The thought filled me with purpose despite my whirling head, and I sped along the dark streets towards my home. Not my home since Mum had gone, not really. And now not to be my home ever again. I’d return one last time. I planned it all as I kept on through the rain and I felt more steady and sure than I ever had before. When the clouds parted for a moment, revealing a sickly moon, I nodded as if it were revealing itself just for me. ‘Go on, do it. Get it over.’ I walked on.
I knew exactly where Graham hid his sleeping tablets. I’d thought about that bottle of pills more than once since Marcus had first waved them in front of me. ‘Just in case you ever need them, Ugly,’ he’d taunted. ‘I’ll show you just where the old man keeps his sleepers. You just never know when you might want a good, long sleep!’ This was after a terrible fight that had raged for days. Something about his bike. Reckoned I’d done something to it.
No-one would be home. I’d go straight into Graham’s room and reach down behind the bedside table and get the whole bottle of pills. I’d go to the fridge and take a few cans of his Coke. I’d take money from my own room—I still had a bit even after the hairdresser’s bill—and The Diana Papers but that’s all. No way would that lot ever see the contents of my folder.
I was going to find a cab up on the main road to take me all the way to Bondi Beach. I’d go to Zoë’s secret cave around Ben Buckler. We called it our sleepover cave because Zoë always talked about staying there overnight. But we’d never quite had the guts to do it. The cave would be just the right place.
I’d find my way slipping and sliding over rocks, with the surf roaring close by. I’d take the tablets with gulps of Coke I’d write a goodbye note to Zoë and Babs and Tatania, of course. And I’d go to sleep. And nobody would know where to find me. Well, maybe Zoë would think of the cave, but it would take her at least a week. And by then it’d be too late. Too, too late.
I’ll be with Mum, I thought and with my lovely Princess Diana. With both of you—if you’ll have me. Together, forever, in a place where no-one will ever be able to hurt us again.
No-one could hurt me ever again. I was ecstatically happy, even though I was crying as I made my way home.
19
What I hadn’t counted on was Princess Diana’s funeral procession!
I couldn’t believe it. Marcus and Graham were at home! I could hear the TV as I came up the driveway. I panicked when I realised they were both watching Princess Diana’s funeral, but I was already in the front door by then.
‘That you, Diana?’ Graham called out and I made my voice sound as normal as I could.
‘Yeah, it’s me,’ I answered, trying to slip by. My head was still a bit whirly and my tongue felt thick, but I must have sounded all right.
‘You should come in here and watch this.’
I paused at the door. The loungeroom was hot and stuffy. Graham had cans of beer lined up on the coffee table. Marcus was sprawled on the old sofa, eyes glued to the television. I hated them. Standing in the doorway I hated them being there; in fact, I hated them for just being. And I was glad this would be the last time I’d have to look at them. Glad that it was all over for me.
I had to get by them and into Graham’s room. Tears of frustration were welling up and I didn’t want them to see me cry. I walked past as if going to my own room.
‘Everything’s so quiet,’ Graham was saying, as if I’d be interested, ‘not a damned soul to be found anywhere. Restaurants empty, pubs empty. Everyone’s at home watching the funeral, so I thought I may as well do the same.’
I walked on down the hall.
‘Diana?’
‘Yes.’
I walked back to the door.
‘You should come and look.’ It was Marcus who said this, but not in his usual mocking way. ‘It’s her funeral, you know.’
‘As if I didn’t know, dickhead!’ I was about to flash at him, but I stopped myself just in time. He’d spoken to me as if I were a normal human being. I paused and glanced at the television. I saw a gun carriage carrying a coffin draped in a beautiful bright flag. It almost seemed too colourful to bear, given that she, the Princess, was under it. I took in the eight royal guards in their red coats, stiff and upright, and so sad.
A new wave of grief swept over me.
‘Diana’, her name echoed in my brain, ‘Diana’. But I didn’t risk whispering it in this hostile place. How dare they look at her now when both of them had been so disparaging in the past? How dare they ask me to look with them! But I couldn’t tear myself away. I just stood there.
I heard the clip, clip, clip of horses’ hooves. Everything looked somehow familiar to me. And I remembered then how Mum had been glued to the TV screen every time there had been a royal wedding. And always with me, ‘her shadow’, right there beside her. A forlorn bell kept sounding—not at all like the peeling of wedding bells. As it tolled through the city on the television, it seemed to toll right through me as well.
‘They’re ringing it every minute,’ Marcus said with all the authority of his few moments’ viewing. He spoke with something that sounded suspiciously like respect. On the TV four figures stepped out of a side street. I recognised William and Harry, Diana’s beloved boys, at once. Their grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, stern-faced and sad, walked beside William, while Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, walked beside Harry. I saw the anguished face of Prince Charles, Diana’s former husband. And no matter what is or was being said about him, I felt very sorry at the way he looked and I knew just how he’d be feeling. I found my knees almost buckling under me. It made me feel like crying all over again, for them and for her. But I remembered I felt sorry for myself too. Very!
‘It seems unbelievable!’ Graham was saying. What was pretty unbelievable was that his voice was husky with emotion. Graham, who was dry-eyed at Mum’s funeral and so distant from me for days after. But more surprising than Graham’s reaction was the fact that Marcus didn’t have a smart-arse comment just right for the occasion. He had not said another word but seemed fixed on the images on the screen. It dawned on me that even he, even monstrous Marcus, was affected by what he saw—that’s how it seemed anyway. For a moment I thought about his own mum, and what Babs had told me. I wondered if Marcus went to her funeral.
There was a strange sense of empathy in the loungeroom. Maybe it was the sight of the crown of white roses or the card with ‘Mummy’ written on it in a child’s handwriting which you knew was a little boy’s simple goodbye to the mother he’d never see again. Anyway, for some reason, many reasons, I was drawn into the room and sat down with Graham and Marcus like we were a family. Now, if anything was unbelievable that was!
When I moved to get up and leave because I was going to burst into tears, Graham came over to sit beside me. ‘It’s okay, love,’ he said in the same voice I was sure he’d used when he’d taken Mum’s hand in the hospital. That was when we all knew it was not going to be okay for Mum at all. Now at last he wants to comfort me. But it’s too late. This thought made tears slither down my cheeks.
‘Never mind, Di. I know how you adored her. It’ll be okay, love,’ he said. Why was he giving me words of comfort on this night of all nights?
I still couldn’t believe Marcus was staying silent. It was as if we were joined by the funeral, of all things, and by our own needs. It was remarkable. No-one said anything until just before Elton John was going to sing a special song for the princesss. Marcus took this opportunity to jump up. He mumbled something about getting a drink from the fridge.
Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, read the eulogy. He talked about her being ‘the most hunted woman in the world’. When he finished the people in the church started clapping. This was unheard of, people don’t clap in church—except for Princess Diana.
I couldn’t bear to see her coffin being carried away, taking her on her last journey. I made my way to my own room. Graham followed me and said, again, ‘I’m truly sorry Diana.’ And I knew he wasn’t just talking about the funeral b
ut about the whole mess, the charade that was our family. He looked so pathetic that my hatred melted away and even though I couldn’t hug him like I might have if we’d been in a movie, I nodded. It was the best I could do.
‘You can have that lock fixed on your door, love. I was wrong about that. You deserve privacy. I’ll fix it for you. Okay?’
I nodded again and then turned away.
I realised Graham was saying more than sorry. He was trying to tell me, in his ineffectual way, that things would change around our place. And I nodded because I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him. He let me go to my room and turned back to the loungeroom and Marcus.
Then, with a start, I remembered my plan. The dance, Seb, all of that seemed like an age ago and my resolve was not quite so urgent as it had been. My head was aching but my mind was clear. ‘I should go now’, I said out loud. But I didn’t move.
Instead I stood in the middle of my room and turned around slowly, taking in the hundreds of pictures of Princess Di which studded my walls. I looked long and hard at them, at her. I was seeing her but also in those smiling blue eyes, I was seeing something else. Someone else. I was seeing myself.
Time seemed to stand still. I think my heart rate slowed down, because I felt slow and calm, like I did when I’d done meditation classes afer Mum died. I could feel Princess Diana watching me. I thought about her looking at my life and my pathetic plan to go to Ben Buckler to die by the sea. And something changed in me. I don’t know why but her face, her whole demeanour, her eyes, seemed to be saying something to me that night of her funeral. Whatever it was, it saved my life. ‘For God’s sake Diana Louise, you have to live life. You have to live!’ I heard her saying. And then a chorus of voices, Tatania talking about ‘a spiritual awakening’, or words to that effect, Babs lecturing me about how talented I was. Something clicked and it was as though I was literally coming to my senses. Maybe the alcohol was clearing out of my head too.
I knew I wouldn’t be rushing like a complete loser through the night with Graham’s pills to Ben Buckler and the rat cave around the lonely, sea-sprayed rocks. I was so relieved I sank to the floor, and boy did I cry then!
‘Thank you, Diana,’ I said over and over, trembling a little with relief.
I thanked her because I knew she’d given me a gift. One that she’d never know about, and neither would anyone else.
As the princess’s remains were being borne through the streets to their final resting place, I realised that she’d been part of the gift of life for me. Even more, of love, because I felt filled with it at this moment. I was also amazed that a horrendously average schoolgirl with self-esteem problems and stupid, ugly thoughts had been transformed by a gift from a dead princess. Well, transformed is a bit much because you don’t just change like that. But that’s what it felt like at that moment.
I know Martin would have hugged me for what I did next. I reached for the black leather Bible he’d sent to me via Babs when I’d been in hospital. I wanted to look up something I’d heard at the funeral, something about love that the Prime Minister had read with such emotion. My hands were shaking so much I couldn’t find the place but I heard Mr Blair’s clipped voice, and I remembered the fragment, ‘faith, hope and love, these three remain, but the greatest of these is love’.
While I was looking through the Bible, I heard something unusual from the loungeroom. The TV was off and it was the sound of Graham and Marcus actually talking. I didn’t know what they were saying to each other, and I didn’t want to know, but I remember thinking that it was the first time I’d ever heard them talking like normal people. Like I imagined a father and son should talk, like the way Mum and I used to talk.
After I’d found the Bible passage, I looked up ‘Diana’ in the Companion I had borrowed from Miss Pate. I took out The Diana Papers; the folder was like an old friend. I read over bits and pieces of my past and hers. And I wrote out parts of the entry from the Companion. I’m not sure why I did this but I realise now that it was a kind of tribute. And it really cleared my mind, like writing always does for me.
Diana: A Latin goddess who had from very early times a temple at Rome on the Aventine … Diana was supposed to promote the union of communities … She was especially worshipped by women. She was perhaps originally a spirit of the woods and of wild nature, brought into friendly relations with the farmer and his family … From her association with Artemis, Diana took over the character of a moon goddess; and since Hecate was sometimes identified with Artemis, of an earth goddess. She had the cult title Trivia from being worshipped like Hecate at the crossways.
And then I did what I said I’d never do. I wrote to a dead person.
20
Dear Princess Diana,
The whole world mourns you, even my stepfather and stepbrother. That’s a miracle in itself. You’ve united hearts around the world in a way no-one else on earth could quite do. You’re supposed to ‘promote the union of communities’, after all.
You saved my life today. Well, you helped me save my own life. Your brother pledged to make your boys ‘sing’ their way through their lives and I’m going to try like crazy to ‘sing’ my way through mine. Like my mum wanted me to, like Babs and Tatania and Zoë want me to.
I’m at a crossroads, Princess Diana. I know it’s up to me how I live the rest of my life. This will be my final letter. I’m going to miss you. I read that a scientist has named a new star after you. Diana, the People’s Princess. You sure were a star for me and you always will be. Whenever it’s a bright moonlit night, I’ll think of you, the moon goddess.
Thank you for your life and thank you for mine.
With love, sadness and happiness,
Diana Moore
I looked in the mirror at my face, all red and swollen from the tears. I looked at my image and I didn’t hate it. I knew that not only did I want to live, but I also wanted my life to make a difference to people. To do things the way Princess Diana, in her own way, had tried to do—with landmines, with AIDS victims. Maybe I could talk to kids who have the same eating problems as mine. Maybe I could do it through journalism. I don’t know yet how, but the prospect of it is exciting. I’d be more free to do good things than Princess Di ever was! Being average has its advantages, I was learning.
This was when I realised something else. I wasn’t calling out to Mum to save me. In some weird way, for the first time, I was the one in control. It was up to me and I could do it.
I closed The Diana Papers and felt a glow of certainty—very unusual for me. My Diana phase was over. I began taking down all her pictures. The walls, the doors, the noticeboard looked so empty without them, but they also looked clear and clean. I lay on my bed and Seb Johnson, Zoë and Jason, Hammond Zeigler, Aronda, Ingrid; all these faces came swimming through my mind. In the far off I was conscious of Graham and Marcus still talking in the loungeroom. But I let them drift away. And without another thought, and certainly not any of the despair that had been so sharp before, I felt myself floating, delightfully empty, off to sleep.
Next morning in the kitchen nothing much seemed to have changed. Graham was quiet and switched channels to find something other than images of Diana’s funeral. ‘Where’s the news?’ He kept asking the television irritably. And Marcus’s aggrieved comments were entirely for my benefit. ‘They’re dragging this dying swan thing out a bit, aren’t they? She was just a clotheshorse with anorexia.’ The difference was I didn’t take the bait.
‘It was bulimia, actually, Marcus. And she was over it,’ I said quietly.
‘Oh yeah, I forgot, the Vomiting Princess.’
I didn’t say anything more. But when he got up to use the toaster and said, ‘Shove off can’t you, Diana?’ I realised his tone had changed. The venom had gone out of his voice. And I realised he wasn’t calling me Ugly or Fatso.
‘Hurry up you two or you’ll be late for school,’ Graham muttered as he grabbed his briefcase and his toast and headed for the door.
Life
went on in our household, almost in the same old way. Almost, but not quite.
21
Things have changed a lot at home, though not soon enough for me. I’ve been given the privacy I longed for but it’s come a bit too late.
Graham broke the not-so-surprising news to me that Ingrid would be coming to live with him soon and that eventually, if things went well, they’d get married. That will certainly be one wedding I’ll choose not to attend! With the thought of Ingrid resplendent in this house, for once I can feel sorry for Marcus.
Despite Graham’s protests, I know that he’s grateful to hear I have plans to move out now that I am old enough. I’d already decided to live somewhere else after Diana died. I talked to the counsellor at school, yet again, and she’s in the process of getting me a room in what seems to be quite an okay place. It’s in a hostel with a whole lot of kids from the country. It should be good. I explained to Graham that I can get rent assistance, and I won’t move far away. He’s relieved, though of course he won’t ever say so.
I’ve told Babs and she’s okay with it because the hostel is pretty close to her place. She actually offered their spare room to me but I couldn’t take all those religious pictures all over the house—all those bleeding hearts and things. She knows I love her and Martin very much and want them in my life. She understands that I crave a place of my own, my own privacy.
‘You writers need your ivory towers, love. I realise that. But you know I’m always here for you. Martin and me …’
Zoë said she’d like to come and live with me too, but she doesn’t really mean it. Her dad actually has a job in a big company at last. She wouldn’t say exactly what the job was but, ‘Let’s just say it’s not managing director,’ she admitted, ‘but close enough.’
She’s also told me that Seb is desperate to talk to me. Desperate? As if!’ Funnily enough, it just doesn’t matter to me anymore. I don’t hang out with that group at the bus stop after school these days. I say hello to Jason but that’s all. I can’t even look at Seb and don’t know if I ever will.
Letters to a Princess Page 10