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44.

Lesotho was beautiful. But also one of the grimmest places on earth. It was the epicenter of theglobal AIDS pandemic, and in 2004 the government had just declared a medical disaster. Tens ofthousands had fallen to the disease, and the nation was turning into one vast orphanage¹. Here andthere, you’d glimpse young children running about, lost looks on their faces.

Where’s Daddy? Where’s Mummy?

George and I signed up to help at several charities and schools. We were both bowled over bythe lovely people we met, their resilience, their grace, their courage and good cheer in the face ofso much suffering. We worked as hard as we’d worked on his farm, gladly and eagerly. We builtschools. We repaired schools. We mixed gravel², poured cement, whatever was needed.

In this same spirit of service, I agreed one day to perform a task that might otherwise havebeen unthinkable—an interview. If I truly wanted to shine a light on conditions here, I had nochoice: I’d have to cooperate with the dreaded³ press.

But this was more than cooperating. This would be my first-ever solo session with a reporter.

We met on a grassy⁴ hillside, early one morning. He started by asking: Why this place? Of allplaces?

I said that children in Lesotho were in trouble, and I loved children, understood children, sonaturally I wanted to help.

He pressed. Why did I love children?

I gave my best guess: My incredible immaturity⁵?

I was being glib⁶, but the reporter chuckled⁷ and moved on to his next question. The subject ofchildren had opened the door to the subject of my childhood, and that was the gateway⁸ to the onlysubject he, or anyone, really wanted to ask me about.

Do you think about…her…a lot through something like this?

I looked off, down the hillside, responded with a series of disjointed words: Unfortunately it’sbeen a long time now, um, not for me but for most people, it’s been a long time since she’s died,but the stuff that’s come out has been bad, all the stuff that’s come out, all these tapes…I was referring to recordings⁹ my mother had made before her death, a kind of quasi-confessional, which had just been leaked to the press, to coincide with release of the butler’smemoir. Seven years after being hounded into hiding my mother was still being hounded, andlibeled—it didn’t make sense. In 1997 there’d been a nationwide reckoning, a period of collectiveremorse and reflection among all Britons. Everyone had agreed that the press was a pack ofmonsters, but consumers accepted blame as well. We all needed to do better, most people said.

Now, many years later, all was forgotten. History was repeating itself daily, and I told the reporterit was “a shame.”

Not a momentous¹⁰ declaration. But it represented the first time that either Willy or I had everspoken publicly about Mummy. I was amazed to be the one going first. Willy always went first, inall things, and I wondered how this would go over—with him, with the world, but especially withPa. (Not well, Marko told me later. Pa was dead-set against me addressing that topic; he didn’twant either of his sons speaking about Mummy, for fear it would cause a stir, distract from hiswork, and perhaps shine an unflattering light on Camilla.)Finally, with a completely false air of bravado¹¹, I shrugged¹² and said to the reporter: Bad newssells. Simple as that.

Speaking of bad news…the reporter now referenced my most recent scandal.

The page-three girl, of course.

He mentioned that some were wondering if I’d really learned anything from my visit to therehab clinic. Had I truly “converted”? I don’t remember if he used that word, converted, but atleast one paper had.

Did Harry¹³ need to be converted?

Harry the Heretic?

I could barely make out the reporter through the sudden red mist. How are we even talkingabout this? I blurted¹⁴ something about not being normal, which caused the reporter’s mouth to fallopen. Here we go. He was getting his headline, his news fix. Were his eyes rolling up into hishead?

And I was supposed to be the addict¹⁵?

I explained what I meant by normal. I didn’t lead a normal life, because I couldn’t lead one.

Even my father reminds me that unfortunately Willy and I can’t be normal. I told the reporter thatno one but Willy understood what it was like to live in this surreal fishbowl, in which normalevents were treated as abnormal, and the abnormal was routinely normalized.

That was what I was trying to say, starting to say, but then I took another look down thehillside. Poverty, disease, orphans—death. It rendered everything else rubbish. In Lesotho, nomatter what you were going through, you were well- off compared to others. I suddenly feltashamed, and wondered if the journalist had sense enough to be ashamed too. Sitting here aboveall this misery¹⁶ and talking about page-three girls? Come on.

After the interview I went and found George and we drank beer. A lot of beer. Gallons of beer.

I believe that was also the night I smoked an entire shopping bag of weed.

I don’t recommend it.

Then again, it might have been another night. Hard to be precise when it comes to a shoppingbag full of weed.

 

1 orphanage   

n.孤儿院

参考例句：

• They dispensed new clothes to the children in the orphanage.他们把新衣服发给孤儿院的小孩们。
• They gave the proceeds of the sale to the orphanage.他们把销售的收入给了这家孤儿院。

2 gravel   

n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石

参考例句：

• We bought six bags of gravel for the garden path.我们购买了六袋碎石用来铺花园的小路。
• More gravel is needed to fill the hollow in the drive.需要更多的砾石来填平车道上的坑洼。

3 dreaded   

adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The dreaded moment had finally arrived. 可怕的时刻终于来到了。
• He dreaded having to spend Christmas in hospital. 他害怕非得在医院过圣诞节不可。 来自《用法词典》

4 grassy   

adj.盖满草的；长满草的

参考例句：

• They sat and had their lunch on a grassy hillside.他们坐在长满草的山坡上吃午饭。
• Cattle move freely across the grassy plain.牛群自由自在地走过草原。

5 immaturity   

n.不成熟；未充分成长；未成熟；粗糙

参考例句：

• It traces the development of a young man from immaturity to maturity. 它描写一位青年从不成熟到成熟的发展过程。 来自辞典例句
• Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. 不成熟就是不经他人的指引就无法运用自身的理解力。 来自互联网

6 glib   

adj.圆滑的，油嘴滑舌的

参考例句：

• His glib talk sounds as sweet as a song.他说的比唱的还好听。
• The fellow has a very glib tongue.这家伙嘴油得很。

7 chuckled   

轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
• She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情，她就轻轻地暗自发笑。

8 gateway   

n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法

参考例句：

• Hard work is the gateway to success.努力工作是通往成功之路。
• A man collected tolls at the gateway.一个人在大门口收通行费。

9 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

10 momentous   

adj.重要的，重大的

参考例句：

• I am deeply honoured to be invited to this momentous occasion.能应邀出席如此重要的场合，我深感荣幸。
• The momentous news was that war had begun.重大的新闻是战争已经开始。

11 bravado   

n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能

参考例句：

• Their behaviour was just sheer bravado. 他们的行为完全是虚张声势。
• He flourished the weapon in an attempt at bravado. 他挥舞武器意在虚张声势。

12 shrugged   

vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀，什么也没说。
• She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩，装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 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。

14 blurted   

v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She blurted it out before I could stop her. 我还没来得及制止，她已脱口而出。
• He blurted out the truth, that he committed the crime. 他不慎说出了真相，说是他犯了那个罪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 addict   

v.使沉溺；使上瘾；n.沉溺于不良嗜好的人

参考例句：

• He became gambling addict,and lost all his possessions.他习染上了赌博，最终输掉了全部家产。
• He assisted a drug addict to escape from drug but failed firstly.一开始他帮助一个吸毒者戒毒但失败了。

16 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。