Spare

The next time we got papped was a few weeks later, leaving dinner with Doria, who’d flown in with Meg. The paps got us, but missed Doria, happily. She’d turned to go to her hotel, we’d turned with my bodyguards to go to our car. The paps never saw her.

I’d been quite nervous about that dinner. It’s always nerve-racking to meet a girlfriend’s mother, but especially when you’re currently making her daughter’s life hell. The Sun had just recently run a front-page headline: Harry’s girl on Pornhub. The story showed images of Meg, from Suits, which some perverts had posted on some porn site. The Sun didn’t say, of course, that the images were used illegally, that Meg knew nothing about them, that Meg had had as much to do with porn as Granny had. It was just a trick, a way to bait readers into buying the paper or clicking on the story. Once the reader discovered there was nothing there, too late! Ad money was in the purse of The Sun.

We’d fought it, filed a formal complaint, but thankfully the subject didn’t come up that night over dinner. We had happier things to discuss. Meg had just done a trip to India with World Vision, working on menstrual health management and education access for young girls, after which she’d taken Doria on a yoga retreat in Goa—a belated celebration of Doria’s sixtieth birthday. We were celebrating Doria, celebrating being together, and doing it all at our favorite place, Soho House at 76 Dean Street. On the subject of India: we laughed about the advice I’d given Meg before she’d left: Do not take a photo in front of the Taj Mahal. She’d asked why and I’d said: My mum.

I’d explained that my mother had posed for a photo there, and it had become iconic, and I didn’t want anyone thinking Meg was trying to mimic my mother. Meg had never heard of this photo, and found the whole thing baffling, and I loved her for being baffled.

That dinner with Doria was wonderful, but I look back on it now as the end of the beginning. The next day, the pap photos appeared, and there was a new flood of stories, a new surge along the many channels of social media. Racism, misogyny, criminal stupidity—it all increased.

Not knowing where else to turn, I phoned Pa.

Don’t read it, darling boy.

It’s not that simple, I said angrily. I might lose this woman. She might either decide I’m not worth the bother, or the press might so poison the public that some idiot might do something bad, harm her in some way.

It was already happening in slow motion. Death threats. Her workplace on lockdown because someone, reacting to what they’d read, had made a credible threat. She’s isolated, I said, and afraid, she hasn’t raised the blinds in her house for months—and you’re telling me not to read it?

He said I was overreacting. This is sadly just the way it is.

I appealed to his self-interest. Doing nothing was a terrible look for the monarchy. People out there have strong feelings about what’s happening to her, Pa. They take it personally, you need to understand that.

He was unmoved.

25.

The address was half an hour from Nott Cott. Just a quick drive across the Thames, past the park…but it felt like one of my polar journeys.

Heart pounding, I took a deep breath, knocked at the door.

The woman opened it, welcomed me. She led me down a short corridor to her office.

First door on the left.

Small room. Windows with venetian blinds. Right on the busy street. You could hear cars, shoes clicking on the pavement. People talking, laughing.

She was fifteen years older than me, but youthful. She reminded me of Tiggy. It was shocking, really. Such a similar vibe.

She pointed me to a dark green sofa and took a chair across the room. The day was autumnal, yet I was sweating profusely. I apologized. I overheat easily. Also, I’m a bit nervous.

Say no more.

She jumped up, ran out. Moments later she returned with a little fan, which she aimed at me.

Ah, lovely. Thank you.

She waited for me to begin. But I didn’t know where to begin. So I began with my mum. I said I was afraid of losing her.

She gave me a long, searching look.

She knew, of course, that I’d already lost my mum. How surreal, to meet a therapist who already knows part of your life story, who’s possibly spent beach holidays reading whole books about you.