'If Prince Harry really wants reconciliation with the King he must pick up phone and call him'

Time after time, Prince Harry has said it himself. TV interviews, his memoir, and in carefully choreographed television moments: he wants reconciliation with his family. He has said it so often in recent years that it has almost become his brand. The wounded son, forever holding out an olive branch that nobody on the other side will take. Poor Harry. But two weeks on from his return to British shores, it is becoming harder to square that narrative with how he is actually behaving. He has not picked up the phone to his father. Not once. Not since he told the King, breaking into his holiday at Balmoral, that he was moving his family back to the UK. Despite his plans being months in the making, he simply gave his father - the monarch - just three days' notice before it became a global news story. Such is his relationship with his brother, William, he wasn't even afforded a text to let him know those who have spent the last six years bemoaning the treatment of the royal family would now, effectively, be living in their backyard. Call it what you want. Petulance, arrogance, ignorance. I could go on. But this is not a case of Harry being frozen out. This is Harry choosing not to call. If reconciliation really is the prize he says he's chasing, this is a strange way to go about winning it. The King, I am told, is genuinely delighted at the prospect of seeing more of his grandchildren, Archie and Lilibet. There is warmth there, real warmth - demonstrated by the fact he took the appropriate steps to welcome the Sussexes to his Highgrove home in July - despite the attention and controversy that was bound to follow. Things like that have a habit of following the Sussexes don't they. How very odd. So all things considered, any clarity from Harry about why any of this is happening, or what he actually wants from it, would have been welcome. Those close to the King find it perplexing at best as to why Harry has chosen this path, which will only end in driving an even bigger wedge between him and the family. It is precisely the vacuum that allows uncertainty to creep in. Just why have Harry and Meghan chosen now to return? Is Harry really homesick? Is it about Meghan's acting career? Is it a quiet play to edge back into the royal fold? The latter considered so potentially dangerous that the King this week moved to shut it down immediately with a letter to dozens of “key stakeholders” across the country that the Sussexes may begin contacting. The message is clear. They aren't coming back and they don't represent The Firm. Monarchs don't circulate documents like that on a whim. It is the institutional equivalent of drawing a line in permanent marker, not pencil. Such is the fractured state of relations, the news took the Sussexes by surprise as well. Well, what goes around comes around, H. Harry didn't even consider giving his father a heads up that he was uprooting his family and moving home. Now his camp is aggrieved that the Palace didn't warn him about a letter stating that he's still got what he wanted. You are out of the camp and you ain't coming back in. You can't have it both ways. None of this means the door to a better relationship is permanently shut, however. Insiders insist the King's frustration is more confused than punitive, and that the invitation to see his grandchildren more is entirely sincere. But reconciliation, real reconciliation, needs two people actually talking to each other, not statements issued through spokesmen, not letters to Lord Lieutenants, not carefully trailed interviews about wanting to heal. If Harry wants to rebuild something with his father, the first step isn't a documentary. It's a phone call.