Spare

What are you talking about?

Kate mentioned a phone call in which they’d discussed the timing of wedding rehearsals.

Meg said: Oh, yes! I remember: You couldn’t remember something, and I said it’s not a big deal, it’s baby brain. Because you’d just had a baby. It’s hormones.

Kate’s eyes widened: Yes. You talked about my hormones. We’re not close enough for you to talk about my hormones!

Meg’s eyes got wide too. She looked genuinely confused. I’m sorry I talked about your hormones. That’s just how I talk with my girlfriends.

Willy pointed at Meg. It’s rude, Meghan. It’s not what’s done here in Britain.

Kindly take your finger out of my face.

Was this really happening? Had it actually come to this? Shouting at each other about place cards and hormones?

Meg said she’d never intentionally do anything to hurt Kate, and if she ever did, she asked Kate to please just let her know so it wouldn’t happen again.

We all hugged. Kind of.

And then I said we’d better be going.

51.

Our staff sensed the friction, read the press, and thus there was frequent bickering around the office. Sides were taken. Team Cambridge versus Team Sussex. Rivalry, jealousy, competing agendas—it all poisoned the atmosphere.

It didn’t help that everyone was working around the clock. There were so many demands from the press, such a constant stream of errors that needed clearing up, and we didn’t have nearly enough people or resources. At best we were able to address 10 percent of what was out there. Nerves were shattering, people were sniping. In such a climate there was no such thing as constructive criticism. All feedback was seen as an affront, an insult.

More than once a staff member slumped across their desk and wept.

For all this, every bit of it, Willy blamed one person. Meg. He told me so several times, and he got cross when I told him he was out of line. He was just repeating the press narrative, spouting fake stories he’d read or been told. The great irony, I told him, was that the real villains were the people he’d imported into the office, people from government, who didn’t seem impervious to this kind of strife—but addicted to it. They had a knack for backstabbing, a talent for intrigue, and they were constantly setting our two groups of staff against each other.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all this, Meg managed to remain calm. Despite what certain people were saying about her, I never heard her speak a bad word about anybody, or to anybody. On the contrary, I watched her redouble her efforts to reach out, to spread kindness. She sent out handwritten thank-you notes, checked on staff who were ill, sent baskets of food or flowers or goodies to anyone struggling, depressed, off sick. The office was often dark and cold, so she warmed it up with new lamps and space heaters, all bought with her personal credit card. She brought pizza and biscuits, hosted tea parties and ice-cream socials. She shared all the freebies she received, clothes and perfumes and makeup, with all the women in the office.

I stood back in awe at her ability, or determination, to always see the good in people. The size of her heart was really brought home for me one day. I learned that Mr. R, my former upstairs neighbor when I was in the badger sett, had suffered a tragedy. His adult son had died.

Meg didn’t know Mr. R. Neither did she know the son. But she knew the family had been my neighbors, and she’d often seen them walking their dogs. So she felt tremendous sorrow for them, and wrote the father a letter, expressing condolences, telling him she wanted to give him a hug but didn’t know if it would be appropriate. With the letter she included a gardenia, to plant in the son’s memory.

A week later Mr. R appeared at our front door at Nott Cott. He handed Meg a thank-you note and gave her a tight hug.

I felt so proud of her, so regretful about my feud with Mr. R.

More, I felt regretful about my family feuding with my wife.

52.

We didn’t want to wait. We both wanted to start a family straightaway. We were working crazy hours, our jobs were demanding, the timing wasn’t ideal, but too bad. This had always been our main priority.

We worried about the stress of our daily lives, that it might prevent us getting pregnant. The toll was starting to be visible on Meg; she’d lost a great deal of weight in the last year, despite all the shepherd’s pie. I’m eating more than ever, she reported—yet her weight kept dropping.