2-42（在线收听）

42.

On the eve of the wedding Willy and I had dinner at Clarence House with Pa. Also present wereJames and Thomas—Willy’s best men.

The public had been told that I was to be best man, but that was a bare-faced lie. The publicexpected me to be best man, and thus the Palace saw no choice but to say that I was. In truth,Willy didn’t want me giving a best-man speech. He didn’t think it safe to hand me a live mic andput me in a position to go off script. I might say something wildly inappropriate.

He wasn’t wrong.

Also, the lie gave cover to James and Thomas, two civilians, two innocents. Had they beenouted as Willy’s best men, the rabid press would’ve chased them, tracked them, hacked them,investigated them, ruined their families’ lives. Both chaps were shy, quiet. They couldn’t handlesuch an onslaught, and shouldn’t be expected to.

Willy explained all this to me and I didn’t blink. I understood. We even had a laugh about it,speculating about the inappropriate things I might’ve said in my speech. And so the pre-weddingdinner was pleasant, jolly, despite Willy visibly suffering from standard groom jitters. Thomas andJames forced him to down a couple of rum and Cokes, which did seem to settle his nerves.

Meanwhile I regaled the company with tales of the North Pole. Pa was very interested, andsympathetic about the discomfort of my frostnipped ears and cheeks, and it was an effort not toovershare and tell him also about my equally tender penis. Upon arriving home I’d been horrifiedto discover that my nether regions were frostnipped as well, and while the ears and cheeks werealready healing, the todger wasn’t.

It was becoming more of an issue by the day.

I don’t know why I should’ve been reluctant to discuss my penis with Pa, or all the gentlemenpresent. My penis was a matter of public record, and indeed some public curiosity. The press hadwritten about it extensively. There were countless stories in books, and papers (even The NewYork Times) about Willy and me not being circumcised. Mummy had forbidden it, they all said,and while it’s absolutely true that the chance of getting penile frostbite is much greater if you’renot circumcised, all the stories were false. I was snipped as a baby.

After dinner we moved to the TV room and watched the news. Reporters were interviewingfolks who’d camped just outside Clarence House, in hopes of getting a front-row seat at thewedding. We went to the window and looked at the thousands of them, in tents and bedrolls, upand down the Mall, which runs between Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square. Many weredrinking, singing. Some were cooking meals on portable stoves. Others were wandering about,chanting, celebrating, as if they were getting married in the morning.

Willy, rum-warmed, shouted: We should go and see them!

He texted his security team to say he wanted to do so.

The security team answered: Strongly advise against.

No, he shot back. It’s the right thing to do. I want to go out there. I need to see them!

He asked me to come. He begged.

I could see in his eyes that the rum was really hitting hard. He needed a wingman.

Painfully familiar role for me. But all right.

We went out, walked the edge of the crowd, shaking hands. People wished Willy well, toldhim they loved him, loved Kate. They gave us both the same teary smiles, the same looks offondness and pity we’d seen that day in August 1997. I couldn’t help but shake my head. Here itwas, the eve of Willy’s Big Day, one of the happiest of his life, and there was simply no avoidingthe echoes of his Worst Day. Our Worst Day.

I looked at him several times. His cheeks were bright crimson, as if he was the one withfrostnip. Maybe that was the reason we bade farewell to the crowd, turned in early. He was tipsy.

But also, emotionally, physically, we were both all in. We needed rest.

I was shocked, therefore, when I went to collect him in the morning and he looked as if hehadn’t slept a wink. His face was gaunt, his eyes red.

You OK?

Yeah, yeah, fine.

But he wasn’t.

He was wearing the bright red uniform of the Irish Guards, not his Household Cavalry frockcoat uniform. I wondered if that was the matter. He’d asked Granny if he could wear hisHousehold Cavalry kit and she’d turned him down. As the Heir, he must wear the Number OneCeremonial, she decreed. Willy was glum at having so little say in what he wore to get married, athaving his autonomy taken from him on such an occasion. He’d told me several times that he feltfrustrated.

I assured him that he looked bloody smart in the Harp of Ireland, with the Crown Imperial andthe forage cap with the regimental motto: Quis Separabit? Who shall separate us?

It didn’t seem to make an impression.

I, on the other hand, did not look smart, nor did I feel comfortable, in my Blues and Royalsuniform, which protocol dictated that I wear. I’d never worn it before and hoped not to wear itagain anytime soon. It had huge shoulder pads, and huge cuffs, and I could imagine people saying:

Who’s this idiot? I felt like a kitsch version of Johnny Bravo.

We climbed into a plum-colored Bentley. Neither of us said anything as we waited for thedriver to pull out.

As the car pulled away, finally, I broke the silence. You reek.

The aftermath of last night’s rum.

I jokingly cracked a window, pinched my nose—offered him some mints.

The corners of his mouth bent slightly upward.

After two minutes, the Bentley stopped. Short trip, I said.

I peered out of the window:

Westminster Abbey.

As always, my stomach lurched. I thought: Nothing like getting married in the same placewhere you did your mum’s funeral.

I shot a glance at Willy. Was he thinking the same thing?

We went inside, shoulder to shoulder. I looked again at his uniform, his cap. Who shallseparate us? We were soldiers, grown men, but walking with that same tentative, boyish gait aswhen we’d trailed Mummy’s coffin. Why did the adults do that to us? We marched into thechurch, down the aisle, made for a side room off the altar—called the Crypt. Everything in thatbuilding spoke of death.

It wasn’t just the memories of Mummy’s funeral. More than three thousand bodies lay beneathus, behind us. They were buried under the pews, wedged into the walls. War heroes and poets,scientists and saints, the cream of the Commonwealth. Isaac Newton, Charles Dickens, Chaucer,plus thirteen kings and eighteen queens, they were all interred there.

It was still so hard to think of Mummy in the realm of Death. Mummy, who’d danced withTravolta, who’d quarreled with Elton, who’d dazzled the Reagans—could she really be in theGreat Beyond with the spirits of Newton and Chaucer?

Between these thoughts of Mummy and death and my frostnipped penis, I was in danger ofbecoming as anxious as the groom. So I started pacing, shaking my arms, listening to the crowdmurmuring in the pews. They’d been seated two hours before we arrived. You just know many ofthem need a pee, I said to Willy, trying to break the tension.

No reaction. He stood up, started pacing too.

I tried again. The wedding ring! Oh, no—where is it? Where did I put the bloody thing?

Then I pulled it out. Phew!

He gave a smile, went back to his pacing.

I couldn’t have lost that ring if I’d wanted to. A special kangaroo pouch had been sewn insidemy tunic. My idea, actually, that was how seriously I took the solemn duty and honor of bearing it.

Now I took the ring from its pouch, held it to the light. A thin band of Welsh gold, shaved off ahunk given to the Royal Family nearly a century before. The same hunk had provided a ring forGranny when she married, and for Princess Margaret, but it was nearly exhausted now, I’d heard.

By the time I got married, if I ever got married, there might be none left.

I don’t recall leaving the Crypt. I don’t recall walking out to the altar. I have no memory of thereadings, or removing the ring, or handing it to my brother. The ceremony is mostly a blank in mymind. I recall Kate walking down the aisle, looking incredible, and I recall Willy walking her backup the aisle, and as they disappeared through the door, into the carriage that would convey them toBuckingham Palace, into the eternal partnership they’d pledged, I recall thinking: Goodbye.

I loved my new sister-in-law, I felt she was more sister than in-law, the sister I’d never hadand always wanted, and I was pleased that she’d forever be standing by Willy’s side. She was agood match for my older brother. They made each other visibly happy, and therefore I was happytoo. But in my gut I couldn’t help feeling that this was yet another farewell under this horrid roof.

Another sundering. The brother I’d escorted into Westminster Abbey that morning was gone—forever. Who could deny it? He’d never again be first and foremost Willy. We’d never again ridetogether across the Lesotho countryside with capes blowing behind us. We’d never again share ahorsey-smelling cottage while learning to fly. Who shall separate us?

Life, that’s who.

I’d had the same feeling when Pa got married, the same presentiment, and hadn’t it come true?

In the Camilla era, as I’d predicted, I saw him less and less. Weddings were joyous occasions,sure, but they were also low- key funerals, because after saying their vows people tended todisappear.

It occurred to me then that identity is a hierarchy. We are primarily one thing, and then we’reprimarily another, and then another, and so on, until death—in succession. Each new identityassumes the throne of Self, but takes us further from our original self, perhaps our core self—thechild. Yes, evolution, maturation, the path towards wisdom, it’s all natural and healthy, but there’sa purity to childhood, which is diluted with each iteration. As with that hunk of gold, it getswhittled away.

At least, that was the thought I had that day. My big brother Willy had moved on, moved upthe line, and thereafter he’d be first a husband, then a father, then grandfather, and so on. He’d bea new person, many new persons, and none of them would be Willy. He’d be The Duke ofCambridge, the title chosen for him by Granny. Good for him, I thought. Great for him. But a lossfor me all the same.

I think my reaction was also somewhat reminiscent of what I’d felt the first time I climbedinside an Apache. After being accustomed to having someone at my side, someone to model, Ifound myself terrifyingly alone.

And a eunuch to boot.

What was the universe out to prove by taking my penis at the same moment it took mybrother?

Hours later, at the reception, I made a few quick remarks. Not a speech, just a brief two-minuteintro to the real best men. Willy told me several times that I was to act as “compère.”

I had to look the word up.

The press reported extensively on my preparations for this intro, how I phoned Chels andtested some of the lines on her, bristling but ultimately caving when she urged me not to reference“Kate’s killer legs,” all of which was horseshit. I never phoned Chels about my remarks; she and Iweren’t in regular touch, which was why Willy checked with me before inviting her to thewedding. He didn’t want either of us to feel uncomfortable.

The truth is, I road-tested a few lines on JLP, but mostly I winged it. I told a few jokes aboutour childhood, a silly story about Willy’s days playing water polo, and then I read a few hilarioussnippets culled from letters of support sent in by the general public. One American bloke wrote tosay that he’d wanted to make something special for the new Duchess of Cambridge, so he’d setout to capture a ton of ermine, traditional fur of royalty. This overenthusiastic Yank explained thathe’d intended to catch one thousand ermines for the item of clothing he had in mind (God, was it atent?) but unfortunately he’d only managed to scare up…two.

Rough year for ermine, I said.

Still, I added, the Yank improvised, made the best of things, as Yanks do, and cobbled togetherwhat he had, which I now held aloft.

The room let out a collective gasp.

It was a thong.

Soft, furry, a few silken strings attached to a V-shaped ermine pouch no larger than the ringpouch inside my tunic.

After the collective gasp came a warm, gratifying wave of laughter.

When it died away I closed on a serious note. Mummy: How she’d have loved to have beenhere. How she’d have loved Kate, and how she’d have loved seeing this love you’ve foundtogether.

As I spoke these words I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to risk making eye contact with Pa orCamilla—and above all with Willy. I hadn’t cried since Mummy’s funeral, and I wasn’t going tobreak that streak now.

I also didn’t want to see anyone’s face but Mummy’s. I had the clearest vision in my mind ofher beaming on Willy’s Big Day, and having a proper laugh about that dead ermine.