Spare

Over four days that summer of 2002, Willy and I were constantly pulling on another set of smart clothes, jumping into another black car, rushing to yet another venue for another party or parade, reception or gala.

Britain was intoxicated. People did jigs in the streets, sang from balconies and rooftops. Everyone wore some version of the Union Jack. In a nation known for its reticence, this was a startling expression of unbridled joy.

Startling to me anyway. Granny didn’t seem startled. I was startled at how unstartled she was. It wasn’t that she felt no emotions. On the contrary, I always thought that Granny experienced all the normal human emotions. She just knew better than the rest of us mortals how to control them.

I stood beside or behind her through much of the Golden Jubilee Weekend and I often thought: If this can’t shake her then she’s truly earned her reputation for imperturbable serenity. In which case, I thought, maybe I’m a foundling? Because I’m a nervous wreck.

There were several reasons for my nerves, but the main one was a brewing scandal. Just before the Jubilee I’d been summoned by one of the courtiers to his little office and without much buildup he’d asked: Harry—are you doing cocaine?

Shades of my lunch with Marko.

What? Am I—? How could—? No!

Hm. Well. Could there be a photo out there? Is it possible that someone somewhere might have a photo of you doing cocaine?

God, no! That’s ridiculous! Why?

He explained that he’d been approached by a newspaper editor who claimed to have come into possession of a photo showing Prince Harry snorting a line.

He’s a liar. It’s not true.

I see. Be that as it may, this editor is willing to lock the photo into his safe forever. But in exchange he wants to sit down with you and explain that what you’re doing is very damaging. He wants to give you some life advice.

Ah. Creepy. And devious. Diabolical, in fact, because if I agree to this meeting, then I’m admitting guilt.

Right.

I told myself: After Rehabber Kooks, they all want a go at me. She’d scored a direct hit, and now her competitors are lining up to be next.

When will it end?

I reassured myself that the editor had nothing, that he was just fishing. He must’ve heard a rumor and he was tracking it down. Stay the course, I told myself, and then I told the courtier to call the journalist’s bluff, vigorously refute the claim, turn down the deal. Above all, reject the proffered meeting.

I’m not going to submit to blackmail.

The courtier nodded. Done.

Of course…I had been doing cocaine around this time. At someone’s country house, during a shooting weekend, I’d been offered a line, and I’d done a few more since. It wasn’t much fun, and it didn’t make me particularly happy, as it seemed to make everyone around me, but it did make me feel different, and that was the main goal. Feel. Different. I was a deeply unhappy seventeen-year-old boy willing to try almost anything that would alter the status quo.

That was what I told myself anyway. Back then, I could lie to myself as effortlessly as I’d lied to that courtier.

But now I realized coke hadn’t been worth the candle. The risk far outweighed the reward. Threatened with exposure, faced with the prospect of fouling up Granny’s Golden Jubilee, walking a knife’s edge with the mad press—nothing was worth any of that.

On the bright side, I’d played the game well. After I’d called the journalist’s bluff, he went silent. As suspected, he had no photo, and when his con game didn’t work, he slithered off. (Or not quite. He slithered into Clarence House, and became very good friends with Camilla and Pa.) I was ashamed for lying. But also proud. In a tight spot, a hugely scary crisis, I hadn’t felt any serenity, like Granny, but at least I’d managed to project it. I’d channeled some of her superpower, her heroic stoicism. I regretted giving the courtier a cock-and-bull story, but the alternative would’ve been ten times worse.

So…job well done?

Maybe I wasn’t a foundling after all.

37.