Spare

The Tweedles couldn’t fathom this. They were children, incapable of understanding anything nuanced. In their simplified cosmology: You’re royal. So. This is the price you pay for living in a castle.

Sometimes I wondered how it might go if I could just talk to them, calmly, explain that I didn’t live in a castle, my grandmother lived in a castle, that in fact Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber both had far grander lifestyles than mine. Billy had done a deep dive on their finances, so I knew. Each Tweedle owned multiple houses, and several luxury cars, purchased with proceeds from their photos of me and my family. (Offshore bank accounts too, like their sponsors, the media barons who funded them, chiefly Murdoch and the impossibly Dickensian-sounding Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere.)

It was around this time that I began to think Murdoch was evil. No, strike that. I began to know that he was. Firsthand. Once you’ve been chased by someone’s henchmen through the streets of a busy modern city you lose all doubt about where they stand on the Great Moral Continuum. All my life I’d heard jokes about the links between royal misbehavior and centuries of inbreeding, but it was then that I realized: Lack of genetic diversity was nothing compared to press gaslighting. Marrying your cousin is far less dicey than becoming a profit center for Murdoch Inc.

Of course I didn’t care for Murdoch’s politics, which were just to the right of the Taliban’s. And I didn’t like the harm he did each and every day to Truth, his wanton desecration of objective facts. Indeed, I couldn’t think of a single human being in the 300,000-year history of the species who’d done more damage to our collective sense of reality. But what really sickened and frightened me in 2012 was Murdoch’s ever-expanding circle of flunkies: young, broken, desperate men willing to do whatever was necessary to earn one of his Grinchy smiles.

And at the center of that circle…were these two mopes, the Tweedles.

There were so many nightmarish run-ins with Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber, but one stands out. A friend’s wedding. Walled garden, totally secluded. I was chatting with several guests, listening to the birdsong, the whoosh of wind in the leaves. Within these soothing sounds, however, I became aware of one small…click.

I turned. There, in the hedgerow. One eye. And one glassy lens.

Then: that chubby face.

Then: that demonic rictus.

Tweedle Dumb.

48.

The one good thing about Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber was that they made me ready for war. They filled me with choking rage, always a good precursor for battle. They also made me want to be anywhere but England. Where are my goddamned orders?

Please send my orders.

And then, of course, as so often happens…

I was at a music festival and my cousin tapped me on the shoulder. Harry, this is my friend Cressida.

Oh. Um. Hello.

The setting was inauspicious. Lots of people, zero privacy. Also, I was still suffering a broken heart. On the other hand, the landscape was lovely, the music was good, the weather was fine.

There were sparks.

Soon after that day we went to dinner. She told me about her life, her family, her dreams. She wanted to be an actress. She was so soft-spoken and shy, acting was the last profession I’d have imagined for her, and I said so. But she confessed that it made her feel alive. Free. She made it sound like flying.

Weeks later, at the end of another date, I gave her a lift home. I’m just off the King’s Road. We pulled up to a large house on a well-kept street.

You live here? This is your house?

No.

She explained that she was staying for a few days with an aunt.

I walked her up the steps. She didn’t invite me in. I didn’t expect her to, didn’t want her to. Take it slow, I thought. I leaned in to give her a kiss, but my aim was off. I could take out a cactus from three miles away with a Hellfire missile but I couldn’t quite find her lips. She turned, I tried again on the return trip, and we managed something like a graze. Painfully awkward.

The next morning I phoned my cousin. Discouraged, I told her the date had gone well, but the ending had left something to be desired. She didn’t disagree. She’d already spoken to Cressida. She sighed. Awkward.

But then came the good news. Cressida was game to try again.

We met days later for another dinner.

As it happened, her flatmate was dating my longtime mate Charlie. Brother of my late friend Henners.

I joked: Obviously this is meant to be. The four of us could have so much fun.

But I wasn’t totally joking.

We tried another kiss. Not so awkward.

I had hope.

For our next date she and her flatmate had Charlie and me over. Drinks, laughs. Before I knew what was happening, we were a thing.