A Royal Mess (5 page)

Yes, poor Boojie. But at least you’ll have your mumsy close by you in lovely gentrified Clapham,’ said Honey as she admired her false talons. ‘But just think of all the sleepover parties you can have in
Clapham.
Won’t it just be super, darling!’ she squealed, in a scarily good piss-take of my mother’s accent as she clapped her hands with fake glee. ‘I wish I could be more like you, Boojie,’ she taunted me.

Well, why don’t you start by helping yourself to a little less Botox – it’s clearly gone to your brain,’ Star sneered as she entered the room with Indie. ‘It’s about time you started showing Calypso some respect. She’s probably the most talented person you know. She’s going to be a writer, and the pen is mightier than the post code. Apart from writing the lyrics for our album’ – she looked over at Indie and put her finger to her lips – ‘she’s entering the Inter-school Essay Competition. She’ll definitely win it,’ Star announced with enormous authority. They’re publishing the best three in the
Telegraph,
Honey.’

‘So, why would I care about a sorry little essay?’ Honey asked with a little less bravado.

‘Because the sorry little essay has to depict personal suffering, and I’d say Calypso has been through quite a lot of personal suffering at your hands, wouldn’t you, Honey?’

Honey was uncharacteristically quiet.

It was the first I’d heard about either lyric writing or essay competitions, but I trusted Star and loved the way it had shut Honey up, so I nodded with smug vigour.

Later that night, I crept into Star’s room to ask about the competition. She dug about in her drawer and found a pamphlet advertising a £1,000 prize for the best essay. I read and reread the rules. The essay, which had to be 3,000 words in length, was to be an autobiographical account of the most painful experience of a teenager’s life. The traumas suggested were growing up as a victim of abuse, coming from a broken or violent home, bullying and the struggles of being an immigrant.

I might not be the richest girl in my privileged world, but it
was
a privileged world. And while I was American, I didn’t think the judges would rank me as a struggling asylum seeker. True, I had faced the toxic trauma of living with Honey, but would Post-it notes slapped on my back classify as serious abuse? Was there anything in my decent dull life that would bring a tear to the eyes of the judges? No, was the answer.

It was soooo not a competition for me.

But Star was insistent. ‘Of course it is. Your writing is brilliant, Calypso.’

‘But I’ve never suffered, well, not in that sort of way,’ I told her, pointing to the pamphlet. Then I thought about the problems I was facing. Saturday for example, and how I’d told Freds I’d meet him and how now I was going to have to tell him that my mother had left my father, which would make me the Complicated Girlfriend even if he was really sympathetic. Oh god. Maybe I should think up some elaborate lie about not being able to make it to Windsor.

Star interrupted my problem-solving plans. ‘Darling, we’ve all suffered. Even me, even Honey. Anyway, you do actually come from a broken home now, remember?’

‘But I don’t want to come from a broken home, Star,’ I suddenly cried. And then the floodgates opened, and I couldn’t stop crying. ‘I don’t want Bob and Sarah to split up!’

‘It’s okay, darling,’ she soothed. We’ll fix it. I promise. Bob and Sarah were made for each other. Even a fool like Honey can see that.’

THREE
The Fascism of Creative Endeavours

On Star’s suggestion, I fired off an absolute stinker of an e-mail to Bob. She was of a mind that the short, sharp shock worked best with men. ‘Stick it to him,’ she told me. ‘Make him writhe with guilt.’ I was inclined to trust Star on these matters.

Whenever her father went off the rails, her mother wasted no time pulling him into line. ‘Men are blameless, brainless creatures, darling. In my opinion, Sarah’s only come out here to frighten the bejesus out of Bob. You Americans love all that shock-and-awe business. Sarah’s probably counting the minutes until Bob turns up in England on his white charger and carries her back to Hollywood. But the truth is that men are like quad bikes – they need to be driven.

I decided on a formal tone, which would leave him in no doubt as to what he needed to do.

Dear Bob,
I am forced to write this unpleasant e-mail because you don’t ‘believe’ in snail mail [although that would have taken longer anyway, and this is an emergency]. But I think not believing in snail mail points to a madness within you because snail mail [like plastic] blatantly does exist. All my school life spent over here I have watched the other girls receive post from their parents and lovingly pin it to the pin boards above their beds as a statement to all that their madres and padres love them.

But I digress. The real reason I am writing to you is to insisit that you stop this macho obsession you have with writing the Big One and get yourself a nice soul-destroying job like Sarah and the rest of the world have to put up with.

Creative endeavours are all well and good, but not when they come at the cost of the people you love, e.g., Sarah and your daughter [me]. Also, I know you wouldn’t want to tear asunder what God glued together the day you wed Sarah on that beach in Hawaii. Nor do I mean to sound selfish, but this marital drama has come at a very inconvenient time for me [yes, me, your little girl whom you said you loved more than life itself]. In case you have forgotten, I am trying out for the Nationals, which you once said was all you lived for!

And poor Sarah is beside herself. She thinks you care more about your script than her! I know that isn’t true. I know you love her and this is all just a gigantic misunderstanding. I know what you are like when you write. You go into your own world, but in the process you’ve made Sarah feel like you don’t care about her. Also, this script is taking an awfully long time. I’m sure it will be very good and meaningful and you MIGHT even sell it for loads of money, but maybe you should take a break for the sake of your marriage and come to England to show Sarah how much you love her? It is blatantly obvious to everyone that you are made for one another. The point is you need to nip this in the bud before it goes any further. Sarah has already got a job and is renting a house in CLAPHAM, which, in case you don’t know, is where ‘the clap’ comes from due to the density of prostitutes that once lived there. At least that’s what Honey told me, and although she’s a compulsive liar, you told me even liars tell the truth sometimes.

Is this what you really want for the mother of your child? Is this what you want for your wife – working on some plebbie show she really, really hates! Burying
her
creative yearnings alive. [I’d made this bit up, as we hadn’t actually spoken about her new gig on
Gladesdale
or her creative yearnings, but I felt it might strike a chord just the same.] Maybe to prove you love her you will have to go back to your old job writing dramadies like /
Hear Laughter,
which I actually think was very good, even though it did win the Worst Dramady Award three seasons running. So just get a job for a bit and make things right with Sarah so she can go home. You must be wondering where the granola is kept by now anyway.

Your loving daughter,
Calypso

I was very pleased with my e-mail. I was convinced it had been both sympathetic and insistent. Star agreed. We had no doubt that Bob would be charging off to his agents to discuss getting back on a new show as a staff writer before he even read my sign-off.

Instead, I’d hardly pressed ‘Send’ when he e-mailed a response.

Dearest Calypso,
I am shocked by your narrow-minded determination to cast me as the demon in all this. Sarah knows she can come back any time she chooses to. If your mother really loved me she would respect my need to express myself creatively, as she promised to when we made our marriage vows on that beach in Hawaii. I hope you are eating well and working hard. Maybe she just wants to be near
you
for a bit, have you thought of that! Love, Bob

I was gutted. How could he be so obtuse? While I never really thought of my parents as one of the great love stories
of our time, I had always imagined that when I grew up and got married I would want a marriage like Sarah and Bob’s. Also, I really didn’t want to come from a broken home!

My friends were all brilliantly supportive. The next morning at breakfast as we dunked our croissants and slurped our cereal, Star was still working on me to enter the essay competition. But honestly, my plate was already full with fencing and GCSEs, I told her, and besides, my plan was to get Sarah and Bob back together, which would mean there wouldn’t be an essay of heartfelt loss and suffering to write.

‘What essay?’ Indie asked.

‘Calypso’s entering an essay-writing competition about the agonies of coming from a broken home,’ Star announced to the table at large.

I tried to kick her under the table, missed and knocked my shin on the table leg.

Wow, that is soooo cool,’ Indie said.

I glared at Star as I rubbed my shin, but she smiled at me sweetly and said, ‘Darling, don’t get your knickers in a twist. You just said your e-mail didn’t work, so maybe the essay-writing competition will be the thing that actually brings Bob and Sarah back together. Imagine how Bob will feel when he reads of the pain his creative endeavours have wrought on his daughter. He’ll drop his Big One like a lead balloon and propose to Sarah all over again.’

‘Are you really entering that competition, Calypso?’
Portia asked as she sat down. We’re going to have soooo much going on with the Nationals coming up.’

Sometimes I could strangle Star. But then she somehow always redeems herself. She tossed a croissant at me. ‘Don’t worry, Calypso. I’m sure this break won’t stick. Honestly, grown-ups are such drama queens, and I should know. My parents break up all the time. Mummy even has her own suite at Claridges for her fortnightly bolt. She’s always leaving Daddy, hoping that it will make him give up weed.’ Star shrugged, as one resigned to her parents’ foibles. ‘But she always comes back or he always goes to fetch her because they both know no one else is going to put up with either of them. Bob and Sarah are the same.’

That’s true. Bob and Sarah have never had an individual thought. They’re like one being. You can’t have a Bob without a Sarah, it would be like … well, like a Siegfried without the Roy.’

‘Like toast without marmalade?’ Arabella suggested, spreading a large portion of marmalade on her croissant.

‘Quite,’ agreed Georgina. ‘Like Tobias without my vodka stash.’

We all laughed at that, remembering the debacle of a few weeks back when Star’s snake, Brian, had tried to swallow Georgina’s teddy, Tobias – who, by the way, is a full fee-paying student with the same rights and responsibilities as other students. Anyway, in the process, Brian tore Tobias apart, exposing the stash of vodka Georgina had concealed inside his stuffing. Tobias had been suspended
for a week for drinking. Since then Tobias has been seen by teachers and students alike as a bit of a drunk. Georgina had to promise Sister Constance that she would give him a really stern talking to.

‘Poor Sarah. I think your father is being absolutely bloody about this Big One,’ Indie added, piling the sugar into her tea. ‘How long has he been working on it?’

‘About two years,’ I told her, cringing that I had been responsible for bringing the term ‘Big One’ into my friends’ lexicon. Surely it was worse than ‘dating’ even? ‘But it was Sarah who insisted he pursue his creative endeavour to write his, erm, Opus,’ I justified, feeling suddenly defensive on Bob’s behalf. He was soooo passionate about his script, and even though it was taking forever to write, I really did admire him for being so committed.

Well, personally, I think he should toss this madness. I think we should all be supportive of Sarah. It must be ghastly for her to be all alone, starting a new job, living in Clapham.’ Indie’s lovely model-like features shivered at the very thought.