Princess Larmalade

When Marmalde was eight, she had an imaginary friend called Princess Larmalade.

It was in the summer holidays before school started, when Marmalade skipped out of the house, barefooted of course, laughing to an unseen companion. We assumed to begin with that it was purely one of Marmalade's newly acquired habits, something that she'd picked up in school until later that evening.

Marmalade, first down to the dinner table every night, drew up another chair before taking her usual seat, and then proceeding to have a conversation with an empty space. The thing was she was under the impression that the empty space was speaking back.

For the entire summer, Marmalade didn't go anywhere without Princess Larmalade. Once she made us wait for Princess before we went shopping, because Princess needed a new dress. When mum refused to spend the exorbitant price on a bridesmaids gown, Marmalade created dresses from paper. Huge paper templates, as big as her, decorated with sequins and paper bows and ribbons. They hung in her wardrobe, next to her own clothes like thin ghosts, shivering constantly in the air currents.

Marmalade took the Princess everywhere, not a second was spent away from her, always whispering something to her, laughing at something she'd said. In the evenings, she'd sometimes come to mum and I to relate some far fetched story about what she and her friend had spent the day doing. It was difficult to discern the truth from the lies, made even harder when she would allow Princess Larmalade to take up the narrative flow, and nod attentively at the silent commentary.

I've never known anyone with an imagination like Marmalade's. Even when she was younger, she used to tell awfully long fibs, it was never a problem though, because she couldn't keep a straight face. She'd bite her lip, and hold her breath, but she could never stop herself bursting into giggles, giggles that made her face light up and her right cheek dimple.

She still does it now, sometimes when she invites friends over, I walk past the room, on my way to get some water or something, not like I'm listening in, and I see them, all clustered around her, listening with dropped jaw to what she has to say. She laps it up of course, never could get enough attention, so she loves it, but, her stories are good. They can start with the smallest thing, and then they get longer, and go on, and twist and turn until you stop caring that she's lying blindly to you, all that's important is to know whether the one-eyed unicorn ever escaped from the Cyclops' lair, or if she learns to love him after all.

Of course it doesn't work on me. There's no use winding me a tale of where the goblins took my comb if I can see the broken teeth embedded in her green carpet, or suggesting that my mascara opened a portal to another realm and got lost there when her eyelashes are practically glued together with the stuff.

Still. It was sort of nice with Princess Larmalade.

She'd even argue with her, dramatic fights that flew from raging screams to the calm silence of the Princess' reply. I suppose that Princesses are trained from birth not to loose their temper. Once, I opened the door (I was going to ask if she'd seen my favourite pen) to a torrent of fury.

“You did, I saw you! Even after I said that you shouldn't! I told you and I told you and you didn't listen to me!”

A breeze flew through the room, ruffling the curtains.

“She did not!”

A floor board creaked.

“Did she? What did she say?”

A look of intense concentration.

A smile.

“That's OK then. Shall I push you on the swing?” And she swept past me, rushing out to play with royalty. Invisible royalty at that.

I actually tried making up an imaginary friend of my own, just to see, but I couldn't fabricate her well enough, and I eventually got bored of trying. I mean, it's not like I didn't have enough friends of my own, I didn't need to make them up.

Marmalade even took Princess Larmalade to the first day of school on a fresh September morning, carefully packing two lunches, peanut butter and jam for her, just jam for Princess who was allergic to peanut butter.

That afternoon she returned, all smiles and new stories and not a word of Princess Larmalade.

I later found the decomposing jam sandwiches, stuffed in her desk next to my favourite pen, and threw them out before it created a super being, part bread, part jam.

I mentioned Princess Larmalade to her yesterday.

“Remember your invisible friend? Princess Larmalade?” I asked, leaning oh-so casually on her door frame.

“I never had an invisible friend. And you're not supposed to just walk into my room, try knocking.”

“I'm not in your room, I'm leaning on your door frame, that's in the hall. I can stand in the hall if I want to.”

“Not leaning on my door frame you can't, there's such a thing as private property.”

“And there's such a thing as not being a brat,” I retort, but I left anyway.

Poor old Princess, it must be hard to be scorned by a commoner.