CHELS AND I LEARNED an important lesson. Africa was Africa…but Britain was always Britain.
Soon after we arrived back at Heathrow we were papped.
Never fun for me, but not a shock either. There’d been a few years, after Mummy disappeared, when I’d hardly ever been papped, but now it was constant. I advised Chelsy to treat it like a chronic illness, something to be managed.
But she wasn’t sure she wanted to have a chronic illness.
I told her I understood. Perfectly valid feeling. But this was my life, and if she wanted to share any part of it, she’d have to share this too.
You get used to it, I lied.
Thereafter, I put the chances at fifty-fifty, maybe sixty-forty, I’d ever see Chels again. Odds were, the press would cost me another person I cared about. I tried to reassure myself that it was fine, that I didn’t really have time for a relationship just then.
I had work to do.
For starters, I was facing the entrance exams required for the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.
They took four days, and they were nothing like exams at Eton. There was some bookwork, some written stuff, but mostly they were tests for psychological toughness and leadership skills.
Turned out…I had both. I passed with flying colors.
I was delighted. My trouble concentrating, my trauma over my mother, none of that came into play. None of that counted against me with the British Army. On the contrary, I discovered, those things made me all the more ideal. The Army was looking for lads like me.
What’s that you say, young man? Parents divorced? Mum’s dead? Unresolved grief or psychological trauma? Step this way!
Along with news that I’d passed I received a report date, several months away. Which meant I’d have time to gather my thoughts, tie up loose ends. Even better, time to spend with Chels…if she’d have me?
She would. She invited me to come back to Cape Town, meet her parents.
I did. And liked them instantly. They were impossible not to like. They enjoyed funny stories, gin and tonics, good food, stalking. Her father was bear-sized, broad-shouldered, cuddly, but also a definite alpha. Her mother was petite, an amazing listener, and a frequent bestower of epic hugs. I didn’t know what the future held, I didn’t want to put any carts before any horses, but I thought: If you designed in-laws from the ground up, you couldn’t do much better than these guys.
