Wicked! (126 page)

‘This was a head who fought against all odds for their school,’ went on Rupert, ‘and kept it open under remarkable circumstances, who inspired confidence in children who believed they were worthless, who inspired the staff into believing every teacher can teach and every child achieve, and who never gave up on a child.’

Tears rushing down Janna’s cheeks took away the rest of Pearl’s make-up. ‘What a wonderful person she must be,’ she murmured and, turning, seeing tears in Emlyn’s eyes, added, ‘Don’t be sad.’

As she stroked his cheek, he trapped her hand.

The cameras were slowly creeping up the aisle.

‘And the winner . . .’ As, utterly deadpan, Rupert slowly opened the gold envelope, Alex Bruce, halfway out of his seat and deliriously punching the air, was sent flying by the overhead camera.

‘The winner . . .’ repeated Rupert with a triumphant smirk, ‘is one of the few schoolmistresses I like: Janna Curtis of Larkminster High School.’

An explosion of cheering rocked the theatre, particularly from the South-West and from Yorkshire up in the gallery.

‘I don’t believe it,’ gasped Janna, turning to a tearful, beaming Emlyn.

‘Well done, lovely, you did it, just watch these clips.’

Among the television crews who’d been doorstepping Larks for the past year had been one from the BBC. Now they showed clips of Janna racing round hugging all the team when they beat Bagley at rugby; yelling, ‘You’re worse looters than the Iraqis,’ at Searston Abbey staff when they arrived prematurely to remove earmarked books and computers; crawling across the park, waving branches of swamp cypress, bringing Birnam Wood to Dunsinane; and finally of her praising or comforting her children on Results Day.

Glowing testimonials followed from Stormin’ Norman and Chantal Peck, who said Janna was just like a ‘Citizen’s Advaice Bureau,’ and the Mayor of Larkminster, who said she was a ‘cracker’. Even the Bishop described her as a ‘very live wire’.

Then there were clips from children all round the country who’d followed Larks’s progress on the news.

‘Janna seems so nice, we’d love to go to her school.’

Finally, Dora appeared saying how much they’d all liked her at Bagley.

‘I cannot believe this,’ muttered Janna as the film came to an end.

‘Yes, you can.’ Standing up to let her out, Emlyn steadied her, before setting her off on her tottering path.

Utterly shell-shocked and extremely drunk, she staggered up on to the stage, where Rupert caught her, enveloping her for a second inside the blue silk lining of his overcoat.

‘Bloody marvellous, darling. Can you manage a few words?’

Turning, Janna reached out for and nearly missed the microphone. Freckles were the only colour in her face. As her speckled Little Mermaid dress, damp with champagne and tears, clung to her, people could see how thin she was.

‘It’s been a wonderful evening,’ she began. ‘I’ve never been so proud of my profession.’ Then, pulling her thoughts together: ‘I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me, and all the Larks teachers and children who worked so hard, and the parents, and particularly the anonymous donor who gave us a hundred and twenty thousand pounds so we could keep Larks open for another year, although S and C Services and the county council did eff-all to help us,’ she added to equal laughter and gasps of disapproval.

‘Rather a looshe cannon,’ murmured a grinning Rupert, thinking there was something infinitely touching about Janna’s little bitten nails clutching the mike.

‘And we’d never have done it without the help of the staff and children from Bagley Hall,’ she went on defiantly, adding, over a storm of booing, ‘particularly without Hengist Brett-Taylor.’

‘Hear, hear,’ shouted Rupert.

‘Cheat!’ yelled the audience.

‘Hear me out,’ yelled back Janna. ‘We must stop demonizing the independents as they demonize us. We’ve got to work together for all children. Hengist gave so many of our pupils a chance. He enabled Paris Alvaston, for example, to learn Latin and Greek. This is a Plato’ – she brandished her award – ‘but how many of you can quote a single line Plato wrote?’

There was a long pause.

‘Plato said democracy leads to despotism, which is happening in this country today, when schools are closed down just because the powers-that-be want to make a fat profit selling off the land.’

The horror and alarm on the faces of the majority of the audience turned to sympathy as Janna burst into tears.

‘But what does it matter? How can I be a great head if I lost my school? All I want is my children back.’

Emlyn was on his feet about to vault on to the stage. Rupert and Eamonn were moving forward when a dirty violet and yellow football rolled across the stage towards Janna’s feet, followed by Cameron Peck, followed by his mother, carrying Ganymede.

‘I’m training as a nursery nurse,’ Kylie Rose told the audience, ‘and taking singing lessons.’

She was followed by Aysha and Xavier, hand in hand, who were going to the same FE college. Graffi, waving a paintbrush, unrolled a scroll showing a draft of the mural he was painting for the long room at Penscombe. Kitten, looking breathtaking, was modelling and back in love with Johnnie, who was working in a racing car garage. Danijela was altering clothes at Harriet’s Boutique. Monster had got a job working as a bouncer in a nightclub and, despite Rooney scoring in extra time, a beaming Feral came bouncing on, like Tigger, in Larkminster Rovers orange and black colours, leading a giggling Bianca, who was in turn leading Rocky, who was working on the Penscombe Estate as a chippy, until miraculously, every Larks High pupil was crowding the stage.

Pearl came last strutting around with her royal-blue rooster hair.

‘I did Miss’s make-up earlier,’ she announced, then, turning to Janna: ‘Looks as though you could do wiv a touchup, miss. Miss didn’t have a clue we was all coming up, or she was getting an award. Mr Davies organized the whole fing. I’m working wiv Trinny and Susannah now, so I get paid for telling people they look gross. And if anyone wants my card . . .?’

The audience smiled fondly, particularly when Pearl took Janna’s hand: ‘Larks didn’t die, miss. Honest. We just want to say it lives on in us and in all our memories, so thank you for everything you did.’

Great were the cheers and the rejoicing as they were all swept off the stage to make way for Lords Puttnam and Attenborough.

Afterwards it passed in a dream. Dazed and amazed, all Janna wanted to do was get stuck back into the champagne and talk to the children and find out about Graffi’s dad and Feral’s mum. But once Pearl had redone her face, everyone, particularly the press and the photographers, wanted a piece of her.

Overwhelmingly important at the back of her mind was what was Emlyn’s part in it? Had he come over to Larks merely to lure her up to London? Had he persuaded all the children to vote for her because he cared for her or was it the altruism of a colleague wanting justice and recognition for a colleague?

She must ask him. She was just taking another slug of champagne to give herself courage, when Stew, her old head from Redfords, hove into sight and kissed her on both cheeks.

‘Well done. I couldn’t be more proud. Good, you stuck up for Hengist Brett-Taylor. Nice man, if misguided. I must have trained you jolly well. It’s a crime you’re doing supply,’ he continued, lowering his normally loud commanding voice. ‘How’d you like to be deputy head at a city academy I’m taking over in Lancashire?’

‘Oh Stew, it’s good to see you. You haven’t met Emlyn Davies.’

The two men shook hands without enthusiasm.

‘You must have been planning this for weeks,’ said Stew, then, turning back to Janna: ‘Mike Pitts has been telling me that everyone decided Emlyn would be the best person to hijack you, darling.’

Janna was hazily wondering why she loved Rupert calling her ‘darling’, but bitterly resented it from Stew. He was also too old for that trendy short hair at the front, as though a rat’d been nibbling it all night. Then she looked up at Emlyn, who didn’t have a millimetre of meanness or weakness in his big kind face.

‘What happened to Artie’s award?’

Emlyn looked sheepish. ‘I made that bit up.’

She was now seeing him through swirling black clouds.

Next moment Bea from the Beeb was asking, ‘Could you bear to have your photograph taken with the rest of the winners?’

‘All right, but don’t go away,’ Janna begged Emlyn. ‘I want to ask you something. Oh look, there’s David Puttnam, my hero. Oh dear, I don’t feel very well.’ She suddenly buckled, stumbled and flopped to the ground.

‘She’s fainted, give her some air,’ shouted Stew.

‘I think you’ll find she’s passed out,’ said Emlyn. ‘I’ll take her home.’

Janna’s children, quite used to bringing parents back from the pub, hoisted her aloft and carried her out of the theatre.

‘“Go, bid the soldiers shoot”,’ said a grinning Rupert.

‘Utterly deplorable,’ chuntered the Bruces and Hydes.

‘So unnecessary to bring up Hengist. She only won that award because of all the publicity,’ grumbled Poppet.

‘Shut up, you jealous old bitch,’ shouted Aysha to everyone’s utter amazement.

Emlyn wrapped Janna in her bracken-brown pashmina and his jacket and drove her back to Larkshire with the winter stars, Castor and Pollux and the big and little Dog Stars, accompanying him all the way home.

Janna was a winter star, he thought wistfully. The darker the night and things had got at Larks, the more brightly and cheerfully she had rallied everyone. She looked about fifteen; occasionally she muttered in her sleep, but as he took her little hand in his, she slept on.

She had been so reluctant to accompany him earlier and so defensive until she got pissed. Was she still keen on that asshole Stew, or on Hengist, whom she’d defended so fiercely this evening?

Using her keys to let himself into her cottage, he put her down in the hall while he switched off the burglar alarm. Next moment Partner hurtled in from next door, but even when he barked joyfully and rushed up and down hurling all his toys in the air, Janna didn’t stir.

‘I hoped I’d carry you over the threshold a different way,’ Emlyn told her as he took off her shoes and put her to bed in her clothes, then, dropping a kiss on her lips and switching off her mobile, he left her Plato in her arms.

130

Janna was woken by
Newsnight
on the landline, congratulating her and asking her to come on the programme that evening. Clutching her head, wincing at white sky glaring through the window, noticing the time, she gave a screech of horror. She’d be fatally late for work.

‘Can I call you back?’

But, as she started scrabbling for clean pants and tights, she caught sight of herself still in her bronze speckled party dress and then of the Plato gleaming in the dark folds of the bedspread, and, attempting to piece last night together, she remembered it was half-term.

Having splashed her face with cold water, scraped moss off her tongue and cleaned her teeth, she tottered downstairs. There was no note anywhere. What had been Emlyn’s part in all this?

She was simultaneously reassuring Partner she’d feed him in a second and groping for Alka-Seltzer when a hammering on the door made her clutch her head again.

Outside Lily was looking distraught.

‘You were wonderful last night, Christian and I were so proud, but, darling, I’ve done something dreadful.’

‘You’ve never done anything dreadful.’

But Lily, it seemed, had been having a tidy-out, prior to moving into a new house, and had discovered a recorded delivery she’d taken in for Janna two days after the Prom.

‘I was so excited to be marrying Christian, I must have shoved it to one side and forgotten to give it to you.’

‘Couldn’t matter less. The only thing that matters at the moment is finding the Alka-Seltzer. It’s probably a final reminder from the Gas Board . . .’ Janna’s voice trailed off. ‘Goodness, it’s Emlyn’s writing.’

‘Oh dear, that’s even worse, I’m so sorry.’ Janna hadn’t seen Lily so upset since her mower broke down.

‘Truly doesn’t matter.’

‘Come and have a drink at lunchtime and tell us all about the awards.’

‘Sure, thanks.’ Ripping open the envelope, Janna wandered back into the kitchen.

Darling Janna [she read incredulously]

I’m so sorry I was such a complete shit last night. I lost my temper because I wanted you to myself so badly and quite rightly you put the kids or rather Monster first. You probably won’t want to but could we start again? You may be still crazy about Hengist and I had so much to work through with Oriana. But suddenly the prospect of not seeing you every day for the rest of my life fills me with such utter despair. I know you’re busy winding up Larks, but why don’t you come up to Wales next weekend? My mother longs to meet you, and there’s a good head’s job coming up in a school near here.

Janna couldn’t read any more. She was blushing too much and reeled into the garden, collapsing on to the old garden bench surrounded by rotting apples, oblivious of guzzling wasps wooed out of hiding by such a warm windless day.