Letters to a Princess (9 page)

‘Really Jack, I don’t think Zoë tells
lies!
Which is, after all, what Ms Morrison was talking about!’

‘Well, somebody at our house does, love. Heaps and heaps of them. I’ve heard some pretty tall tales about my appointment as managing director at a firm where I was applying to do the work of a clerk—not that I even got that,’ he said.

Both Bee and Zoë flushed deeply. ‘Let’s not discuss that here, Jack. After all, it’s not the point.’

‘The point is, it
is
the point, love!’ he boomed. ‘Our daughter Zoë has an equally fertile imagination. That’s all I’m saying. They both helped each other into this mess. Now how do we help them out of it? That’s what I’d like to know. Isn’t that why we’re all here? And hasn’t anyone got a sense of humour about this whole thing? I mean, they might have fertile imaginations but in general what’s wrong with that? Yes, they went too far. But it’s not as if these girls planned murder or espionage. I think we should cut them both some slack. And as for that journo who let out the wrong story, he should take some of the blame, shouldn’t he?’

I could have hugged him. Though Bee bit her lip and said no more and Miss Pate frowned and Ms Morrison spoke about responsible behaviour, I was
dumbly grateful for his support. Graham certainly wasn’t giving me any.

… Unhealthy interest … mother’s death … mood swings … desires to lock herself away … obsessional dieting … workouts … cousin’s wedding …
on and on.

Ms Morrison gave our parents the details of our punishment—community volunteer work, extra study and the removal of privileges. We also had to give personal apologies here, there and everywhere. And Ms Morrison made Graham promise that I’d see a counsellor again.

Zoë and I accepted it all without complaint (at least in the office) and promised to do everything that was aked of us (there being simply no other choice).

Bee didn’t smile at me as they left but Jack squeezed my hand, ‘It’s come out all right, Di, it’s not the huge crime they’re all making it out to be, love!’

Graham wasn’t as encouraging but at least he had stopped bleating at me. And he cut Marcus short at home when he tried it on, ‘Hail Princess Poo-poo. Is it true that you are on the nose to the entire world now?’

Zoë and I knew we were still in deep trouble. We made a list of all the people we had upset or offended:

1. Every teacher in the school and one member of the English staff especially.
   

2. Every journalist in town, and one journalist at the Daily Telegraph especially.
   

3. The Diana-loving press-reading world! Especially Babs (‘I’m disappointed in you, Diana, keenly disappointed!’).
   

4. Hammond Zeigler and Princess Diana.
   

Zoë and I weren’t allowed to do our homework together anymore. They even put us in separate English classes and I had the bad luck to be stuck with Miss P, who said she’d keep an eye on me. Zoë, meanwhile, was put in the lovely Mrs Theiring’s class. The worst bit about the whole affair was the thing I had most dreaded. I got a zero in Journalism. I begged and begged Miss Pate to reconsider but she wouldn’t budge.

When Zoë and I finally got to catch up on our own, Zoë told me about what was going on with her at home. Turned out her mother wasn’t as easygoing as I’d thought. ‘She’s giving me hell, the witch!’ Zoë complained. ‘I’m grounded night and day and Jason’s fed up! If it weren’t for Dad …’ It was unusual to see her so down. But somehow I knew that with Zoë, it wouldn’t last long.

It took weeks for the whole thing to die down at school. The weird thing was that as time passed, Zoë became more and more the hero of the story and I became more and more the villain.

Jason Chee took me aside one afternoon and told me that true friendship meant standing by your mates no matter what, and never dobbing them in, no matter what. I tried to explain that I hadn’t dobbed anyone in, that Zoë had dumped herself in it. To be fair, Zoë
tried to tell him that as well, but I don’t think he believed her.

The fact is, everyone held me more responsible for the mess than they did Zoë. That’s how it seemed to me, anyway, because they were sympathetic to her in a way no-one was to me.

I had no choice but to go back to counselling. I also had no choice but to accept Graham’s decision to send me to a new counsellor rather than Leila who I at least trusted. The new shrink reckoned my stress about the fake-interview fiasco was making my eating problem worse. She spent ages in our first session lecturing me on all the dangers of under-eating and over-exercising—heart attack, muscle tears, you name it. But to tell the truth, I wasn’t buying it. I’d heard it all before.

And whatever anyone says, getting fat again is just as big a problem. How could I explain that, to me, getting fat again would be like dying. Why don’t they get it? I’m not
ever
going to get fat again.

And the only way to not get fat is to eat less and exercise more. But I’m not obsessive. Well, maybe a bit obsessive about exercising, I suppose. Still, it’s not as if I’m popping pills, like some of the gym junkies, so I can do longer workouts. I’m not into laxatives or any of that crap. But I’m also not into ever being fat again. And if that means avoiding carbs and fats and doing a few extra runs and push-ups, well so be it.

The biggest problem in my life, bigger than the kids giving me hell, bigger than being in trouble with teachers over the Diana article, was, and still is, not having my
mum in my life. Not being able to talk to her about all the crap that’s going on. She’d tell me exactly what to do like she always used to. She’d take control of the situation. But now she’s dead and I’m all alone. But Mum’s death was the one problem no-one could fix! So why bother talking about it?

‘How often do you exercise?’

‘What, when you first wake up?’

‘Push-ups?’

‘How many, on average?’

‘How far do you run?’

‘Is this on a daily basis?’

‘And do you think you’re fit?’

‘Why not?’

‘What constitutes fit in your mind?’

Things had taken a turn for the worse. I was in hospital facing a barrage of questions I didn’t feel like answering. The dark feeling inside me was getting blacker every day and my throat would not, could not, swallow. I felt a dim kind of pleasure in not answering too many questions; in just lying there not speaking, scarcely eating, pretending not to be there.

It was Babs who had finally convinced me to go to hospital. One night after I’d slunk into my room to
avoid dinner and do some push-ups, I heard Graham on the phone, ‘I just can’t get her to see reason.’ Bloody Ingrid again. ‘She goes running for hours on end. She’s always complaining about my food and, as far as I can see, she survives on apples. No, I haven’t given up, but it’s up to her in the end!’ Then I heard him say ‘Yes, I know Marcus gives her a hard time,’ and then the dreaded words, ‘hospital treatment facility’ and ‘good idea’, and I knew it wasn’t Ingrid who was talking him around, but Babs!

My first thought was to resist hospital, but Babs was determined and she wore me down in the end. She came and sat on my bed one afternoon when I was really sick with the flu. She told me she thought I needed intensive help and that my school work and my plans for my whole life would suffer if I continued down the path I was on.

‘You’re addicted to this eating disorder like a drug now pet, that’s what it amounts to!’

I was indignant. ‘I don’t take drugs, Babs. Everyone’s bugging me about that. I wouldn’t lie to you. Look, I don’t take drugs at all. You know that!’

‘Your chosen drug is starvation, Di! It’s like a drug and it will be just as harmful to you if we don’t nip it in the bud right now. I want you to listen to me.’

Who’d she been talking to? How come she was suddenly an expert? She just sat there unmoved while I raged a bit about everyone putting in their ten cents’ worth and harassing me endlessly. Then she interrupted.

‘I want to tell you something I’ve just learned about Graham and Marcus.’

‘Please no!’ I begged, but she forged on.

‘They’ve had their tough times too, Di. You see, your stepbrother’s mother didn’t die of pneumonia like you’ve been told.’ I held up my hand in protest. I couldn’t bear to hear anything about my stepfather or Marcus. It simply didn’t interest me but Babs just kept talking in that bossy way of hers. ‘Hear me out, Diana. At least do that!’ So I shut up, leaning back against my pillow, my arms folded across my chest. I’d think of something else, someone else. Why should I care about their pathetic story?

‘Graham told me the whole story the other night and I think you should know it too. It might help with things here. Graham’s first wife Lauren took her own life.’

‘But I thought …’ Now Babs held up her hand to silence me.

‘That was not before she’d given young Marcus a terrible time. He was only five when she went off her head.’ Suddenly Babs had my full attention.

‘She tried to choke the poor little fellow to death. Graham arrived home one day to find her hands around an unconscious Marcus’s neck. Graham got there
just in time!
Can you imagine?’

Sick as I felt about myself, I couldn’t begin to imagine a mother who’d do that to her own child.

‘God! No wonder …’ I couldn’t help saying, but then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to be interested and went quiet. Babs nodded.

‘Yes, Diana, no wonder. Graham and Marcus went through hell. There were lots of dramas but that incident
with Marcus was the one that caused Lauren to take her own life. She did it in their old house at Kirribilli. Graham was the one who found her.’

‘How did she do it?’ I couldn’t help asking.

‘Hanged herself. In the living room.’

I shivered. I couldn’t imagine anyone, let alone poor Graham, walking in on something so horrible.

‘So life was pretty hard for them before they met your mother. Marcus was only ten when your mum and Graham got married. Cherie changed their lives in the five short years they knew her. I know Marcus has always had a bit of a problem with you, jealous and all that, but is it really such a surprise that he turned so nasty when your mum … when he lost your mum as well as his own? It should also be no surprise that Graham is really worried about you now.’

‘So Graham thinks I’m a nutter like his first wife and that I’d throttle someone if I had the chance? No wonder he wants to get rid of me,’ I burst out.

‘Diana, that’s not what I mean at all.’ She was as close to yelling as I’d ever heard her. ‘Graham doesn’t want to get rid of you but the man is scared.’

Graham scared. Scared about me? I don’t think so. Then it occurred to me that maybe he was scared I’d do something to harm myself. I couldn’t decide how I felt about him.

‘Anyway, love, we both think you should come with me to my doctor. He’s a good man and I trust what he says. That’s if you’ll let me come with you?’

It was obviously all arranged so I told her I didn’t care either way, which she took as a yes.

The interview with Babs’s doctor was quick. After a few questions and a weight check, a place was found for me that same afternoon in the special unit of the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick. I was so tired of everything, I just gave in. But I didn’t really commit to any treatment. I just went into that dark place in my head and decided it was easiest to stay there.

It’s funny how one person can make a difference. Sometimes it’s someone unexpected who can lift you up out of the darkness. Lots of people will try to say the right things and it’s hopeless, but then a particular person says something in a certain way and it touches a place inside you.

The road out of the place I was in started with a conversation about a dog, if you can believe it. But I’ll get to that later.

In hospital I got more attention than I’d ever had before—doctors, nurses, counsellors, nutritionists. I started to understand a bit more about my ‘eating disorder’. Everyone called it by its right name, anorexia nervosa. They also talked to me about bulimia, but I’d already read heaps of articles about that, especially those concerning Princess Diana. I admitted I’d thrown up once or twice when I’d over-eaten, but said I’d never do it all the time—when you throw up lots it eventually erodes your teeth and throat from the stomach acid—ugh!

Anorexia nervosa sounds like a flowering plant to me. But actually, it’s the opposite of blooming. The thing is, I didn’t see a skinny girl when I looked in the mirror; just a plumpish, plainish one. But I could see
that a lot of the other girls in the hospital’s ‘psycho ward’ were too skinny. Skinny and miserable. I didn’t spend much time with them because, really, I just wanted to be alone. I didn’t have much energy for talking—I was adrift in my own world, just like when Mum died. And who the hell cared whether I talked anyway?

All the people who rolled through my life came and then they bloody well went, just like that. And I was always left behind. First my dad, then my mum, and even my sort-of cousin Aronda had only given me a moment of her time. Maybe even Babs and Zoë would leave eventually. Of course they would, I thought in despair.

But then late one night a new nurse called Tatania came and sat on my bed. She must have sensed that I was still awake, even though I was curled up in a tight ball. Tatania just sat and rubbed my back. Her touch was so soothing that something hard in me broke. I cried a bit and then she held me and I didn’t have to explain anything because she didn’t ask questions, just seemed to know how dark it was in my head.

When she did talk, she didn’t sound like anyone else I’d met. She didn’t mention my illness at all—not then. She just chatted away as if we were old friends. She told me about her German shepherd, Jock, who she said was ‘dogged’ by bad luck.

Tatania has a sweet round face. I wouldn’t say she’s pretty in a classic way, but she’s definitely attractive, and when she talks her grey-green eyes light up. Her hair is blonde and untidy, which is pretty unusual for a nurse. Her stockings are always laddered and her make-up is
usually smudgy, but she just oozes kindness in a way I can’t begin to explain. It’s there in her eyes. Her kindness made me trust her.