Spare

But Meg seemed the shining exception to this rule. All rules. I knew her straightaway, and she knew me. The true me. Might seem rash, I thought, might seem illogical, but it’s true: For the first time, in fact, I felt myself to be living in truth.

10.

A frenzy of texting and FaceTiming. Though we were thousands of miles apart, we were never actually apart. I’d wake up to a text. Instantly reply. Then: text, text, text. Then, after lunch: FaceTime. Then, throughout the afternoon: text, text, text. Then, late at night, another marathon FaceTime.

And still it wasn’t enough. We were desperate to see each other again. We circled the last days of August, about ten days away, for our next meeting.

We agreed it would be best if she came to London.

On the big day, just after her arrival, she phoned as she was walking into her room at Soho House.

I’m here. Come see me!

I can’t, I’m in the car…

Doing what?

Something for my mum.

Your mum? Where?

Althorp.

What’s Althorp?

Where my uncle Charles lives.

I told her I’d explain later. We still hadn’t talked about…all that.

I felt pretty sure she hadn’t googled me, because she was always asking questions. She seemed to know almost nothing—so refreshing. It showed that she wasn’t impressed by royalty, which I thought the first step to surviving it. More, since she hadn’t done a deep dive into the literature, the public record, her head wasn’t filled with disinformation.

After Willy and I had laid flowers at Mummy’s grave, we drove together back to London. I phoned Meg, told her I was on my way. I tried to keep my voice nonchalant, not wanting to give myself away to Willy.

There’s a secret way into the hotel, she said. Then a freight lift.

Her friend Vanessa, who worked for Soho House, would meet me and usher me in.

All went according to plan. After I’d met the friend and navigated a sort of maze through the bowels of Soho House, I finally reached Meg’s door.

I knocked and suspended breathing while I waited.

The door flew open.

That smile.

Her hair was partly covering her eyes. Her arms were reaching for me. She pulled me inside and thanked her friend in one fluid motion, then slammed the door quickly before anyone saw.

I want to say we hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.

But I don’t think there was time.

11.

In the morning we needed sustenance. We phoned room service. When they knocked at the door, I looked around frantically for a place to hide.

The room had nothing. No cubbyhole or wardrobes, no armoire.

So I lay flat on the bed and pulled the duvet over my head. Meg whispered to go into the bathroom but I preferred my hiding place.

Alas, our breakfast wasn’t delivered by just any anonymous waiter. It was brought by a hotel assistant manager who loved Meg, and whom she loved, so he wanted to chat. He didn’t notice that there were two breakfasts on the tray. He didn’t notice the prince-shaped lump under the duvet. He talked and talked, and caught her up on all the latest, while I, in my duvet cave, started to run out of air.

Thank goodness for all that practice riding in the boot of Billy’s police car.

When the man finally left, I sat up, gasping.

Then we both gasped, we were laughing so hard.

We decided to have dinner that night at my place, invite some friends over. We’d cook. Fun, we said, but it would mean food shopping first. There was nothing in my fridge besides grapes and cottage pies.

We could go to Waitrose, I said.

Of course we couldn’t actually go to Waitrose together: that would cause a riot. So we drew up a plan to shop simultaneously, in parallel, and in disguise, without visibly acknowledging each other.

Meg got there minutes before me. She wore a flannel shirt, a bulky overcoat and a beanie, but I was still surprised that no one was recognizing her. Plenty of Brits watched Suits, surely, yet no one was staring. I’d have spotted her in a crowd of thousands.

Also, no one looked twice at her trolley, which was filled with her suitcases, and two large Soho House bags containing fluffy dressing-gowns she’d bought for us on checking out.

Equally anonymous, I grabbed a basket, walked casually up and down the aisles. Beside the fruit and veg I felt her stroll past me. Actually, it was more a saunter than a stroll. Very saucy. We slid our eyes towards each other, just an instant, then quickly away.

Meg had cut out a roasted-salmon recipe from Food & Wine and with that we’d made a list and divided it in two. She was in charge of finding a baking sheet, while I was tasked with finding parchment paper.

I texted her: What the F is parchment paper?

She talked me onto the target.

Above your head.

I spun around. She was a few feet away, peering from behind a display.

We both laughed.

I looked back to the shelf.