Wicked! (40 page)

When Janna rang her to offer her head of drama, adding that as Vicky would have to give in her notice, she presumably couldn’t start until the summer, Vicky instantly revealed she was leaving Redfords at Christmas.

‘It was so horrible there without you, Jannie.’ Then, in her sweet, breathy little girl’s voice: ‘And I haven’t been well. Nothing serious.’

Vicky had also decided to leave because she’d planned to join her boyfriend, Matt, in Bermuda, but that hadn’t worked out, so she’d simply adore to come to Larks.

‘I love the Cotswolds and I’ve read all about you forming a partnership with Bagley – that’s so cool, I bet they’ve got a glorious theatre, and Hengist B-T is so inspirational. You’ve done so well, Jannie, you always know how to motivate people.’

‘Larks is a very tough school,’ confessed Janna.

‘So was Redfords to start with. Oh Janna, thank you so, so much, it’s such a compliment.’

The governors had been rather stuffy about the sacking of Cara – wasn’t it rather a coincidence that Chief Inspector Gablecross had been in the building when one of Janna’s favourites, Paris Alvaston, started acting up? Shouldn’t Janna be advertising Cara’s job? But the special interview panel of susceptible males – Sir Hugo, Sol the undertaker, Russell and Mike Pitts as deputy head – soon forgot their doubts when they clapped eyes on Vicky, glowing in a scarlet suit and long black boots as shiny as her hair.

‘This is my dream job,’ she told them. ‘I really feel I can make a difference. A good drama production can unite an entire school, and raise their profile sky high in the area.’

‘She was so interested in Larks,’ said Russell Lambert, smoothing his pewter-grey hair, which, translated, meant that Vicky, briefed by Janna, knew Russell’s name and occupation as head of the local planning committee and that the
Guardian
had once described him as ‘Larks’s personable chair’.

As part of the interview, Vicky had to be watched teaching a class. Janna craftily threw her to the Wolf Pack and troublemakers of Year Nine E. Thus Paris, Graffi, Feral and Johnnie sat in the front row, their dropped jaws resting on their trainers. Pearl, Kylie and even sassy Kitten Meadows were equally captivated as Vicky talked about the havoc caused by gang warfare and how Juliet had been let down by her parents and Friar Lawrence.

Then she showed them clips from the fights in the Leonardo di Caprio film, and suggested how brilliant it would be if Bagley and Larks did a joint
Romeo and Juliet
with Bagley as the Montagues and Larks as the Capulets.

‘Wiv the Hon. Jack and Kylie Rose as Romeo and Juliet and both sets of parents going ballistic,’ shouted Graffi to much laughter.

It was a happy, productive class. If Vicky could handle the Wolf Pack, reasoned the interview panel, she would take on anything, and promptly appointed her.

Effusive in her gratitude, Vicky floated off with Russell to meet Des Res, the smooth local estate agent who’d been so dismissive about Larks at the Winter Gardens dinner. Janna prayed Des wouldn’t disillusion Vicky, but she rang ecstatically from the train.

‘Des has found me a heavenly flat in the Close and we bumped into Ashton Douglas: such a darling. So is Des. What did you do to upset him, Jannie? I said I wouldn’t hear a word against you.’

Lucky to have the kind of beauty that opened doors. Janna glanced at her increasingly lined face in her office mirror. She in turn was lucky to have a friend like Vicky to stick up for her.

‘I’m so sad we didn’t have more time to gossip,’ went on Vicky. ‘Everyone at Redfords is desperate to know how you’re getting on.’

‘How’s Stew?’ asked Janna, testing the emotional water.

‘Sent his love. He’s such a letch, pulled me on to his knee at a party the other day, and he had this huge erection. I don’t know how Beth puts up with him.’

Janna was surprised at the pain, as though a lovely Chippendale chair of her past had turned out to be a fake.

‘I’m so excited about my new flat – and it’s dirt cheap,’ added Vicky.

Next day, Janna received a note through her letterbox at home from Des Res. He had several clients who’d be very interested in Jubilee Cottage, would she like a free valuation?

‘Is this a hint?’ wrote back Janna furiously. ‘I’ll give
you
a free assessment – you’re an absolute shit.’

Having posted the letter, she got her hand stuck trying to retrieve it, and had to hang about until the postman came to open the pillar box.

As a result of Vicky’s interview, it was decided that Bagley and Larks would stage a production of
Romeo and Juliet
during the spring term.

Christmas is the cruellest time for children in care. Bombarded constantly by images on television or in the high street of loving families and piles of gold-wrapped presents round glittering Christmas trees, aware that they have no parents or parents that can’t look after them, the children rampage, rage, roar and weep at their loss. There is no refuge from their unhappiness.

Janna had tentatively suggested Paris should spend Christmas with her and Partner, with Aunt Lily and the Wolf Pack coming in on Christmas Day, but Paris had flatly refused, still mortified by Cara’s cruel jibes about his ambition to become Janna’s toyboy and terrified that, alone in the house, he might not be able to control his passion.

So Janna went to Yorkshire to stay with Auntie Glad and Paris remained at Oaktree Court, the sound and fury only redeemed by a navy blue sweater sent him by Janna, which he hid under his bed in case the other inmates nicked it, and by steeping himself in the beauty and sadness of
Romeo and Juliet
.

‘Heaven is here,’ he kept murmuring:

‘Where Juliet/Janna lives, and every cat and dog

And little mouse, every unworthy thing,

Live here in heaven and may look on her;

But Romeo/Paris may not.’

If he couldn’t have Janna, at least let her be proud of him as Romeo.

39

Vicky arrived in January 2002, and cured truancy among boys almost overnight. Fathers suddenly seemed wildly keen to come in and paint classrooms. Rod Hyde, Ashton and Russell continually described Vicky as a breath of fresh air.

Janna was ashamed of feeling a little disconsolate. She knew her children at Larks were what mattered, but it would have been nice to have a man in her life, particularly as Hengist had been away and inattentive and even more particularly when Vicky came rushing into her office on a late, grey January afternoon, crying:

‘Hengist Brett-Taylor has just dropped in and mistook me for one of the kids. He said girls at Larks were getting prettier and prettier, and isn’t he drop-dead gorgeous?’

‘So was Satan in
Paradise Lost
,’ snapped Janna. Was she becoming a disagreeable old crone like Cara? ‘Where is he?’

‘Oh, he’s gone. I said you were closeted with Ashton Douglas, so he said, “Rather Janna than me,” and he’d ring you. So exciting we’re starting casting
Romeo and Juliet
tomorrow.’

‘“We?”’ Janna tried to keep the indignation out of her voice.

‘The drama departments: Jason Fenton and me. Emlyn Davies. And Hengist wants to have input.’

‘So do I,’ said Janna grimly.

The auditions took place in the General Bagley Room on a bitterly cold morning. Even with the play cut by nearly a half by Bagley’s head of English, Piers Fleming, there were excellent parts not just for the two lovers but for Romeo’s friends, Mercutio and Benvolio; Juliet’s parents, Lord and Lady Capulet; Friar Lawrence; not to mention Juliet’s volatile cousin, Tybalt, Prince of Cats; and Juliet’s nurse.

Two hundred children had applied to take part but, as Year Ten and upwards would be occupied with GCSE and A level work through the spring term, it was decided to cast mostly from Year Nine, and name the production ‘Cloud Nine’.

Determined Larks shouldn’t let the side down, Janna, and Vicky to a lesser extent, had been giving Larks’s pupils a crash course in the play and equipping them with speeches to learn or read out. Lit up by her subject, Janna inspired not just Paris, but many others to have a go.

Some had other motives. Kylie was anxious to snog the Hon. Jack again. Rocky went everywhere Kylie did. Pearl was desperate to do the make-up.

Feral wanted to see if Amber Lloyd-Foxe was as disturbing as he remembered. Graffi grasped any opportunity to see Milly. Aysha, forbidden by her heavy father, now back in England, to take part in such immoral frivolity, still longed to see Xavier again. Monster Norman, back in school but missing Satan Simmons and with a massive crush on Vicky, came along for the ride.

The judging panel, sitting at an oblong table armed with pens, notebooks and copies of the text, consisted of Emlyn, who’d been asked by Hengist to keep a lid on everything in case ‘naughty little Piers’, head of English, went off at half cock. Or whole cock, reflected Emlyn, noticing the way Piers was snuggling up to Vicky, who was reeking of Trésor and ravishing in a raspberry-pink polo neck and short, tight black skirt. On Vicky’s other side, whispering into her ear in an increasingly posh voice and looking very public school in a tweed jacket and dung-coloured cords, was Jason.

Piers and Jason had obviously bonded and would need some reining in, particularly where the budget was concerned, or they’d have David Linley designing Juliet’s balcony and Stella McCartney her dresses. Beyond Piers was Janna; achingly aware she hadn’t seen Hengist since the day of the balloon launch. He’d rung occasionally pleading overwork but now, grabbing the seat on her right, seemed unsettlingly enchanted to see her. Hengist was in fact eaten up with jealousy because his great rival and old boss David Hawkley, head of Fleetley, had been given a peerage in the New Year’s Honours list, and been described in
The Times
that morning as the greatest headmaster of the twentieth/twenty-first century.

Hengist wanted to howl. Instead he stroked Partner, who was half asleep on Janna’s knee, and said how he’d missed her and they must have lunch and catch up.

Pupils, meanwhile, hung around gossiping, waiting for the off. The Bagley Babes, Amber, Milly and Jade, all with ski tans paid for by Randal Stancombe, were sitting with Graffi, Feral, Paris, Kylie and Rocky. Jack Waterlane, Junior and Lando had parked themselves in the row behind, also inhabited by a sneering Cosmo, and Anatole the Russian, who was drinking neat vodka out of a teacup.

As Dora Belvedon sidled in, Jade demanded:

‘What are you doing here?’

‘We were having sex education with Miss Sweet,’ replied Dora. ‘She was showing us how to roll condoms on to courgettes with the help of K-Y Jelly and got so embarrassed when Bianca asked her what fellatio was that she ran away and we got a free period. So Hengist said I could stay if I was extremely quiet.’

She plonked herself down between Cosmo and Anatole.

‘You’re incapable of being quiet,’ spat Jade.

‘Fellatio, fellatio, wherefore art thou fellatio,’ sighed Cosmo, who wanted to conduct his beloved orchestra throughout the production but also to play the short, spectacular part of Tybalt.

Feral glanced up at a painting of rugby players leaping in the line-out to distract himself from Amber’s thighs. Covered by barely six inches of fawn pleated skirt, they were utterly gorgeous.

‘Silly using courgettes as willies,’ went on Dora. ‘We’ll all get a shock when we discover the real thing’s red, or pinkish, or purple. They’re called zucchini in Italy, I believe.’

‘Zucc orf,’ said Paris, who’d been miles away in Verona.

To capture his Hooray Henry voice he’d been listening to a tape of Prince Charles; now he was trying to capture the nuances of Jack Waterlane and Lando France-Lynch’s voices as they idly discussed snow polo.

‘Christ, it’s cold, throw another new boy on the fire,’ grumbled Cosmo.

Outside, in sympathy, flakes of snow were beginning to settle on General Bagley and his charger.

‘All right’ – Hengist helped himself to Vicky’s tin of Quality Street – ‘let’s get started, try and keep in alphabetical order. Kirsty, you’re first.’

Kirsty Abbot, covered in spots and puppy fat, waddled on and delivered Juliet’s speech: ‘“Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,”’ as though she were taking the register at a primary school. Her audience tried not to laugh. Hengist let her run for sixty seconds.

‘Thank you, Kirsty.’

‘Useless,’ scoffed Jade.

‘I’d quite like to play Juliet. I learnt the part while I was skiing,’ sighed Amber, ‘hissing down the white mountains shouting: “Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?” nearly setting off an avalanche.’ She glanced at Feral under her lashes and yanked her skirt an inch higher.

‘Paris Alvaston,’ shouted Hengist.

I am Giovanni the lad, Paris was psyching himself up. I’ve gatecrashed the Capulets’ ball, which is dripping with upmarket totty, including Rosaline, the beautiful cold bitch who’s rejected me and is now wrapped round a rival. Suddenly I catch sight of little Juliet and realize everything I’ve felt before has been a mockery. When she leaves the party, I follow her, hanging around her garden, trampling on her father’s plants.