She held all of it very still inside herself and said nothing. That was what William told her. What he didn’t tell her, because he hadn’t found the words for it yet, was what the ride home had been like. On the way back, Harry didn’t say much. At first, William thought he was just tired.
The performance had been in the afternoon. There had been parents, teachers, the usual noise of a school event that stretches longer than it needs to. But Harry was rarely quiet for long. William watched him from the other side of the car. He was looking out of the window, not really looking at anything, just watching the dark pass. “Did you like it?” William said. Harry nodded.
“Yeah.” A pause. “She clapped a lot,” Harry said after a moment. William didn’t reply. “She knew my teacher’s name,” Harry added, “before Dad said it.” Another pause. “Do you think she’s going to come again?” Harry said. William didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t know,” he said. Harry nodded. He didn’t ask anything else.
By the time they got back, he had already decided it was fine. William wasn’t sure it was. Spring. There was a morning in March that William mentioned almost as an aside. He had come downstairs for breakfast. Camilla was already there, at the table, with coffee, with the newspaper folded the way Charles folded it.
She had looked up and said good morning and asked if he wanted eggs. “She asked if I wanted eggs,” William said. Diana was quiet. “Like she lived there,” he said, “like it was just normal.” He said it without particular emotion, just the flat accuracy of someone reporting a fact. But Diana heard what was underneath it, the specific discomfort of someone who has walked into a room and found it slightly rearranged.
Nothing broken, nothing missing. Just different in a way that shouldn’t matter and somehow does. “What did you say?” Diana asked. “I said yes,” William said. A pause. “I didn’t know what else to say.” “That was fine,” Diana said. “Was it?” “Yes,” she said. “You don’t have to perform a reaction. You’re allowed to just have breakfast.
” He was quiet for a moment. “It felt like surrendering something,” he said. Diana didn’t answer immediately. “I know that feeling,” she said eventually. She hung up and sat with that for a while. She hadn’t planned to say it, but it was true. A few weeks later, in April, William mentioned something.
Not in the same careful way as before, almost casually. “She had people over,” he said. Diana looked at him. “At your father’s?” “Yes,” William said, “for lunch. Some of his friends.” A pause. “And she He stopped. She was the one organizing it.” Diana didn’t interrupt. “She told the staff where things should go,” he said, “where people should sit, what was being served.” He paused.
“They listened to her the way they used to listen to you.” Another pause. “She asked me if I preferred to sit inside or outside,” he added. Diana was very still. “And what did you say?” she asked. “I said outside,” William said. A small pause. “It didn’t feel like it was my answer to give.” Diana held his gaze for a moment. She didn’t ask anything else.
But she understood exactly what he meant. Not the lunch, the fact that it had been hers to organize. July. The last time she saw them. The Mediterranean. A yacht. Several days of sun and water and the particular ease of being somewhere removed from the ordinary architecture of their lives. On the last evening, after Harry was in bed, she stayed on the deck with William.
The water was dark, the lights of the coast small in the distance. She had been thinking about how to begin for most of the day. She had watched William at lunch, the way he listened when someone was speaking, the particular patience of it, the way he gave people his full attention and then thought before responding.
She had watched Harry at the water’s edge, loud and certain and entirely himself. She thought, “They are going to be all right.” And then, “But I need to say this while I can.” Not because something was wrong, not because she sensed anything coming, just a mother’s knowledge that certain things need to be said while there is still space and time and the right kind of quiet.
“There’s something I want to say to you,” she said, “before you go back.” He turned to look at her. “Camilla is going to become more present,” she said, “in your father’s life, in yours, because of that. I think you already know this.” “I know,” he said. “I’m not asking you to feel a particular way about it,” she said. “That’s yours.
But I want you to pay attention.” She paused. “Not to what people say, to what they do, especially around you and Harry. He was quiet. You’re talking about Camilla specifically, he said. Among others, Diana said, but yes. William looked at the water. Do you think she loves Dad? He said. Diana was quiet for a long moment. Longer than she had been quiet about anything that evening.
I think she loves what your father is, she said carefully. Whether that’s the same as loving him, she paused. I honestly don’t know, but I know the difference matters. She looked at him directly. Don’t be naive about kindness, she said. Real kindness doesn’t need anything back. When someone is kind to you in a way that feels like it wants something, pay attention to that feeling.
It’s usually right. He held her gaze. Are you telling me not to trust her? Diana was quiet for a moment. I’m telling you to pay attention, she said. That’s all. He nodded slowly. The nod of someone filing something carefully. They sat for a while longer without speaking. The water moved. She had said more than she usually allowed herself, but she had stayed on the right side of the line, just barely.
She hoped it was enough. She hoped he would remember it. 30 days later, Paris, the Ritz. The evening of the 30th of August, 1997. The room was warm. Outside, the city was doing what Paris does in late summer, unhurried, [music] golden, entirely indifferent to anything happening inside any particular window. She had been trying to reach the boys since early evening.
It wasn’t that anything was wrong. The day had been good. The kind of day that has the particular ease of being away from the ordinary machinery of her life. She had eaten well. She had laughed. But something in her, she couldn’t have named it, wouldn’t have named it if asked, made her want to hear their voices before the night continued.
She looked at the phone on the table. She thought about the last time she had seen them, the boat, the water, the William’s face in the dark when she had said what she had said. She picked up the phone, put it down, picked it up [music] again, put it down. The third time she dialed. The line connected. William answered.
