A Royal Match (49 page)

‘I was so jealous of you when I first started. All Star and Georgina talked about was Calypso, Calypso, Calypso.’

‘All they talked about to me was Indie, Indie, Indie.’

Indie smiled and took my hand as a lump formed in my throat at the shame of my own behaviour these past weeks. Because as much as I wanted to blame it all on Honey, what sort of stupid girl was I to be taken in by a girl who had so consistently made my school life miserable? Also, there was no getting away from the fact that I’d been horrible to Portia without any help from Honey whatsoever. No wonder Portia was so wary of me.

Honey was just being Honey, the quintessential DPG, the psycho toff supreme.

I had no excuse.

‘I invited Portia to come to Star’s place, but she refused,’ Indie told me.

‘How come?’

‘Her father. She doesn’t want to leave him alone now that her mother’s dead.’

‘Poor Portia.’ I looked up at the black sky and remembered our moonwalk and her blunt appraisal of me as a self-centred Honey clone. ‘I’ve been so horrible to her,’ I admitted to Indie desperately. ‘I don’t know what I can do now to make things okay again, though.’

Indie held me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye. ‘I do. Make her come to Star’s. I know she thinks her father needs her now, but make her come to Star’s. She needs it more, and the best way to cheer her father up is for her to be happy.’ Then she gave me a cuddle and I cuddled her back. ‘Promise you’ll try, Calypso?’ she insisted as she pulled away.

‘I’ll try now,’ I assured her, but as I watched Indie disappear back into the throngs of bejewelled, tiara-clad women dancing with men in sashes and medals, I couldn’t think of how I was even going to approach Portia. I felt so utterly useless.

‘So, had enough of all this Royal Bore business yet?’ Freddie asked, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around me.

I nodded, still staring up at the sky, frightened I might start crying or something tragic like that. He took my chin and turned me around and planted a kiss on my nose. ‘May I have this dance?’

‘I’ll have to check my dance card,’ I teased as he took my hand and led me back into the ballroom.

He was splendidly graceful as he led me around the floor, and then, just as I was about to burst with happiness,
the waltz came to an end and he whispered in my ear. ‘Our carriage awaits us.’

I couldn’t bear that the night had to come to an end. ‘I feel like Cinderella about to turn back into a pumpkin,’ I told him, sticking out my lower lip.

He kissed it, ‘I think you’ll find that it was the carriage that turned back into the pumpkin. Cinderella turned back into herself – only without the meringue-like ball gown.’

‘But I don’t want to turn back into a girl that smells of vomit, and I definitely don’t want to go back to Honey’s,’ I told him, realising as I said the words just how much I
didn’t
want to go back to Honey’s. In fact, I would rather sleep under the Embankment with the homeless than go back to Honey’s House of Luxury Horrors.

Freddie wrapped me in his arms and kissed the top of my head. ‘We’re going to Star’s! It’s all sorted. So come on, let’s hit the road. We’ve got a party to go to, people who need us, and quad bikes calling out our names. Actually, one of them is calling out your name.’

I looked at him quizzically.

‘Star’s named one of the quad bikes
Calypso
.’

I looked long and hard at this beautiful prince who seemed to genuinely like me, and in that moment I realised I wanted to be a better person, which in a nutshell meant I never wanted to be compared to Honey ever again.

‘Can I borrow one of your security guys for just one sec?’ I asked.

‘It depends what you want to do with him,’ Freddie joked.

‘There’s someone I need to say goodbye to, and I need to go alone, and I doubt I’ll be able to find my way out to the car without him,’ I explained.

‘And I can’t help?’ he asked.

‘No, it has to be a security guy,’ I told him firmly. ‘I’ll see you in the car.’

I rushed through the ballroom, trailed by my rather large security guy, who wasn’t exactly what you’d call nimble or light on his feet. As we ducked and dived our way through dancing couples and chatting groups in my search for Portia, he kept falling over and bumping into people. Eventually I found her dancing with the vaguely familiar bald man Indie had been dancing with earlier.

‘Portia,’ I panted, ‘can I have a word, please?’

She looked at me impassively. ‘Sorry, Calypso, now’s not a good time,’ she replied with perfect civility.

‘But it can’t wait. Please, Portia … please. It won’t take a moment.’

‘What do you want to say, Calypso?’

I looked at the bald guy and the bald guy looked at me. He looked very, very sad, and in that moment I recognised the eyes of Portia’s father. His face had changed so dramatically that he didn’t even look like the same man Portia’s mother had fallen asleep on in chapel. In fact, the last time I’d seen him, he’d had hair!

I looked at Portia. Her own long raven hair was piled up in an elegant chignon and crowned with the oldest-looking tiara I’d ever seen. She looked truly regal. ‘Mostly, I want to say I’m sorry,’ I explained. ‘But …’

‘It’s all fine,’ she replied, even managing a slight smile, but it was only a slight one and it didn’t quite reach her eyes. I noticed then that she was holding her father’s hand.

‘No, it’s not all right. I’ve been horrible. Honey stole my SIM card and yours too, actually, and started playing mind games with me, and I fell for it.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I was totally insanely obsessed that you were stealing Freds and …’

‘Stealing what?’

‘Look, can we just leave it that I behaved badly, madly and even a little dangerously? The point is, at the start of term we became really good friends, and I can’t bear to think that it can’t be like that again. I know it was all my fault, but it was all over boys, and do you really want to think boys are that important?’

‘Hardly,’ she agreed.

‘Then come with Freddie and me now to Star’s.’

She let go of her father’s hand and ushered me to a quiet area.

‘I can’t, Calypso.’

‘Why, because of me?’

‘No, because Daddy needs me.’ I watched her eyes as they travelled over to her sad father. I watched him return
her smile with his own watery one, and even though I was ashamed of how I’d treated her, I no longer felt like the most self-centred, selfish girl in all the world because I was determined to make things right.

‘I know,’ I told her, and then, risking total rejection and humiliation, I cuddled her and kissed her cheek. ‘But Billy is sitting in one of Star’s wardrobes up in Derbyshire, refusing to come out until you arrive. Star’s beside herself! She’s had to resort to sliding buttered toast with Marmite under the door, she’s so fearful of him fading away from lack of food.’

Portia smiled a proper smile as she whispered in my ear, ‘Calypso, have you noticed …’

‘That I can be a jealous witch? Yes, but I still want you to give me a second chance, because, well … because that’s the sort of girl you are, Portia!’ I looked her in the eye, feeling proud of my little speech. I seemed to have developed into quite the orator in the last few moments. Perhaps when I grow up and fence in the Olympics and win I shall be asked to make a speech and I’ll even do it without blurting. Maybe I’ll even be all composed, and …

Portia interrupted my little fantasy. ‘No, Calypso,’ she said, pointing around the room. ‘Look around you. All the guests are covered in Calypso dust.’

I looked around at the glittering crowd – which was in fact glittering with
my
glitter. ‘Oh buggery bollocks!’ I exclaimed loudly as Her Serene Highness of Somewhere-or-Other waltzed by, and then I pressed my hand against my foul-mouthed New-World lips.

‘Calypso!’ Portia chided as she giggled.

‘I’m soooo not bred for this sort of occasion. Sorry, I’d better go, Freds is waiting. I’ll say hello to Billy for you though, okay?’

‘Not so fast,’ she said, grabbing my hand. ‘How can I trust you not to steal him?’ Portia asked, eyeing me up beadily.

I couldn’t believe that I’d tried so hard to make up, only to have her mistrust me again. Seriously, these aristos are a bloody tricky lot! ‘Portia? I’m going up with
Freds!’
I told her indignantly. ‘The whole Billy thing was just a misunderstanding …’

‘I still think I should come up to keep an eye on you just the same,’ she told me, only now I could see she was suppressing a grin. ‘Everyone knows what a ferocious txt flirt you are.’

I went bright red with shame, and my brain started up its
Dig! Dig! Dig!
chant again.

Portia kissed her finger and placed the kiss on my forehead. ‘I was only teasing. I’m coming up to Derbyshire tomorrow.’

My head spun around on my shoulders. ‘What?’

‘Fred’s sorted it all out with my brother tonight. Tarkie’s going to stay home for half term. Besides, what sort of girl would I be if I left Billy to wilt away in a wardrobe with nothing but Marmite toast for sustenance? He doesn’t even like Marmite.’

‘But Indie said …’

‘Bugger what other people say,’ my enigmatic new friend declared – and quite loudly too.

I laughed as people turned around to stare at the two of us. That was all the encouragement I needed to grab her in a cuddle and smother her in sparkle. Then I kissed her father goodnight, dusting him in sparkles too. ‘Sorry,’ I blurted, ‘I appear to have sparkled you.’

And then her father took my hand and brought it to his lips and kissed it. ‘I assure you, young lady, the pleasure is all mine,’ he told me, and smiled.

I grabbed Freddie’s security guy, who was lingering discreetly out of earshot, took off my shoes and legged it to the car.

Freddie was waiting by the open door and ushered me into the vehicle like an ostentatious butler. He could probably get a job working for Honey with that bow.

‘My lady!’ he said, doffing an imaginary cap.

I climbed inside the black Mercedes. ‘Thank you, Jeeves, that will be all!’ I told him.

He dived in after me. ‘I very much doubt it, my lady!’

I giggled as he wrapped me up in a big princely cuddle and then strapped me safely into the seat belt.

‘Oh my god, I’ve left all my stuff at Honey’s!’ I cried as we drove out onto a country lane.

Freddie waved my fears away the way he’d waved Kevin away when he kissed me under the awning in Windsor. ‘I’ll have someone pick it up tomorrow morning first thing. It’ll be with you by the afternoon.’

‘And you?’ I asked flirtily. ‘Will you be with me?’

‘To quote Sartre, one of my favourite idlers of all time, “I’m here now, aren’t I?”’

‘And to quote his miserable mistress, Simone de Beauvoir, “What about tomorrow?”’ I shot back.

‘Did she say that?’ Freddie asked, surprised by my awesome literary knowledge.

‘I don’t actually know,’ I admitted, unable to delude him. ‘Probably not. But I did,’ I told him. ‘And I’m here now, aren’t I?’

He smiled and ran his hand through his jet-black hair. ‘Okay, well I’m not sure Sartre said, “I’m here now, aren’t I?” But I’m pretty certain that Shakespeare –
Macbeth
in fact – said, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” Which is how long I’m staying up at Star’s place. Although let me txt Kevin and check that it was
Macbeth
. He’s the literary one.’

‘No one’s txt-ing anyone!’ I told him firmly as I grabbed his BlackBerry and tossed it to the floor. I was so over mobile phones … at least for a bit. Then I wrapped my arms around Freddie’s neck and pulled him in for a big snog-age session. Kissing Freddie is … well it’s …

Well, I’m not going to tell you, actually.

Of course I’ll tell Star, though.

attack
au fer
: an attack that is prepared by deflecting an opponent’s blade

bout
: one single fight, usually lasting around six minutes

compound attack
: an attack incorporating two or more movements

corps-à-corps
: literally body-to-body – physical contact between fencers during a bout (illegal in sabre)

disengagement
: a way to continue attacking after being parried

en garde
: the ‘ready’ position fencers take before play

épée
: another weapon used in fencing

fléche
: a way of delivering an attack whereby the attacker leaps to make the attack and then passes the opponent at a run. French word for ‘arrow’

flunge
: an attack specific to sabre – a type of
fléche
attack in which the legs don’t cross

friendly
: a game played for practise

lamé
: jacket made of interwoven wire and fabric

parry:
defensive move, a block

parry of quinte
: in sabre, a parry in which the blade is held above the head to protect from head cuts

piste
: a fourteen-metre-long combat area on which a bout is fought

plastron
: a padded under-jacket to protect the torso (where most hits land)

point:
the tip of a weapon’s blade

pool
: a group into which fencers are divided during preliminary rounds to assess ranking

president
: a registered referee or arbiter of the bout

retire
: retreat

riposte:
an offensive action made immediately after a parry of the opponent’s attack

sabre
: The only cutting fencing blade. Points are scored both by hits made with the tip of the blade and by cuts made with the blade, but more commonly by cuts. The sabre target is everything above the leg, including the head and arms. For this reason the entire weapon, including the guard, registers hits on an electrical apparatus even though hitting the weapon’s guard is not
legal. This means the sabreur is totally wired – unlike fencers using the other weapons. Before play begins, the sabreurs must check that all parts of their electric kit are working. This is done by the sabreurs tapping their opponents on the mask, the sabre, the guard and the metal jacket so that all hits will be recorded.