Spare

You should see them in the spring. Pa designed them himself.

I added: In honor of Gan-Gan, you know. She lived here before him.

I’d mentioned Gan-Gan to Meg. I’d also mentioned that I used to live here at Clarence House, from when I was nineteen until I was about twenty-eight. After I moved out, Camilla turned my bedroom into her dressing room. I tried not to care. But, especially the first time I saw it, I cared.

We paused at the front door. Five o’clock, on the dot. Wouldn’t do to be late.

Meg looked beautiful and I told her so. She was wearing a black-and-white dress, with a full skirt, patterned with flowers, and when I put my hand on her back I could feel how delicate the material was. Her hair was down, because I suggested she wear it that way. Pa likes it when women wear their hair down. Granny too. She often commented on “Kate’s beautiful mane.”

Meg was wearing little makeup, which I’d also suggested. Pa didn’t approve of women who wore a lot.

The door opened and we were greeted by Pa’s Gurkha butler. And by Leslie, his long-time house manager, who’d also worked for Gan-Gan. They led us down the long corridor, past the big paintings and gilt-edged mirrors, along the crimson carpet with the crimson runner, past the big glass cabinet filled with gleaming porcelain and exquisite heirlooms, up the creaky staircase, which rose three steps before jogging right, up another twelve steps, then jogged right again. There, at last, on the landing above us, stood Pa.

Beside him stood Camilla.

Meg and I had rehearsed this moment several times. For Pa, curtsy. Say, Your Royal Highness, or Sir. Maybe a kiss on each cheek if he leans in, otherwise a handshake. For Camilla, no curtsy. Not necessary. Just a quick kiss or handshake.

No curtsy? You sure?

I didn’t think it appropriate.

We all went into a large sitting room. Along the way Pa asked Meg if it was true, as he’d been told, that she was the star of an American soap opera! She smiled. I smiled. I desperately wanted to say: Soap opera? No, that’s our family, Pa.

Meg said she was in a cable drama that aired in the evening. About lawyers. Called Suits.

Marvelous, Pa said. How splendid.

We came to a round table laid with a white cloth. Beside it stood a trolley with tea: honey cake, flapjacks, sandwiches, warm crumpets, crackers with some creamy spread, shredded basil—Pa’s favorite. All surgically laid out. Pa sat with his back to an open window, as far as possible from the popping fire. Camilla sat across from him, her back to the fire. Meg and I sat between them, across from one another.

I wolfed down a crumpet with Marmite; Meg had two smoked-salmon tea sandwiches. We were starving. We’d been so nervous all day that we hadn’t eaten.

Pa offered her some flapjacks. She loved them.

Camilla asked how Meg took her tea, dark or light, and Meg apologized for not knowing. I thought tea was tea. This sparked a rollicking discussion about tea, and wine, and other libations, and Britishisms versus Americanisms, and then we were onto the larger subject of Things We All Like, which led straight to dogs. Meg talked about her two “fur babies,” Bogart and Guy, both of whom were rescues. Guy had a particularly sad story. Meg found him at a Kentucky kill shelter after someone abandoned him in deep woods, without food or water. Beagles, she explained, were put down in Kentucky more than in any other state, and when she saw Guy on the shelter’s website she fell in love.

I watched Camilla’s face darken. She was the patron of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, so these kinds of stories always hit her hard. Pa too. He couldn’t bear to think of any animal suffering. He was undoubtedly reminded of the time his beloved dog, Pooh, got lost on the grouse moor in Scotland—probably down a rabbit hole—never to be seen again.

The conversation was easy, all four of us talking at once, but then Pa and Meg fell into a quiet chat, and I turned to Camilla, who seemed keener on eavesdropping than talking to her stepson but, alas, she was stuck with me.

Soon, we all switched. How weird, I thought, that we’re just instinctively observing the same protocol as we would at a state dinner with Granny.

Eventually the conversation broadened again to include everyone. We talked about acting and the arts generally. What a struggle it could be to make your way in such a trade, Pa said. He had a lot of questions about Meg’s career, and he looked impressed by the way she answered. Her confidence, her intelligence, I thought, caught him unawares.