Wicked! (68 page)

‘Like John Mortimer in
A Voyage Around my Father
– that should be a set book – I just feel lonely now he’s gone, and racked by lost opportunity. Why didn’t I tell him I loved him more often? I betrayed him by going to Bagley – he could never understand it; and although Dad and Oriana were in the same camp, they never really got on. He couldn’t comprehend anyone who’d been brought up with every advantage being so ungrateful.’

‘How’s your mum?’ asked Janna.

‘Crucified, bewildered, stoical. They’d been together forty years.’

Janna let him talk. It was a pleasure to watch him and to listen. Now the spare flesh had gone, he had such a strong fine face and, after a summer back in the valleys, his lovely lilting voice seemed deeper, with the Welsh open vowels more pronounced.

Oriana, it seemed, had provided little comfort when he’d flown out to see her in the summer holidays.

‘She doesn’t have the same relationship with her father.’

‘But Hengist adores her,’ said Janna unguardedly.

Fortunately Emlyn was too preoccupied to notice.

‘Maybe, but she doesn’t admire what he stands for. She can’t understand how sad and guilty I feel. She’s too taken up with the present, devastated at the plight of the Afghans. She’s got a lead to Bin Laden, and plans to infiltrate herself into some Taliban spy ring. She could easily pass for a boy.’

‘Oh poor Emlyn.’ Janna topped up his glass.

‘Sally and Hengist’ – she felt her voice thickening – ‘must be out of their minds with worry.’

‘I’m sure. But they keep themselves busy. Hengist has been at some conference in Geneva all week. He’s expected back this evening.’

Janna was just smirking inwardly because she was going to see him tomorrow, when Emlyn added,

‘Why have you fallen out with Paris?’

Janna’s glass stopped on the way to her mouth. Careful, she told herself, Emlyn doesn’t miss things.

‘He was dangerously crazy about you. I always suspected he accepted that place at Bagley as the only possible escape route. He’s giving Patience and Ian a really hard time. Trashed their place a few Sundays back, and although he seems to get on with Theo, he’s been arguing and swearing and spitting at other teachers.’

‘He was used to arguing and swearing and spitting at Larks. I bet you played up at school.’

‘I was utterly angelic,’ said Emlyn piously. ‘I spent my entire school career as still as still’ – briefly his face broke into a smile – ‘outside the headmaster’s office.’

Janna laughed, but her mind was racing.

‘Everything Paris loved has been taken away from him,’ said Emlyn, his huge hands taking Janna’s. ‘He lost his mother; endless schools and care homes where he made friends; teachers; foster parents: all taken away. Oaktree Court, however much he loathed it, was familiar. His life’s been like living in an airport. All the love and understanding you gave him, I guess he misconstrued it. It’s hard for teachers. We have to be so careful not to inspire passion in kids who have had no love, and lead them on to yet another rejection.’

Not just in kids, thought Janna, removing her hands, which felt so comfortable in his.

‘Let’s get legless,’ said Emlyn, about to get another bottle.

Janna shook her head: ‘I’ve got Ofsted in a fortnight. Hengist calls it “Orfsted”.’

God, what a slip.

Emlyn looked at her speculatively.

‘What happened on the geography field trip?’

Suddenly he was much too big for their corner table, his eyes boring into her.

‘I went to bed with a migraine.’ At his look of scepticism, she insisted, ‘I did truly. I was so tired; I nodded off and missed everything. You’re always nodding off,’ she added defensively.

‘We’re not talking about me. Paris was evidently good as gold until the last night. But he’s so angry now. Did you turn him down?’

‘I don’t have to answer these questions,’ said Janna furiously.

‘Course you don’t, lovely, but you’re so instinctively warm and tactile. Perhaps he misinterpreted the maternal nature of your affections.’

‘Now Paris has got a new school, I’m sure he’ll settle down and find himself a nice lass.’

A few days later, Dora was lurking in the main hall, hoping to bump into Paris. She knew his timetable backwards. He was so preoccupied with learning rugby with Emlyn, he hardly noticed her. Late for English, because he’d been practising drop goals, he came hurtling through the yellow lime leaves carpeting Mansion Lawn.

‘Shut your eyes,’ she called out.

‘If it’s not seeing the new moon through glass, I’m not interested. Last time I wished for an A star for my Simon Armitage essay, effing Vicky only gave me a C plus.’

‘Much better than that.’ Seizing Paris by the arm, joltingly aware how he’d thickened out and muscled up since term began, Dora dragged him down the cloisters. ‘Now you can look.’

The board was painted in dark blue gloss, like the board outside Larks. Here the gold lettering said ‘Notices’. At Larks it said: ‘Head Teacher: Janna Curtis’. Oh Christ, when would it stop hurting?

‘You don’t seem very pleased.

‘What for? I’m late for English.’

‘Here, stupid.’ Dora pointed to a list of names.

In Emlyn’s square, clear writing, Paris read, ‘France-Lynch (Capt), Waterlane, Lloyd-Foxe, Smart, Rostov . . . Alvaston.’
ALVASTON!

He couldn’t speak; he shut his eyes as warmth flowed through him. He hadn’t let Ian, Theo or Hengist down. He’d been picked to play for the Colts on Saturday. Even better, it was a needle match against St Jimmy’s, who’d always sneered at Larks and hated Bagley even more. As the first, second and third fifteens would also be playing, the residual resentment between maintained and independent would come bubbling to the surface.

‘How d’you feel about St Jimmy’s being your first fixture?’ asked Dora.

‘Great!’ Paris punched the air. ‘Set a yob to catch a yob. I’ve always wanted to wipe the smirk off Baldie Hyde’s face.’

‘Ian and Patience will be
au dessus de la lune
,’ said Dora, rushing off to ring the papers.

66

Saturday dawned meanly with the sun skulking like a conspirator behind charcoal-grey clouds, which provided the perfect backdrop for the gold leaves tumbling steadily out of the trees. Distant Pitch Four, where the Colts were playing, was hidden by a net curtain of mist. Despite this, a glamorous photograph of Paris as Romeo, sold to the
Express
by Dora, captioned ‘Scrumpet’ and announcing his rugby debut and desire to bury St Jimmy’s, had attracted a sprinkling of press and a largish crowd.

‘Only been playing a few weeks,’ crowed Ian, who was watching with Patience, Artie Deverell and Theo, who in an old Prince of Wales check coat and a trilby on the back of his bald head looked like a bookie. Artie noticed with a stab of anguish how grey, now his Tuscany tan had faded, his friend looked in the open air. But Theo was in high spirits and getting stuck into Patience’s bullshots. Five other boys from his little house, other than Paris, Anatole and Smart, were playing on various sides and only two from Alex Bruce’s. Boffin Brooks, officious little shit, was one of the touch judges in the Colts game.

Then Theo growled: ‘Here comes Rod Hyde, hubristic as ever,’ as Rod, having travelled in the first coach singing revivalist hymns with his teams, strode about self-importantly, clapping leather-gloved hands on the shoulders of his ‘men’ – literally. They looked twice as old and hulking as their Bagley counterparts. Rod was wearing a new black leather coat, tightly belted, to show off his manly figure, and a new big black hat under the brim of which his eyes crinkled at the prettier mothers.

‘Mr Hyde who never turns back into nice Dr Jekyll,’ observed Theo sourly. ‘Ah, here’s little Vicky Fairchild with a pretty foot in both camps,’ as Vicky, seductive in a long purple coat and a black fur hat, paused to kiss first Poppet and Alex and then Rod and Sheila Hyde.

‘Isn’t it thrilling Paris is playing?’

‘I’m sure your counselling has helped,’ said Poppet eagerly.

‘I do feel I’m easing his passage,’ smiled Vicky.

‘The ambition of every Bagley master,’ murmured Artie Deverell as the Colts ran on to the field.

‘Come on, Bagley,’ shouted Bianca and Dora.

‘Go for it, Paris,’ yelled Dora’s brother Dicky. ‘God, he looks shit scared. So would I be. Those St Jimmy Colts will never see fifteen again. Look at their moustaches and chest hair. They should have been made to produce their passports. Brute Stevens, their captain, is reputed to have a wife and three children,’ he added as, locked together, the St Jimmy’s scrum sent Bagley reeling backward.

‘Hengist’s little laboratory rat is going to be carved up,’ said Cosmo approvingly as Paris fluffed three passes and holding on to the fourth was brought crashing down by Brute Stevens.

‘That was high,’ muttered the crowd. The referee took no notice.

Was it coincidence or had Brute Stevens been deliberately ordered to harass Paris, never Rod’s favourite pupil? For the second time as Paris leapt for the ball in the line-out, Brute rammed a thumb down the pockets of Paris’s shorts, nearly pulling them off. Around the ground, binoculars rose to a score of masters’ eyes.

‘Come on, St Jimmy’s,’ yelled the caring and concerned parents – hearties in Barbours or blazers with badges on their breast pockets, their wives in peaked caps or woolly hats, cheeks purpling against the cold, working up a good hate against Bagley. How dare any school have such splendid buildings, such an excess of land, such arrogant pupils and such a cavalier headmaster, who hadn’t deigned to make an appearance so they could ignore him. Even the white goal posts and the helicopter pad said H for Hengist.

Sally Brett-Taylor, in a dark blue Puffa, navy-blue and gold Hermès scarf tied under the chin, her exquisite complexion unmarred by the elements, had reached Pitch Four, and was being fractionally more gracious to Sheila Hyde than she would be to the wife of the head of a major public school.

‘How good of you to come. The chaps so love a crowd. No, Joan’s taken the girls’ hockey team to Westonbirt; she’ll be so sorry to miss you. Hengist’ll be out soon. He always feels personally responsible for all four matches. Oh, come on, Bagley. Come on, Colts. Emlyn’s been working so hard on them. Well out, Paris. Well done, Smartie. Come on, Junior, come on. Oh, bad luck,’ as the whistle went.

Hengist, who’d been in his study with Jupiter thrashing out New Reform’s law-and-order policy, which could more profitably have been applied to the Bagley Colts, arrived to find Pitch Four in an uproar, St Jimmy’s leading 28–7 and Emlyn in a towering rage.

‘We’ve done all the attacking and had ninety per cent of the ball,’ he told Hengist, ‘but the bloody bent ref from St Jimmy’s is disallowing everything. He’s given six penalties against us, none against St Jimmy’s. If they knew how to kick straight, the score would be double. Boffin Brooks is touch judge, and can’t see a fucking thing – or chooses not to.’

Rod Hyde meanwhile was leaping up and down, bellowing on his side: ‘Well played, Wayne, well done, Kevin. Oh, good tackle, Brute. Come on, St Jimmy’s,’ clapping his great leather-gloved hands together like a walrus.

Bagley Colts, fast losing their tempers, were dramatically down to ten men, five – Junior, Lando, Smartie, Anatole and Spotty Wilkins – having been banished to the sin bin. The rest, like uncut stallions at Windsor Horse Show, were circling the ref.

‘I was not orfside,’ Jack was yelling, ‘and that try was good. Can’t you bloody well see?’

‘Sin bin,’ yelled back the ref.

As the roar of the crowd merged with the whirr of a helicopter, Rod was in ecstasy. Who were the yobbos and the bad sports now? Alex Bruce was also trying not to look smug. If that blockhead Emlyn Davies had introduced a few of Bruce’s boys into the Colts, things would be very different. The Colts’ moods were not improved at half-time as they sucked lemons and emptied water bottles to be told all the other Bagley sides were wiping the floor.

‘High tackle,’ yelled Ian Cartwright early on in the second half as Brute put a beefy arm round Paris’s neck, yanking him to the ground. ‘Did you see that, Hengist?’

But no one had seen anything because Mrs Walton, utterly ravishing and smothered in blond furs, had just rolled up with Randal Stancombe to watch the Colts before taking Milly and Jade to Sardinia for the weekend.

I hope she’s happy, thought Hengist as, smiling, he strode down the touchline to welcome them. He was wearing a fawn coat, his hair, always curlier in damp weather, falling over the dark brown velvet collar. St Jimmy mothers, turning as he passed, had to agree reluctantly that he looked even better in the flesh.

Randal was in joshing mood. ‘With all your resources and expertise, Hengist, surely the Colts should be thrashing St Jimmy’s.’

‘Randal!’ Rod Hyde strode up, pumping Stancombe’s hand.

‘You’re doing too damn well, Rod.’

‘We’ve been bringing on our young players,’ said Rod smugly. ‘Congratulations on that takeover, must have taken a lot of time and vision.’

‘What takeover?’ said Hengist, wrenching his eyes away from Mrs Walton.