Wicked! (106 page)

Switching off his telephone, Hengist hung a ‘Do Not Disturb’ notice on the door, tore the gold paper off a bottle of Moët and prepared to give Paris his full attention.

It was a perfect evening. Cricket games were in their last overs. Cow parsley foamed along the rough meadow between pitches and golf course; buttercups streaked the fields beyond. An overpoweringly sweet scent of lilac drifted in through the big open windows.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Hengist murmured fondly as Elaine jumped then trembled as the champagne cork flew out. ‘You’ve heard enough of those in your time.’

Perched on the dark red Paisley window seat, Paris could just see the lake. Here Artie Deverell lounged in a panama hat and a deckchair, with several bottles of Sancerre cooling in the water among the forget-me-nots, reading his favourite poems in his gentle bell-like voice to his favourite GCSE candidates.

‘I bet he’s chosen Lamartine’s “Lake” or Baudelaire’s “Voyage to Cythera”.’ Hengist handed Paris an excitingly large glass. ‘Poetry that no longer appears on any exam syllabus. Great literature, as William Rees-Mogg was saying recently in
The Times
, teaches us to understand human nature. People still sulk like Achilles, get mad with jealousy like Othello, loathe their stepfather like Hamlet, have happy marriages like Hector and Andromache.’ For a second Hengist’s finger caressed Sally’s sweet face in the photograph on his desk. ‘Literature, Rees-Mogg rightly claims, is the road to the general understanding of the heart and the head. History’s the same. If you study William’s conquest of England in ten sixty-six, you can appreciate how the Iraqis feel today.’

‘Mr Bruce doesn’t feel like that.’ Paris rose to his feet, gazing at Hengist’s books with a longing most boys would reserve for Sienna Miller. ‘He’s hell-bent on chucking out the classical library and Theo’s archives.’

‘Not while I’m running this joint. This bloody Government is already destroying public libraries. Wants them to replenish their entire stock in five years, in the name of multiculturism and vibrancy. Jesus! I can accommodate Darwin’ – he patted the gorilla on the shoulder – ‘not sure there’s room in here for the archives.’

‘You will protect Theo. He’s such a cool teacher,’ Paris stammered and blushed. ‘He read us Plato’s description of the death of Socrates the other evening, tears pouring down his cheeks the whole time. It was awesome, but I think he’s very near the edge.’

‘I’ll make a note of it,’ said Hengist gravely, noting how exhausted Paris looked. His bloodshot eyes glowed like rubies in the intense white face.

‘I know how hard you’ve been working, but this time in a month, you won’t remember a single equation or date you’ve forced into your tired brain.’

‘I have to say, sir’ – Paris took a gulp of champagne, and moved to sit down on what was left of the sofa by a stretched-out Elaine – ‘I was gutted when Mr Davies left, but your classes are wicked, just as interesting as Mr Graham’s. I can relate now to Lenin, Khrushchev, the Tsar, even to Hitler and Stalin. You don’t make us take sides. Emlyn was always pushing for the underdog, the peasants, the Jews or the communists, but you show us tyrants don’t start off wrong, they’re often convinced they were doing right. Like in Euripides. I suddenly find I’m right behind Medea. You’re like Euripides, sir.’

‘Why, thank you, Paris. I’ve been called a lot of things. Which English set book did you like best?’

‘
Macbeth
. Wish I’d been able to take it in the exam, rather than just as coursework.’

‘Rupert Campbell-Black has very strong views on
Macbeth
.’ Hengist shook his head. ‘I so hope he’s going to pass. I toned down some of his ideas in which he described Malcolm as a “heartless shit” for being so bracing with Macduff just after his wife and children had been butchered. The Prince of Wales would have handled it far more sympathetically, according to Rupert.’

‘That’s right,’ said Paris.

Down below, he could see Dora scouring the ground with her eyes one moment, looking round for him the next, with Cadbury bounding after her. He’d had a disturbing dream last night: Dora had rescued him from a particularly horrible children’s home, and held him safe and kissed him. It had been lovely, but Dora was only a child, sexually light years behind Bianca. He must stamp on any feelings.

‘Dora’s been great,’ he added to Hengist. ‘She’s helped me to revise, testing me on everything. Pity she’s not taking her GCSEs. She knows the textbooks backwards.’

‘I’m devoted to Dora,’ said Hengist. ‘I’ll never forget inviting her in for a glass of champagne on her birthday her first term and asking her with what adjective would she best like her friends to describe her. She said, “There.” I said, “That’s not an adjective.” And Dora said, “I’d like my friends to say I was there for them.”’

‘And she is,’ said Paris.

‘How are you getting on with Ian and Patience?’ he asked.

‘OK. Patience took me to
Macbeth
. Brilliant production, except the weird sisters were sleek, young and glamorous, which is garbage: Shakespeare categorically states they had beards and were ugly. And they can’t have been in Macbeth’s imagination, because Banquo saw them too.’

‘Rupert explained it as Macbeth and Banquo being off their faces with drugs,’ volunteered Hengist, ‘like the entire US Army in Iraq.’

‘Magic mushrooms, perhaps,’ suggested Paris.

‘“The instruments of darkness tell us truths”,’ murmured Hengist, then, regretfully: ‘I must go and change. We’re dining with the Lord Lieutenant – such a sweet, boring man, I’ll never stay awake. Look, you’ll walk these exams. Try and write legibly and read through if you’ve got time. Examiners are awfully keen on inessentials like punctuation and spelling. Easy to ignore if you’re writing at the gallop.’

Paris finished his glass of champagne. If he hadn’t been a bit drunk, he would never have tried on Hengist’s mortar board. With it tipped over his long nose, and shielding his red eyes, his blond hair floating, he looked so ravishing, Hengist caught his breath.

‘Certainly suits you better than Darwin. You must go to my old college, and get the first Matthew Arnold and I, upsetting our fathers so dreadfully, didn’t get.’

As Hengist showered, watching the black hairs flowing down in deltas over his strong muscular chest and thighs, he was gripped with excitement. What a transformation in two years! Paris was able to relax, joke, put forward opinions, even exchange compliments. Hengist imagined his first book of poems, dedicated to ‘Hengist Brett-Taylor, without whom . . .’

Ian, Patience and Theo, too, must be doing a good job. All the same, the boy would have fared even better with him and Sally. If he took the job at Fleetley, could he take Paris with him? If he went into politics, a beautiful adopted son would be great for his image. Christ, he mustn’t think like that. He missed Oriana so much. Even in Washington he hadn’t rung her. Not a word had been exchanged. Was Sally speaking to her secretly?

Wrapped in a big red towel, wandering to the window, Hengist saw Paris sprinting down to the lake to join Artie and his friends.

In the Bruces’ back garden he could see Boffin, his nose in his revision folder, and Alex smugly rereading a proof of his
Guide to Red Tape
. He must get on with Tom and Matt. Please God, prayed Hengist, make Paris do better than Boffin.

107

‘Before the GCSEs, you can expect panic attacks, moodiness, tears and temper tantrums,’ Janna sighed to Taggie, ‘and that’s just the parents.’

The staff weren’t behaving much better. Despite the outwardly convivial atmosphere, Pittsy was desperate his maths candidates should do much better than Skunk’s scientists. Basket wanted better grades than Sophy and Cambola. Even sweet, calm Mags and jaunty Lily got snappy with Emlyn and the Brigadier over hijacked marker pens. There was so much at stake.

Discounting art and Urdu, which Graffi and Aysha had already taken, exams started in earnest with business studies on the morning of 21 May. The evening before, Janna took refuge among the cow parsley on Smokers’, breathing in a heady mingling of wild garlic and balsam, watching the last scarlet streaks of the sunset jazzing up the black silhouette of the cathedral and listening to the exquisite singing of the nightingales in the laurels. Partner, who’d been rabbiting, was drinking out of the pond, avoiding the tadpoles the children had been too busy revising to collect in jam jars.

Like Orpheus visiting the underworld, Janna was still shaking from dropping off good-luck cards to houses in the Shakespeare Estate. If her children scraped just a few GCSEs, they could escape from that hell-hole. Johnnie, Rocky, Monster, Danny the Irish, whose father had just been arrested for punching a particularly irritating female social worker, were all light-fingered and, with no job prospects, would revert to crime and the streets.

Aysha would be beaten within an inch of her life if she didn’t get the Magic Five. Kylie was expecting a second child any minute and her voice would need to take off like Charlotte Church’s to support them both. Feral had the back-up of the Brigadier and Lily, but although he’d tried hard, she doubted if he’d get any grades except PE. At least Rocky was ensured a good D and T grade with his massive dog kennel.

Graffi worried her the most. Ever since his da Dafydd had been sacked for cheeking Stancombe at the rugby match, he’d been blacked by other firms and drunkenly out of work. Dafydd’s mood had not been improved by his dotty mother, known as Cardiff Nan, moving in with them. Graffi, stacking shelves all night in Tesco to make ends meet, was constantly hijacked during the day to mind both his little handicapped sister Caitlin and Cardiff Nan in their enclosed worlds.

Graffi was clever. He’d already got a starred A for art and could easily notch up the Magic Five if he could get some sleep and somewhere quiet to revise. Earlier, she had found him fallen asleep in reception, brush in his hand dripping black gloss on to the floor, in the middle of painting a lucky black cat ringed with gold horseshoes.

The sun and the nightingales had disappeared into the darkness. Going indoors, Janna checked the gym, where in the half-light, like a chessboard, each white square table a metre apart, awaited exam papers. Partner’s claws clattered on the floorboards as he sniffed around.

Going into her office, Janna jumped as her mobile rang. Emlyn? she thought ever hopefully, but the number was unfamiliar. The sinister, lisping stammering voice was not.

‘Pwepared for tomorrow, Janna? After all our effort, support and financial commitment, I hope you’re not going to let us down. Wemember how you hassled us to give your kids a chance to get some gwades? Now it’s your turn to deliver; the world is watching, you owe us spectacular wesults.’

‘You’ve got the wrong number, this is not Sadists Anonymous and I’m taping this conversation, so bugger off.’

Janna slammed down the receiver. How dare Ashton wind her up when she needed to be at her most calm and cheerful? She longed to unlock the safe and photocopy every paper. Not that it would help the children unless she wrote the answers for them. By the time Rocky, Feral and Danijela had struggled to the end of the business studies case histories and worked out what questions needed answering, time would be up. Oh God, had she pushed them beyond their capabilities?

If only she could call Emlyn, but since the rugby match their stand-off had continued. But whatever his sadness over Oriana, Emlyn had gallantly thrown himself into the Larks GCSEs, even to the unprecedented step of getting himself to the breakfast club most mornings and conducting question-and-answer sessions until the history candidates were date perfect. Often the Brigadier had joined him, performing a splendid double act.

Over at Bagley, Alex Bruce tiptoed along the landing after lights out. Hearing murmuring coming from the junior dormitory, he drew closer, then smiled as he heard Boffin’s voice: ‘Please remember in your prayers that over the next four weeks I’ll be taking my GCSEs.’

It was nearly midnight at Penscombe, but still stiflingly hot. The shrill neigh of a horse trembled on the night. Earlier, Xav had bravely delivered a good-luck card to Aysha’s house and been sent packing.

Now he looked out on a tossing silver sea of cow parsley and ebony woods menacing as an approaching tidal wave on the horizon. Bogotá panted at his feet.
Understanding Business
, black with notes, lay open on his bed.

Xav had never more wanted a drink to take the edge off his nerves and his sadness. He had shouted at his poor mother for asking for the hundredth time if he were all right, and threatened to punch Bianca for pestering him for the millionth time not to forget to pass on Feral’s good-luck card, which she’d put in his school bag. There was a knock on the door.

‘Bugger off,’ hissed Xav.

It was Rupert, bearing a cup of cocoa.

‘Thought this might help you sleep. Know what you’re going through. I’m shit scared already and I’m doing only one subject; you’re doing loads.’

‘Thanks.’ Xav took the cup. ‘Not so much money on me. You’ve got to wipe that smug smirk off Stancombe’s face.’

The cup of cocoa, the first and last Rupert would ever make, was absolutely disgusting. The cocoa was still in powdery lumps, sugar hadn’t been added and, by not sieving the milk, Rupert had left a thickening layer of skin on the top. Xav was so touched by his father’s concern, he drank the lot, managing not to gag.