2-22（在线收听）

22.

I was given a month off. I spent the first part of it with mates. They heard I was home, rang me up,asked me out for a drink.

OK, but just one.

A place called the Cat and Custard Pot. Me: sitting in a dark corner, nursing a gin and tonic.

Them: laughing and chatting and making all sorts of plans for trips and projects and holidays.

Everyone seemed so loud. Had they always been so loud?

They all said I seemed quiet. Yeah, I said, yeah, I guess so.

How come?

No reason.

I just felt like being quiet.

I felt out of place, a bit distant. At times I felt sort of panicky. At other times I felt angry. Doyou folks know what’s happening on the other side of the world right now?

After a day or two I rang Chels, asked to see her. Begged. She was in Cape Town.

She invited me to come.

Yes, I thought. That’s what I need right now. A day or two with Chels and her folks.

After, she and I ran off to Botswana, met up with the gang. We started at Teej and Mike’shouse. Big hugs and kisses at the door; they’d been worried sick about me. Then they fed me, andMike kept handing me drinks, and I was in the place I loved most, under the sky I loved most, sohappy that at one point I wondered if I might not have tears in my eyes.

A day or two later Chels and I drifted upriver on a rented houseboat. The Kubu Queen. Wecooked simple meals, slept on the upper deck of the boat, under the stars. Gazing at Orion’s Belt,the Little Dipper, I’d try to decompress, but it was hard. The press got wind of our trip, and theywere papping us constantly, every time the boat neared the shore.

After a week or so we went back to Maun, ate a farewell dinner with Teej and Mike. Everyoneturned in early, but I sat up with Teej, told her a bit about the war. Just a bit. It was the first timeI’d spoken of it since arriving home.

Willy and Pa had asked. But they hadn’t asked the way Teej asked.

Nor had Chelsy. Did she tiptoe around the subject because she still disliked my going? Orbecause she knew it would be hard for me to talk about it? I wasn’t sure, and I felt that she wasn’tsure, that neither of us was sure about anything.

Teej and I talked about that too.

She likes me, I said. Loves me, I guess. But she doesn’t like the baggage that comes with me,doesn’t like everything that comes with being royal, the press and so forth, and none of that is evergoing away. So what hope is there?

Teej asked point-blank if I could see myself married to Chels.

I tried to explain. I cherished Chels’s carefree and authentic spirit. She never worried aboutwhat other people thought. She wore short skirts and high boots, danced with abandon, drank asmuch tequila as I did, and I cherished all those things about her…but I couldn’t help worryinghow Granny might feel about them. Or the British public. And the last thing I wanted was forChels to change to accommodate them.

I wanted so badly to be a husband, a father…but I just wasn’t sure. It takes a certain kind ofperson to withstand the scrutiny, Teej, and I don’t know if Chels can handle it. I don’t know that Iwant to ask her to handle it.