Toronto 2024
It was a cold, damp and miserable grey day. Feels like London, Dianne thought as she pulled the hood of her jacket over her thinning, almost pure-white hair. In fact, it’s just like that day I first saw her; that girl on a motorbike.
My goodness me, that must be fifty years ago if it’s a day she said to herself as she hurried to catch the 501 streetcar to her doctor’s appointment. I guess now she’s also old and ordinary-looking, and taking extra care not to slip and break a hip or whatever it is we old folk are always breaking. That’s if she’s still alive.
As the streetcar rattled along Queen Street East, Dianne’s mind drifted back to her days in London: the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street and Trafalgar Square, the excitement of seeing famous people at the local pubs, and the eccentric neighbours in her Holland Park flat. There was Frances from Canada who worked as a lap dancer, Jonas an American writer-photographer who had wanted her to pose naked, Graeme an Australian who drove a double-decker London bus, and Stella the clairvoyant who said she learnt her skills from her Irish grandmother. Dianne smiled and thought, and me, the little Kiwi, the naïve girl from New Zealand, that’s what they called me.
I wasn’t that naïve. I had some nerve back in those days –.lieing my way into jobs that I was definitely not qualified to do, hitchhiking alone and accepting the offer of a free bed from a perfect stranger. And anyway, I’m still quite nervy for an old girl. She smiled to herself.
I wonder what Stella might see in my cards if she were to read them today. Would she have predicted I’d marry a Canadian and move to this equally grey and gloomy landscape, would she know I’d divorce and raise a bunch of kids alone? And going forward from now, what would she see? Another ten years getting more and more feeble? Or perhaps, my kids taking all my money, and then abandoning me? A lover for these last few years? Well, she’d be wrong about that one. The last thing I need is a lover. .
London 1973
“Use your middle name,” Stella said, “you will become famous, I guarantee it.”
“But you don’t even know my middle name,” I argued, “and anyway it’s old-fashioned and ugly and no one has ever heard of it.”
“That’s not the point,” Stella said.
I tried it out on myself saying ‘Zelda’ over and over again and thought about testing it at the party that Margaret, my work friend, had invited me to. But in the end, I decided to stick with Dianne. What sort of crazy person would listen to a clairvoyant and expect to get famous?
By the afternoon of the party, I was worrying myself silly about what to wear. I mean I was going to be with all these fashionable Londoners and probably Americans as well. During the week I’d tried on everything in my closet and absolutely nothing looked right. Jonas suggested I wear my birthday suit and Frances offered me one of her dance outfits. And even though I had never revealed my middle name, Stella just kept saying if I used it, it wouldn’t matter what I wear. In the end, I borrowed a rather revealing jumper from my friend Margaret and a fashionably short skirt, which was, in actual fact, more like a very wide belt.
When we arrived at the party, the place was swarming with long-haired guys wearing flared pants and flowing shirts, and fashionable girls looking like Maryanne Faithfull and the gorgeous Twiggy. The sweet smell of hand-rolled Columbian Gold joints filled the air while the sound of the Rolling Stones ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ blared from the record player. The walls of the centuries-old building were shaking but, the world was full of peace and love and goodwill to everyone — except those in authority.
While Margaret fit right in and immediately began to dance, I was totally out of my element. I noticed a few people staring at me and then looking away. I kept thinking, do I look as much like a fish out of water as I feel, or is it just because I’m ugly, or is it because I’m dressed weird, or am I the only one who has no clue what to do if I’m handed a joint? I found a quiet corner beside another girl who seemed as uncomfortable as I felt. We started a conversation, she was from northern England and this was her first time in London.
After a bit, one of the chaps who had been staring at me came over and said, “Come with me I want to show you something.”
I said, “It’s alright I’m very comfortable here.”
He said, “I mean you no harm, please trust me. I live in this flat and I have something you should see.”
I thought, I may be a naïve girl from New Zealand but I’m not dumb. And then I thought, what the heck, I’m in London what is there to lose?
He led me to his bedroom and without saying a word, he pointed at the wall. There in a very large black and white poster staring back at me, was me with straight blonde hair cut in a pixie style sitting on the back of a motorbike with my long legs beautifully posed, and my arms hugging a gorgeous looking, hunky guy in a leather jacket.
“You’re her right?” asked the boy. “I can’t believe it. The girl of my dreams, here with me in person.”
“It is most definitely not me,” I said. But as I said it I felt so weak at the knees I thought I would collapse. My heart was beating fast and my mind was spinning even faster. Who is this other me? Is she my twin I don’t know about? Is she a ghost?
“I am so honoured to meet you Zelda”, the boy said.
When he called me by my middle name, which no one outside of my immediate family knew, I started to hyperventilate, my stomach began to churn. I thought I was going to throw up. All I could think of was that I had to get out of there. And I did.
I fled back downstairs, grabbed my coat, ran out the door and headed for the underground tube. I kept saying in my head, “Thank you God for getting me out of there, please just get me home and if it’s anything I did that made you make me into a ghost, well I’m sorry.”
Toronto 2024
When Dianne arrived at her stop at the corner of Broadview Avenue, an elderly man, who was also getting off the streetcar, helped her with her bags.
“I noticed you get on the streetcar”, he said with a strong cockney accent, “you remind me of my ex-wife. I haven’t seen her in forty years I wonder how she’s doing. She was once a famous London model you know, but she’s probably gone to seed by now just like the rest of us. Her name was Zelda.”
Dianne’s heart started to race. “Stop it” she told herself, “remember you decided a very long time ago that there are no ghosts, and there is definitely not another you who creeps around in the shadows and pops out every fifty years to scare you.”
And she smiled at the man and said, ‘Thank you, have a lovely day.”
“Maybe I’ll see you again,” he said.
