Letters to a Princess (7 page)

I nodded, ‘Yes Miss Pate.’ At least that bit was true. I did have a sheaf of handwritten notes.

‘You’d better get together then and refine your article,’ Miss P said in her cold way, but I could hear the tinge of admiration in her voice. My heart was thumping. Pushy as anything, Zoë asked if we could use the computer room that afternoon to work on the assignment.

It was hard not to giggle like hell as we walked down the corridor, studded with awards and honour boards of girls long gone but obviously still revered, on our way to the computer lab.

‘We’ll be up there soon,’ Zoë said, cheekily pointing to a half-empty honour board.

That was when an uneasy feeling rose up in me. I hated Miss P but I hated lying to her too. I knew that things had already gone too far, and I said so. ‘This little white lie is growing into a big black one Zo.’ But Zoë
opened the door to the computer lab and bowed low. ‘I have a master plan. Stop stressing and just chill out would you!’ she said. ‘Being here beats the hell out of listening to Miss P, doesn’t it?’ With that she sank into a chair and began to file her nails. Obviously it was going to be my job to type it all into the computer.

‘Maybe we can keep this up until the assignment’s due and miss every English class!’

‘But we’re telling her this afternoon, aren’t we?’

‘We’ll come clean after we write it up and maybe add,
You wish: A Conversation with a Princess,
or something, to the title—I mean, headline.’

‘An Imaginary Conversation with a Princess would be better.’

‘Whatever,’ Zoë said tipping back her chair with her typical air of confidence.

‘Miss P will be furious if we leave it till tomorrow to tell her the truth.’

‘Who cares? She’ll be furious today too, so what’s the diff?’

I admired Zoë’s courage. I took out my notes. I’d already made the interview a bit more fantastical and now we couldn’t help embellishing Hammond Zeigler even more. We worked really well together and it sure did beat the hell out of listening to Miss P.

‘I think I’m in love with him,’ I told Zoë as I reread Hammond Zeigler’s description. ‘We’ll have to edit this but the sound of him right now … Tall, dark, handsome, smooth as, rich as, gentle as, but with the right amount of get-up-and-go to seek adventure all around the world. How glamorous!’

‘Me too—but he’d have to shed about twenty years for me!’ Zoë joked.

‘That’d be shedding $20 mill too!’ I said.

‘Don’t you remember? Hammond is a billionaire!’ she countered. ‘Ham and I—sounds like the name of a book,’ she said dreamily.

‘A movie!’ I was getting enthusiastic myself.

We started fantasising about the movie and getting a bit intimate about Ham and the Princess’s bedroom antics, and more than a bit noisy. Zoë doesn’t exactly hold back with her laughter. We were both in stitches, when suddenly Zoë went quiet. I looked over my shoulder and couldn’t believe who was standing there in the doorway, possibly listening to our indecent conversation.

It was the principal, Ms Morrison. She didn’t come in, just stood at the door, an oddly bright smile on her face. ‘I’m glad you two are enjoying yourselves,’ she said, and it didn’t even sound sarcastic. ‘I’m sure you’re doing terrific work on this piece.’ We couldn’t speak but we could see she was still smiling at us. Smiling.

‘I’ve just heard you girls actually interviewed her! The Princess! I’m so proud of you both!’ She was still smiling as she retreated, ‘I’m looking forward to the article. All of us are. So do get on with it girls.’ And she was gone.

I looked at Zoë, Zoë looked at me, we both frowned.

‘Oh God no! Miss P is such a gossip, such a bloody gossip.’

‘Couldn’t wait to spread it around, the bitch!’ Zoë agreed.

‘But we did tell her Zoë, and she believed us. We both know that. So now what?’

‘Mmm,’ Zoë sounded worried herself.

‘It has to stop right now,’ I told Zoë. She’d gone a little pale and she nodded in agreement for once, but she took the disc from my grasp. She tapped it thoughtfully on the desk.

‘Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go confess and get it over with.’ But just then the bell rang and we made our way out into the corridor, where we were just about run down.

‘Hey, you two!’ It was Selma and she was beaming at us. ‘We just heard. You can give me a copy of the interview when you’ve finished it and I’ll get my dad to go over it for you. Give it the really professional touch. I’ve already phoned him.’

‘We’d have to talk to Miss Pate about that,’ I said nervously.

Girls were clustered around us and with sinking hearts, or at least with one sinking heart—mine—we made our way through the admiring crowd. The funny thing was, Zoë seemed to really enjoy it.

‘What now, genius?’ I hissed at her.

‘Just play along, I’ll think of something!’ she hissed back.

‘We’re going to the principal’s office right now,’ I insisted.

‘Okay, okay. Little Miss Perfect. We could bask in the glory for just a little longer, you know.’

In the end it didn’t matter. When we got to the office Ms Morrison was nowhere to be found and her secretary was clearly excited.

‘Imagine two Sydney High students getting to interview the English Princess. Well done, girls!’ she said. ‘Now, how can I help you?’

‘Actually, there’s been a bit of a mistake and we want to …’ I began, but Zoë grabbed my arm. ‘We’ll come back later,’ she said.

We tried to slink off to a quiet corner but there was no hiding. The grounds were alive with the news. We had suddenly attained celebrity status and there was nothing we could do about it. We didn’t even have five minutes alone to come up with a decent strategy for putting an end to the whole thing. And Zoë simply smiled and nodded and talked, while I was entering full panic mode.

Oh Zoë, Zoë!
I kept thinking,
We’re getting in deeper and deeper. Speak up, you coward!
But I couldn’t speak. And Zoë couldn’t
stop
speaking. The worst thing was that people kept asking us to tell our story all over again.

The next day was a total nightmare. The lie kind of built on itself and the longer it went on, the more difficult it became to set things straight.

‘We’ll talk this out today,’ Zoë whispered before she went off to Biology and I went to Maths. But the end-of-school bell came without us having had the chance to set the record straight with Miss P, the principal, or any of the girls.

In fact Zoë and I didn’t really get to speak until we were at the bus stop that afternoon.

‘You’ve at least told Jason the truth, haven’t you?’ I asked.

‘Not exactly!’ Zoë frowned. I could see clusters of guys coming towards the bus stop from the boys’ school.

‘But you promised you would tell him,’ I said urgently.

‘For God’s sake, stop whining!’ she said in a way that revealed she was more than a little worried herself by now. But she was already waving at Jason.

‘Okay then, you got us into this, so how do we get out?’ I demanded.

‘I don’t know, Di. I just kind’ve lied to Jase last night on the phone and it all came to life as if it’d really happened. And now I don’t know what to do about it!’

‘But you said you had an idea—a master escape plan!’

Zoë suddenly started laughing and, I’ve got to admit, I did too. Hysterically. We were still laughing when Jason and his friends descended on us.

‘Hey, you two hot journos. We hear you have some big news,’ Sam McNally said.

Jason had told everyone in the boys’ school. The crowd was more admiring than ever.

Maybe it was because they all gathered around Zoë; maybe it was because I was jealous that Jason put his arm round her shoulders; maybe it was because nobody there seemed the least bit interested in my part in the interview—the fake interview. Whatever the reason, I found myself blurting out a confession.

‘Zoë, stop it now, we didn’t interview any princess! She said hello and that was all. There was no interview!’ I felt my face flushing as all eyes turned to me for a moment.

‘Who’s the princess, now?’ Zoë spoke nastily as our eyes met. Her expression was terrible as if I were no more than a worm. I found myself stammering, ‘What I really mean is …’ But she turned away from me and towards the group.
‘Princess
Diana told us she was planning a holiday with her boys, that’s Will and Harry, in Disneyland and …’ she rattled on.

The group closed in around her as though I didn’t exist. I stood there for a moment feeling helpless, worthless. Obviously Zoë’s lies were more interesting than the truth. Forgetting the bus, I turned away abruptly and took some pleasure in plodding all the way home in the heat. I raged inwardly at Zoë every step of the way. But within an hour of my arriving home, the phone rang and it was Zoë, apologetic.

‘I was a cow!’ she moaned. ‘Never speak to me again, Di! I don’t know why I said what I did to you. It’s just that you kind of took me by surprise. I couldn’t get out of it and I was surprised that you …’

I couldn’t forgive her. Not just like that, but nor could I find the energy to be angry. A dumb childish rhyme was going through my head,
‘Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!’
and what would be the point of saying that?

‘Di, are you there? You’re being very quiet.’

‘I better go now,’ I said. But I thought,
I’m a loser in every possible way. I can’t even tell the truth convincingly. I can’t even stand up to my friend and tell her she was a cow and the worst liar around!

Before I hung up I remembered something else that had been worrying me.

‘You still have the disc with the assignment on it, don’t you Zoë?’

‘Yes,’ she answered too quickly.

‘Zoë!’

‘Well, Selma was so keen and her dad’s just going to cast his eye over it. No harm!’

I felt like hanging up on her. ‘Shit Zoë, you better tell Selma tomorrow or I will! In fact, tell everybody!
We’ve got to hand something in and we only have one more day.’

‘Okay, okay,’ and Zoë was gone.

It wasn’t a good night. Babs and Martin were away on holidays and bloody Marcus hovered. He kept coming into my bedroom to taunt me.

‘Fancy yourself a hot-shot journo, do you?’ I was really worried he knew the truth because he called me a Liar Bird, Mad Cow and other charming names not really printable. And why should he do this tonight of all nights?

‘You better take down her mug shots,’ he smirked. ‘For a start, she’s a loser princess. But worse than that is the contrast between your face and hers, shit, it makes me wanna puke!’

‘Get out, bastard! Now! Right now!’ I’d screamed so loudly that it frightened even me.

He left but slammed my door so hard the house shook. Then Graham appeared.

‘Look, Diana, I know you like your privacy but it won’t help to keep goading Marcus the way you do!’

‘Goading him? Give me a break. It’s Marcus who …’

‘Yes, goading.’ Graham looked really angry. ‘Marcus has told me about the nasty things you say to him when you get the chance. And I’m fed up with it. He might be difficult sometimes but you better watch that sharp tongue of yours, Miss Moore. Even if you do have problems, you don’t have to spill them out all over this house!’

I flung myself on the bed after that, too mad to even write about this in
The Diana Papers,
too tired
to cry. And too hopeless to try to set the record straight with Graham.

What was the use of anything? Marcus was always one step ahead in this house.

If the Diana interview hung over my head like a big black cloud, the privacy issue at home was just as bad. Worse. I looked around the room. This was my space and I wasn’t going to have Marcus or anyone else bursting into it. Not ever again. I calmed myself down and then I went to Graham’s study. In the most reasonable voice I could summon, I said, ‘I’d like to have a lock on my door, Graham. I really need my own space.’ I made sure not to even mention Marcus. Graham never really holds onto his anger and he looked up from his work and smiled vaguely. But that’s also the trouble with Graham—he never follows anything through. He may have forgotten his anger of a few minutes ago, but he was also pretty unsympathetic about the lock.

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea right now, Diana.’

‘What do you mean right now?’ I asked, my face burning with the effort of keeping my voice down, but then I just couldn’t help it. ‘Your son gives me no privacy whatsoever! And a lock would keep us apart,’ I burst out. I looked hard at him, appealing to his better nature. After all, it was no secret Marcus hated my guts. Graham had broken us apart more than once. Marcus often took to punching me if he couldn’t win an argument, and I had learnt to give as good as I got. Plus Graham had heard more than one or two of Marcus’s snide remarks.

‘It’d make for more peace in this house,’ I said. I was desperate.

Graham just turned back to his papers, where he always hid, and mumbled into the computer screen, ‘No Diana, not right now.’

‘Not right now’, meant that he thought I was ‘unstable’ or whatever word he had used when he complained to Babs about my ‘mood swings’ and ‘depression’. No doubt his discussions with Ingrid weren’t helping my cause either. Clearly, ‘unstable’ equals no right to privacy in Graham’s world. As if I were a child or really crazy.

I went back to my room and cursed weak old Graham and his shit of a son as I stacked things against the door so that Marcus couldn’t get in without a struggle.

I stayed in my room for most of the night but of course I eventually had to go out to the bathroom, and this gave Marcus the opportunity to leave another of his ghastly ‘calling cards’. This time he’d gone to a lot of trouble. He’d ‘arranged’ my clothes on the floor. My favourite shirt was laid out with pink rubber gloves for hands; my pale blue jeans were folded out with a pair of sneakers for feet; at the top he’d arranged one of my caps, under which he’d put a hideous grinning monkey mask. Then he’d turned off my light and waited.

I don’t know why it gave me such a fright but as I came into the room and turned on the light it looked like a dead body lying on the floor and I screamed blue murder despite myself. I could hear his chuckling from down the hall as I slammed my door.