Spare

And then our time was up. Pa and Camilla had another engagement. Royal life. Heavily regimented, overscheduled, so forth.

I made a note to explain all this later to Meg.

We all stood. Meg leaned towards Pa. I flinched; like Willy, Pa wasn’t a hugger. Thankfully, she gave him a standard British cheek-to-cheek, which he actually seemed to enjoy.

I walked Meg out of Clarence House, into those lush, fragrant gardens, feeling exultant.

Well, that’s that then, I thought. Welcome to the family.

18.

I flew to Toronto. End of October 2016. Meg was excited to show me her life, her dogs—her little house, which she adored. And I was eager to see it all, to know every last detail about her. (Though I’d snuck into Canada once before, briefly, this would be my first proper visit.) We walked the dogs in big, open ravines and parks. We explored the sparsely populated nooks and crannies of her neighborhood. Toronto wasn’t London, but it also wasn’t Botswana. So, be ever cautious, we said. Maintain the bubble. Keep wearing disguises.

Speaking of disguises. We invited Euge and Jack to join us for Halloween. And Meg’s best friend Markus. Toronto’s Soho House was having a big party and the theme was “Apocalypse.” Dress accordingly.

I mumbled to Meg that I’d not had great luck with themed fancy-dress parties, but I’d give it another go. For help with my costume, I’d turned to a friend, the actor Tom Hardy, before I left home. I’d phoned him to ask if I could borrow his costume from Mad Max.

The whole thing?

Yes, please, mate! The whole kit.

He’d given it all to me before I left Britain, and now I tried it on in Meg’s little bathroom. When I came out, she roared with laughter.

It was funny. And a little scary. But the main thing was: I was unrecognizable.

Meg, meanwhile, wore torn black shorts, a camo top, fishnet stockings. If that’s the Apocalypse, I thought, bring on the end of the world.

The party was loud, dark, drunk—ideal. Several people did double-takes as Meg passed through the rooms, but no one looked twice at her dystopian date. I wished I could wear this disguise every day. I wished I could reuse it the next day and visit her on the set of Suits.

Then again, maybe not. I’d made the mistake of googling and watching some of her love scenes online. I’d witnessed her and a castmate mauling each other in some sort of office or conference room…It would take electric-shock therapy to get those images out of my head. I didn’t need to see such things live. Still, the point was moot: the next day was Sunday, so she wasn’t working.

And then everything was rendered moot, everything was changed forever, because the next day was when news of our relationship broke wide open.

Well, we said, staring anxiously at our phones, it was going to happen eventually.

In fact, we’d had a heads-up that it was likely to happen that day. We’d been tipped, before heading off to the Halloween Apocalypse, that another apocalypse might be coming. More proof that the universe had a wicked sense of humor.

Meg, you ready for what’s headed our way?

Kinda. Are you?

Yes.

We were sitting on her sofa, moments before I left for the airport.

Are you scared?

Yes. No. Maybe.

We’re going to be hunted. No two ways about it.

I’ll just treat it as if we’re in the bush.

She reminded me of what I’d said in Botswana, when the lions were roaring.

Trust me. I’ll keep you safe.

She’d believed me then, she said. She believed me now.

By the time I touched down at Heathrow, the story had…fizzled?

It was all unconfirmed, and there were no photos, so there was nothing to fuel it.

A moment’s reprieve? Maybe, I thought, all will be well.

Nah. Calm before the shit storm.

19.

In those first hours and days of November 2016 there was a new low every few minutes. I was shocked, and scolded myself for being shocked. And for being unprepared. I’d been braced for the usual madness, the standard libels, but I hadn’t anticipated this level of unrestrained lying.

Above all, I hadn’t been ready for the racism. Both the dog-whistle racism and the glaring, vulgar, in-your-face racism.

The Daily Mail took the lead. Its headline: Harry’s girl is (almost) straight outta Compton. Subhead: Gang-scarred home of her mother revealed—so will he be dropping in for tea?

Another tabloid jumped into the fray with this jaw-dropper: Harry to marry into gangster royalty?

My face froze. My blood stopped. I was angry, but more: ashamed. My Mother Country? Doing this? To her? To us? Really?