Wicked! (60 page)

The stingy bugger, furious that his wife had spent so much money on mobiles, laptops and new clothes for Paris, insisted Patience sew the name tapes on herself, rather than avail herself of a school service that only charged 50p a tape. Paris watched her pricking her big red fingers, straining her eyes as she threaded needles.

‘At least you’re not called something long like Orlando France-Lynch, or Xavier Campbell-Black. Bianca and Xavier are adopted,’ bumbled on Patience.

‘I know.’

‘Bianca’s such a happy little soul,’ sighed Patience. ‘Mind you’ – she lowered her voice – ‘Sophy was always much happier and easier than Emerald. Maybe it’s younger children.’

To make Paris feel at home, Patience had asked Emerald down for the weekend – sadly Emerald’s charming, larky husband Jonathan was in Berlin and unable to accompany her. And the baby Raymond, who might have broken the ice, was left in London with the nanny. Paris found Emerald as beadily bitchy as she was beautiful. She clearly hated seeing him ensconced in the spare room with Liverpool posters rather than her own paintings on the walls.

The evening was chilly, and Ian, showing off, had ordered Paris to fetch logs and coal for a fire. Paris, engrossed in
Great Expectations
, had told Ian to ‘piss off’ and been sent to his room.

A furious Emerald had followed him.

‘How dare you cheek Daddy after all he’s done for you, you horrible brat.’

‘You could be horrid as a teenager,’ protested Patience when Emerald returned downstairs.

‘He’s a yob,’ said Emerald. ‘He comes from the gutter and he’ll go back there.’

Paris much preferred Emerald’s plump, jolly sister, Sophy, Janna’s friend, who was going to replace Vicky at Larks in the autumn term. But feeling Sophy might be spying or trying to heal the breach between himself and Janna, whose letters he had continued to tear up, he shut himself in his room whenever she dropped in.

Lying in the bath Paris watched a snail, which had climbed all the way up the wall of the house to escape the incessant rain, its trail glittering in the morning sun, its horns hitting the buffers of the gutter.

Like me, he thought, from the gutter to the gutter.

Term approached. Paris grew more edgy and withdrawn as Bagley staff, back from their holidays, also popped in to check if their windows and sinks had been repaired and to register if he had two heads.

‘You’re a saint, Patience, adopting at your and Ian’s age, and looking after the horses as well. You look exhausted. I hope you’re getting paid. Of course he does have a free place.’

And Paris, who’d perfected the art of eavesdropping in care, lurking on stairs and doorways (which was the only way he could learn if he or his friends were being moved on), heard everything.

Watching Patience struggling across the yard with buckets and haynets, he longed to help, but didn’t know how to offer.

He would never have survived without Dora, back from a turbulent week in Spain with her brother Dicky, her mother and one of her mother’s admirers, a High Court judge.

‘Although he was paying for all of us, Mummy didn’t want to sleep with him so she insisted on sharing with me, which was so pants. He barged in one night plastered, forgetting I was there, so I whacked him with a black plastic bull.’

Dora’s round face and her plump little legs and arms had caught the sun and, rather than plaiting it, she had pulled back her long, blond hair into a ponytail. She was still a tomboy, but as she rolled up with Cadbury and took up residence on his bed, Paris reflected that she might one day have possibilities.

When he tried on his school suit for the first time, both Patience and Dora gasped as its dark severity set off to perfection his pale marble features and lean elegant body. Paris liked the slate grey overcoat. With shades on, he’d look like Feral’s Uncle Harley.

‘You look cool,’ admitted Dora. She consulted the list. ‘Two pairs of slip-on shoes. Try a pair on.’

‘What am I going to slip on – a banana skin?’

‘Are they comfortable?’ asked Patience anxiously.

‘Very. Change to have a pair that doesn’t pinch or let in water.’

A din in the yard outside suggested a pupil had arrived early to drop off a horse. Patience disappeared to welcome them. Dora, who was cleaning tack, remained on Paris’s bed, rather randomly applying saddle soap to Plover’s bridle.

That tweed jacket must be a cast-off of Ian’s, thought Paris. Christ, it was from Harrods, still with the label on, and those pale blue shirts were really cool. It was as though he was being kitted out by Wardrobe for a new play, but who knew if it would be a tragedy or a comedy?

‘Let’s see your duvets,’ asked Dora.

‘Thomas the Tank Engine and Beatrix Potter with Peter Rabbit cock-sucking a carrot,’ grumbled Paris. ‘I am going to get so much piss taken out of me.’

He was now skimming through the Bagley Code of Conduct with increasing alarm. There were pages of rules about not downloading porn.

‘I wanted to download some stuff for Patience about Northcliffe’ – Dora went very pink – ‘but when I logged into golden retriever, it was so disgusting: women actually weeing on men. I don’t understand the human race.’

Paris grinned and read on.

‘“No one can leave the school without permission.” How do they stop me?’

‘Give you a detention, make you do hearty things like digging the garden and not watching television. The second time they cancel your leave-outs.’

‘That’d be a relief, if Ian doesn’t loosen up. “Once a week”, he read, “all scholars must participate in an activity that involves serving others in the community.”’

‘Cosmo helps out at Larkminster Hospital,’ said Dora. ‘He’s shagging one of the nurses.’

‘Servicing others,’ murmured Paris.

‘Best way is to find a nice old biddy, weed her garden, then you get crumpets and cake for tea and to watch
Neighbours
. Feral’s working for my aunt, Lily Hamilton, mowing her lawn. They get on really well. Janna fixed it up.’

‘The happy highways where I went And cannot come again’, thought Paris, wincing at the pain.

‘“No hats to be worn inside”,’ he went on. ‘That’s crazy.’

‘They’re talking about woolly hats and baseball caps and you’re not allowed jewellery.’

‘I’m not taking mine off. “In cases of bullying, both victim and bully get counselling.”’ Paris shivered. He’d heard a chilling rumour about the Pitbull Club in which older boys arranged fights between new boys and bet large sums of money on which one would first beat the other to a pulp.

‘What the hell am I supposed to do in my free time?’ he added in outrage. ‘It says here, “Any scholar caught supplying drugs or having sex gets sacked.”’

‘Not always.’ Dora went to Paris’s basin to wash silver polish off Plover’s bit. ‘You’re sacked if you’re caught having sex with a girl. If it’s a boy, you’d only get three hours’ gardening.’

‘How d’they work that out?’

‘Boys don’t get pregnant; it’s meant to act as a detergent,’ Dora went on helpfully.

‘God, listen to this: “Swearing, spitting, chewing gum all incur five-pound penalties.” This is a police state. What about smoking and drinking?’

‘Fiver first time you’re caught, then they double up.’

‘What do they do with the money?’

‘Goes to charity. Alex Bruce was hopping last term when brilliant Hengist sent the entire six and a half thousand to Greyhound Rescue. But as that tosser Boffin Brooks keeps saying’ – Dora put her hands together sanctimoniously – ‘one only has to behave oneself.’

59

Determined to familiarize Paris with everything, Dora gave him a map and a tour of the school.

‘Here’s the gym, here’s the music school, here’s the sick bay. Most important, here’s the tuck shop.’

Hengist had put him in Theo Graham’s house, a two-storey neo-Gothic building covered in Virginia creeper, which was north-east of the Mansion with a view over the golf course.

‘Here’s your bedroom-cum-study,’ went on Dora, leading him down a corridor. ‘They’re known as cells.’

The room was tiny – Paris could touch the walls with both hands – and contained a single bed, a desk for his books and laptop and a small cupboard and shelves for his clothes. The joint window was to be shared with the boy in the next cell.

‘Who is it? Oh, Smart, he’s a rugger bugger; hope he doesn’t want the window open all the time. Next year you’ll go upstairs to a bigger room of your own. I’ll bring your Liverpool posters over later.

‘This is Cosmo’s cell.’ She opened a door on the way out.

‘Why’s he got a room twice as big as anyone else?’

‘Because he’s Cosmo. Once he moves in his stuff it’ll look like something out of the Arabian nights.

‘This is Anatole’s.’ Giggling, Dora showed Paris the next cell. ‘He’s got a map of the world as his duvet cover and always sits on the United States because he loathes the Americans so much.’

And I’ve got Thomas the Tank Engine and Peter Rabbit, thought Paris. How could Patience?

‘Oh look, there’s Mummy’s car outside,’ said Dora as they wandered back to the stables.

Although Anthea Belvedon was wildly jealous of Dora’s addiction to Paris and the Cartwrights, it freed her for assignations of her own. Today she had had lunch with Randal Stancombe, who was so attractive, and who hadn’t a high opinion of Paris, who’d evidently tried to rape Jade on the field trip.

Having rolled up to collect Dora, Anthea was looking distastefully at the mess in Patience’s kitchen (riding boots on the table, washing up still in the sink) while enquiring how Paris was getting on.

‘Really well,’ said Patience, terrified Paris might walk in.

‘Emerald found him gauche and awfully tricky,’ went on Anthea. ‘Dora said you were awfully upset Paris never said a word of thanks about his lovely room. The working classes never know how to express gratitude, of course.’

‘I wasn’t upset,’ squeaked Patience furiously. ‘It’s his right to have a nice room.’

‘But such an expense: Sky, tape decks and computers – Dora says you emptied Dixons.’

‘Mummy, I did not,’ screamed Dora, who was standing appalled in the doorway.

Paris had bolted upstairs. Giving a sob, he hurled his precious Liverpool mug against the wall. Then he smashed a china dog, ripped the poster of Heskey off the wall and tipped over the bookshelf.

Hearing crashes, Patience lumbered upstairs, hammering on the door against which Paris had shoved a big armchair.

‘Paris, listen.’

‘Fuck off,’ hissed Paris, grabbing his laptop.

‘Anthea’s a complete bitch; honestly, she’s jealous because Dora loves being here and adores you. We don’t expect you to say thank you for anything. We give you things because we love having you here.’

Oh God, it was coming out all wrong. But Paris put down his laptop.

‘It’ll be shepherd’s pie and just you and me tonight; we can eat it in front of the telly.’

‘So my crap table manners won’t show. I don’t want any supper.’

The window was open. Paris slid down the Virginia creeper and off across the yard.

It was only after ten-thirty, when Ian returned home, that Patience realized Paris had taken the car and just managed to stop Ian ringing the police.

‘We’ll lose him.’

‘Bloody good riddance.’

When they went out looking for him they found the car undamaged behind a haystack.

Paris staggered in, plastered, at midnight.

‘Go to bed at once, we’ll discuss this in the morning,’ shouted Ian.

Alex Bruce often rose at six to train for the school steeplechase and to spy on other masters, particularly Hengist’s cronies, Artie Deverell and Theo Graham, who were both gay; Emlyn, who was engaged to Hengist’s daughter Oriana (sort of); and, more recently, the brusque, dismissive Ian Cartwright: all the King’s men.

Hearing shouts from the Old Coach House, Alex broke his journey, jogging up the path, letting himself into the kitchen.

‘Can I help?’

He found Dora Belvedon taking everything in, Patience by the Aga, looking miserable, and Ian, as boiling over with rage as Paris was icy with fury.

They all turned to Alex: not an attractive sight. A fringe like a false eyelash hung damply on his forehead, his drenched yellow T-shirt clung to his hollow chest, sweat parted the black hairs on his skinny thighs.

‘Can I help?’ he repeated.

‘No,’ snapped Ian.

‘You OK, Paris Alvaston?’

‘Fine, just fuck off.’

‘Paris,’ thundered Ian.

‘If you’d started at Bagley, young man,’ began Alex, ‘you’d be fined five pounds for that. I will not allow foul language. I shall leave your foster parents to deal with you.’

‘Lando France-Lynch owed the swear fund eight hundred and fifty pounds last term,’ piped up Dora, taking croissants out of the Aga and throwing them on the kitchen table. ‘Would you like one, Mr Bruce? You look as though you need feeding up.’