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38.

I sat down with Pa that summer, possibly at Balmoral, though it might’ve been Clarence House,where he was now living more or less full-time¹. He’d moved in shortly after Gan-Gan’s death, andwherever he lived, I lived.

When I wasn’t living at Manor² House.

My final year at Eton drawing near, Pa wanted to chat about how I envisaged³ my life post-Eton. Most of my mates would be headed off to university. Willy was already at St. Andrews andthriving. Henners had just finished his A levels at Harrow School and was planning to go toNewcastle.

And you, darling boy? Have you given any thought to…the future?

Why, yes. Yes, I had. For several years I’d talked in all seriousness about working at the skiresort in Lech am Arlberg, where Mummy used to take us. Such wonderful memories.

Specifically, I wanted to work at the fondue hut in the center of town, which Mummy loved. Thatfondue could change your life. (I really was that mad.) But now I told Pa I’d given up the fonduefantasy, and he sighed with relief.

Instead I was taken with notions of becoming a ski instructor…Pa tensed again. Out of the question.

OK.

Long pause.

How about…safari guide?

No, darling boy.

This wasn’t going to be easy.

Part of me really did want to do something totally outside the box, something that would makeeveryone in the family, in the country, sit up and say: What the—? Part of me wanted to drop out,disappear—as Mummy did. And other princes. Wasn’t there one in India, a long time ago, a blokewho just walked out of the palace and sat under a lovely banyan⁴ tree? We’d read about him atschool. Or, we were supposed to.

But another part of me felt hugely ambitious. People assumed that the Spare wouldn’t orshouldn’t have any ambition. People assumed that royals generally had no career desires oranxieties. You’re royal, everything’s done for you, why worry? But in fact I worried quite a lotabout making my own way, finding my purpose in this world. I didn’t want to be one of thosecocktail-slurping, eyeroll-causing sloths⁵ everyone avoided at family gatherings⁶. There had beenplenty of those in my family, going back centuries.

Pa, in fact, might’ve become one. He’d always been discouraged from hard work, he told me.

He’d been advised that the Heir shouldn’t “do too much,” shouldn’t try too hard, for fear ofoutshining the monarch⁷. But he’d rebelled, listened to his inner voice, discovered work thatexcited him.

He wanted that for me.

That was why he didn’t press me to go to university. He knew it wasn’t in my DNA⁸. Not that Iwas anti-university, per se. In fact, the University of Bristol looked interesting. I’d pored over itsliterature, even considered a course in art history. (Lots of pretty girls took that subject.) But I justcouldn’t picture myself spending years bent⁹ over a book. My Eton housemaster couldn’t either.

He’d told me straight-out: You’re not the university type, Harry¹⁰. Now Pa added his assent¹¹. It wasno secret, he said gently, that I wasn’t the “family scholar.”

He didn’t mean it as a dig. Still, I winced¹².

He and I went round and round, and in my head I went back and forth¹³, and by a process ofelimination we landed on the Army. It made sense. It aligned¹⁴ with my desire to be outside the box,to disappear. The military would take me away from the prying¹⁵ eyes of the public and the press.

But it also fitted with my hope of making a difference.

And it accorded with my personality. My prized toys as a boy had always been miniaturesoldiers. I’d spent thousands of hours planning and waging epic¹⁶ battles with them at KensingtonPalace and in Highgrove’s Rosemary Verey–designed gardens. I’d also treated every game ofpaintball as though the future of the Commonwealth¹⁷ depended on the outcome.

Pa smiled. Yes, darling boy. The Army sounds like just the thing.

But first, he added…

Many people took a gap year as a matter of course. Pa, however, considered a gap year to beone of the most formative periods in a person’s life.

See the world, darling boy! Have adventures.

So I sat down with Marko and tried to decide what those adventures might look like. Wesettled first on Australia. Spend half the year working on a farm.

Excellent.

As for the second half of the year, Africa. I told Marko I’d like to join the fight against AIDS.

That this would be an homage¹⁸ to Mummy, an explicit¹⁹ continuation of her work, didn’t need to bespelled out.

Marko went away, did some research, came back to me and said: Lesotho.

Never heard of it, I confessed.

He educated me. Landlocked country. Lovely country. Bordering South Africa. Lots of need,loads of work to be done.

I was overjoyed. A plan—at last.

Soon after, I visited Henners. A weekend in Edinburgh. Autumn 2002. We went to a restaurantand I told him all about it. Good for you, Haz! He was taking a gap year as well, in East Africa.

Uganda, as I recall. Working in a rural school. At the moment, however, he was working a part-time job—at Ludgrove. Working as a stooge. (The Ludgrovian word for “handyman.”) It was avery cool job, he said. He got to be with kids, got to fix things all over the grounds.

Plus, I teased him: All the free strawberries and carrots you can eat!

But he was quite serious about it. I like teaching, Haz.

Oh.

We talked excitedly about Africa, made plans to meet up there. After Uganda, after college,Henners too would probably go into the Army. He was going to be a Green Jacket. It wasn’t reallya decision; his family had been in uniform for generations. We talked about meeting up there too.

Maybe, we said, we’ll find ourselves side by side one day, marching into battle or helping²⁰ peopleon the other side of the world.

The future. We wondered aloud what it held. I worried about it, but not Henners. He didn’ttake the future seriously, didn’t take anything seriously. Life as it comes, Haz. That was Henners,always and forever. I envied his tranquility.

For now, however, he was heading to one of Edinburgh’s casinos. He asked if I wanted tocome along. Ah, can’t, I said. I couldn’t possibly be seen in a casino. It would cause a hugescandal.

Too bad, he said.

Cheers, we both said, promising²¹ to talk again soon.

Two months later, a Sunday morning—just before Christmas 2002. The news must have comein the form of a phone call, though I only dimly recall holding the phone, hearing the words.

Henners and another boy, leaving a party near Ludgrove, drove into a tree. Though the call’s ablur, I vividly²² remember my reaction. Same as when Pa told me about Mummy. Right… soHenners was in an accident. But he’s in hospital, right? He’s going to be OK?

No, he wasn’t.

And the other boy, the driver, had been critically injured.

Willy and I went to the funeral. A little parish church down the road from where Henners grewup. I remember hundreds of people squeezing into creaky wooden pews. I remember, after theservice, queueing up to hug Henners’s parents, Alex and Claire, and his brothers, Thomas andCharlie.

I think, while we waited, I overheard whispered discussions of the crash.

It was foggy, you know…

They weren’t going far…

But where were they going?

And at that time of night?

They were at a party and the sound system was knackered!

So they ran off to get another.

No!

They went to borrow a CD player from a friend. Short distance, you know…So they didn’t bother with seatbelts…

Just like Mummy.

And yet, unlike Mummy, there was no way to spin this as a disappearance²³. This was death, notwo ways about it.

Also, unlike Mummy, Henners wasn’t going that fast.

Because he wasn’t being chased.

Twenty miles an hour, tops, everyone said.

And yet the car went straight into an old tree.

Old ones, someone explained, are much harder than young ones.

 

1 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

2 manor   

n.庄园，领地

参考例句：

• The builder of the manor house is a direct ancestor of the present owner.建造这幢庄园的人就是它现在主人的一个直系祖先。
• I am not lord of the manor,but its lady.我并非此地的领主，而是这儿的女主人。

3 envisaged   

想像，设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He envisaged an old age of loneliness and poverty. 他面对着一个孤独而贫困的晚年。
• Henry Ford envisaged an important future for the motor car. 亨利·福特为汽车设想了一个远大前程。

4 banyan   

n.菩提树，榕树

参考例句：

• This huge banyan tree has a history of more than 400 years.这棵大榕树已经有四百多年的历史了。
• A large banyan tree may look like a forest.大型的榕树看起来象一片树林。

5 sloths   

懒散( sloth的名词复数 )； 懒惰； 树獭； （经济）停滞。

参考例句：

• Mummies of pleistocene ground sloths, with original skin, hair, tendons and claws have been found. 还发现了保存原有皮肤，毛发，腱和爪的更新世时期地面树懒的木乃伊。
• He was inspired by fossils of armadillos and sloths. 犰狳和树懒化石让他获得了灵感。

6 gatherings   

聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集

参考例句：

• His conduct at social gatherings created a lot of comment. 他在社交聚会上的表现引起许多闲话。
• During one of these gatherings a pupil caught stealing. 有一次，其中一名弟子偷窃被抓住。

7 monarch   

n.帝王，君主，最高统治者

参考例句：

• The monarch's role is purely ceremonial.君主纯粹是个礼仪职位。
• I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth.我觉得这个时候比世界上什么帝王都快乐。

8 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

9 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

10 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

11 assent   

v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可

参考例句：

• I cannot assent to what you ask.我不能应允你的要求。
• The new bill passed by Parliament has received Royal Assent.议会所通过的新方案已获国王批准。

12 winced   

赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He winced as the dog nipped his ankle. 狗咬了他的脚腕子，疼得他龇牙咧嘴。
• He winced as a sharp pain shot through his left leg. 他左腿一阵剧痛疼得他直龇牙咧嘴。

13 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

14 aligned   

adj.对齐的，均衡的

参考例句：

• Make sure the shelf is aligned with the top of the cupboard.务必使搁架与橱柜顶端对齐。

15 prying   

adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开

参考例句：

• I'm sick of you prying into my personal life! 我讨厌你刺探我的私生活！
• She is always prying into other people's affairs. 她总是打听别人的私事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

17 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。

18 homage   

n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬

参考例句：

• We pay homage to the genius of Shakespeare.我们对莎士比亚的天才表示敬仰。
• The soldiers swore to pay their homage to the Queen.士兵们宣誓效忠于女王陛下。

19 explicit   

adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的

参考例句：

• She was quite explicit about why she left.她对自己离去的原因直言不讳。
• He avoids the explicit answer to us.他避免给我们明确的回答。

20 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

21 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

22 vividly   

adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地

参考例句：

• The speaker pictured the suffering of the poor vividly.演讲者很生动地描述了穷人的生活。
• The characters in the book are vividly presented.这本书里的人物写得栩栩如生。

23 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。