A Royal Match (15 page)

‘Excuse me, sir, but perhaps you should step back inside.’

It was one of his security guards, reeking of CK1. ‘I’m bringing His Majesty back in now, sir,’ he spoke into his little ear-to-mouth piece.

It was all so unbelievably and maddeningly annoying.

‘Sorry about that,’ Freddie apologised as we stumbled through the bushes and out into the brightly lit quad.

We passed Honey on the way. She smelt of spew but I didn’t say anything – although Freddie gave me a look that spoke volumes about what he really thought of her.

‘Freddie, Freddie!’ she called after us. ‘Sorry to leave you like that earlier. Only I had to do a bit of a favour for a friend. I hope you’ll forgive me, darling?’

‘Absolutely fine,’ he said, giving my hand a squeeze.

It took more than a squeeze to get rid of the sick feeling I always had when faced with Honey. She slithered up close to us and ran her arms up both our backs.

‘Oh, what are these, Calypso?’ Then she did her hyena laugh.

Freddie and I smiled stiffly – well, I smiled stiffly. Freddie looked right through her.

‘I forgot you two knew each other, darling. All those funny messages. “You don’t call, you don’t text …,”’ she mimicked the first message he had sent me – the one that had done the rounds of Cleathorpes. ‘God, Calypso, you must have made an absolute fortune from those messages. Although I guess you’re used to that, Freddie – having the plebs trading on your royal status. Still, a girl has to make a dime,’ she joked, nudging me in the ribs. Then she wandered off, laughing insanely to herself.

Only it wasn’t funny.

I really needed Freddie to give my hand one of his big
manly squeezes just then, but instead he pulled it away. ‘What’s this all about?’ he asked tersely.

‘What’s what?’ I replied, playing for time.

‘You sold
listens
of my messages?’

It was like being slapped across the face. ‘I so did not!’

‘Calypso, I’m not a fool and I didn’t think you were. I don’t particularly like your friend, but she’s right on one point. I
am
used to people attempting to trade on my royal status. I just didn’t imagine you would be one of those people.’ Then he turned on his heel and crunched his way across the freshly cut grass of the quad, back towards the hall.

I stood there for a bit, with his tailcoat wrapped around my shoulders – until Kev came out to retrieve it.

‘Sorry, but you know how it is. He’s none too pleased.’

I knew if I said anything I would start crying, so I just passed him the coat. It felt like I was Cinderella and it was time to go back to my pots and pans.

After Kevin retrieved Freddie’s jacket, I ran crying into the loos where Star was trying to help Clemmie pull the zip of her top up. Apparently on their mercy run, Honey threw up on poor Clemmie, so they left Honey with a hose and told her to stay in the shadows until she sobered up. Then they had washed Clemmie’s spewie top under the tap and dried it under the hand dryer.

Once I’d finished garbling out my sorry story, Star immediately offered to go and give His Royal Bloody Stuck-Up Highness a smack. She was furious. Clemmie was keener on getting back into the social and wrapping her lips around someone with the unlikely name of Razzle.

I felt ill again and with the smell of spew in the air I vomited. The others filed off back into the hall while Star arranged for us to go back early on the minibus.

I couldn’t stop sobbing and feeling ashamed. I suppose
I shouldn’t have let anyone else hear his messages, but then I hadn’t really had any choice in the matter. Star had grabbed my phone, then Georgina and after that … oh, it was all such a mess.

When we got back, Sister Regina insisted I spend the night in the infirmary. She said she blamed herself for making me go in the first place and started crying as well.

I woke up late in the morning to find her still sleeping, slumped in an uncomfortable chair at the foot of my bed. As I watched her I replayed every horrendous moment of the night before in my head.

Star walked in with the newspapers. Every paper you can name had a photo of Freddie and me tongue-fencing in the bushes. The photograph showed my hair covered in leaves and the papers all had clever headlines. My favourite (not) was
The Prince and His Bit of Rough-and-Tumble
.

‘I just can’t believe the audacity of the guy!’ Star ranted. ‘A girl stinking of spew, whom he’s virtually told you he despises, tells him that you’ve been trading on his royal status and he believes her? Now his own bloody security guy, or one of his other mates, sells a photo to the press! Talk about Prince Bloody Charming.’

Sister Regina, who had woken up and was reading one of the papers, shook her head. ‘What a bounder. What a bounder. You are well out of it, luvvie.’

Star said, ‘Well I’ve got a mind to bound right over to Eades and tell him exactly what I think of him.’

Georgina flew into the room next. ‘This is so random, darling,’ she cried out. ‘I can’t believe it – what a bastard!’ Then, seeing my puffy eyes, she dispatched Sister Regina for cucumber slices. ‘I’ve never seen such puffy eyes in my life, darling. Now that you are a national icon you have to look your best.’

Then she sat on the bed and gave me a cuddle.

‘National icon?’

‘Darling, you are the first girl that Freddie, heir to the British throne, has kissed! You will go down in history. This is huge, sweetie.
Huger
than huge.’

‘Oh, yes,’ I replied in my drollest droll voice, ‘this is what my parents have invested their swimming pool, holiday and car fund money into – my place in history as Prince Freddie’s bit of rough-and-tumble.’ I couldn’t believe that Georgina was so shallow, as if being made out to be an utter slapper was the loveliest thing in the world. All because Freddie was a prince!

‘Oh, darling, don’t dwell. No one believes what they read in those trashy papers. Believe me, you will be the envy of every girl in this country.’

My next visitor was Sister Constance. Her mood was a little more circumspect, to say the least. She had her hands tucked up inside the sleeves of her robe. ‘Your parents will be arriving the day after tomorrow, Miss Kelly. I have given them permission to take you to their hotel for the weekend and filled out the necessary exeat form.’

‘I don’t understand, Sister.’

She gestured with her chin towards the fan of newspapers on the floor. ‘It would seem that news of your liaison with His Royal Highness has crossed the Atlantic. Your parents, quite understandably, feel you may need them. I shall discuss the details with you after you’ve been signed out of the infirmary. Needless to say, both Eades and Saint Augustine’s will mount a full and thorough investigation into how this sordid story manifested itself.’

‘Thank you, Sister,’ I replied in the most humble voice I could muster, which was pretty humble, quite frankly, after all I’d endured recently.

She made the sign of the cross, told me she would pray for my soul and swept out of the room imperiously.

‘“News of your liaison has crossed the Atlantic,”’ Star and Georgina mimicked once they were sure she was out of earshot.

I couldn’t see anything funny about it, though. All I could think of was Freddie and what he must be feeling. Or rather what I hoped he must be feeling. Was he having second thoughts? Was he missing me?

Basically, was he even thinking of me?

At all …?

He probably hated me. His own parents must be furious. I must be the most hated girl in Britain where the royal family was concerned.

I was so obsessed with Freddie, in fact, I hardly gave a thought to my parents’ impending arrival and what that would mean …

After the Prince and His Bit of Rough-and-Tumble episode, the school swarmed with paparazzi. Sister Constance immediately doubled the number of security men and guard dogs patrolling the grounds. They could be seen everywhere – behind trees, the stone crosses along the driveway, next to sheds and bushes, talking in that strange language they use when they communicate on walkie-talkies – ‘Ten-four,’ ‘That’s a copy,’ and that sort of thing.

The sight of terrified cameramen being chased by dogs, security men and nuns through the grounds became routine. Sister Hillary and Sister Veronica caught one photographer hiding in the chapel when he’d ‘popped in for a quick prayer,’ and wasted no time in pressing the fire bell, then whipping him with gladioli from the altar. He was finally rescued, cowering in the confessional, by security
guards. Later that day, Sisters Veronica and Hillary regaled us with stories of the episode, embellishing their bravery and righteous fury with each telling, until the tale sounded very much like that bit in the Bible where Jesus chases the money-lenders from the temple.

The press were desperate to speak to someone in the school who actually knew me, but no one would say a word. Apart from anything else, we were collectively threatened with expulsion if we so much as made eye contact with the press.

Sister Constance broke her own rule when she had Mr Morton move the umpire’s stand from the tennis court onto the playing fields, where she broadcast a scathing message to the press on a megaphone, suggesting they pray for mercy and forgiveness and describing them as emissaries for Satan and the servants of Beelzebub.

We were all in our classrooms at the time, but the teachers let us peer through the mullioned windows for a glimpse of our Mother Superior in all her superiorness. We were very proud of her, but we had no idea who Beelzebub was.

My parents’ arrival had all the fanfare and status of a Hollywood premiere. Even though they drove up in a taxi, everyone had lined up in the driveway as if expecting royalty to climb out. Instead, Bob and Sarah clambered out in their trackie bums and hoodies, trying to look all young and hip and ‘street.’

God, it was embarrassing. Why they couldn’t just wear Laura Ashley and Savile Row suits like everyone else’s parents, I’ll never know.

I hadn’t really given myself time to think about how I would feel about their arrival, which I suppose sounds very self-centred and un-daughterly. I know it was very sweet and parentally responsible of them to take that horrible flight across the world to be with me in my hour of need, but all I could think of was Freddie.

He hadn’t called and he hadn’t responded to my text messages. I’d sent him three. The first one asked for a chance to explain. The second asked if he’d received my first text. The third text was a repeat of the first. Tragic, I know.

Clemmie’s brother, who was in a lower year at Eades, had said that although I was the talk of the school, Freddie was being very tight-lipped over the situation. When she’d told me this, all I could think of was how soft and loose his lips were when we’d kissed.

‘He probably thinks you orchestrated the whole thing, darling,’ Honey had remarked, sitting on my bed smoking a fag.

Star had grabbed the cigarette and flung it out of the window.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Honey had shrieked.

‘You’ll set the fire alarm off and only get us all suspended, you idiot.’

Honey had sighed heavily. ‘OK,
whatever
, Star!’

Honey had been hanging around in our room again as if nothing had happened.

As if her sister, Poppy, hadn’t slapped Georgina across the face.

As if she hadn’t mounted a campaign of Post-it note harassment against me.

As if she hadn’t spiked my lunch with laxatives.

As if she wasn’t the total psycho toff who had ruined my life.

Instead, it was all ‘darling’ this, and ‘sweetie’ that, and we were sort of playing along with it because, well, it was just so random and none of us really knew
how
to deal with it.

It was only Georgina and Star who hardly spoke to her, and when they did, they were polite, but left her in no doubt that they loathed her. I wondered how it made Honey feel that Georgina, after all their years of friendship, now hated her. And not just hated her, but was now friends with Star and me – the two girls they had had so much fun taking the piss out of over the past three years.