Spare

The Court Circular was an ancient document, but it had lately morphed into a circular firing squad. It didn’t create the feelings of competitiveness that ran in my family, but it amplified them, weaponized them. Though none of us ever spoke about the Court Circular directly, or mentioned it by name, that only created more tension under the surface, which built invisibly as the last day of the calendar year approached. Certain family members had become obsessed, feverishly striving to have the highest number of official engagements recorded in the Circular each year, no matter what, and they’d succeeded largely by including things that weren’t, strictly speaking, engagements, recording public interactions that were mere blips, the kinds of things Willy and I wouldn’t dream of including. Which was essentially why the Court Circular was a joke. It was all self-reported, all subjective. Nine private visits with veterans, helping with their mental health? Zero points. Flying via helicopter to cut a ribbon at a horse farm? Winner!

But the main reason the Court Circular was a joke, a scam, was that none of us was deciding in a vacuum how much work to do. Granny or Pa decided, by way of how much support (money) they allocated to our work. Money determined all. In the case of Willy and me, Pa was the sole decider. It was he alone who controlled our funds; we could only do what we could do with whatever resources and budget we got from him. To be publicly flogged for how much Pa permitted us to do—that felt grossly unfair. Rigged.

Maybe the stress around all this stuff stemmed from the overarching stress about the monarchy itself. The family was feeling the tremors of global change, hearing the cries of critics who said the monarchy was outdated, costly. The family tolerated, even leaned into, the nonsense of the Court Circular for the same reason it accepted the ravages and depredations of the press—fear. Fear of the public. Fear of the future. Fear of the day the nation would say: OK, shut it down. So, by the time Christmas Eve 2013 rolled around, I was actually quite content in my back corridor, in my micro room, looking at photos of the South Pole on my iPad.

Staring at my little test tube.

Cleanest Air in the World.

I took off the cork stopper, downed it in one.

Ah.

70.

I moved out of the badger sett, into Nottingham Cottage, a.k.a. Nott Cott. Willy and Kate had been living there, but they’d outgrown it. After moving into Princess Margaret’s old place, just across the way, they’d passed me their keys.

It felt good to be out of the badger sett. But even better to be just across the way from Willy and Kate. I looked forward to popping in all the time.

Look! It’s Uncle Harry!

Ello! Just thought I’d stop by.

Holding a bottle of wine and an armful of kiddie presents. Dropping to the floor and wrestling with little George.

Will you stay for supper, Harold?

Love to!

But it didn’t work out that way.

They were half a football pitch away, just beyond a stone courtyard, so close that I could see their nanny pass by all the time with the pram, and I could hear their elaborate renovations. I assumed they’d have me over any minute now. Any day.

But day after day it didn’t happen.

I get it, I thought. They’re busy! Building a family!

Or maybe…they don’t want a third wheel?

Maybe if I get married, things will be different?

They’d both mentioned, pointedly, repeatedly, how much they liked Cressida.

71.

March 2014. A concert at Wembley Arena. Walking onstage I suffered the typical panic attack. I made my way to the center, clenched my fists, spat out the speech. There were fourteen thousand young faces before me, gathered for We Day. Maybe I’d have been less nervous if I’d concentrated more on them, but I was having a proper Me Day, thinking about the last time I’d given a speech under this roof.

Tenth anniversary of Mummy’s death.

I’d been nervous then too. But not like this.

I hurried off. Wiping the shine from my face, and staggering up to my seat to join Cress.

She saw me and blanched. You OK?

Yeah, yeah.

But she knew.

We watched the other speakers. That is, she watched, I tried to catch my breath.

The next morning our photo was in all the papers and splashed online. Someone tipped off the royal correspondents to where we were sitting, and at long last we were outed. After nearly two years of secretly dating, we were revealed to be a couple.

Odd, we said, that it should be such big news. We’d been photographed before, skiing in Verbier. But these photos landed differently, maybe because this was the first time she’d joined me at a royal engagement.