A Royal Match (11 page)

Of course she was.

‘Oh, thanks,’ I replied, almost relieved by her bitchy comment. It was just too bizarre having Honey being nice to me. It made my skin crawl.

I could feel Star’s stare piercing through me, but I ignored it as Honey flicked her hair back over her shoulder and said, ‘Fine, darling, no biggie,’ and flounced out of the room without another word.

That evening we were all so emotionally drained that we couldn’t even summon the energy to collect our mobiles from Miss Cribbe. I guess she must have felt a bit sorry for us, though, because she bustled in with them in her arms, which was unheard of. Most of the girls had two mobiles; a declared mobile, which they handed in before lights out and picked up after study period, and another one (their really, really cool, madly expensive ones that took photographs and everything) that they kept with them at all times. Sadly, I had only one mobile, more of a brick than a phone but Miss Cribbe returned it to me kindly as if it were a holy relic.

Everyone immediately started dialling friends and checking messages on their microscopic, fourth-generation, trendy phones.

I noticed that Georgina didn’t even pick hers up.

I checked my voice-mail messages on the brick and the
clear tones of Prince Freddie announced, in a jokey, uncannily good New York gangster accent: ‘So, Foxy, you don’t call, you don’t write, you don’t come see me no more? Am I not good enough for you? You don’t want your old Freddie no more?’

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t help myself.

‘Was that
him
?’ Georgina asked, suddenly bright-eyed.

‘Yaah,’ I admitted casually.

‘Are you really missing him, then?’ she asked kindly. I realised then that she meant Jay.

‘Actually, it was Freddie.’

Star said, ‘You are kidding!’ only I could tell she wasn’t surprised because she winked at me as she grabbed hold of my mobile and replayed the message before I could stop her. Then she cracked up laughing and suddenly Georgina grabbed the phone and even she laughed. Then it did the rounds of the dorm rooms on our floor, with everyone chipping in the thirty pence it cost to call my mobile phone voice-mail messaging service.

It was the first time at Saint Augustine’s that anyone had wanted to pay for a listen to one of my messages. Even Star had passed around listens once when her father had Ozzy Osbourne call her up to wish her happy birthday.

Later, when Star and I were cleaning our teeth, I wondered aloud how Prince Freddie had got my number.

Star gave my mirrored reflection a guilty look.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Are you annoyed with me?’ she asked, as if she actually
thought I might be. ‘He asked me at fencing,’ she explained, ‘and, well …’

But I didn’t let her finish. I wrapped her in a big cuddle and lifted her off the ground with excitement.

Prince Freddie had called me. Oh my God. Oh my God.

When we were tucked up in bed and the lights were out, Georgina said, ‘I guess this means you’re going to the social after all, darling.’

‘I guess,’ I agreed, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice.

‘Tobias is
so
relieved, darling. He said he simply couldn’t bear it if you didn’t go.’

Then, just as I was dropping off to sleep, I felt someone sit on my bed. ‘Calypso,’ Georgina whispered. ‘Promise me one thing.’

‘What?’

‘I know I shouldn’t say this, because, well, Honey’s been my friend forever, but darling, promise me you won’t trust her.’

‘OK,’ I agreed carefully, not that I was ever likely to trust someone like Honey anyway, but I couldn’t get to sleep for ages after that. What had compelled Georgina to say that? Was she actually worried about me, or worried that I’d become Honey’s friend and that she’d lose her? I decided I’d ask Star what she thought in the morning. But one thing was definite, Georgina clearly wasn’t the massive fan of Honey that I’d always taken her for.

The burial ceremony was really lovely, even though it was raining quite hard and we all had to huddle under big black umbrellas that the nuns just seem able to produce like magic from nowhere.

It took place in Phipp’s Forest, near the hockey fields, in a little glade where all the dead pets of Saint Augustine’s had been buried over the years. The forest smelled of damp oak trees, which gave the occasion a sort of sacred atmosphere. I think we all felt it.

All the dead pets in the cemetery have little wooden crosses above their graves, and some of the crosses are painted in bright colours. All of them bear the pet’s name and have
RIP
written above.

Star had made a cross for Arabesque, painted it black and written Arabesque’s name in white, swirly Arabic sort of writing – only in English obviously because none of us can read Arabic. Most of us have enough trouble
with our French and Latin.

Several of the nuns (or, as we say, a flock of nuns) were there and we all held hands, umbrellas touching, while Father Conran stood saint-like in the rain in all his vestments and said a few prayers and sprinkled holy water over us.

Mr Morton, the groundsman, wore a black overall for the occasion rather than his standard grey, although his solemn attire was slightly spoiled by his umbrella, which was a bright green contraption with
Heineken
written on it in white lettering. However, he had taken the trouble to find black satin ribbons to lower the cardboard box containing Arabesque into a hole he had dug earlier that morning. That’s one of the things I love about being a Catholic – we do have a great sense of occasion and ceremony.

As the little coffin disappeared into the freshly dug earth we sang Arabesque’s favourite song, which was actually a pop song by Robbie Williams, so not really sad-sounding in the least. None of the nuns knew the words, so they just sang ‘la, la, la, diddley-dee’ in their funny little nun-like way, but we all cried, because … well, you just do.

Even Honey, who was holding Claudine, looked really upset – although knowing Honey, that could have been eye-drops. Afterwards we all went back to the convent where the nuns live and had a little wake. We’re often invited over for tea and it’s always fun, mostly because they treat us like we’re the most exciting people in the world.

They served us the sort of food you usually see at tiny
children’s parties – sandwiches, butterfly cakes, fairy bread and lemonade. And they didn’t even make a fuss when Claudine threw up a gherkin all over their sofa.

That afternoon, one of Saint Augustine’s Old Girls came to the school chapel to give us a talk on Raleigh International and the gap year possibilities available to Upper Sixth students. She had really long, dark hair and a gorgeous tan and showed us slides of the school she was helping to build in Africa.

It wasn’t a bit like the boring talks we usually get, because she had all these really funny stories about the different children and the mad things that had happened while they’d been building the school and how, even though the children were really poor, they were all still into a lot of the same things we were.

She said that she had shown them pictures of Saint Augustine’s and they were really envious, or maybe just incredulous, of our art room facilities. She had even brought a painting they’d done of their class in Gambia.

Sister Hillary and Sister Veronica carried the painting into the hall. It was so bright and funny, done in a cartoon style, with all their names scrawled across the bottom of each of their faces in graffiti-style writing. I couldn’t believe how cool it looked. I mean, they didn’t even have walls on their school, let alone the luxuries we take for granted – like television, mobile phones and computers.

It made me feel pathetic in comparison, trying to
change my life by inventing a fake boyfriend for myself – a gay one at that. When we were filing out of assembly, Star and I discussed what we would do in our gap year. Honey interrupted, bragging that her mother had already arranged for her to do a three-month stint at Condé Naste.

‘That’s what I love about you, Honey,’ said Star, ‘your incredible desire to look beyond your own tiny little pointless world! Maybe they’ll have you research a piece on distributing make-up tips to the starving!’

As ever, I was awed by Star’s ability to carve Honey up fearlessly, but most of all I was surprised that Clemmie and Arabella and a few other girls who’d overheard actually giggled.

Honey’s face turned puce and I could tell that she wanted to give Star a slap, but Georgina intercepted by reminding us that our gap years were at least three years away whereas we were already late for Latin.

I wrote a chatty letter to Freddie in Latin class when I should have been translating Cicero. I thanked him for his call and told him about how Sister had handed down this mad punishment to raise money after we’d had a food fight. I didn’t mention how it started or anything like that. I made it sound as madly amusing, enthralling and exotic as I could. I deliberated forever over whether to sign it
love
Calypso or
from
Calypso and opted for just
Calypso
so I didn’t sound too desperate.

After study, when Star was off buying sweets at the
tuck shop and Georgina was having a shower, I lay on my bed and wondered how I would cope if my parents were killed in a war and I had to rebuild my life with mud bricks and humanitarian aid.

I looked at the photographs I had put up of Jay. I know they had worked in a way, but it was all a lie and it wasn’t me. I felt so angry with myself that I tore them down and shoved them in the rubbish bin. I reached under my pillow for my copy of Nancy Mitford’s
Love in a Cold Climate
and began to read it for about the hundredth time.

Nancy Mitford survived the war and grew up in an even madder family than Star’s. Her father had hunted her and her sisters and brother with hounds. But even while the bombs fell all over London, she had managed to write books. That’s what I wanted to do – to
write
.

My other favourite writer, Dorothy Parker, also endured a horrendous childhood – her mother died when she was young, and later her brother died on the
Titanic
, but by the age of twenty-one she was working for
Vanity Fair
.

Then it hit me. Where would I be at twenty-one if all I focused on was fitting in with a cool pod of girls? I should be focusing on what I really wanted. I wanted to write and read and fence, and be accepted for who I actually
was
, rather than making myself fit into the world of posh toffs. But, OK … I
would
quite like to pull a boy or two or three.

I snuggled down under my duvet, but that was when I noticed that as well as the sound of water running in the
shower, there was the unmistakable noise of Georgina throwing up her dinner.

I got up and tried to open the door to the en-suite. It was locked so there was nothing I could actually do. I just sat there and waited dismally with my book on my lap, looking out over the oak trees of Puller’s Woods while Georgina heaved and heaved and heaved some more.

It sounded horribly painful. Finally she stopped and I heard her flush the loo. She came out with a cheerful look on her face and asked me what I was reading.

I desperately wanted to say something, but I still hadn’t thought of the right words. I didn’t want to sound like a teacher or a community nurse or something lame like that.

I wished that Star were here because she would definitely know what to say. In the end I asked her if she was OK in a breezy, casual sort of way and she said, ‘Of course I’m OK – why wouldn’t I be?’ in a pissed off, back-off-and-how-dare-you-even-speak-to-me sort of way.

‘No reason,’ I replied and pretended to be engrossed in my book.

Then suddenly she said, ‘Oh, I love Nancy Mitford!’ as if the last ten minutes or so hadn’t happened. ‘Don’t you just love
A Talent to Annoy
, darling?’

‘Adore it,’ I agreed, going along with her denial, and then rambling on in that way I have when I am nervous. Then out of my mouth came the words that would change everything and I heard myself saying, ‘I’d love to write …’ before I could stop.

‘Well, why don’t we, darling? Start a writing salon, I mean?’

I looked at her, stunned. ‘You mean like the Algonquin Round Table? Erm, I don’t think we could actually scratch enough girls together to go around a table.’

‘No, I mean like the Hons,’ she said, referring to a code word in Nancy Mitford’s book used to describe a secret society the Mitford children had when they were young. A gathering of the favoured few who would sit in the closet, heated by the boiler, and talk irreverently about everything from life to death and beyond. ‘Don’t you think it a fabulous idea, darling?’

‘Do you really think it would work?’ I asked, still amazed at the sudden change in Georgina’s mood, not to mention the fact that we seemed to share an interest. I mean, minutes before, I’d been considering speaking to Sister Dumpster about her throwing up and now, here she was, babbling away about a writing salon.