Wicked! (127 page)

Emlyn had written this letter on the day after the prom, recording it to make sure it reached her, and she’d never replied. That’s why he’d ducked out of Results Day, been so curt on the telephone when she’d rung him at Sally’s and so tense and guarded yesterday.

‘The prospect of not seeing you every day for the rest of my life fills me with such utter despair . . .’ Oh Emlyn.

It broke her heart to think of him, waiting for the post and by the telephone, convincing himself she didn’t care.

Then panic gripped her – perhaps he’d moved on, and found some Blodwyn to love. She didn’t remember any emotions betrayed yesterday. He hadn’t even bothered to leave a note. Looking up for guidance, she found the glaring white sky dalmatianed with liver spots. Midges shifted around like footballers adjusting before a corner.

She had to call Emlyn at once. Racing into the house, she switched on her mobile, which rang instantly, and she swooned with disappointment to hear a light, patrician, rather patronizing voice. It was Oriana, who’d seen the Teaching Awards.

‘Well done getting a Plato, and thank you for sticking up for Dad.’

‘Did I?’ wondered Janna. The whole thing was such a haze.

‘It was very brave of you,’ continued Oriana, ‘I’m so pleased they didn’t edit it out.’

‘I haven’t watched the tape yet.’ Janna sat down on a kitchen chair on top of a pair of trainers, feeling defensive.

Perhaps Oriana wanted Emlyn back.

‘Was it really OK?’

‘Fabulous. Charlie and I both cried.’

‘How’s the baby?’ asked Janna, feeling more cheerful.

‘Due in a month, thank God.’

Partner was pointedly shoving his empty bowl round the floor. As Janna reached for a tin of Butcher’s Tripe, Oriana asked:

‘Have you been to see Dad in prison?’

‘He doesn’t want any visitors,’ sighed Janna.

‘You’re not still in love with him?’

‘Oh goodness no,’ stammered Janna.

‘You deserved that award,’ went on Oriana briskly, ‘but frankly Emlyn orchestrated the whole thing. He got cramp writing all the kids’ nominations and transcribing the tapes of the parents who couldn’t write. Theoretically you shouldn’t have won because you don’t have a school any more, but Emlyn kept on at them.’

Oriana’s awfully upfront, thought Janna, and how does she know so much about what Emlyn’s been up to?

‘Why did he make such an effort?’ she asked sulkily, then felt utterly deflated at Oriana’s reply.

‘Because he has an innate sense of justice.’

‘So did Pontius Pilate,’ grumbled Janna.

‘I’m now going to break a confidence,’ announced Oriana.

Janna, who had been trying to rotate the tin-opener handle with the same hand that was holding her mobile, let go of the tin, which crashed to the floor as Oriana added:

‘It’s high time you realized it was Emlyn who gave you that hundred and twenty grand to save Larks.’

‘Emlyn?’ whispered Janna. ‘Oh God, he couldn’t have! And I spent so many hours banging on to him about Randal, and how Randal couldn’t be all villain if he was capable of such generosity. I even speculated whether it could be Hengist or Rupert. Emlyn never said a word. Oh, how heroically kind of him—’ Her voice broke. ‘I never dreamt. Where did he get the money from?’

‘He was saving up to buy himself and me a really nice house,’ said Oriana reprovingly.

‘This is terrible,’ groaned Janna. ‘That was why he was always so poor, not able to fly out to see you in Iraq, not flying out to watch England and Wales in the World Cup, refusing to go Dutch to the opera. Oh God, why didn’t he tell me?’ Her brain was reeling all over the place, as though its steering had packed up on a mountain road.

‘And why me?’

‘Because he loves you,’ said Oriana.

‘What did you say?’ whispered Janna.

‘Because he loves you. Look how he’s given and given and given to you, ferrying your children and their parents to public meetings, organizing entire productions of
Romeo and Juliet
, even coming to teach at Larks, which must have been a helluva culture shock. Making sure of your career by getting you a Plato. What have you ever done for him?’

‘Listened ad nauseam when he rabbited on and on about you,’ snapped Janna. ‘And you’re one to talk after the revoltingly contemptuous way you treated him. I’ve never seen anything so horribly cruel and humiliating and in your face as you and Charlie last Christmas.’

To her amazement, Oriana laughed.

‘Good – now I’m convinced you love him too. Well, it’s payback time, so go and find him.’

‘Are you sure he loves me? He didn’t say anything last night.’

‘You’ve got to make the first move.’

‘Where is he?’ gasped Janna.

‘Training with the Welsh squad at the Vale Hotel in Glamorgan, just the other side of Cardiff,’ rattled off Oriana. ‘Exit thirty-four on the M4. Should take you an hour and a quarter. It’s known as the Lucky Hotel, because entire teams hole up there before big matches and really bond and thrive – I’m sure you and Emlyn will do the same. And you can jolly well ask Charlie and me to your wedding.’

As she rang off, the purr of the telephone sounded like a great contented cat. Looking down, Janna saw Partner had the tin between his paws. ‘Sorry, darling.’ In a daze, she emptied the contents into his bowl. Then she wandered round the room, warming her hands on her burning face, trying to take in the enormity of Emlyn’s colossal sacrifice. And bloody Randal had let her believe he’d given her the money, and let everyone else think so too. She’d murder him. But what did Randal matter? She must get to Emlyn.

All shaking fingers and thumbs, she tried to dial his mobile, but it was switched off. It was twenty to one now. He might only be training in the morning.

Gathering up Partner and her car keys, she ran out barefooted and still in her party dress to her green Polo. Never had the little car hurtled so fast, rattling poor Partner from side to side in the back. Respite came for him twice. First at the Severn Bridge, rising like huge palest green Aeolian harps over the shining levels of the Bristol Channel and needing a £4.60 toll. Janna, however, had forgotten to bring any money. In his booth, the toll-keeper, who had ‘Carpe Diem’ tattooed on his brawny arm, was utterly intransigent: no £4.60, no Wales. Fortunately a man in the fast-growing, hooting queue behind a sobbing, pleading Janna had last night seen the Teaching Awards and said it would be a privilege to pay her toll.

Gibbering her thanks, scribbling his address to return the money, Janna scorched on even faster. Partner’s second respite came when his mistress was flagged down by a traffic cop as she was passing Cardiff. Fortunately the traffic cop had also seen the Teaching Awards and on learning Janna was trying to reach Emlyn Davies, who was a local hero, put on his blue flashing lights and gave her a police escort. This was a good thing, because she’d reached a state when she was muttering, ‘M34, exit four’, and would never have reached the Lucky Hotel without help.

But gradually the turning trees grew thicker, thronging the edge of the motorway like rugby crowds cheering her home. And there was the Vale Hotel in its lovely green valley, a beautiful Palladian house with red roses still flowering behind little box hedges and flags hanging limp in the windless air.

And there, even lovelier – she gave a shriek of joy and relief – was Emlyn’s Renault, easily the dirtiest, scruffiest, most overloaded car in the place. Two women in white towelling dressing gowns, on their way to the spa, directed her to the Indoor Training Arena.

Tearing up a little hill to a big green building hidden by trees, Janna barged inside, past a big sepia photograph of Emlyn’s hero, Gareth Edwards, through a glass door and found herself in a vast enclosed area, half the size of a rugby pitch and carpeted with artificial grass. It was so like a huge hangar, she half expected Kenneth More to roll up or a Hercules to taxi in after a hard night’s work.

Instead, twenty odd members of the Welsh national squad, mostly pale-faced, black-haired, black-eyed and gloriously hunky, were running about practising back moves, set line-outs and tackling great red rubber bollards; and there, towering over them, shouting, encouraging, advising but not as sharp or focused as usual, in a grey tracksuit adorned with the three Welsh feathers, was her own golden-haired, ruddy-faced Hercules down from the skies.

‘Emlyn,’ screamed Janna, ‘oh Emlyn.’

‘Janna,’ gasped Emlyn as, lovely as the Olympic torch approaching its final destination, still in her party dress, bare-armed and barefooted, she hurtled across the bouncy green grass towards him.

Six feet away, she halted, panting for breath, fighting back the tears.

‘Oh Emlyn,’ she gasped, ‘I only got the letter you sent me back in June after the prom this morning. Lily signed for it, but she was so excited about Christian proposing, she shoved it in a drawer.’

Then seeing his face lighten in incredulous hope and bewilderment, she stumbled on:

‘It’s been the most miserable time of my life for me too. At first I blamed it on losing Larks, but now I realize I said goodbye to that months ago, and it was only you I was missing. I just love you to bits. I don’t care where I live as long as it’s with you.’

As she edged towards him, they were both oblivious of the flower of Welsh rugby also gathering round, transfixed with interest to see one of their normally roaringly articulate coaches utterly lost for words.

‘And what is more’ – Janna brushed away the tears – ‘Oriana told me about the money. Emlyn, it was all your savings for her and your future and you never let on. I can’t even begin to thank you and for all the other things you’ve done for me.’

‘A lot of that money was left me by Dad,’ mumbled Emlyn. ‘Nothing would have pleased him more than it being spent on Larks. Oriana ought to be shot.’

‘So ought Randal,’ admitted Janna, but she was not to be deflected.

She was so close now she could feel the heat of his body and, looking up, see the dark underside of his blond curls, his massive torso heaving and his square jaw gritted in an attempt not to break down.

‘D’you remember once asking me what I’d most like in the world?’ she asked.

‘You said a waiting list.’

‘Well, I’ve changed my mind,’ sobbed Janna. ‘I want a wedding ring, and the chance to spend the rest of my life loving you and paying you back for all the kindness.’

When Emlyn just gazed at her and said nothing, she stammered, ‘But only if you haven’t changed your mind and still feel those wonderful things you said in your letter.’

It is difficult even in a fast lift to rise from darkest hell to heaven so quickly. Emlyn still couldn’t bring the words out. Below him Janna’s flaming red hair seemed to fan out as cheerfully as a bonfire on a grey winter day, and her love seemed as true and real as the grass beneath her little feet was artificial.

‘If I still feel like that?’ asked Emlyn slowly as, softly as a falling leaf, his hand touched her soaked cheek. ‘Oh God, lovely, if only you knew.’

Wiping his eyes, pulling her into his arms, enfolding her in a great bear hug, looking down into her adorable face, where every freckle seemed to be declaring its love, he kissed her on and on and on until the ecstatic Welsh rugby squad gave them a standing ovation.

‘With breath control like that, Emlyn,’ shouted one of the forwards, ‘you should be teaching underwater swimming.’

‘Aren’t you going to introduce the lady?’ shouted a back.

The fast lift had clearly reached heaven. With a huge smile and an arm about a dazed but beaming Janna, Emlyn glanced round at the squad. ‘I’d like you to welcome the future Mrs Davies to Wales,’ he said proudly.

Instantly there was a patter of tiny feet as Partner, having wriggled out of the Polo window and conned his way to the training area, happily took up his position beside them.

131

Two days before the Queen’s visit, Dora, utterly outraged that Alex Bruce had banned all dogs from the campus and wearing a ‘Ban the Ban’ badge on each lapel, accompanied Artie Deverell and his two Jack Russells, Verlaine and Rimbaud, round Bagley village.

Dora loved Artie because in his languor, sensitivity, extreme kindness and slight air of helplessness, he reminded her so much of her late father, Raymond. Artie, in turn, was devoted to Dora. When his feckless, totally unsuitable chef boyfriend had finally walked out two years ago, it had been Dora who’d mounted a relief operation, which resulted in every member of the Upper Fourth bringing round their cod in cheese sauce, cooked in food technology, for his supper that evening.

Today she was in full flood. ‘It’s so pants of Alex changing everything,’ she stormed. ‘The eventing and polo teams and the beagles were going to meet the Queen at the gate and act as outriders up to the Mansion. You know how she loves horses and dogs. And Paris was going to recite a beautiful poem he’d written.

‘Instead the poor dear’s got to listen to an IT lesson, watch Poppet teach RE and then tour that stupid Science Emporium and witness Boffin perform some stupid experiment, splitting the atom or finding a cure for bird flu. Although Mr Fussy’s flapping around so much, he’ll give us bird flu anyway.’