Spare

No more occasional dinners with mates. No more house parties. No clubs. No nothing.

Every night I’d go straight home from work, eat over the sink, then catch up on paperwork, Friends on low in the background.

Pa’s chef would sometimes stock my freezer with chicken pies, cottage pies. I was grateful not to have to venture to the supermarket quite as much…though the pies sometimes put me in mind of the Gurkhas and their goat stew, mainly because they were so unspicy. I missed the Gurkhas, missed the Army. I missed the war.

After dinner I’d smoke a joint, trying to make sure the smoke didn’t waft into the garden of my neighbor, The Duke of Kent.

Then I’d turn in early.

Solitary life. Strange life. I felt lonely, but lonely was better than panicky. I was just beginning to discover a few healthy remedies to my panic, but until I felt surer of them, until I felt on more solid ground, I was leaning on this one decidedly unhealthy remedy.

Avoidance.

I was an agoraphobe.

Which was nearly impossible given my public role.

After one speech, which couldn’t be avoided or canceled, and during which I’d nearly fainted, Willy came up to me backstage. Laughing.

Harold! Look at you! You’re drenched.

I couldn’t fathom his reaction. Him of all people. He’d been present for my very first panic attack. With Kate. We were driving out to a polo match in Gloucestershire, in their Range Rover. I was in the back and Willy peered at me in the rearview. He saw me sweating, red-faced. You all right, Harold? No, I wasn’t. It was a trip of several hours and every few miles I wanted to ask him to pull over so I could jump out and try to catch my breath.

He knew something was up, something bad. He’d told me that day or soon after that I needed help. And now he was teasing me? I couldn’t imagine how he could be so insensitive.

But I was at fault too. Both of us should’ve known better, should’ve recognized my crumbling emotional and mental states for what they were, because we’d just started to discuss the launching of a public campaign to raise awareness around mental health.

82.

I went to East London, to Mildmay Mission Hospital, to commemorate its 150th anniversary and recent renovations. My mother once paid the place a famous visit. She held the hand of a man who was HIV-positive, and thereby changed the world. She proved that HIV wasn’t leprosy, that it wasn’t a curse. She proved that the disease didn’t disqualify people from love or dignity. She reminded the world that respect and compassion aren’t gifts, they’re the least we owe each other.

I learned that her famous visit had actually been one of many. A Mildmay worker pulled me aside, told me that Mummy would slip in and out of the hospital all the time. No fanfare, no photos. She’d just drop in, make a few people feel better, then run home.

Another woman told me she’d been a patient during one of those pop-ins. Born HIV-positive, this woman remembered sitting on Mummy’s lap. She was only two at the time, but she remembered.

I cuddled her. Your mum. I did.

My face flushed. I felt such envy.

Did you?

I did, I did, and oh, it was so nice. She gave a great cuddle!

Yes, I remember.

But I didn’t.

No matter how I tried, I barely remembered a thing.

83.

I visited Botswana, spent a few days with Teej and Mike. I felt a craving for them, a physical need to go on a wander with Mike, to sit once more with my head in Teej’s lap, talking and feeling safe.

Feeling home.

The very end of 2015.

I took them into my confidence, told them about my battles with anxiety. We were by the campfire, where such things were always best discussed. I told them I’d just recently found a few things that were sort of working.

So…there was hope.

For instance, therapy. I’d followed through on Willy’s suggestion, and while I hadn’t found a therapist I liked, simply speaking to a few had opened my mind to possibilities.

Also, one therapist said off-handedly that I was clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress, and that rang a bell. It got me moving, I thought, in the right direction.

Another thing that seemed to work was meditation. It quietened my racing mind, brought a degree of calm. I wasn’t one to pray, Nature was still my God, but in my worst moments I’d shut my eyes and be still. Sometimes I’d also ask for help, though I was never sure whom I was asking.

Now and then I felt the presence of an answer.