A Royal Match (43 page)

‘Why don’t we have a moonwalk?’ I suggested as the idea suddenly occurred to me. ‘We can escape after lights out and take our duvets, vodka and tuck stashes down to Pullers’ Wood. It’s a Saint Augustine’s tradition.’

Indie clapped her hands. ‘George and Star have told me all about them,’ she replied excitedly. ‘Let’s!’

The first time Indie came into our room on her own, only Honey and I were there. She hissed at Honey, ‘You are such a bitch!’ exactly like Star would have.

Honey, who was checking her mobile, looked up nonchalantly and replied sarcastically, ‘Thank you so much for all your tea and sympathy, darling. I’m the one with the
broken nose who’ll probably have to spend the rest of my life having corrective surgery.’

Then I noticed that it wasn’t her mobile she was fiddling with at all. It was mine.

‘That’s if you have any cartilage left after all your other nose jobs,’ shot back Indie.

‘Honey, what are you doing with my phone?’ I demanded crossly.

‘Just reading your messages,’ she responded shamelessly, before turning back to Indie. ‘At least I’ve
had
a nose job! You should think about surgery yourself, Indie. I mean, most people are probably too polite to say anything, but honestly, darling, take it from someone unafraid of the truth. Surgery is a necessity in your case rather than an option, if you see what I mean.’ Honey held up her Chanel compact to Indie’s spectacularly stunning face.

As Honey hadn’t responded to my demand that she give me back my mobile, I snatched it from her and began to check my messages.

‘Oh, like the surgery you had to remove your brain, you mean?’ Indie replied, snatching the compact from Honey and tossing it into the bin.

There were no messages. ‘There are no messages,’ I said to Honey, holding up my phone.

Portia walked in at that moment, but she only said ‘Hi’ to Indie, ignoring both Honey and me.

‘Oh, well there were a few. I read them. Several in fact,’ Honey replied idly, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I must have
deleted them accidentally. Soz, darling, but your phone is soooo ancient. They were all from Billy, as usual. Probably best you didn’t see them, actually. Billy’s got a very pervy turn of phrase, and I know how politically correct you Americans are.’

I stood there opening and closing my mouth both at her audacity and her news that Billy had been txt-ing me. I had been hoping for something from Freddie, but this turn of events had me frantically wondering what was going on.

‘I didn’t know things had heated up quite that much between the two of you,’ Honey continued, now smirking. ‘I suppose I always thought of you as a little mouse … but you’re quite the seductress, Calypso.’ She laughed loudly at her own turn of phrase.

I just stood there, blinking. So did Indie.

‘So you’re admitting you just deleted her personal messages?’ Indie clarified.

‘Hardly! At least not on purpose, obviously,’ Honey gasped indignantly.

‘Rubbish,’ Indie said crossly.

While this exchange was going on I was wondering whether this was the first time Honey had
accidentally
erased my messages. It would certainly explain a lot!

Honey commenced brushing her hair, which involved flipping her head over. ‘Why don’t you scuttle off to your own room, Indie; things are getting a little crowded in here, don’t you think, Portia?’ Honey asked.

‘I don’t think you want to hear what I think,’ Portia replied as she focused on sending a txt message from her own mobile. I tried to gauge her expression, but as ever she was as inscrutable as the Sphinx.

My eyes were burning with desperation to see whom and what she was txt-ing. ‘How many times have you tampered with my mobile, exactly, Honey?’ I demanded, turning my attention back to Honey before I shamed myself by craning over to peer at Portia’s screen.

‘Oh, Calypso, talk about self-centred!’ she snapped, flipping her head back up. ‘Why does it always have to be about you, you, you? You can’t always take centre stage like this. Don’t you think it’s poor Georgina and Star we should be worrying about, darling?’ she implored, her lower lip dropping as if she truly cared.

‘You’re incredible, Honey,’ Indie said as she flopped on Honey’s bed.

Honey fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Thank you, darling. I’m sorry I can’t return the compliment.’

Indie leant back on Honey’s bed, making herself comfortable by rearranging her pillows. ‘All Star did was give you a bit of a slap and after the way you’ve been behaving, I can’t believe she was so restrained,’ Indie told her. ‘If I were Calypso I’d give you another slap for deleting Billy’s txts.’

‘Calypso doesn’t seem to mind, so why do you?’ asked Honey as she grabbed at her pillows. ‘Now get your filthy feet off my bed and go back to your own room.’

‘I
do
care, as a matter of fact, Honey,’ I corrected her as Indie left the room.

‘Oh, then it must be
me
who doesn’t care,’ she replied with the ease of a someone completely comfortable with her role.

I was so angry I stormed out of the room. When I passed Clemmie and Arabella’s room they called me in. Of course I told them all about what Honey had done.

‘What a bitch,’ Arabella agreed.

‘She’s done it before,’ Clemmie added casually.

‘All par for the Honey course,’ they both sighed.

‘I know she’s done it before now. I don’t know if Freddie or Billy have tried to contact me before and, well, I’ve been so confused about how I feel because I haven’t been getting many txts at all.’

Seeing how upset I was, they both gave me a cuddle. Their other roommate, Rosie, had been in the en suite having a shower, but as she came out she remarked, ‘I thought you and Billy were an item?’

I briefly looked up at Rosie, who was still in her robe. She smiled and went back into the bathroom. I turned to my friends. ‘I think I only started liking Billy because of all the complications with Freddie, mostly because Freddie wasn’t txt-ing me. Well, actually neither was Billy, but he was doing his A levels, so that was understandable. The real issue was that Freddie was going to the ball with Portia. Wait a minute. Why did Rosie think Billy and I were an item?’

The girls looked at one another. ‘Honey told us, I think,’ Arabella said, looking to Clemmie for confirmation. Clemmie nodded.

Now I was really confused.

‘When you say Freddie is going to the ball with Portia, do you actually mean going with as in
going with?’
asked Arabella.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. That’s the thing. Honey’s got me confused.’

Clemmie put her arm around me. ‘So, it’s Freddie you
really
like?’

I nodded.

‘Seriously, serious?’

I nodded again, because as easy as it would be to like Billy, after seeing Freddie at fencing I knew that I felt something much stronger for him. He might be inconvenient, but he was the one I wanted to pull.

‘Okay, well, you’re not going to like this, then,’ Arabella warned me, shaking her head, ‘but Honey told us that Freddie and Portia were an item.’

I looked from Clemmie to Arabella. ‘What did she say, exactly?’

‘Just how mad for one another they were,’ Arabella replied vaguely.

‘Yes, but it is Honey we’re talking about, and as she’s our only source I wouldn’t put much stock by it,’ Clemmie added.

I nodded. ‘I know, but … well, Portia hasn’t helped.’

‘Portia wouldn’t be a bitch,’ Arabella said firmly. ‘I’ve known her all my life and one thing she isn’t is a backstabber.’

‘Oh, it’s such a mess,’ I groaned, putting my head in my hands with the frustration of it all.

‘Honey is a witch,’ Clemmie said, ‘but Portia stealing Freddie, I don’t buy. Have you spoken to Portia about all this?’

The tears sprang to my eyes at the obvious sense in this remark, and Clemmie and Arabella took me in their arms for a cuddle. It felt good to finally share my plight with others, and all my doubts and suspicions about Portia came tumbling out, as well as how horrible I’d been towards her, and how I couldn’t go to the ball because I had nowhere to stay in London, and how even if Portia hadn’t been trying to steal Freddie I wouldn’t blame her now if she did.

Clemmie and Arabella were really comforting. Arabella offered me some sweets, and Clemmie said she wouldn’t even mind if I ate a Jelly Baby, as Sebastian was growing up now and hardly resembled their little faces at all.

I smiled through my tears. ‘Indie and I were thinking of having a moonwalk tonight, if you want to come,’ I told them, drying my eyes.

‘Hoorah, a moonwalk!’ they squealed, bouncing on the bed with excitement. ‘We haven’t had one since last term.’

‘I know, it’s been so cold, but the stars are bright and the moon’s full and I know I won’t get to sleep tonight anyway. I’m too worried about Star and Georgina.’

They were already gathering sweets, fags, Body Shop Specials and duvets as I left their room. On the way back to the Saint Ursula room I was determined to try and sort things out with Portia once and for all. Talking things over with Clemmie and Arabella had given me the confidence that I could.

I arrived back at my room, intending to invite Portia to the moonwalk. I had a picture in my head that once under the stars, stuffing ourselves with sweets and vodka, I’d have the bottle to apologise for being so horrible and put things back on track. But things had changed in the room in my absence.

Portia was reading
Nun of Your Business
– last year’s copy – but I didn’t have a chance to speak to her about moon-walking or making up because Honey dived on me like I was her best friend in the world.

‘Darling!’ she said as she threw herself on me enthusiastically. ‘I am soooo seriously sorry about deleting the messages from Billy. Please forgive me,’ she begged, seemingly genuinely contrite. ‘I’m almost certain I remember what they all said.’

What could I do? Apart from hug her back? ‘Of course I forgive you,’ I told her, not just because I was surprised and
curious – although I was – but because I was totally weirded out by what she was wearing on her nose. I guess there is no nice way of putting this. Honey was wearing a big, black metal sharp-pointed beak.

‘What have you put on your …’

‘Oh, this?’ she asked, nonchalantly tapping the monstrosity perched on her face. ‘Sister thought it was best. It’s a nose guard.’

‘Sister Regina?’ I asked, shocked that the adorable, lovely little Florence Nightingale of the infirmary would stoop to such artifice.

‘Sister Dumpster,’ Portia said from behind
Nun of Your Business
.

This is my chance, I told myself as I approached her bed. How hard is it to say sorry? It’s only one word. I only got as far as her bedside table, where the photograph of her family stared out at me.

‘So Portia, do you fancy going for a moonwalk this evening?’ I asked lightly.

‘Her name is Dempster, actually,’ Honey snapped at Portia – that is, she was trying to snap, but her words echoed inside the iron beak.

Portia didn’t reply to my suggestion; in fact she didn’t even look at me. I looked at her mother staring out from the family photograph, then looked at Honey, the ultra aristo-psycho toff. She looked like a monster, a victim of torture. The Girl in the Iron Beak. It was completely bizarre.

‘Daddy said I should sue,’ she sighed. The metal nose made her sigh sound really nasal and common.

But I didn’t laugh.

Portia huddled further towards the wall. I think
she
might have been laughing.

‘Poor you,’ I remarked, more or less for the sake of it because even though I was furious with her for deleting my messages, and for the trouble she’d brought on Star, she was Honey. ‘So Honey, what were those txt messages from Billy that you deleted?’

‘I told you, just heavy breathing, a little smutty for your wholesome little American taste.’

‘Heavy breathing? Smut?’

‘Darling, you
really
don’t want to know.’

‘Oh, but I do,’ I told her firmly.

Then Portia’s voice added, ‘So do I.’

‘Oh, darling, what’s that top you’re wearing?’ Honey suddenly squealed, which made me jump six feet in the air as the words echoed about her nose. ‘It’s divine!’

I looked down at the stretched-out-of-shape white-ish t-shirt I was wearing. ‘Erm, Top Shop; I think it was in the five-pound bin.’

‘Oh, don’t you just
adore
Top Shop?’ she enthused. ‘It’s so tacky and yet so happening. Wrong, but deliciously right and darling on your figure. You make it look like something Lee whipped up.’

‘Lee?’

‘Alexander McQueen, darling; everyone who knows him calls him Lee.’

Portia loudly flicked the switch on her mobile charger. Honey rolled her eyes dramatically in Portia’s direction, and the look, combined with the iron beak, was really quite alarming. I found myself feeling sorry for poor Bob and Sarah, forgoing the pool and the other luxury treats they sacrificed so that I could live in a room with something the carnival had kicked out.

‘Sorry, what was that you said, Honey, I missed it?’