5 Ways to be Famous Now Page 6

  •Regular traffic cameras were inexplicably turned off at the time of the crash.

  •Driver’s blood showed carbon monoxide poisoning, not elevated levels of alcohol.

  •Diana always wore a seatbelt, but hers in the car was defective.

  •Emergency crew took almost two hours to get Diana’s body to the nearest hospital.

  •Her body was immediately embalmed at the hospital, which was illegal. This made it impossible to prove the initial French mortuary report that she was pregnant.

  When the inquest wound up, Diana’s character was systematically assassinated. Her claims of persecution were said to be delusions. She had a proven history of lashing out at perceived offenders. But who would not have felt hurt at Charles’s public betrayal of his young bride?

  The summation continued with a calumny: evidence that Diana had been vindictive as a child. But they had said that about Ariadne too. Diana was a notoriously unreliable witness, they said. She had sent nasty anonymous letters (so had Ariadne, but only to those who had hurt her) and played cruel tricks on her stepmother, also like Ariadne. In other words, announced the London experts, the verdict was clear. Princess Diana had been a second-rate woman and she had died in a common car accident. But Ariadne was encouraged to hear the court acknowledge that a certain white box, in which Diana kept her most personal papers, may have provided more information. It had been located after her death but it was completely empty.

  Ariadne was sure that this was exactly the situation that Diana had feared. By now, Ariadne believed the royals to be the forces, so why shouldn’t she believe the princess’s accusation that they were also perverts? They deserved to suffer and she would be Diana’s avenging angel.

  Over the years, Ariadne had upgraded the format of the precious disk to keep it compatible with ever-new platforms, and she even tried, unsuccessfully, to puzzle out the business documents in which the revelations were embedded. Giving up at last, she rang the daily newspapers, saying that she had the contents of Diana’s white box in her possession. But she couldn’t bring herself to say that it contained sexual material, which would have ensured publication. So one after another, they hung up on this breathless crank. Since those hurtful rebuffs, she had spoken to no one about the disk. If Diana had not been able to convince people of the truth, how could Ariadne?

  The inquest summation, which had maligned Diana as grasping and vengeful, only strengthened Ariadne’s conviction that she and Diana were soul sisters. They had both been brought up by stepmothers. They had both needed love so much as children that, if rejected, they lashed out. Which, admittedly, could seem vindictive to those who did not understand.

  Like Diana, Ariadne had always written so-called poison-pen letters to those who had offended her delicate sensibilities, but she knew that such letters did no harm if they brought the truth to light. Beautifully cut-out letters stuck onto a sheet of blank paper, pushed under a door at midnight. It always thrilled her. Especially if she could witness the target’s tears of repentance the next day. What had that squatter in the grotty downstairs apartment next to the laundry told her? It was as if she had lit a small fire and could watch it spread undetected. And wasn’t it natural to want to punish a tormentor?

  She had loved him, at first. They had so much in common. The other girls snubbed him just because he lived in the squat, but he was the only one of her neighbours who had accepted her invitation for coffee. She even told him about the letters, and he was the only man in the world who understood her pain. But then he had shared with her a shocking secret of his own. What he planned to do was dreadful, and she had told him so.

  ‘But it’s the same as what you do with your stupid letters.’

  He was wrong. After all, she did not really hurt people. She just taught them a well-deserved lesson. It was very upsetting to lose her new boyfriend like that. But you can’t agree to someone’s plan to set fire to their own apartment block just so that they will like you. Can you? She had never had a special friend since then.

  Until Diana had become her soul sister. Over time, in an unexpected way, Ariadne even became glad that circumstances had forced her to keep secret the amazing gifts from Diana. Her new ability to see auras, just like Diana, and this private bond, this statement of Diana’s truth reaching out from beyond the grave.

  She would never have shared the disk with anyone if it had not been for SaveDiana. The site started preaching to its followers that in past centuries, a mad princess who might try to object to the royal concubine, as Diana had, would have been locked in the Tower.

  The times we live in are an anomaly, for at this particular moment, in this particular part of the globe, certain women are privileged enough to have a voice. Or so we are told. The princess proved the rule. In her enemy’s eyes, she was threatening the future of the monarchy by assuming control of her own children, the heirs to the throne, and threatening to bring them up overseas. It requires a particularly cruel form of British discipline, after all, to produce the kingly virtues. So we must speak, before we are silenced too.

  Ariadne was roused by this post as by a call to arms. Wasn’t it her duty to help the princess, no matter how distasteful it was? After all, ‘it is not only perfect women who have the right to speak,’ as the post went on. Clearly, Ariadne had a duty to perform, for hadn’t Diana seen her aura and recognised her as her soul mate?

  So, in the library at Lone Pines, she studiously followed the on-screen prompts and found that uploading was straightforward these days. A few clicks and there it was on screen, corgis and all, and Diana was having her say.

  An enormous relief flooded Ariadne Jones as Diana’s document appeared on the site for all to see. She went into the staff kitchen to get a glass of tonic and hurried back, keen to celebrate her on-screen handiwork with a fizzy toast. She raised her glass.

  Her post had disappeared. In fact, the whole site was simply no longer there. She closed the computer down, restarted it. ‘Site not found.’ What had she done? Was she really so hopeless with computers that she had let Diana down?

  That was the night that a forgiving princess had first appeared to her as a radiant moon in a starless sky. Glowing, surrounded by a purple aura, she hugged Ariadne and told her that they were still soul sisters. And by morning, Ariadne had worked out how to incorporate Diana into her life forever.

  That was when she had made her first call to a cosmetic surgeon. Every night since, the princess had come to her in dreams.

  But for now, in this narrow cabin, Ariadne was taking a few minutes to brace herself for the coming ordeal by banquet. She must push herself to participate, as Diana would have. When she returned, her adoring charges, not to mention her prayer circle, would expect entertaining stories about her big adventure on the Queen Mary.

  ME #4

  The plot is afoot. Be still my beating heart, as I might have written in my literary days.

  By now, you know who our four personages are, my spectacular grace note being the fourth target. Inviting a literary drawcard was all my own idea. Captain Kirstin had already settled on the cooking and sports stars, but she is not a literary woman. She had no idea who to invite as a classy keynote speaker, so it was easy to spruik Monica Frequen.

  ‘Acclaimed in the States and …’

  Blah-blah. The captain accepted my suggestion and she became more appreciative of my choice when I told her just how little we could pay this eminent writer. I am indeed multi-skilled. Who else would have realised exactly how low a fee could be offered to a novelist between books and with a cloud of scandal over her head? Less than to any other celebrity on the ship, even factoring in the cost of her accompanying husband. I know about this, of course, from the Book-haters Club. Let me tell you about how I started that fun little club.

  I had read out my fire-bug story so often that even I was beginning to grow bored with it. So, to avoid having to listen to the others’ dreary readings, I instigated what I called (in my head) this Book-haters Club.
We were all growing tired of the professional writers who occasionally accepted our invitations to speak to the group. We wanted them to give us hints about how to get published, but they all just bloviated about their own books and even brought dozens of copies to sell. Quite presumptuous. After all, there was rarely a dozen of us in any group.

  Anyway, I came up with the hilarious idea of inviting writers we all hated. This turned out to be quite a long list. Too old, too young, too gorgeous, too ugly, too serious. And of course we added all the ones we had previously invited, now that we had got to know what they were really like. So what was our procedure when invitees arrived with their carton of books to offload?

  Finding no welcome on arrival, no special seat, we would just leave them to find any tight spot they could in our little circle of chairs. Then we would sit in silence until the writer was forced to say, with that false bonhomie they all have, something like the following.

  ‘Well, I hear you are all reading my latest. How are you finding it?’

  I always led the charge.

  ‘Well, actually, we hate it.’

  You should see their faces. Tears even well up sometimes. Like children being told there is no Santa. Then we follow up with comments applicable to any book.

  ‘We don’t know anyone with the lifestyle you depict.’

  ‘And we don’t like people with that lifestyle either.’

  And so on. Amazingly, every one of them so far has smiled under our attacks, although sometimes through welling tears. No doubt each still hoped, after this initial setback, to win us over with false charm, and eventually make a few sales so that the outing was still profitable. You see, we never paid them a cent, not even for travel.

  When the night was over, their carton still full, it was so satisfying to see their hypocritical façades crumbling. Flushed faces, barely concealing anger as they stuffed their precious books roughly back into their satchels, and slammed the door on their way out. Artists were supposed to be so original, but their reactions to our treatment were so uniform that I soon tired of our ambush.

  So on my way out of the last meeting, I glanced at the noticeboard with a vague hope of finding a new activity of some kind. I saw her name.

  Monica Frequen

  Just back from the US

  Internationally acclaimed novelist now offering a life writing unit as part of Araballa University’s Community Outreach Program, in conjunction with Araballa TAFE. Numbers strictly limited for this six-month unit, which may be taken alone or as part of the Araballa TAFE Certificate IV in Professional Writing.

  Well, well. I knew Monica when …

  Twenty years ago we shared the same apartment block. Back then, I had been determined to improve myself, make my way up into the lower middle class. But so far I only had a useless certificate or two and any jobs on offer were beneath me. I was actually squatting, believe it or not, in an unrentable dump next to the communal laundry. Water leaked up into the carpet and I had to use candles because the electricity had been cut off. But I had hot water from the laundry and I used to lock it once a day and have a splash about in the troughs, washing with ends of soap I found there. I gave up shaving but combed my beard every day. My personal hygiene was great, under the circumstances.

  But I’ve come up in the world, you have to admit. I’ve self-improved no end. Wine Appreciation. Ballroom Dancing. How to Discuss Headlines. But the most useful was How to Read Yourself Up. Full of aspirationals like me. Vocab extension exercises were just the start. Syndrome, projection, infrastructure, vagina dentata, bloviate, paradigm, agenda, personage. Just by inserting these words into any conversation, and losing our accents, especially the vowels, we left our working-class origins behind. Being accepted for the library course as a mature-entry student was then a piece of cake. So there you have me.

  As a bearded student, and then later as a qualified library aide at Araballa Library, my make-over was complete. With my new bookish image, arty girls started eyeing me. A big mistake, I can tell you, to go for that type of girl. I might as well share my worldly wisdom with you here. Girl writers, singers, painters are to be avoided by any man who, like me, wants a little control in a relationship. It took me a while to realise that when you hurt them or let them down, they just go off and write a poem or paint a picture about it. It is as if there is always a third person in the relationship. So my last slightly arty girl was that redhead writing groupie.

  As if inspired by my own change of image, the slummy area I had lived in for years became trendified and my apartment block was suddenly full of arty girls. Monica Frequen had been just another dreamer back then, drinking and going dancing with just about any guy except me. She had not yet become famous, but she behaved as if it was a sure bet. I never really fancied Monica when she was my neighbour. Too intellectually arrogant. But now that I was coming up in the world I wanted her respect, as a newly arrived member of her own literate class. But let me tell you what happened when I enrolled for Monica Frequen’s Life Writing at Araballa TAFE.

  8

  THE PROBLEM WITH DELEGATING

  Captain Kirstin was skilled at delegating. She had given the boy wonder his latest orders, but would he prove up to the challenge? Could she afford to relax before the banquet after all her hard work?

  In her white bathrobe, she stepped out of her bathroom and disposed of three damp towels in the laundry basket. Then she gazed again at the perfection of her quarters, enjoying the feel of the fake zebra-skin shag underfoot as she opened the Chinese ivory bar, poured a Scotch and flopped into a white vinyl armchair.

  Kirstin was facing the balcony, a tribute to her own engineering skills. She had already tested the natty levered contraption that opened and closed its decking. When he had popped in for a drink earlier that day, Paulie had admired the octopus’s garden of concrete rock pools, with their realistic green and brown fronds of tough seaweed. No octopuses, naturally, but Paulie had enjoyed poking the little squid with a stick. He had even skewered one. He was such a naughty little boy at heart.

  To her left, walnut bookcases were neatly stacked with the works of men who shared the captain’s world view. She was, by temperament, an existentialist. Hell was, indeed, other people. To her right was the large gilt mirror featured so recently in the Ghost Tour. But she had never even glimpsed a ghost in it. It revealed instead her own imposing figure, carrying a few extra kilos well because of her height. She loosened her bathrobe, refreshed herself with a spray of Ocean Breeze, then turned briefly to the clock above the wall of CCTVs. The hands were right on seven o’clock, so she permitted herself a refill. She restricted herself to one drink an hour.

  With the base of her glass, she tapped shut the laptop, at which she and Paulie had been trading live earlier. Next to the laptop was an oddly shaped mineral specimen, rough, grey and unremarkable. She always kept it close by. She picked up the little rock and pressed its rough coolness against her cheek. Some hear a voice whispering if they hold a shell to their ear and, in the same way, this ancient stone spoke its familiar message to the captain. This will not pass away. Gripping it more tightly, she sank lower into the vinyl, which smelled reassuringly of pine disinfectant, and closed her eyes.

  The rock transported her, as it always did, back to that moist cave, six hundred and fifty million years old, from which she had illegally removed it. In that life before Paulie and NICE, she had guided tourists through dangerous tunnels deep underground. It had not been so different from her current role as captain, guiding the passengers through treacherous seas, but it had lacked financial reward. So she had swapped the secure sanctuary of those dark caves for the choppy seas of the stock market. Sending out boats, fragile companies that existed only on paper. Hauling in the virtual catch these vessels netted daily. True, it was anonymous work, but she obtained public acknowledgement of her power through the Queen Mary. Just as the uniform, that shorthand indicator of rank, had been upgraded since her cave days, so had the social status of her admirers.<
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  The ship was her empire, as the ancient caves had been. Strangers respected the captain on sight, trusted her with their lives just as the cave visitors had let her guide them through the slippery bowels of the earth, looking out for dripping, creamy white stalagmites, pure and untouched. Though more often her torch illuminated layers of grime deposited by human visitors. Lint from clothes and hair, skin particles which choked the rocks with grey dust and made her shudder.

  Even the brand-new Queen Mary, gleaming pristine metal and glass, would soon be sullied. The crew wore white gloves at all times, even in the engine room, and she regretted not being able to impose this regulation on her passengers. After the cruise, the cleaners would find the same accretion of grease and lint and skin cells as in the caves. It was fantastic really, how the grimy, crowded originals paled in comparison with her on-board simulacra. The real world could blow itself up but she would retain this veritable ark of all that tourists had ever wanted to see.

  Two weeks was the ideal length for a cruise. Any longer, and she knew that the glamour of even her own complex stage sets would pall after the climax of her astonishing Ross Sea bravura performance. Passengers, under-exercised and overfed, would succumb to shipboard stupor. Pokies, drinking, staring at repetitive icebergs on the horizon or at the shrill, mesmerising banality on the screens scattered over the no-longer exotic lounges. On the return trip, even the most romantic couple would lose interest in previously impressive icy formations. She, flicking through a shopping catalogue. He, fiddling with some newly purchased digital toy.

  She turned to the wall of screens again. Happiness in life is all a matter of controlling expectation of reward, which promotes release of dopamine. For that reason, the cruise out was easier to manage than the return, and so far, the captain was gratified to see her on-screen subjects pointing and laughing. Content to have just eaten or to be about to eat. Winning smaller and smaller jackpots and, most importantly, forming orderly queues at the ATMs.