Jacinta Nandi
“Liv! Liv! For fuck’s sake, you’ve got to wake up! Curtis Stigers has died! In a car crash! For fuck’s sake, wake up, wake up, wake up!”
It was Sunday morning and it was still early and I wasn’t waking up, not even for Curtis Stigers’s sake. I hauled the duvet over my head, squeezed my eyes shut and fell back asleep whilst all around me Jacqui squealed.
“Liv! Wake up! Wake up! In a car crash with Dodi!”
My mind, fuzzy with sleep, briefly woke up long enough to wonder what Curtis Stigers had been doing in a car with Dodi in the first place. But not long enough to stay awake.
“Princess Diana!”
Princess Diana.
“Princess Diana?” I mumbled, suddenly hot and sticky under the duvet. It was like being raped awake, wide wake, breathlessly, hopelessly awake.
Princess Diana….
“Princess Diana.” Jacqui repeated, nodding solemnly, switching the telly on.
“Princess Diana,” I said to myself as we sat there, in her mum’s double bed, staring at the blue screen with the picture of Di with her pretty crown on.
“I thought you said Curtis Stigers was dead at first,” I told Jacqui.
“Who?” She looked blankly at me. I didn’t really know either. I decided to ring home so I could be the first person to tell someone.
“Yes, yes,” my mother interrupted me. “We’re very shocked here, very shocked and upset, everyone’s very shocked and upset here, except for your stepfather, you know what he’s like, too fat and lazy to get upset, in fact he hasn’t been upset since 1976 when his mother accidentally threw away his favourite Wireless Weekly but me and the kids I must say we’re ever so upset, Liv, ever so upset, in fact I might just phone in sick and Sarah well Sarah’s in shock really to be honest, she’s in shock and Paul, well perhaps Paul’s just a little too young to understand exactly what’s going on – Paul – are you upset? He says he’s upset Power Rangers isn’t on. But I’m really shocked. Liv. When you think, like. Lady bloody Di, dead as you like…not that I was a fan or anything…not like your auntie Ange, she’ll be devastated, like, but still, she was an icon, wasn’t she? A fashion icon, a feminist icon, a spiritual icon. I am really shocked, I must say. Perhaps I should ring in sick, what do you think? But they’ll probably have the telly on in work, won’t they? Are you ok, poppet? I s’pose you’re just a bit shocked and upset. How’s Jacqui taking it? Will you be in for dinner?”
Jacqui and I installed ourselves in front of the telly, eating Pringles and crunchy nut cornflakes straight from the packet. They were showing all these fat, black women, wailing. Tony Blair rallied the nation. Lots of presidents and celebrities kept on personally offering us their condolences. Madonna said how Di had once told her that she, Madonna, dealt with the press better than she, Di, did. They interviewed some cancer kid who was blatantly telling lies about how Di had said she wanted to adopt her, only no one mentioned how it was blatantly a lie. They also interviewed a florist. Jacqui had snot sliding down her face the whole time – I hope he gives the profits he makes to poor little black landmines babies, she sobbed – but I didn’t cry till we watched the Channel 5 documentary on Di’s style through the ages, showing how as she’d matured she’d actually grown into her looks, using the trends of fashion to complement her natural, elegant beauty. That’s what did it for me, all her different haircuts flashing through the TV screen. I started crying like I’d never stop.
And we spent the whole week like that, crying and watching telly. Everywhere you went and the telly was on and women were sniffling. My mum spent the whole week telling everyone who’d listen how she’d cried much more now than when her uncle Stan was stabbed to death and set on fire. Yeah, agreed Jacqui when she told her. I’ve cried loads more than when my cousin committed suicide.
“Dave hasn’t cried at all,” said my mother of my stepdad, in a tone of disgust. “Liv hasn’t cried much. You’ve not cried much, have you Liv?”
“I’ve cried enough,” I said. “I’ve been crying in private, like.”
Oooooh, said mum and Jacqui.
“I’ve not stopped crying for longer than an hour at a time,” announced Jacqui, welling up as she spoke. “I went up to Kensington Palace yesterday and I couldn’t hardly find the place what with my hay fever and my eyes full of tears and I was all dizzy you know? But I just followed the crowds and there I was.”
“Did you sign the book, like?” Asked my mum.
“Yes.” Jacqui sighed. “And I left some flowers and my old teddy bear. I just wanted to show I care.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said my mother. “I can’t stand crowds else I’d go up myself. Although people are also leaving flowers outside the town hall so that does save you the trip, doesn’t it? Coz Di opened that town hall, she did.”
“They’re leaving flowers outside Goodmayes Tesco’s now,” said Jacqui. “They’ve got a condolences book and everything and a big pile of flowers outside the entrance and then again by the bottle bank.”
“Outside Tesco’s?” My mum’s voice was full of scorn and disbelief. “She never opened that Tesco’s now, did she?”
Me and Jacqui laughed at that a bit. But mum’s brain was ticking away.
“I can understand not wanting to go up to town, mind you, what with all the crowds and what have you.”
“Mum,” I warned her, “you’d better not sign the Tesco’s condolences book.”
“The whole country’s gone fucking mad,” said my stepdad, coming in from fixing the car.
My mum said me and Sarah and Dave had to go and get the shopping in, coz she couldn’t face it, she was done in, like, and my stepdad sighed deeply. He did want to work a bit more on the car you know, but in the end we went and it took half-an-hour to get round the car park because of all the people queuing to sign the book.
“Fucking peasants,” said my step dad. “You know what’s wrong with this country, girls? You want to know what’s wrong with this country? The people of this country are a bunch of fucking peasants,” he spat through the window.
Sarah and me giggled.
“A nation of morons,” he continued. “An entire nation of fucking cretins. What would be the best thing that could happen to this country, girls? The best thing that could happen to this country would be if a nuclear fucking bomb was dropped on it.”
It wasn’t till we were finally parked and inside that my sister said she wanted to sign the book, too. My step dad swore.
“The Russians had the right idea,” he said darkly.
“Oh go on, Dave, let her,” I said. “We can wait for her in the coffee shop, have a cup of tea. Meet us in the coffee shop when you’ve signed it, OK, Sares?
In Tesco’s Coffee Shop my step dad wanted a flapjack but then got really upset when he found out they cost £1. 10.
“£1.10 for a flapjack,” he said. “What a fucking life.”
He started complaining about mum.
“I mean, your mother is basically mentally ill, isn’t she, Liv? After 10 years of marriage I’ve basically come to the conclusion that your mother is basically mentally ill. You know what she wants to do now. She wants to change the living room carpet. I mean, it’s a perfectly adequate carpet. She’s sick that’s all. It’s a perfectly adequate carpet.”
“It is a bit 1970’s,” I said.
“What was wrong with the 1970’s? In the 1970’s you were never paying £1.10 for a sodding flapjack. You know what Marx said. The workers get the fag end of everything.”
“Is that a direct quote?” I asked him. My sister walked to our table, shining. My stepdad touched her briefly on the head. She beamed.
“You wanna know what I wrote? I wrote: ‘ You’ll always be the queen of my heart.’”
This fucking country said Dave as we went to fetch our trolley.
In the end I watched the actual funeral round Jacqui’s house, even though I had promised my mum I’d watch it with her and the kids. I felt like I’d spent the whole week sobbing and didn’t even have much tears left but I managed to squeeze a few out when I saw the card saying mummy. Jacqui though, Jacqui howled like a bitch in pain the whole way through.
When I got in mum was all “mardy” with me.
“You could have been here for the funeral,” she said. “We could have watched it together like a proper family. Sometimes I think Jacqui’s family is more important to you than your own.”
“Jacqui’s mum wasn’t in,” I said. “I couldn’t leave Jacqui on her own, could I.”
“You could have both come here.”
“Jacqui don’t like coming here coz you’re so stingy with the orange juice.”
“Olivia, last time she was here she drank a whole litre of the stuff. A litre. It doesn’t grow on trees you know. Well, what did you think, a lovely funeral, wasn’t it, and wasn’t Earl Spencer magnificent?”
“Elton John’s eyebrow was weird,” I said. The kids laughed.
“Paul and Sarah really missed having you here, you know, I do think you’re mean. And your stepfather. You won’t believe what your stepfather did. Would you believe he actually walked out halfway through to go and work on the car. I don’t know what the neighbours must think of us. Well, at least you’re here now, d’you want a cup of tea? Sarah, make your sister a cup of tea, there’s a good girl. The BBC’s coverage was of a much higher quality than ITV’s, didn’t you think, Liv?”
I told my mum the cameras were penises and the paparazzi gang-rapists and Lady Di violated to death.
“Oooooh, ” she said, “did you read that in the Guardian, like? There might well be some truth in that you know. Well, back to normal viewing, then. I must say, I’m really upset it’s all over. I’ve quite enjoyed this week, to be honest.”
“Mum!” My sister squealed. “How could you have enjoyed it? It’s been so terrible! We’ve lost the greatest living English person ever!”
“Oh yes, yes, that’s what I mean. On a personal level it has been the worst week ever, I’ve been ever so shocked and upset and what have you but as a whole, as nation, I must say, we haven’t had this much fun since World War bloody Two, like.”
Dave walked in from fixing the car.
“Dave, you’re not trailing greasy motor oil through the house, are you?”
“Has Your Mother told you what she did this morning?” He asked me.
Mum put her slightly embarrassed face on. “I went and signed the book, like.”
“Not the Tesco’s book?”
“Hmmm, I just suddenly realized, I’d never get another opportunity.”
“And,” announced my step dad, “and, she went and bought flowers from Penny’s.”
“You dint leave flowers outside Tesco’s, did you mum?”
“I just wanted to show I care.”
“Mum,” I said, “mum, mum, mum, mum, we talked about this.”
“You spent more on those flowers than you did when my mother died. When my mother died you deliberately chose the most anaemic, anorexic, pathetic, sickly carnations in the whole fucking shop.”
“Dave, she was a princess, after all. And anyway, there weren’t any cheap flowers left, love. Penny’s was practically sold out. D’you think it’s so silly of me, Liv? I mean, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?”
“This fucking country,” said Dave. “A nation of morons. Idiots. Cretins. If I could just get my hands on some nuclear weapons.”
“Oh, people just care, Dave, people just loved her. Honestly, you’re such a philistine sometimes. Anyway what do you think, Liv, we could get that nice piccy of her with the poor little black boy framed and hung above the mantelpiece?”
“If you do that, I’m moving out.” Dave started walking out the living room.
“You know the thing is, Dave, the thing is, excepting Certain People,” called my mum to him, as he walked out the back door, “she certainly brought out the best in all of us.”
The back door slammed.
Me and mum and Sarah cracked up and little Paul joined in the way kids do when they don’t really know what they’re laughing at.
