Spare

And so, heart full of fear, mouth full of dust, I turned to the calendar. With Elf’s help I circled a weekend in late October. A family shooting trip at Sandringham. Shooting trips always put Granny in a good mood.

Perhaps she’d be more open to thoughts of love?

33.

Cloudy, blustery day. I jumped into the venerable old Land Rover, the ancient Army ambulance that Grandpa had repurposed. Pa was behind the wheel, Willy was in the back. I got into the passenger seat and wondered if I should tell them both what I was intending.

I decided against it. Pa already knew, I assumed, and Willy had already warned me not to do it.

It’s too fast, he’d told me. Too soon.

In fact, he’d actually been pretty discouraging about my even dating Meg. One day, sitting together in his garden, he’d predicted a host of difficulties I could expect if I hooked up with an “American actress,” a phrase he always managed to make sound like “convicted felon.”

Are you sure about her, Harold?

I am, Willy.

But do you know how difficult it’s going to be?

What do you want me to do? Fall out of love with her?

The three of us were wearing flat caps, green jackets, plus fours, as if we played for the same sports team. (In a way, I suppose, we did.) Pa, driving us out into the fields, asked about Meg. Not with great interest, just casually. Still, he didn’t always ask, so I was pleased.

She’s good, thanks.

Does she want to carry on working?

Say again?

Does she want to keep on acting?

Oh. I mean, I don’t know, I wouldn’t think so. I expect she’ll want to be with me, doing the job, you know, which would rule out Suits…since they film in…Toronto.

Hmm. I see. Well, darling boy, you know there’s not enough money to go around.

I stared. What was he banging on about?

He explained. Or tried to. I can’t pay for anyone else. I’m already having to pay for your brother and Catherine.

I flinched. Something about his use of the name Catherine. I remembered the time he and Camilla wanted Kate to change the spelling of her name, because there were already two royal cyphers with a C and a crown above: Charles and Camilla. It would be too confusing to have another. Make it Katherine with a K, they suggested.

I wondered now what came of that suggestion.

I turned to Willy, gave him a look that said: You listening to this?

His face was blank.

Pa didn’t financially support Willy and me, and our families, out of any largesse. That was his job. That was the whole deal. We agreed to serve the monarch, go wherever we were sent, do whatever we were told, surrender our autonomy, keep our hands and feet inside the gilded cage at all times, and in exchange the keepers of the cage agreed to feed and clothe us. Was Pa, with all his millions from the hugely lucrative Duchy of Cornwall, trying to say that our captivity was starting to cost him a bit too much?

Besides which—how much could it possibly cost to house and feed Meg? I wanted to say, She doesn’t eat much, you know! And I’ll ask her to make her own clothes, if you like.

It was suddenly clear to me that this wasn’t about money. Pa might have dreaded the rising cost of maintaining us, but what he really couldn’t stomach was someone new dominating the monarchy, grabbing the limelight, someone shiny and new coming in and overshadowing him. And Camilla. He’d lived through that before, and had no interest in living through it again.

I couldn’t deal with any of that right now. I had no time for petty jealousies and Palace intrigue. I was still trying to work out exactly what to say to Granny, and the time had come.

The Land Rover stopped. We piled out and lined up along the hedge being placed by Pa. We waited for the birds to appear. The wind was blowing, and my mind was all over the place, but as the first drive began I found that I was shooting well. I got into the zone. Maybe it was a relief to think about something else. Maybe I preferred focusing on the next shot, rather than the Big Shot I was planning to take. I just kept swinging that barrel, squeezing that trigger, hitting every target.

We broke for lunch. I tried, repeatedly, but wasn’t able to get Granny by herself. Everyone was surrounding her, talking her ear off. So I tucked into the meal, biding my time.

A classic royal shooting luncheon. Cold feet warming by the fires, toasty potatoes, juicy meat, creamy soups, staff overseeing every detail. Then perfect puds. Then a little tea, a drink or two. Then back to the birds.