Spare

All my life I’d told people I couldn’t remember the past, couldn’t remember my mum, but I never gave anyone the full picture. My memory was dead. Now, through months of therapy, my memory twitched, kicked, sputtered.

It came to life.

Some days I’d open my eyes to find Mummy…standing before me.

A thousand images returned, some so bright and vivid that they were like holograms.

I remembered mornings in Mummy’s apartment at Kensington Palace, the nanny waking Willy and me, helping us down to Mummy’s bedroom. I remembered that she had a waterbed, and Willy and I would jump up and down on the mattress, screaming, laughing, our hair standing straight up. I remembered the breakfasts together, Mummy loving grapefruit and lychees, seldom drinking coffee or tea. I remembered that after breakfast we’d embark on the working day with her, sitting by her side during her first phone calls, auditing her business meetings.

I remembered Willy and me joining her for a chat with Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer, and Cindy Crawford. Very confusing. Especially for two shy boys, at or about the age of puberty.

I remembered bedtimes in Kensington Palace, saying goodnight at the foot of the stairs, kissing her soft neck, inhaling her perfume, then lying in bed, in the dark, feeling so far away, so alone, and longing to hear her voice just one more time. I remembered my bedroom being the farthest from hers, and in the dark, in the terrible silence, being unable to relax, unable to let go.

The therapist urged me to press on. We’re breaking through, she said. Let’s not stop. I brought to her office a bottle of Mummy’s favorite perfume. (I’d reached out to Mummy’s sister, asked for the name.) First, by Van Cleef & Arpels. At the start of our session I lifted the lid, took a deep sniff.

Like a tab of LSD.

I read somewhere that smell is our oldest sense, and that fitted with what I experienced in that moment, images rising from what felt like the most primal part of my brain.

I remembered one day at Ludgrove, Mummy stuffing sweets into my sock. Outside sweets were forbidden, so Mummy was flouting school rules, giggling as she did so, which made me love her even more. I remembered both of us laughing as we buried the sweets deep in the sock, and me squealing: Oh, Mummy, you’re so naughty! I remembered the brand of those sweets. Opal Fruits!

Hard squares of bright colors…not unlike these resurrected memories.

No wonder I was so keen on Grub Days.

And Opal Fruits.

I remembered going to tennis lessons in the car, Mummy driving, Willy and me in the back. Without warning she trod on the accelerator and we went rocketing ahead, up narrow streets, blasting through red lights, whipping around corners. Willy and I were strapped into our seats, so we couldn’t look out of the back window, but we had a sense of what was chasing us. Paps on motorbikes and mopeds. Are they going to kill us, Mummy? Are we going to die? Mummy, wearing big sunglasses, peering into the mirrors. After fifteen minutes and several near smashes Mummy slammed on the brakes, pulled over, jumped out and walked towards the paps: Leave us alone! For God’s sake, I’m with my children, can’t you leave us alone? Trembling, pink-cheeked, she got back into the car, slammed the door, rolled up the windows, leaned her head on the steering wheel and wept while the paps kept clicking and clicking. I remembered the tears falling from her big sunglasses and I remembered Willy looking frozen, like a statue, and I remembered the paps just firing and firing and firing, and I remembered feeling such hatred for them and such deep and eternal love for everyone in that car.

I remembered being on holiday, Necker Island, all three of us sitting in a cliffside hut, and here came a boat with a gang of photographers, looking for us. We’d been playing with water balloons that day and we had a bunch of them lying about. Mummy quickly rigged up a catapult and divided the balloons among us. On the count of three we began raining them down on the heads of the photographers. The sound of her laughter that day, lost to me all these years, was back—it was back. Loud and clear as the traffic outside the therapist’s windows.

I cried with joy to hear it.

29.

The Sun ran a correction for their porn story. In a tiny box, on page two, where no one would see it.

What did it matter? The damage had been done.

Plus it cost Meg tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

I rang Pa yet again.

Don’t read it, darling—

I cut him off. I wasn’t about to hear that nonsense again.

Also, I wasn’t a boy anymore.