Spare (57 page)

I thanked him for his concern, assured him I was fine. I’d become emotional in front of a roomful of sick kids and their folks just after becoming a father myself—nothing abnormal in that.

He said I wasn’t well. He said again that I needed help.

I reminded him that I was doing therapy. In fact, he’d recently told me he wanted to accompany me to a session because he suspected I was being “brainwashed.”

Then come,
I said.
It will be good for you. Good for us.

He never came.

His strategy was patently obvious: I was unwell, which meant I was unwise. As if all my behavior needed to be called into question.

I worked hard at keeping my texts to him civil. Nonetheless, the exchange turned into an argument, which stretched over seventy-two hours. Back and forth we went, all day, late into the night—we’d never had a fight like that over text before. Angry, but also miles apart, as if we were speaking different languages. Now and then I realized that my worst fear was coming true: after months of therapy, after working hard to become more aware, more independent, I was a stranger to my older brother. He could no longer relate to me—tolerate me.

Or maybe it was just the stress of the last few years, the last few decades, finally pouring out.

I saved the texts. I have them still. I read them sometimes, with sadness, with confusion, thinking: How did we ever get there?

In his final texts, Willy wrote that he loved me. That he cared for me deeply. That he would do whatever is needed to help me.

He told me to never feel any other way.

Meg and I discussed
getting away, but this time we weren’t talking about a day at Wimbledon or a weekend with Elton.

We were talking about escape.

A friend knew someone who had a house we could borrow on Vancouver Island. Quiet, green—seemingly remote. Only reachable by ferry or plane, the friend said.

November 2019.

We arrived with Archie, Guy, Pula, and our nanny, under cover of darkness, on a stormy night, and spent the next few days trying to unwind. It wasn’t hard. From morning to night we didn’t have to give a thought to being ambushed. The house was right on the edge of a sparkling green forest, with big gardens where Archie and the dogs could play, and it was nearly surrounded by the clean, cold sea. I could take a bracing swim in the morning. Best of all, no one knew we were there. We hiked, we kayaked, we played—in peace.

After a few days we needed supplies. We ventured out timidly, drove down the road into the nearest village, walked along the pavement like people in a horror movie. Where will the attack come from? Which direction?

But it didn’t happen. People didn’t freak. They didn’t stare. They didn’t reach for their iPhones. Everyone knew, or sensed, that we were going through something. They gave us space, while also managing to make us feel welcome, with a kind smile, a wave. They made us feel like part of a community. They made us feel normal.

For six weeks.

Then the
Daily Mail
printed our address.

Within hours the boats arrived. An invasion by sea. Each boat bristled with telephoto lenses, arrayed like guns along the decks, and every lens was aimed at our windows. At our boy.

So much for playing in the gardens.

We grabbed Archie, pulled him into the house.

They shot through the kitchen windows during his feeds.

We pulled down the blinds.

The next time we drove into town, there were forty paps along the route. Forty. We counted. Some gave chase. At our favorite little general store, a plaintive sign now hung in the window: No Media.

We hurried back to the house, pulled the blinds even tighter, returned to a kind of permanent twilight.

Meg said she’d officially come full circle. Back in Canada, afraid to raise the blinds.

But blinds weren’t enough. Security cameras along the back fence of the property soon picked up a skeletal man pacing, peering, looking for a way in. And taking photos over the fence. He wore a filthy puffer vest, dirty trousers bunched around his raggedy shoes, and he looked as if nothing was beneath him. Nothing. His name was Steve Dennett. He was a freelance pap who’d spied on us before, in the employ of
Splash!

He was a pest. But maybe the next guy would be more than a pest.

Can’t stay here, we said.

And, yet…?

Brief as it was, that taste of freedom had got us thinking. What if life could be like that…all the time? What if we could spend at least part of each year somewhere far away, still doing work for the Queen, but beyond the reach of the press?

Free. Free from the British press, free from the drama, free from the lies. But also free from the supposed “public interest” that was used to justify the frenzied coverage of us.

The question was…where?

We talked about New Zealand. We talked about South Africa. Half the year in Cape Town maybe? That could work. Away from the drama, but closer to my conservation work—and to eighteen other Commonwealth countries.

I’d run the idea by Granny once before. She’d even signed off on it. And I’d run it by Pa, at Clarence House, the Wasp present. He told me to put it in writing, which I’d done immediately. Within a few days it was in all the papers and caused a huge stink. So now, at the end of December 2019, when I was chatting with Pa on the phone, saying we were more serious than ever about spending part of the year away from Britain, I wasn’t having it when he said that I must write it down.

Yeah, um, did that once before, Pa. And our plan immediately got leaked and scuppered.

I can’t help you if you don’t put it in writing, darling boy.
These things have to go through government.

For the love of…

So. In the first days of January 2020, I sent him a watermarked letter broadly outlining the idea, with bullet points, and many details. Throughout the exchanges that followed, all marked
Private and Confidential
, I hammered the essential theme: we were prepared to make any sacrifice necessary to find some peace and safety, including relinquishing our Sussex titles.

I rang to get his thoughts.

He wouldn’t come to the phone.

I soon received a long email from him saying we’d have to sit down and discuss the whole thing in person. He’d like us to come back as soon as possible.

You’re in luck, Pa! We’re coming back to Britain in the next few days—to see Granny. So…when can we meet?

Not before the end of January.

What? That’s more than a month away.

I’m in Scotland. I can’t get there before then.

I really hope and trust that we will be able to have further conversations without this getting into the public domain and it becoming a circus,
I wrote.

He responded with what felt like an ominous threat:
You’ll be disobeying orders from the monarch and myself if you persist in this course of action before we have a chance to sit down.

I rang Granny
on January 3.

We’re coming back to Britain, I said. We’d love to see you.

I told her explicitly that we hoped to discuss with her our plan to create a different working arrangement.

She wasn’t pleased. Neither was she shocked. She knew how unhappy we were, she’d seen this day on the horizon.

One good chat with my grandmother, I felt, would bring this ordeal to an end.

I said:
Granny, are you free?

Yes, of course! I’m free all week. The diary is clear.

That’s great. Meg and I can come up for tea and then drive back to London. We have an engagement at Canada House the next day.

You’ll be exhausted from the travel. Do you want to stay here?

By “here” she meant Sandringham. Yes, that would be easier, and I told her so.

That would be lovely, thank you.

Are you planning to see your father too?

I asked, but he said it’s impossible. He’s in Scotland and can’t leave until the end of the month.

She made a little sound. A sigh or a knowing grunt. I had to laugh.

She said:
I have only one thing to say about that.

Yes?

Your father
always does what he wants to do.

Days later, January 5, as Meg and I boarded a flight in Vancouver, I got a frantic note from our staff, who’d received a frantic note from the Bee. Granny wouldn’t be able to see me.
Initially Her Majesty thought this would be possible, it will not…The Duke of Sussex cannot come to Norfolk tomorrow. Her Majesty will be able to arrange another mtg this month. No announcements about anything shall be issued until such a meeting takes place.

I said to Meg: They’re blocking me from seeing my own grandmother.

When we landed I considered driving straight to Sandringham anyway. To hell with the Bee. Who was he to try to block me? I imagined our car being stopped at the gate by Palace police. I imagined smashing past security, the gate snapping across the bonnet. Diverting fantasy, and a fun way to spend the trip from the airport, but no. I’d have to bide my time.

When we reached Frogmore I rang Granny again. I imagined the phone ringing on her desk. I could actually hear it in my mind,
brrrang
, like the red phone in the VHR tent.

Troops in Contact!

Then I heard her voice.

Hello?

Hi, Granny, it’s Harry. Sorry, I must have misunderstood you the other day when you said you didn’t have anything going on today.

Something came up that I wasn’t aware of.

Her voice was strange.

Can I pop in tomorrow then, Granny?

Um. Well. I’m busy all week.

At least, she added, that was what the Bee told her…

Is he in the room with you, Granny?

No answer.

We got word
from Sara that
The Sun
was about to run a story saying The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were stepping away from their royal duties to spend more time in Canada. A sad little man, the newspaper’s showbiz editor, was said to be the lead reporter on the story.

Why him? Why, of all people, the showbiz guy?

Because lately he’d refashioned himself into some sort of quasi royal correspondent, largely on the strength of his secret relationship with one particularly close friend of Willy’s comms secretary—who fed him trivial (and mostly fake) gossip.

He was sure to get everything wrong, as he’d got everything wrong on his last big “exclusive,” Tiaragate. He was equally sure to cram his story into the paper as fast as possible, because he was likely working in concert with the Palace, whose courtiers were determined to get ahead of us and spin the story. We didn’t want that. We didn’t want anyone else breaking our news,
twisting
our news.

We’d have to rush out a statement.

I phoned Granny again, told her about
The Sun
, told her we might need to hurry out a statement. She understood. She’d allow it, so long as it didn’t “add to speculation.”

I didn’t tell her exactly what our statement would say. She didn’t ask. But also I didn’t fully know yet. I gave her the gist, however, and mentioned some of the basic details I’d outlined in the memo Pa had demanded and which she’d seen.

The wording needed to be precise. And it needed to be bland—calm. We didn’t want to assign any blame, didn’t want to stoke the fires. Mustn’t add to speculation.

Formidable writing challenge.

We soon realized it wasn’t possible; we didn’t have time to get our statement out there first.

We opened a bottle of wine. Proceed, sad little man, proceed.

He did.
The Sun
posted his story late that night, and again on the morning’s front page.

Headline: WE’RE ORF!

As expected, the story depicted our departure as a rollicking, carefree, hedonistic
tapping out
, rather than a careful retreat and attempt at
self-preservation. It also included the telling detail that we’d offered to relinquish our Sussex titles. There was only one document on earth in which that detail was mentioned—my private and confidential letter to my father.

To which a shockingly, damningly small number of people had access. We hadn’t mentioned it to even our closest friends.

January 7, we worked some more on the draft, did a brief public appearance, met with our staff. Finally, knowing more details were about to be leaked, on January 8 we hunkered down deep inside Buckingham Palace, in one of the main state rooms, with the two most senior members of our staff.

I’d always liked that state room. Its pale walls, its sparkly crystal chandelier. But now it struck me as especially lovely and I thought: Has it always been so? Has it always looked so…
royal
?

In a corner of the state room was a grand wooden desk. We used this as our workspace. We took turns sitting there, typing on a laptop. We tried out different phrases. We wanted to say that we were taking a reduced role, stepping back but not down. Hard to get the exact wording, the right tone. Serious, but respectful.

Occasionally one of us would stretch out in a nearby armchair, or give the eyes a rest by gazing out of the two huge windows onto the gardens. When I needed a longer break I set off on a trek across the oceanic carpet. On the far side of the room, in the left corner, a small door led to the Belgian Suite, where Meg and I had once spent the night. In the near corner stood two tall wooden doors, the kind people think of when they hear the word “palace.” These led to a room in which I’d attended countless cocktail parties. I thought back on those gatherings, on all the good times I’d had in this place.

I remembered: The room right next door was where the family always gathered for drinks before Christmas lunch.

I went out into the hall. There was a tall, beautiful Christmas tree, still brightly lit. I stood before it, reminiscing. I removed two ornaments, soft little corgis, and brought them back to the staffers. One each. Souvenir of this strange mission, I said.