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63.

I was given a desk at Wattisham Airfield¹, which I hated. I’d never wanted a desk. I couldn’t bearsitting at a desk. My father loved his desk, seemed pinned to it, enamored of it, surrounded by hisbooks and mailbags. That was never me.

I was also given a new task. Refine my knowledge of the Apache. Perhaps on the way tobecoming an instructor². That was a job I thought might be fun. Teaching others to fly.

But it wasn’t. It just didn’t feel like my calling.

Once again I broached³ the idea of going back to the war. Once again the answer was a hard no.

Even if the Army was inclined to send me, Afghanistan was winding⁴ down.

Libya was heating up, though. How about that?

No, the Army said—in every way they knew how, officially and unofficially, they denied myrequest.

Everyone has had quite enough of Harry⁵ in a war zone.

At the end of a typical working day I’d leave Wattisham, drive back to Kensington Palace. Iwas no longer staying with Pa and Camilla: I’d been assigned my own place, a flat on KP’s “lowerground floor,” in other words, halfway⁶ underground.

The flat had three tall windows, but they admitted little light, so the differences between dawn,dusk and midday were nominal⁷ at best. Sometimes the question was rendered moot⁸ by Mr. R, wholived directly upstairs. He liked to park his massive gray Discovery hard against the windows,blotting out all light entirely⁹.

I wrote him a note, politely asking if he might perhaps pull his car forward a few inches. Hefired back a reply telling me to suck eggs. Then he went to Granny and asked her to tell me thesame.

She never did speak to me about it, but the fact that Mr. R felt secure enough, supportedenough, to denounce me to the monarch¹⁰ showed my true place in the pecking order. He was one ofGranny’s equerries.

I should fight, I told myself. I should confront the man face-to-face. But I figured—no. The flatactually suited my mood. Darkness at noon suited my mood.

Also, it was the first time I was living on my own, somewhere other than Pa’s, so on balance Ireally had no complaints.

I invited a mate over one day. He said the flat reminded him of a badger¹¹ sett. Or maybe I saidthat to him. Either way, it was true, and I didn’t mind.

We were chatting, my mate and I, having a drink, when suddenly a sheet dropped down infront of my windows. Then the sheet began to shake. My mate stood, went to the window andsaid: Spike¹²…what in the…? Falling from the sheet was a cascade¹³ of what looked to be—brownconfetti?

No.

Glitter?

No.

My mate said: Spike, is that hair?

It was. Mrs. R was giving a trim to one of her sons, shaking out the sheet in which she’dcollected the clippings. The real problem, however, was that my three windows were open and itwas a breezy day. Gusts¹⁴ of fine hair blew into the flat. My mate and I coughed, laughed, pickedstrands off our tongues.

What didn’t come into the flat landed like summer rain on the shared garden, which just thenwas blooming with mint and rosemary.

For days I went around composing a harsh note to Mrs. R in my head. I never sent it. I knew Iwas being unfair: she didn’t know she was hairing me out. More, she didn’t know the real sourceof my antipathy¹⁵ towards her. She was guilty of an even more egregious¹⁶ vehicular crime than herhusband. Every day Mrs. R parked her car in Mummy’s old spot.

I can still see her gliding¹⁷ into that space, right where my mother’s green BMW used to be. Itwas wrong of me, and I knew it was wrong, but on some level I condemned¹⁸ Mrs. R for it.

 

1 airfield   

n.飞机场

参考例句：

• The foreign guests were motored from the airfield to the hotel.用车把外宾从机场送到旅馆。
• The airfield was seized by enemy troops.机场被敌军占领。

2 instructor   

n.指导者，教员，教练

参考例句：

• The college jumped him from instructor to full professor.大学突然把他从讲师提升为正教授。
• The skiing instructor was a tall,sunburnt man.滑雪教练是一个高高个子晒得黑黑的男子。

3 broached   

v.谈起( broach的过去式和过去分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体

参考例句：

• She broached the subject of a picnic to her mother. 她向母亲提起野餐的问题。 来自辞典例句
• He broached the subject to the stranger. 他对陌生人提起那话题。 来自辞典例句

4 winding   

n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈

参考例句：

• A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
• The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。

5 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。

6 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

7 nominal   

adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的

参考例句：

• The king was only the nominal head of the state. 国王只是这个国家名义上的元首。
• The charge of the box lunch was nominal.午餐盒饭收费很少。

8 moot   

v.提出；adj.未决议的；n.大会；辩论会

参考例句：

• The question mooted in the board meeting is still a moot point.那个在董事会上提出讨论的问题仍未决的。
• The oil versus nuclear equation is largely moot.石油和核能之间的关系还很有争议。

9 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

10 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。

11 badger   

v.一再烦扰，一再要求，纠缠

参考例句：

• Now that our debts are squared.Don't badger me with them any more.我们的债务两清了。从此以后不要再纠缠我了。
• If you badger him long enough,I'm sure he'll agree.只要你天天纠缠他，我相信他会同意。

12 spike   

n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效

参考例句：

• The spike pierced the receipts and held them in order.那个钉子穿过那些收据并使之按顺序排列。
• They'll do anything to spike the guns of the opposition.他们会使出各种手段来挫败对手。

13 cascade   

n.小瀑布，喷流；层叠；vi.成瀑布落下

参考例句：

• She watched the magnificent waterfall cascade down the mountainside.她看着壮观的瀑布从山坡上倾泻而下。
• Her hair fell over her shoulders in a cascade of curls.她的卷发像瀑布一样垂在肩上。

14 gusts   

一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作

参考例句：

• Her profuse skirt bosomed out with the gusts. 她的宽大的裙子被风吹得鼓鼓的。
• Turbulence is defined as a series of irregular gusts. 紊流定义为一组无规则的突风。

15 antipathy   

n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物

参考例句：

• I feel an antipathy against their behaviour.我对他们的行为很反感。
• Some people have an antipathy to cats.有的人讨厌猫。

16 egregious   

adj.非常的，过分的

参考例句：

• When it comes to blatant lies,there are none more egregious than budget figures.谈到公众谎言，没有比预算数字更令人震惊的。
• What an egregious example was here!现摆着一个多么触目惊心的例子啊。

17 gliding   

v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的

参考例句：

• Swans went gliding past. 天鹅滑行而过。
• The weather forecast has put a question mark against the chance of doing any gliding tomorrow. 天气预报对明天是否能举行滑翔表示怀疑。

18 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。