Now I had only two weeks to think about a dress and shoes and my hair and my face and my figure. It did sort of put me off my food again, but not because I was unhappy. I actually felt happy and kind of light, as Tatania had said I might. But I knew I had to keep eating to stay on track.
Dear Princess Diana,
I know you have a new boyfriend whose name is not Hammond. He’s a millionaire’s son called Dodi. Babs told me and now I’ve collected some pictures of you two together. Dodi is a great name and it’s good news for you. According to Babs you’ll find true happiness at last (although Martin had something to say about you and Dodi being of different faiths). You do look really happy in all the photos I’ve seen of you recently. Even Martin thinks so.
Maybe our lives are paralleling in a way. Not that I have a boyfriend exactly. But I’ve been dying to tell you the good news about the school dance that I’m going to—with a date! His name is Seb Johnson. I feel all over the place as I write this just remembering how amazed I was when he asked me. And how cute he is and how I thought a few times that maybe he liked me, but then I couldn’t imagine anyone liking me. Not really.
Babs is helping me find a dress and Graham’s given me some money towards it. (I don’t want to wear Zoë’s dress that I had for the wedding—no way!)
I love your new hairstyle and I’m asking the hairdresser to copy it! I’m getting lots of blonde streaks too. Do you mind? Hmm, as if you’d give a damn. I’m not exactly direct competition for you on the social scenes of London, Paris or New York, now am I?
I’d like to, but there’s no point in me even trying to copy your clothes. The whole fashion world follows you, I know, but it’s a bit beyond my savings and Graham’s generosity.
It must be funny knowing that anything you wear—from a choker to a brooch—will become an immediate craze. I love that lizard brooch I spotted you wearing in those fabulous Vanity Fair photos. Guess what Zoë did when I told her?—she found a diamante lizard brooch for me at the Paddington markets! Even though it’s missing a few stones, it’s the cutest thing and I’m wearing it to the dance, of course.
Anyway, I hope you’re as happy as you look. As I’ve said before, you deserve to be!
Your happy friend,
Diana Moore
PS. You might be interested in the latest Jock Bulletin. In the end it was Martin who solved the problem for Tatania, and not by suggesting she read the Bible either! Martin told me that the police use German shepherds either on patrol or at the airport as sniffer dogs and that they might be interested in Jock. So I convinced Tatania to call her local police station and a young officer went round to see Jock. Tatania was worried that Jock’d be too docile and miss his chance, but the officer said they liked good-natured dogs.
Jock behaved perfectly, growling and rolling over at the right times. He’s a bit of a show dog, really. Anyway, the officer loved him so Jock’s gone off to train as a police dog!
‘Who’d have thought Jaok would end up in the police force?’ I said, after I’d told Babs and Martin about Jock’s farewell. I was trying to praise Martin but all he said was, ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways,’ as if Jesus himself had given Martin the idea about the police!
Anyway, it’s a good ending and makes me wonder if life isn’t on the up and up, as Babs would say. I hope it is for you, too!
17
A week before the dance I went to Paddington markets in search of a bracelet to match the brooch Zoë had given me. When I got home I could hear Marcus on the phone. I tried to make it down the hall without some snide comment from him. No such luck.
‘Her pin-up’s carked it!’ he yelled down the phone to his mate. ‘Yeah, it just came on the news. Oh you know, do you? Well hang on, I’m just telling Ugly Di here. Hey you, your pin-up, that Princess Di chick, well she’s dead.’
‘You bloody liar,’ I flashed at him, treading carefully—he could swing a mean punch no trouble. But I could hear the TV and the radio blaring and it confirmed the worst. Princess of Wales … heart massage for two hours … died in a Paris hospital … car crash … pursued by …
My heart was beating in a weird new rhythm, like when they told me about Mum. And my stomach was churning in that oh-so-familiar way, the same as when I try to eat with no appetite. I thought I was going to throw up.
I leaned against the door of my room and I looked right into the eyes of Princess Diana. She stared out at me from all the posters on my wall. I felt like screaming, screaming, screaming but instead I put my hand across my mouth so Marcus wouldn’t have the satisfaction of hearing me, and I just stood there. But not for long.
‘You were in shock, sweetie,’ Babs said when I told her how the room had begun to swing around me and how I had to slide down onto the floor and let the sobs come out.
Graham had tried to be kind but managed to get it all wrong as usual. ‘It’s a pity, she was such a good-looking woman, that one! But it’s not like you know her or anything. Not really.’ Nice one, Graham.
Babs, on the other hand, always manages to say the right thing. ‘Some girls go crazy for film stars at your age, darl. But for you there was only one star—apart from your mum—and that was her, the English princess. So for you it is like you’ve lost a close friend.’ And she hugged me and patted me just the way she had when Mum died.
It was true. I felt as if I had a special affinity with Princess Di. Of course I had crushes on film stars and random guys on the bus home, but I never felt for any of them what I felt for her. Princess Diana was my idol! She was extraordinary and yet ordinary. Her beauty was one thing but it was the everyday things that made me like her so much—how modern she was; how she had a real connection with people; how she played with her kids in public like no other royal person had ever done; how she wasn’t afraid to let people see that she was unhappy sometimes.
‘A star has burned out,’ Babs said in that dramatic way of hers. ‘We’re going to miss her and all those fabulous frocks, Di!’
‘She walks in the footsteps of Jesus,’ Martin had commented. For once I agreed with him because it was comforting to think that Diana might be with someone loving and be somewhere calm. At least that!
At school, Zoë and I hugged each other and cried just the way we did when a friend of ours had died in a swimming accident last year. We didn’t talk about anything else that first day. Even my Maths teacher, who’s a pretty tough nut, admitted she was upset. In every lesson, every teacher said something.
‘My dad said she’s a twentieth-century icon, whatever that means,’ we heard someone say in the playground. Another girl, who was drying her eyes, said, ‘But I just want her to be here. I want to see her playing with her kids. I want her to be alive again!’ I knew what she meant, but the longing I felt seemed even bigger than that because it was mixed up in the longing I had for Mum. Samantha Harris, the bitchiest girl in my year, couldn’t help making a snide remark to me. ‘You must feel pretty bad about that Zeigler stuff now, huh?’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, you know—it probably caused trouble and pressure with Dodi if it made the papers over there, which it probably did.’
‘Not! ’ Zoë answered emphatically. She turned away, grabbing my arm.
‘Nobody else would buy that remark, she’s such a bitch!’ Zoë whispered furiously. ‘As if we’re to blame for Princess Diana’s death!’
At home I made sure I didn’t say a word to Marcus. He seemed to be having a great time as more and more news came through. He kept butting into my room to tell me another detail he’d heard. He wanted to gloat over my misery and I had no way of locking him out.
‘They say the driver had a high alcohol reading. They say that the driver had flashlights go off in his face. They say she was conscious when they took her out of the car. She’s a global phenomenon now!’ (As if she wasn’t already, nerd, I wanted to say.) But I was too choked up. ‘Get the hell out of here!’ I screamed instead, and made a mental note to ask Martin to put the biggest, fa
ttest bolt on my door as soon as he could.
I combed through all the media myself over the next few days. I think I was trying to find some sense in Diana’s death. There was none and the headlines made me sick. The press were trying madly to direct the guilt somewhere, anywhere. The first targets were the paparazzi. Then it was the royal family, especially the Queen. Headlines blazed about the family’s lack of compassion—well, that was how it looked until they flew the flag for her and went to look at all the tributes to Diana outside Buckingham Palace. There were masses and masses of flowers and letters. Then the press started blaming the driver. They even had a go at the public who the press said contributed to the Di frenzy by buying their papers and magazines. Talk about shifting blame!
Zoë was outraged. ‘The press treated her with a total lack of feeling,’ she raged. ‘They were the ones pursuing her, gloating over any slip-up she made. Well, there’s been a tragic slip-up all right! And plenty of press.’
I suddenly thought about Hammond Zeigler and what he’d think of Diana’s death. Who knows, maybe the universe stirred in some peculiar way just then? But more about that later.
Finally, it was Saturday night and I was going out with Seb Johnson. But it was also the night of Diana’s funeral. ‘Life goes on, Di,’ Zoë said, although she admitted to feeling flat and a little bit tacky about going to the dance.
‘But let’s try to have a really good time at the dance anyway. I’m taping the TV broadcast of her funeral service. We can watch it at my place and have a good cry on Sunday.’
I wasn’t sure about going to Zoë’s place, as I hadn’t seen her mother since that awful interview at school. I didn’t know if Bee would even want me in their house. But in the end I agreed. Graham had said he’d record the funeral for me but I couldn’t think of anything worse than having to watch it with him and Marcus. Still, if Bee threw me out, at least I knew I could see it at home.
‘Oh, Di, who in the hell will ever be able to wear designer clothes the way she did? We’ll just have to work towards it I guess …’ It was Zoë on the phone again. ‘Now, you’re coming to the dance aren’t you?’
‘I want to but I don’t think I’ll be good company,’ I told Zoë. I was losing my nerve and had already half-decided it’d be easier to stay at home.
‘Think of all the times Princess Di wouldn’t have wanted to go out but had to,’ Zoë said.
‘Mmm.’
‘And what about your new hairdo, Di, don’t waste that! You can’t!’
I laughed despite myself and agreed. ‘Well, if it wasn’t for the hairdo … I’m so nervous about Seb. I don’t know what to say to him.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ she said, obviously pleased. ‘He’s a bit of a spunk in a nerdy sort of way.’
‘Thanks a lot!’
Look, don’t get me wrong, I like him a lot. But he’s a bit on the quiet side for me. That’ll make it easier for you though, Di. It should be a great night!’
18
It was a terrible night from start to finish. As I brushed my Diana look-alike hairdo, I knew that at that very moment she was being borne on a gun carriage through the morning streets of London. The mourning streets, I corrected myself.
I was tempted to turn on the TV to watch but then I’d never go to the dance. So I stood in front of the mirror trying to distract myself. My skirt looked good. But maybe I was not really thin enough. Then again, my arms didn’t look that great, too stick-like by far. I should change the top.
Zoë, Jason and Seb were coming to pick me up in their friend Andrew’s car. I was still fussing at the mirror when the doorbell rang. Thank God Marcus wasn’t home to stuff it all up for me. I opened the door expecting to see Seb, but it was Zoë.
‘You look great!’ she said hugging me. ‘He’s in the car—they’re talking boy stuff!’
Seb said hello shyly when I got into the car but then he sat as far away from me as he could all the way to the dance. I actually saw him yawn a few times which made me feel absolutely fabulous! Zoë, Jason and Andrew were chatting non-stop and didn’t notice our silence. Seb seemed awkward and nervous when we got out of the car and he walked closer to Jason and Zoë than to me.
‘Hang back,’ Zoë whispered from the corner of her mouth, anxious to get us together. But I just couldn’t. It would be easy enough for him to catch up with me. We walked in through the old school gates. My stomach was churning because it seemed like Seb was really unhappy about being there with me. Not nervous, as I was about being with him, just bored and unhappy. Had he asked me as a favour to Zoë? But she had been just as surprised as I was about his invitation.
At the door he was suddenly by my side. He seemed awkward as he put his arm around my waist, kind of ushering me into the hall. He didn’t say a word and he wasn’t smiling. Maybe he was nervous. Oh hell! Whatever—it wasn’t helping me at all! I felt faint.
I was grateful for the dim lights and the throbbing music and I lost myself for an hour or so while we danced. In all that time, even though we remained close on the floor, Seb didn’t attempt to touch me again. When a slow song came on we went outside. He walked down the verandah steps and out into the blackness of the school grounds. I didn’t know whether I should follow or just let him go. Maybe he was meeting someone else out there? I found myself clutching my hands together like a little kid on their first day at school. How could I be cool about this? I just wanted to run away!
But then Seb turned back and motioned me towards him. We sat on an old wooden garden seat. I could tell that Seb was nervous too. There were beads of sweat glistening on his forehead and his hands were trembling. I felt a rush of sympathy for him.
‘Seb, thanks for asking me to the dance …’
‘Been a bit of a disappointment, eh?’ he said. ‘The second band didn’t turn up.’ I didn’t care in the least that the band hadn’t showed up, but I nodded anyway.
‘Here, have some,’ he said, taking out a hip flask. I gulped the fiery liquid, not even asking what it was. I was so confused, relieved, scared. All kinds of thoughts were running through my head. And I kept seeing Princess Di’s face. Should I say something about the funeral? No, it wasn’t the time or place.
We shared the flask in silence. As I sipped, things became less clear, and somehow more pleasant.
‘Diana.’ Seb sat up straight and his voice came out raspy; almost frightened. He was digging his hands into the hard wooden seat.
‘I’m sorry about all this …’
‘Oh, don’t worry. I don’t care about the band one bit,’ I said, trying not to slur my words. I was feeling woozy.
‘No, not about the band, about asking you to come with me tonight.’
My heart skipped a beat and within a second I felt horribly sober.
‘Asking me?’ What d’you mean, asking me?’
‘It was a dare!’ He couldn’t look at me. ‘And I needed to tell you that because I feel like a fool …’
I should have known. Some guys Marcus knew had pulled the same cruel trick. They call it Dog Dare. You ask a nerdy girl out and you get points from the group if she agrees, and even more points if you kiss her. You were a hero for a day and had first use of the basketball courts. Everyone in the year thought it was a hoot until some teachers cottoned on and put a stop to it. ‘Trust Year 9 losers!’ Marcus had commented when the whole thing came out.
Why hadn’t I caught on that the older boys were probably just as cruel and were perfectly capable of setting up the same sort of thing? That even with my expensive blonde streaks and the tight black skirt on my thin, but not thin enough, body that I was still a nerd to everyone? A laughing stock. Maybe everyone at the dance knew and had been giving me pitying looks but I hadn’t noticed.
‘Oh Jesus!’ I said gazing up into the black sky. ‘Oh Jesus! Jesus!’ and I wasn’t saying it in the way that Martin did.
Seb grabbed my hand but I wrenched it away.
I knew Zoë had no idea about it, but Jason and Andrew had look
ed at me in a funny way, hadn’t they? They must have known. And the entire group at the dance who’d made a point of coming up and saying hello to Seb, they must have known. And tomorrow the whole school would know and then Marcus would know. And it would be unbearable. I couldn’t face them. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t even face Seb. There was a long silence. And then out of the blue I started laughing. It was the weirdest thing because I had no control over it.
Harsh laughter spilled out across the grass, laughter that seemed louder than the music inside the hall. Seb got really upset then and jumped to his feet.
‘What is it?’ he asked, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I suppose he was scared I would get hysterical.
‘I’m happy as a pig in mud,’ I said, using one of Babs’s favourite phrases.
‘No, a dog in mud …’ and I wiped away my tears of laughter.
‘It wasn’t that kind of dare! No, you’ve got me wrong, Diana—it wasn’t like that at all.’ But I didn’t care if it was a Dog Dare or any other dare. He’d asked me against his will. That’s all I needed to know. And really, it didn’t matter a damn. I knew what I was going to do. In a flash it had come to me. I stood up so I was face-to-face with him.
‘Please Diana, if you want to know the truth—I do like you but I had this talk with some of the guys and we all …’
I knew what I was going to do. I knew! I no longer cared what Seb was trying to say or what the others thought. Tears of relief welled up in my eyes. I turned away from Seb Johnson, and from all of them, and I began walking towards the gates. Seb followed, talking all the way. For a while he stayed beside me, kind of pleading as I walked fast up the street.
‘You’re a bit drunk, you know, Diana. You can’t go home by yourself. Hey, wait just a minute will you!’
Finally, I couldn’t hear his voice anymore and I knew he must have turned back. I didn’t care because I was gloriously clear-headed. Suddenly I was alone and there was a light rain falling and it felt wonderful because I knew how I would solve everything. I stood at the crossroads waiting for the lights to change. Tonight I would be Queen of the Night!
Letters to a Princess Page 9
