was in full Heir mode, and couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t dutifully playing the role of the Spare.

I was sitting on the sofa, he was standing over me. I remember saying:
You need to hear me out, Willy.

He wouldn’t. He simply would not listen.

To be fair, he felt the same about me.

He called me names. All kinds of names. He said I refused to take responsibility for what was happening. He said I didn’t care about my office and the people who worked for me.

Willy, give me one example of
—

He cut me off, said he was trying to help me.

Are you serious? Help me? Sorry—is that what you call this? Helping me?

For some reason, that really set him off. He stepped towards me, swearing.

To that point I’d been feeling uncomfortable, but now I felt a bit scared. I stood, brushed past him, went out to the kitchen, to the sink. He was right on my heels, berating me, shouting.

I poured a glass of water for myself, and one for him as well. I handed it to him. I don’t think he took a sip.

Willy, I can’t speak to you when you’re like this.

He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dogs’ bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.

Come on, hit me! You’ll feel better if you hit me!

Do what?

Come on, we always used to fight. You’ll feel better if you hit me.

No, only you’ll feel better if I hit you. Please…just leave.

He left the kitchen, but he didn’t leave Nott Cott. He was in the sitting room, I could tell. I stayed in the kitchen. Two minutes passed, two long minutes. He came back looking regretful and apologized.

He walked to the front door. This time I followed. Before leaving he turned and called back:
You don’t need to tell Meg about this.

You mean that you attacked me?

I didn’t attack you, Harold.

Fine. I won’t tell her.

Good, thank you.

He left.

I looked at the phone. A promise is a promise, I told myself, so I couldn’t call my wife, much as I wanted to.

But I needed to talk to someone. So I rang my therapist.

Thank God she answered.

I apologized for the intrusion, told her I didn’t know who else to call. I told her I’d had a fight with Willy, he’d knocked me to the floor. I looked down and told her that my shirt was ripped, my necklace was broken.

We’d had a million physical fights in our lives, I told her. As boys we’d done nothing
but
fight. But this felt different.

The therapist told me to take deep breaths. She asked me to describe the scene several times. Each time I did it seemed more like a bad dream.

And made me a bit calmer.

I told her:
I’m proud of myself.

Proud, Harry? Why’s that?

I didn’t hit him back.

I stayed true to my word, didn’t tell Meg.

But not long after she returned from her trip, she saw me coming out of the shower and gasped.

Haz, what
are those scrapes and bruises on your back?

I couldn’t lie to her.

She wasn’t that surprised, and she wasn’t at all angry.

She was terribly sad.

Soon after that day
it was announced that the two royal households, Cambridge and Sussex, would no longer share an office. We’d no longer be working together in any capacity. The Fab Four…
finis.

Reaction was about as expected. The public groaned, journalists brayed. The more disheartening response was from my family. Silence. They never commented publicly, never said anything privately to me. I never heard from Pa, never heard from Granny. It made me think, really think, about the silence that surrounded everything else that happened to me and Meg. I’d always told myself that, just because everyone in my family didn’t explicitly condemn press attacks, it didn’t mean they
condoned
them. But now I asked: Is that true? How do I know? If they never say anything, why do I so often assume that I know how they feel?