Wicked! (94 page)

Randal Stancombe was in hot pursuit of her mother, piling on the presents, inviting Anthea on thrilling trips. He was clearly very taken. Anthea was pretty, clear-sighted, excellent at running a home – Ruth had been a slut and very lazy – and wonderful in bed.

Anthea, in her turn, was captivated by Randal’s money, but found him difficult to control; and she’d rather wait until he got his K, so she could move seamlessly from Lady Belvedon to Lady Stancombe. She was touched by the way he wanted to win over her children, but she wished he wouldn’t try quite so hard with Dora. So did Dora who, when she was at Foxglove Cottage, slept with Dicky’s camel-hair dressing gown buttoned up to her neck and Cadbury, who loathed Stancombe, across her legs.

‘I’m going to make myself a chastity belt in D and T,’ she told Bianca.

Anthea had made a huge fuss about Stancombe’s birthday one Sunday in late November, giving him a beautiful glass engraved with his initials and buying a card to which she insisted Dicky and Dora added their names.

‘I don’t ever wish him to return happily,’ stormed Dora.

Randal was charmed by his present. Then, having said the only thing he’d rather drink from the glass was Anthea herself, spoilt it all by murmuring that:

‘Of course, the most precious gift a woman can give a man is her daughter.’

Anthea had gone bright red.

‘Don’t make disgusting jokes. Dora hasn’t had her first period yet and she’s not remotely interested in boys except for that gormless Paris Alvaston.’

While Anthea was cooking his birthday lunch next door, an unrepentant Randal had stroked Dora’s cheek.

‘I’ll have to put you down for a few years, then you’ll mature like the finest wine.’

Revolted, Dora had stormed off to tell Paris and Dicky as they queued in the drizzle to go into chapel that evening.

‘Randal Stancombe is desiccating our father’s bed.’

‘And we’ve got to spend Christmas with that poisonous Jade,’ sighed Dicky.

‘Jade had the gall to complain to Joan she was a victim of peer abuse because Amber chose to go to the cinema with Milly rather than her,’ said Dora scornfully. ‘Joan took Jade’s side. That woman’s getting such a hold on Bagley. She’s finally got permission for her all-female window in the chapel. She’s chosen Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale and Marie Curie, I ask you!’

‘Who’s Elizabeth Fry?’ asked Dicky.

‘She was a penis reformer,’ said Dora.

‘I wish she would do something about mine,’ said Dicky gloomily.

Worst of all for Dora, Cadbury was in jeopardy again. He’d been banished from the kennels for gobbling up all the beagles’ food, and was back in the air-freshened, floral-print femininity of Foxglove Cottage with Anthea. ‘Mummy forgot to get him any Butcher’s Tripe, so she fed him on cat food. No wonder he farted throughout their romantic candlelit dinner, just like the bombardment in Iraq. Any minute you’d expect Oriana Brett-Taylor to pop up announcing Breaking Wind.’

Paris laughed. He loved Dora in this mood.

‘Now Mummy’s threatening to have him castrated because he growls at Stancombe. She’s longing to give him away,’ exploded Dora, ‘so I must go home again next weekend and sort it. I feel so guilty deserting Bianca. She’s too proud to go home and I won’t be around to protect her from Cosmo.’

I’d protect her, thought Dicky wistfully.

‘Poor Bianca’s jealous because Taggie and that murderous brute Xavier are getting on so well with Feral.’ Grabbing hymn and prayer books, Dora handed them to Paris and Dicky. ‘Bianca loves Feral so much and he never rings or texts her.’

Not by a flicker of expression did Paris betray how interested he was.

94

Bianca was indeed miserable. Joan continually hassled her to work harder and she desperately missed Rupert and Taggie and the cosseting at Penscombe. In the past, she had flirted with everyone but escaped in the evenings; now there was nobody to shield her from Jade’s bitchiness or Cosmo’s lust. So many parents were splitting up. If Taggie and Rupert weren’t getting on they might be next. Cruellest of all, Feral had never got in touch.

The following Friday, smelling baked cod which she detested, Bianca decided to skip lunch and wander down the pitches. She had been slightly cheered by an excellent dancing lesson and intimations that she might land the part of Cinderella in the Christmas ballet. Most of the trees were bare now, but the beeches still hung on to a few orange leaves, reminding her of the towering wood behind the house at Penscombe. Feeling the familiar crunch of beech husks beneath her feet, overwhelmed by homesickness, Bianca decided to bury her pride and go home tomorrow. Turning two cartwheels, she started practising dance steps.

Paris, who’d been stalking her like a deer-hunter for days, never revealing his presence, had watched her setting out with that dancer’s strut, feet in flat pumps turned out. She was the one everyone wanted: how satisfying to snatch the prize – particularly from Cosmo.

As she reached Badger’s Retreat, where smaller trees were protected by larger ones, leaves were still falling. Laughing, shrieking, dark hair escaping, Bianca bounded about trying to catch them like some rite of autumn. Swinging round to catch a red, wild cherry leaf, Bianca caught sight of Paris.

Smiling, she showed no fear.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

‘Every time you catch a leaf, it gives you a happy day.’ Reaching out, grabbing a dark brown ash frond, she thrust it into his breast pocket. ‘Seven leaves. That’ll give you a happy week.’

Paris just stared with those light, utterly focused eyes, exciting and unnerving her, lean jaw moving as he chewed gum.

‘My father fell in love with my mother when he saw her racing around catching happy days for him.’ Bianca snatched a falling yellow hazel leaf and shoved it in his side pocket. ‘Daddy kept all the leaves, but felt he was too old and wicked for Mummy. He’d had billions of women before her, like you’ve had’ – she peeped up at Paris from under a thicket of black lashes – ‘but Mummy persisted and they’ve been happy for almost eighteen years – at least they would be if she hadn’t taken this stupid job and Daddy wasn’t taking this stupid GCSE. So stupid of Feral to say I was out of his league.’

She kicked a red spotted toadstool, did a pas de chat and fell into Paris’s arms. Glancing down he saw the despair in her eyes.

‘I’m not out of your league, am I?’

‘Totally’ – Paris spat out his chewing gum – ‘but I don’t care.’

Once he’d kissed her, she was lost. Scrabbling to remove his school tie, tugging at the short end, she nearly throttled him.

‘Lemme do it.’ Paris yanked off his own, then hers, then unbuttoned her shirt, pulling her down on a dry, crackling bed of yellow sycamore leaves, black-spotted like leopard skin.

Like both Feral and her father, he had laid so many girls – in the open air, in parks at dusk or on banks in the gardens of care homes – but none as delicately desirable as Bianca as she beamed up at him in ecstasy, her face the same soft shiny umber as the ash frond she had given him.

As he peeled off her tights and knickers, he could smell her body, already hot and excited from dancing and even more so from him.

‘D’you really want it?’

‘Oh yes, definitely yes.’

Her tiny clitoris was hard as a ball bearing; below lay a buttery sticky cavern, measureless to man and terrifyingly narrow.

‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘You won’t, you won’t.’ Then as Paris produced a condom, ‘We don’t need that, my period’s due tomorrow.’

‘Better be safe.’

‘Well, I’m not going to be sorry.’ Unzipping his trousers, she released a cock hard and white as ivory.

‘Why isn’t it green like one of Mrs Sweetie’s courgettes?’

Paris gave a gasp of laughter. ‘Shut up.’

‘Please, please go on,’ begged Bianca, writhing against his lovingly stroking hand as it travelled down her belly, up the insides of her thighs, sliding into her pubes, fingering, stroking, slowly bringing her to ecstasy. ‘Oh pleeeeese.’

For a second his cock buckled at the entrance, then straightened.

‘Ouch, ouch,’ cried Bianca, ‘oh bloody ouch.’

Blokes were supposed to recite something boring to stop themselves coming. Paris had been learning the Latin verb
vastare
, to lay waste, but he only reached the future perfect third person singular when Bianca’s sleekness and tightness overcame him; three more stabs and it was over.

‘I am so sorry,’ he muttered.

‘Thought you didn’t do “sorry”.’

Paris slowly opened his eyes to find her laughing up at him.

‘I was dying to lose it. Goodbye, virginity.’

Paris wriggled free, falling back on the leaves, ashamed of having come so quickly.

‘I’ll do it properly next time.’ A year ago he’d have said ‘proper’.

‘When did you get that tattoo?’ said Bianca, fingering the Eiffel Tower on his shoulder.

‘When I was ten. Saved up my pocket money for a year, sneaked out of the home. Once it was done, nothing they could do.’

Bianca leant up on her elbow, pushing the straight blond hair out of those pale unblinking eyes. ‘Do I look like a mature woman of experience?’

‘You look beautiful.’

But as the light filtering through the remaining leaves fell on her warm brown skin, her thick dark lashes (such a lovely contrast to her white teeth and the whites of her eyes), Paris was suddenly and agonizingly reminded of Feral, whose great love he had just stolen.

Sitting up, Bianca examined herself.

‘I don’t seem to be bleeding much. Dora reckons she’s ridden such a lot she hasn’t got a hymen any more.’ Bianca giggled, then squeaked, ‘Oh my God, Dora!’

‘What about her?’ Paris dried Bianca with a handful of leaves.

‘She loves you so much.’

‘Well, I don’t love her. I like her when she’s outrageous and funny, but when she hangs around like a kicked spaniel, she does my head in. I don’t need a dog, I’ve got Northcliffe . . .’

He could see the athletics team pounding towards the all-weather track.

‘Will your dad horsewhip me?’

‘He mustn’t know.’ Bianca looked aghast. ‘I don’t want anyone to know – not Feral. Although he probably wouldn’t give a stuff. I’ve just slept with the best-looking guy in the school, and I don’t want Jade or Amber scratching my eyes out, or Dora ringing the
News of the World
.’

‘Or Cosmo challenging me to a duel,’ agreed Paris, tugging on his trousers and buckling the leather belt Dora had given him. ‘“Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love.”’

‘What’s that?’

‘Some poem.’

‘You’ll have to help me with my homework, now Dora won’t – well, may not want to any more.’

Dora, Bianca reflected, had listened and listened when she’d been miserable about Feral and her mother and boarding. Dora had helped her endlessly with homework, acting out poems so Bianca would remember them. Last week it was one called ‘Death the Leveller’, and Dora had thrown her riding hat and Bianca’s baseball cap down the Boudicca’s stairs to illustrate:

Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made.

‘I feel a pig. What an extraordinary tree’ – Bianca patted the trunk – ‘all writhing together like dancers.’

‘Hengist calls it the Family Tree,’ said Paris. ‘Look, he, Sally and Oriana have carved their initials on the bark, symbolizing a family clinging together against winter and tempest,’ he added bitterly. ‘Oriana’s supposed to be coming home for Christmas, so Emlyn will be happy again.’

‘Talking of families,’ said Bianca, testing the water, ‘I was going to ring Mummy and ask if I could go back to being a day girl.’

‘Don’t!’ snarled Paris, taking her face between his hands, for a second betraying his need for her. ‘Just don’t.’

‘I’m not going to.’ Bianca flung her arms round his neck, kissing him, until her heart was beating louder than the pounding footsteps of the athletics team.

‘You’re my boyfriend now, aren’t you, but above all, we mustn’t hurt Dora.’

95

Christmas approached. The erection of Stancombe’s Science Emporium seemed to be taking for ever. General Bagley and Denmark, their view of the Long Walk impeded, rose out of a sea of mud. Dulcie spent a lot of time with the builders, who brought her a little wheelbarrow so she could help them. Progress, however, was repeatedly held up by the Lower Fourth doing moonies at the builders from the fire escape.

‘Rubble, rubble, toil and trouble,’ sighed Hengist.

Poppet Bruce, who was pregnant again, said there was no way she would curtsey to the Queen if she opened the emporium.

‘I wish Rupert wasn’t taking this GCSE,’ grumbled Jupiter. ‘He’s always working and he’s getting even more left wing than Mrs Bruce.’

‘He’s so seriously stuck into
Macbeth
,’ warned Hengist, ‘he’ll knife you in your bed and take over the Tory Party.’