Imagining Diana

by Diane Clehane

  “It does no good to blame yourself, Diana. You need to focus on getting stronger. The boys and I are terribly worried about you. The Fayeds knew full well what they were doing by inviting you on holiday.”

  “You don’t understand, Charles.”

  “What don’t I understand?”

  “It doesn’t matter now. It all went wrong when those photographers were outside the hotel that night.”

  “Have you remembered anything else?”

  “No, I just remember there were photographers around the car and more of them as we entered the tunnel.”

  “Rees-Jones said he remembers the photographers, too, but that’s all. I’ve been told Fayed is paying his medical bills.”

  “Yes, well . . . ”

  “I am sorry Al Fayed is making this situation worse for you, Diana.”

  “When I’m stronger, I will talk to him, but I have other things on my mind at the moment.”

  “Well, you needn’t worry about the boys so much. The headmaster at Eton rang and told me William seems to be coping well. His classmates are being very kind to him. Evidently, they’d all written him notes and he was given the bundle of them when he returned to school.”

  “I’m glad they’re being kind to him. William has been calling me every night. He told me he doesn’t want to ‘perform’ at any more photo calls to prove he’s all right – and he’s worried about Harry.”

  “He’s not doing anything like that. When he arrived back at school, we thought it was advisable to let the photographers get their pictures so there wouldn’t be hysterical stories about the boys not being able to cope.

  Ludgrove’s headmaster told me Harry has been a bit quieter than usual. But he’ll be all right,” said Charles, pausing a moment before continuing.

  “Diana, my private secretary told me he’s heard there’s a photographer who is trying to sell a story about you tipping him off about where you were before the accident—and that you were paying him to feed items to the papers about you and Dodi.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Good, because that would be terrible for the boys to have this story dragged out even more.”

  “I’m sorry that I’ve inconvenienced you all.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Diana. My concern is for our sons—and for you, of course. What are you going to do now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you going to continue to live here?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? The Queen agreed that I be given these apartments as part of our divorce settlement.”

  “That’s true, but before the accident, you made it quite clear you wanted nothing more to do with royal life. William told me you talked to him about leaving England. I assumed you were making other plans.”

  “Those plans have changed, Charles,” she said quietly turning her face away from him so he wouldn’t see she was crying now.

  “I see.”

  “I need time.”

  “I will talk to the Queen.”

  November 3, 1997

  h

  Diana had been hoping Hasnat Khan would be her first visitor when she came home instead of her ex-husband. She hadn’t meant to snap at Charles. She knew he was genuinely concerned. Diana was angrier at herself than at anyone else. Her plan to try to make Hasnat jealous by helping that photographer get pictures of her and Dodi kissing on the Jonikal had backfired, just like Hasnat’s friend had warned her it would. Only she knew just how dire the consequences of her actions had been.

  Hearing that the photographer was shopping his story, Diana worried that Hasnat—along with the world—would eventually find out she had orchestrated those photos on the Jonikal and set off the feeding frenzy in Paris. The photographer would undoubtedly make the story more dramatic by adding his own flourishes that were lies. But there would be enough truth in the mix to paint a devastating picture that would undoubtedly do irreparable harm to Diana’s reputation and imperil whatever plans she made for the future. There were plenty of media organizations that would open their checkbooks to tell the story that saintly Diana was actually a manipulative siren who wound up luring one man to his death while breaking the heart of another.

  No one would understand that she, too, had lost a great deal in the crash. The fame she never sought had cost her the soulmate for whom she’d waited her whole life. She had been in love with Pakistani heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan for nearly two years and kept their affair secret at his insistence. If he had come back to her, she reasoned, she would have been willing to retire from public life, move to Pakistan with him, and live as a doctor’s wife thousands of miles away from the hornets’ nest that was her life in London.

  She had tried to make Hasnat understand that back in July when she’d gone to his flat and begged him to not give up on them.

  “Would you really be able to live in a place like this? A one bedroom flat with no chef and no butler?” he asked, motioning around his small, messy flat in West London. Ashtrays were filled, there were dirty dishes in the sink, and an empty box from Kentucky Fried Chicken sat discarded on the kitchen counter.

  “Yes, I would,” she insisted. “I just want to be with you.”

  “Being followed night and day by photographers is not a normal life. That will never change, and I can’t live my life like that—even for you. You say you want to give up your fame, but fame will never give you up.”

  “The life I’ve had never made me as happy as I am when I am with you—except for my boys. They want me to be happy. They want me to find love.”

  “I do love you, I just don’t see how this can work,” he said, looking into her eyes, then quickly turning away.

  “We must try. We love each other. We don’t have to stay in London. We can start over somewhere else. We could build a charity hospital in Pakistan. We could do such wonderful things together, Hasnat.”

  “I don’t want to leave London. My practice is here. My life is here.”

  “Why won’t you even try?” Diana pleaded. “Why won’t you let us be together?”

  “I have tried. I know it will just be too difficult. In the end we will grow to resent each other.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is, Diana. You know it is.”

  Diana felt the emotion rising in her throat.

  “I want to be your wife. I want people to know we are together.”

  “I am not ready for that, and I don’t know if I ever will be.”

  “Well then, this is goodbye.”

  When Diana stormed out of Hasnat’s flat that night, she waited a half hour in the pouring rain down on the sidewalk to see if he would come after her. When he didn’t, she sat in her car and cried until she was too exhausted to drive herself home. She’d phoned Paul at two o’clock in the morning and asked him to come and get her. He came in his own car and left it there when he’d driven her back to the palace in her BMW.

  h

  If Hasnat suspected anything about the pictures taken aboard the Jonikal with Dodi, he wasn’t letting on. The first time he visited Diana in the hospital after she’d come out of the coma, he slipped in through the back entrance late at night. When he came into her room, Diana had been sleeping. She’d woken up when she heard Hasnat talking with the hospital staff. Confident the princess was being attended to by a respected physician, the nurses closed the door to her room and didn’t open it again until morning.

  That first night, she tried to speak, but Hasnat shook his head and put his finger to his lips. “I’m here, my love, you must not tire yourself. Just rest,” he said. He sat by her bed holding her hand all night. He did the same thing every night—arriving around eleven o’clock and slipping out before dawn—until Diana had been released. She felt comforted and protected with him in the room. He’s come back to me, she thought dreamily as she closed her eyes and fell
into a deep sleep when she knew he was there.

  She had not seen or spoken to Hasnat since leaving the hospital.

  Diana was despondent that even now, the man she so deeply loved was still being so cautious about being spotted visiting her. She’d called him repeatedly to see when he was going to come to see her. It was after eight o’clock at night when he finally returned her call. They agreed that Paul would be waiting for him at the usual place and drive him to Kensington Palace after he finished work for the evening.

  When she heard the gravel on the drive crunching under the wheels of Paul’s car, she flung open the heavy black front door and stood in the entranceway. Hasnat was in the back seat. Around his shoulders was the plaid blanket Paul had used to cover him so he would not be spotted when they drove through the gates. He sat in the car for a moment looking at Diana through the windshield. She put up her hand and gave him a small wave from the doorway. He gave her a half-smile in return.

  “Hasnat, I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said as she closed the door behind them. Diana flung her arms around him and buried her face in his neck.

  After just a few moments, she felt him hesitantly pat her back.

  He pulled away and looked at her tenderly. “You are looking well, Diana. You must be happy to be home.”

  “I’m happier now that you’re here,” she said, taking his hand and guiding him to sit next to her on the sofa. “All these years I have spent visiting patients in hospitals, I’ve seen so many people who are suffering terribly and so many that have had to endure horrible, disfiguring injuries. But I never imagined anything like that would happen to me. Now I know what it’s like to lie there on a bed and wonder if you’re going to live.” She was talking too fast because she felt nervous.

  “You are very strong-willed. I knew you would live to see your boys again.”

  “And to be with you.”

  “Diana, we need to talk,” he said as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and fished his lighter from his jacket pocket.

  She was glad she’d thought to put out the Hermes ashtrays that she’d bought. She wanted him to feel at home here, as he had for the past two years before the ugly parting they’d had at the end of July. She detested smoking but would do anything to make him feel comfortable at KP. Diana wanted to hear him say he loved her more than ever and that the accident had made him realize he could not live without her.

  “I called you the night of the accident on your mobile, but the call didn’t go through,” he began.

  “I changed my number,” she said. “I was getting strange calls. What were you going to tell me?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said, inhaling deeply from his cigarette.

  “Tell me, please. I want to know.” Diana’s heart was pounding so loudly she was sure he could hear it.

  “I was going to tell you I loved you and that you should come home,” he said quietly.

  “I am home. We can pick up where we left off.”

  “Everything is different.”

  “How?”

  “Now you are not only the most famous woman in the world, but you are the sainted figure who was nearly killed by the press,” he said. “You are more famous than ever.”

  “The photographers don’t want me now. Not like this.” Diana just then realized she hadn’t bothered trying to cover her scar for Hasnat. She didn’t need to, not for him.

  “Do you really believe that? A photograph of you is more valuable than ever.”

  “Because I am this disfigured creature?”

  “No, because you did not let them win, so you are still their prey. Your brother was right when he told reporters you are the most hunted person of the modern age.”

  “They are going to tire of chasing me now.”

  “I think you’re being naïve.”

  “Hasnat, there are other people leading far more interesting lives than I do now. I want to be with you.”

  Hasnat extinguished his cigarette and walked to the window. “Diana, what were you doing with Dodi?”

  “I never meant for it to become anything more than a friendship.”

  “Well, it was clearly more than that.”

  “I was trying to forget the pain I was in over losing you. He was very attentive, and we enjoyed each other’s company. It wasn’t anything serious.”

  “It appeared quite serious.”

  “You mean the photographs in the newspapers?”

  “Yes.”

  “A few kisses do not have to mean anything. And I thought I was never going to see you again.”

  “Did you really think you would not see me?”

  “Why would I think otherwise when you said you could not commit to making me your wife?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why have you come, Hasnat?”

  “Because you asked me to.”

  “Because I wanted to know if we can begin again.”

  “I thought about it every night when I sat by your bed at the hospital. I do love you, Diana, but we are two people whose lives could not be more different. I see the stories of the crash and Fayed claiming his son was murdered because the two of you were getting married, and it’s all too much.”

  “The papers can’t keep writing about it if there is nothing more to say. I am going to talk to Mohamed and make him understand why he must stop telling these stories. Dodi is dead. That is the end of this very sad story. I was thinking I might give one interview to tell the truth about everything. There are a few newspaper editors I can call who would be delighted to have my real story on their front page. Or maybe I can go on American television with Barbara Walters or Oprah.”

  “And tell them about me?”

  “About us. I was never going to marry Dodi. Mohamed wants people to believe that, but it’s not true.”

  “It doesn’t matter. There are enough people out there who believe it is true.”

  “They don’t know anything about me.”

  “Everyone in the world thinks they know you.”

  “No one knows the real me. Only you.”

  November 18, 1997

  h

  Diana couldn’t bear to look at the newspapers anymore. For years, she’d kept detailed scrapbooks filled with all of the stories and photographs of her that appeared in newspapers and magazines, but she didn’t want any reminders of the coverage that had run since the crash. The stories of her affair with Dodi and what might have been were still splashed on the covers of many publications. But at eight o’clock this morning, when she’d come down to breakfast wrapped in her white terrycloth robe after her morning bath, she breathed a sigh of relief. She scanned the newspapers’ front pages while she sipped her carrot juice and, for the first time since she’d come home, saw nothing about herself and Dodi. She went over to the sideboard to pop one slice of whole wheat bread into the toaster and pour herself a cup of black coffee from the Herend china coffee pot. This is going to be a good day, she thought, as she spooned a section from the halved grapefruit that awaited her at her placesetting.

  Then she saw it. One headline speculated on how she was handling her ‘disfigurement’ complete with artist renderings of what the crash may have done to her face and supposed experts weighing in on her physical and emotional recovery. What did they know? Diana was so shaken by the story, she bolted from the table and ran back up to her room.

  A few minutes later, there was a knock at her bedroom door. “Are you alright, Ma’am?” asked Paul.

  “There is a dreadful story today about how hideous I am from the accident. Please get rid of it.”

  It had been over a month since she’d been back, and she felt like a prisoner in her own home. It wasn’t just the way she looked that was preventing her from going out; she felt off balance and unsure of what she was supposed to do next. Hasnat had not called since hi
s last visit, and Diana had finally tired of leaving phone messages that went unreturned.

  Her boys were away at school and not due home until Christmas.

  She’d never felt more relieved and grateful than on the day William and Harry first came to visit her in the hospital after she had awakened from the coma. Nervous at first, both boys seemed tentative and stood in the doorway of her hospital room with their father behind them. Diana had asked the nurses to prop her up with pillows so she was sitting up when the boys first saw her.

  “I have missed you both so much,” she said choking back tears.

  Diana opened her arms to her sons and before she could utter another word they flew into them and broke down in sobs. She hugged them tightly, inhaling their soapy, powdery scent and whispered into their hair. “I wasn’t going to leave you. I would never leave you,” she told them. When Diana looked up, Charles was standing in the doorway wiping tears from his eyes.

  “Boys,” he said, his voice filled with emotion. “Be careful, you don’t want to squeeze your mother too hard. She’s still very weak.”

  Diana managed as big a smile as she could. Her face still felt numb where her stitches were. “Seeing all of you is the best medicine I could imagine. I feel much better,” she said.

  “We’re going to be here every day,” said William. “And you’ll need looking after when you come home.”

  “I’m going to be fine now. I’ll be going home soon and Paul is going to take good care of me. You’ve already missed enough school,” said Diana. “You’ll have a few more days home and then you’ll both be going back. You can call me every day. I want you to stay, but your father and I both think you need to get back into your regular routine.”

  “Papa,” said Harry. “I don’t want to leave with Mummy here. Do we have to go back?’

  “Yes, Harry,” said Charles, putting a reassuring arm on his son’s shoulder. “I’ll be here to make sure Mummy is getting on. We promise you can talk to her whenever you want.” Charles’s office had arranged with William and Harry’s headmasters that the boys could ring Diana or Charles whenever they felt the need to talk to either parent. Everyone involved agreed they’d been through enough and wanted to do what they could to ease their anxiety.