Spare

He didn’t gloss over the facts. Darling boy, how could you be so foolish? My cheeks burned. I know, I know. But he quickly went on to say that it was the foolishness of youth, that he remembered being publicly vilified for youthful sins, and it wasn’t fair, because youth is the time when you’re, by definition, unfinished. You’re still growing, still becoming, still learning, he said. He didn’t specifically cite any of his youthful humiliations, but I knew. His most intimate conversations had been leaked, his most ill-conceived remarks had been trumpeted. Past girlfriends had been interrogated, their rating of his lovemaking spread across tabloids, even books. He knew all about humiliation.

He promised that the fury about this would blow over, the shame would fade. I loved him for that promise, even though—or maybe because—I knew it to be false. The shame would never fade. Nor should it.

Day after day the scandal grew. I was excoriated in newspapers, on radio, on TV. Members of Parliament called for my head on a spike. One said I should be barred from entering Sandhurst.

The blowing-over, therefore, according to Pa’s staff, would need some help. I’d need to make some sort of public atonement.

Fine by me, I said. Sooner the better.

So Pa sent me to a holy man.

51.

Bearded, bespectacled, with a deeply lined face and dark, wise eyes, he was Chief Rabbi of Britain, that much I’d been told. But right away I could see he was much more. An eminent scholar, a religious philosopher, a prolific writer with more than two dozen books to his name, he’d spent many of his days staring out of windows and thinking about the root causes of sorrow, of evil, of hate.

He offered me a cup of tea, then dived straight in. He didn’t mince words. He condemned my actions. He wasn’t unkind, but it had to be done. There was no way round it. He also placed my stupidity in historical context. He spoke about the six million, the annihilated. Jews, Poles, dissenters, intellectuals, homosexuals. Children, babies, old people, turned to ash and smoke.

A few short decades ago.

I’d arrived at his house feeling shame. I now felt something else, a bottomless self-loathing.

But that wasn’t the rabbi’s aim. That certainly wasn’t how he wanted me to leave him. He urged me not to be devastated by my mistake, but instead to be motivated. He spoke to me with the quality one often encounters in truly wise people—forgiveness. He assured me that people do stupid things, say stupid things, but it doesn’t need to be their intrinsic nature. I was showing my true nature, he said, by seeking to atone. Seeking absolution.

To the extent that he was able, and qualified, he absolved me. He gave me grace. He told me to lift my head, go forth, use this experience to make the world better. To become a teacher of this event. Henners, I thought, would’ve liked the sound of that. Henners with his love of teaching.

No matter what I did, the calls grew louder for me to be barred from the Army. The top brass, however, were holding fast. If Prince Harry had been in the Army when he dolled himself up as the Führer, they said, he’d have been disciplined.

But he’s not in the Army yet, they added.

So he’s perfectly free to be a thicko.

52.

He was to be our new private secretary: Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton was his name. But I don’t remember Willy and me referring to him as anything other than JLP.

We should’ve just called him Marko II. Or maybe Marko 2.0. He was meant to be Marko’s replacement, but also a more official, more detailed, more permanent version of our dear friend.

All the things Marko had been doing informally, the minding and guiding and advising, JLP would now do formally, we were told. In fact it was Marko who’d found JLP, and recommended him to Pa, and then trained him. So we already trusted the man, right from the start. He came with that all-important seal of approval. Marko said he was a good man.

Deeply calm, slightly stiff, JLP wore shiny gold cufflinks and a gold signet ring, symbols of his probity, constancy, and stalwart belief in a certain kind of steadfast style. You always got the sense that, even on the morning of Armageddon, JLP would button in these amulets before leaving the house.

Despite his spit and polish, however, his enameled exterior, JLP was a force, the product of Britain’s finest military training, which meant, among other things, that he didn’t deal in bullshit. He didn’t give it, didn’t take it, and everyone, far and wide, seemed to know. When British officials decided to launch a massive offensive against a Colombian drug cartel, they chose JLP to lead it. When the actor Ewan McGregor decided to take a three-month motorbike trip through Mongolia and Siberia and Ukraine, for which he’d require survival training, he turned to JLP.