Spare

To be fair, he tried. Evenings, I’d shout downstairs: Going to bed, Pa! He’d always shout back cheerfully: I’ll be there shortly, darling boy! True to his word, minutes later he’d be sitting on the edge of my bed. He never forgot that I didn’t like the dark, so he’d gently tickle my face until I fell asleep. I have the fondest memories of his hands on my cheeks, my forehead, then waking to find him gone, magically, the door always considerately left open a crack.

Other than those fleeting moments, however, Pa and I mostly coexisted. He had trouble communicating, trouble listening, trouble being intimate face-to-face. On occasion, after a long multi-course dinner, I’d walk upstairs and find a letter on my pillow. The letter would say how proud he was of me for something I’d done or accomplished. I’d smile, place it under my pillow, but also wonder why he hadn’t said this moments ago, while seated directly across from me.

Thus the prospect of days and days of unrestricted Pa time was exhilarating.

Then came the reality. This was a work trip for Pa. And for me. The Spice Girls concert represented my first public appearance since the funeral, and I knew, through intuition, through bits of overheard conversations, that the public’s curiosity about my welfare was running high. I didn’t want to let them down, but I also wanted them all to go away. I remember stepping onto the red carpet, screwing a smile onto my face, suddenly wishing I was in my bed at St. James’s Palace.

Beside me was Baby Spice, wearing white plastic shoes with chunky twelve-inch platform heels. I fixated on those heels while she fixated on my cheeks. She kept pinching them. So chubby! So cute! Then Posh Spice surged forward and clutched my hand. Farther down the line I spied Ginger Spice, the only Spice with whom I felt any connection—a fellow ginger. Also, she was world-famous for recently wearing a minidress made of the Union Jack. Why’s there a Union Jack on the coffin? She and the other Spices were cooing at me, saying things I didn’t understand, while bantering with the journalists, who were shouting at me. Harry, over here, Harry, Harry, how are you doing, Harry? Questions that weren’t questions. Questions that were traps. Questions that were flung at my head like cleavers. The journalists didn’t give a toss how I was doing, they were trying to get me to say something messy, newsy.

I gazed into their flashes, bared my teeth, said nothing.

If I was intimidated by the flashes, the Spice Girls were intoxicated. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, that was their attitude every time another flash went off. Fine by me. The more out-front they were, the more I could fade into the woodwork. I remember they talked to the press about their music and their mission. I didn’t know they had a mission, but one Spice compared the group’s crusade against sexism to Mandela’s struggle against apartheid.

At last someone said it was time for the concert to begin. Off you go. Follow your father.

Concert? Pa?

Impossible to believe. Even more impossible while it was actually happening. But I saw it with my own eyes, Pa gamely nodding to the beat and tapping his foot:

If you want my future, forget my past
If you wanna get with me, better make it fast

After, on the way out, there were more flashes. This time the Spice Girls weren’t there to deflect attention. It was just Pa and me.

I reached for him, grabbed his hand—hung on.

I recall, bright as the flashes: Loving him.

Needing him.

11.

The next morning Pa and I went to a beautiful lodge on a snaky river. KwaZulu-Natal. I knew about this place, where Redcoats and Zulu warriors clashed in the summer of 1879. I’d heard all the stories, legends, and I’d seen the movie Zulu countless times. But now I was going to become a bona fide expert, Pa said. He’d arranged for us to sit on camp chairs before a log fire and listen to a world-famous historian, David Rattray, re-create the battle.

It might’ve been the first lecture to which I ever really paid attention.

The men who fought on this ground, Mr. Rattray said, were heroes. On both sides—heroes. The Zulus were ferocious, utter wizards with a short spear known as the iklwa, which was named for the sucking sound it made when pulled from a victim’s chest. And yet a mere 150 British soldiers on hand managed to hold off four thousand Zulus, and that improbable stand, called Rorke’s Drift, instantly became part of British mythology. Eleven soldiers were awarded the Victoria Cross, the greatest number ever won in one battle by a single regiment. Another two soldiers, who held off the Zulus one day before Rorke’s Drift, became the first to win the Victoria Cross posthumously.

Posthumously, Pa?

Er, yes.