1-34

 

34.

I went back to Eton, tried to put all this out of my mind, tried to focus on my schoolwork.

Tried to be calm.

I listened over and over to my go-to soothing¹ CD: Sounds of the Okavango. Forty tracks:

Crickets. Baboons². Rainstorm. Thunder. Birds. Lions and hyenas³ scrapping⁴ over a kill. At night,shutting off the lights, I’d hit play. My room sounded like a tributary⁵ of the Okavango. It was theonly way I could sleep.

After a few days the meeting with Marko receded⁶ from consciousness. It began to feel like anightmare.

But then I woke to the actual nightmare.

A blaring front-page headline: Harry’s Drugs Shame.

January 2002.

Spread over seven pages inside the newspaper were all the lies Marko had presented to me,and many more. The story not only had me down as a habitual⁷ drug user, it had me recently goingto rehab. Rehab! The editor had got her mitts⁸ on some photos of Marko and me paying a visit to asuburban rehab center, months earlier, a typical part of my princely charitable work, and she’drepurposed the photos, made them visual aids for her libelous⁹ fiction.

I gazed at the photos and read the story in shock. I felt sickened, horrified¹⁰. I imaginedeveryone, all my countrymen and countrywomen, reading these things, believing them. I couldhear people all across the Commonwealth¹¹ gossiping about me.

Crikey, the boy’s a disgrace.

His poor dad—after all he’s been through?

More, I felt heartbroken at the idea that this had been partly the work of my own family, myown father and future stepmother. They’d abetted¹² this nonsense. For what? To make their ownlives a bit easier?

I phoned Willy. I couldn’t speak. He couldn’t either. He was sympathetic, and more. (Rawdeal, Harold.) At moments he was even angrier about the whole thing than I was, because he wasprivy to more details about the spin doctor and the backroom dealings that had led to this publicsacrifice of the Spare.

And yet, in the same breath, he assured me that there was nothing to be done. This was Pa.

This was Camilla. This was royal life.

This was our life.

I phoned Marko. He too offered sympathy.

I asked him to remind me, What was this editor’s name? He said it, and I committed it tomemory, but in the years since then I’ve avoided speaking it, and I don’t wish to repeat it here.

Spare the reader, but also myself. Besides, can it possibly be a coincidence that the name of thewoman who pretended I went to rehab is a perfect anagram for…Rehabber Kooks? Is the universenot saying something there?

Who am I not to listen?

Over several weeks, newspapers continued to rehash the Rehabber Kooks libels, along withvarious new and equally fabricated accounts of goings-on in Club H. Our fairly innocent teenageclubhouse was made to sound like Caligula’s bedchamber.

Around this time one of Pa’s dearest friends came to Highgrove. She was with her husband. Paasked me to give them a tour. I walked them around the gardens, but they didn’t care about Pa’slavender and honeysuckle.

The woman asked eagerly: Where’s Club H?

An avid¹³ reader of all the papers.

I led her to the door, opened it. I pointed¹⁴ down the dark steps.

She breathed in deeply, smiled. Oh, it even smells of weed!

It didn’t, though. It smelt¹⁵ of damp earth, stone and moss¹⁶. It smelt of cut flowers, clean dirt—and maybe a hint of beer. Lovely smell, totally organic, but the power of suggestion had takenhold of this woman. Even when I swore to her that there was no weed, that we’d never once donedrugs down there, she gave me a wink¹⁷.

I thought she was going to ask me to sell her a bag.

 

1 soothing   

adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的

参考例句：

• Put on some nice soothing music.播放一些柔和舒缓的音乐。
• His casual, relaxed manner was very soothing.他随意而放松的举动让人很快便平静下来。

2 baboons   

n.狒狒( baboon的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Baboons could break branches and leaders. 狒狒会折断侧枝和顶梢。 来自辞典例句
• And as nonprimates, they provoke fewer ethical and safety-related concerns than chimps or baboons. 而且作为非灵长类，就不会产生像用黑猩猩或狒狒那样的伦理和安全方面的顾虑。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 医学的第四次革命

3 hyenas   

n.鬣狗( hyena的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• These animals were the prey of hyenas. 这些动物是鬣狗的猎物。 来自辞典例句
• We detest with horror the duplicity and villainy of the murderous hyenas of Bukharinite wreckers. 我们非常憎恨布哈林那帮两面三刀、杀人破坏，干尽坏事的豺狼。 来自辞典例句

4 scrapping   

刮，切除坯体余泥

参考例句：

• He was always scrapping at school. 他在学校总打架。
• These two dogs are always scrapping. 这两条狗总是打架。

5 tributary   

n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的

参考例句：

• There was a tributary road near the end of the village.村的尽头有条岔道。
• As the largest tributary of Jinsha river,Yalong river is abundant in hydropower resources.雅砻江是金沙江的最大支流，水力资源十分丰富。

6 receded   

v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题

参考例句：

• The floodwaters have now receded. 洪水现已消退。
• The sound of the truck receded into the distance. 卡车的声音渐渐在远处消失了。

7 habitual   

adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的

参考例句：

• He is a habitual criminal.他是一个惯犯。
• They are habitual visitors to our house.他们是我家的常客。

8 mitts   

n.露指手套，棒球手套，拳击手套( mitt的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I'd love to get my mitts on one of those. 我很想得到一个那样的东西。
• Those are my cigarettes; get your mitts off them. 那是我的香烟，别动它。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

9 libelous   

adj.败坏名誉的，诽谤性的

参考例句：

• No evidence has been found in the case so far and therefore it is probably a libelous suit.查无实据，恐怕是诬告。
• The book was libelous,so the publishers had to call in all copies of it from the bookshops.这是一本诽谤性的书，所以出版商必须把店里的书全收回去。

10 horrified   

a.(表现出)恐惧的

参考例句：

• The whole country was horrified by the killings. 全国都对这些凶杀案感到大为震惊。
• We were horrified at the conditions prevailing in local prisons. 地方监狱的普遍状况让我们震惊。

11 commonwealth   

n.共和国，联邦，共同体

参考例句：

• He is the chairman of the commonwealth of artists.他是艺术家协会的主席。
• Most of the members of the Commonwealth are nonwhite.英联邦的许多成员国不是白人国家。

12 abetted   

v.教唆（犯罪）( abet的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；怂恿；支持

参考例句：

• He was abetted in the deception by his wife. 他行骗是受了妻子的怂恿。
• They aided and abetted in getting the police to catch the thief. 他们协助警察抓住了小偷。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 avid   

adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的

参考例句：

• He is rich,but he is still avid of more money.他很富有,但他还想贪图更多的钱。
• She was avid for praise from her coach.那女孩渴望得到教练的称赞。

14 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

15 smelt   

v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼

参考例句：

• Tin is a comparatively easy metal to smelt.锡是比较容易熔化的金属。
• Darby was looking for a way to improve iron when he hit upon the idea of smelting it with coke instead of charcoal.达比一直在寻找改善铁质的方法，他猛然想到可以不用木炭熔炼，而改用焦炭。

16 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

17 wink   

n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁

参考例句：

• He tipped me the wink not to buy at that price.他眨眼暗示我按那个价格就不要买。
• The satellite disappeared in a wink.瞬息之间，那颗卫星就消失了。