Midnight Girls (7 page)

Romily had laughed and explained that although her grandfather had indeed been a very famous artist, she was only capable of drawing stick men and cats. Nevertheless, she would try and draw Queen Victoria if that was what Allegra wanted. Her attempt was so bad that Allegra said she thought perhaps she would give it a go herself.

Romily had already noticed Allegra and Imogen, of course, partly because of Allegra’s striking looks and mischievous nature – even Romily had laughed when Allegra had remained hidden under a pile of science overalls for an entire lesson while Mrs Crawford taught on, oblivious – and partly because they always seemed to be talking and laughing together, engrossed in each other’s company. Theirs looked like the kind of friendship where you would never be bored. She’d never had any hope that she would be
allowed
to join in, but with the ice broken, Allegra had asked Romily if she wanted to sit with them in the refectory and, slowly, they’d accepted her as one of them.

Now, she was almost impossible to tell apart from the other girls in the school, except for a certain polish she couldn’t help retaining: her clothes and shoes were so much more expensive than everybody else’s. While they were looking for copies of things they saw in
Vogue
at Camden Market and Top Shop, Romily was ordering the real thing, and all the girls came to sigh and ‘Aah’ when a box arrived for her from Harrods. An audience would gather – even sixth-formers came to look – when she unwrapped the wonderful tissue-covered goodies: real Chanel sunglasses; Vivienne Westwood jeans; T-shirts from Miu Miu, Chloé and Comme des Garçons.

She loved her clothes but she was generous with them: she let Allegra and Imogen borrow whatever they liked.

Other boxes arrived from Paris, direct from Romily’s mother. They were full of skincare products, some specially blended for her by expert dermatologists, and supplements to ensure her perfect health.

‘Mama is a hypochondriac,’ Romily explained, emptying out all the bottles and packets. ‘She organises most of her life around all this stuff.’

The other two found it fascinating if rather crazy and she didn’t try to explain to them. From her earliest childhood, Romily had listened to her mother’s maxims. Madame de Lisle had one mantra:
elegance
. A woman must be elegant in all ways: in her mind, her manners, and, of course, her person. Romily had already learned lessons in self-presentation from her. At six, she was going to bed wearing little white cotton gloves, her hands inside slathered with cream, in imitation of her mother who never went to sleep without lashings of expensive moisturiser wherever expensive moisturiser could be put.

‘Protect your skin!’ her mother advised her solemnly. ‘It must last your entire life. Look after it as though it were your most precious possession.’

Romily had taken the lessons to heart. She wore hats and shunned the sun. She took her supplements and drank her water. She fed her young skin with the richest creams her mother would allow her (‘Your skin is still adolescent – nothing too rich, it will overpower you and clog your pores. Light, oil-free and not on your T-zone!’) and exfoliated religiously, all over, every day. She was blessed with a light olive complexion that appeared smooth and almost poreless, and was never marked with a blemish – unlike Imogen and Allegra, with their pale Scottish skins that seemed to change like the weather, veering between pink and healthy or grey and heavy. Then there were the spots that were the bane of their lives, which they hid under great dollops of pink concealer. Romily had never experienced more than one or two spots in her life, and secretly she was convinced it was because of her dedication to vitamin pills, and her strict regime of face masks, moisturiser and sunscreens.

‘What’s this?’ Imogen held up a gold tube with a pinkish brush at one end.

‘That’s Touche Eclat,’ Romily said.

Imogen brushed the tube across her hand but nothing came out. ‘It’s not working. What is it?’

‘Look.’ Romily took it from her, clicked the top and smeared a line of pale pink creamy liquid along the back of Imogen’s hand. ‘You use it under your eyes to hide the bags.’

Imogen looked up at her dubiously. ‘Bags? You don’t have bags under your eyes.’

‘It’s not just a concealer, it’s a highlighter too. It reflects light and makes you look fresher and younger.’

‘I don’t want to look younger,’ Allegra said with a laugh.
‘I’m
trying to look older. Any younger and they’ll be moving me back down a year.’

‘You know what I mean.’ Romily clicked the lid back on to her Touche Eclat. ‘Let’s put it away. I don’t want you to waste it.’

Allegra got up and wandered about the cubie, picking up anything that interested her. ‘What I don’t understand, Romily, is how you can go on about looking after your bloody skin the entire time, and then smoke cigarettes.’

Romily shrugged. ‘My vitamins counteract the effects of the smoke. Besides, it will be years before I need to worry about that. I’m going to give up before then.’

The other two nodded. They had agreed that they would give up smoking before they turned twenty-one, and that way they would avoid any nastiness associated with their favourite vice. Twenty-one was so far away that they hardly needed to think about it.

‘What does your mother say?’ Imogen asked. Romily had regaled them so often with tales of what her mother proscribed that they all thought of her as a kind of oracle on beauty and behaviour.

‘She says it’s acceptable to smoke in certain situations. No lady would ever smoke on the street, for example. But after dinner … of course. My mother smokes one filterless Gitane every day at eleven o’clock with a very strong black coffee, and one after dinner with a
digestif
.’ Romily was proud of her beautiful, stylish mother. It was her ambition to be as graceful and decorative as she was.

‘Do you think we’ll ever be grown up?’ Allegra sighed, leaning against the chest of drawers.

‘Imagine being married!’ Imogen said. There was a quiet moment as they all contemplated this; it seemed an extraordinary idea. ‘At least you’ve both been kissed,’ she added. ‘I haven’t even had that.’

Apart from a little casual experimentation with her cousin one summer holiday, Romily’s experiences of sex were confined to being kissed very passionately after a ballroom dancing lesson in Paris by a handsome young count, her partner that day. It had been extremely enjoyable, and she fully intended to repeat it as soon as she could. Her plan was also to be seduced, preferably before she’d left school, so she could go out into the world unencumbered by her tiresome virginity; she was very curious to know what all the fuss was about, and, if her first forays were anything to go by, sex ought to be delightful.

Allegra had told them all how she’d managed to have a snog with the gardener’s son one afternoon at Foughton Castle and another at a Christmas party.

‘You will,’ Allegra said stoutly. ‘We’ll make it our mission this summer to get Midge a snog. I want to get to Glastonbury this year, we should all go together, it’d be really cool.’

‘That sounds great,’ Imogen said eagerly. ‘We can camp! Oh, wow.’

‘I’d never be allowed,’ Romily said sadly. ‘Never, never, never. But maybe you could both come and see me.’

‘Come to Paris?’ Imogen looked excited. ‘I’ve never been there.’

‘I want to go to the Greek island,’ Allegra declared. ‘That sounds amazing.’

‘But I don’t know how likely you are to get a snog on our island, Midge, unless you like old fishermen.’

Imogen wrinkled her nose. ‘No. I was thinking of someone a bit younger. Maybe eighteen or something.’

The lunch bell rang out over the school.

Allegra looked at her watch. ‘About time too. But I’ve heard it’s disgusting chicken fricassée for lunch. God, I
hate
this place!’ Then she leaned towards the other two
conspiratorially
and said, ‘MG meeting tonight. Are we all on for it?’

The other two nodded as they jumped up and hurried to stay ahead of the mad scramble to the refectory.

When they got up to the attic that night, Romily could tell that Allegra was in a rage.

‘That’s it!’ she said in a furious whisper, blowing a plume of smoke out of the open window. ‘I’ve had it up to here with that utter
bitch
.’

Romily glanced at Imogen. She knew they were both thinking the same thing.
Trouble
.

‘Did you see her? Did you?’ demanded Allegra, turning to Imogen.

Imogen nodded. She was wearing, at Romily’s instigation, a thick coating of glutinous night cream that made her look strange and ghostly. ‘I did. You’re right. She is an utter bitch.’

Romily tried to quell the nervous feeling in her stomach and said slowly, ‘She’s a bully, we know that. We’ve always known it.’

‘But didn’t you see poor Vanessa Hardy in the common room this afternoon when Sophie and Arabella were being so vile? It’s not her fault she’s got that dreadful skin. She does absolutely everything she can – her mother’s taken her to a Harley Street dermatologist, she’s on a special diet and hormone tablets and everything … The poor girl suffers enough. It’s just sheer cruelty to mock her for it!’

They had all been there: watching while Vanessa, scarlet and fighting back tears, had tried to ignore Sophie Harcourt and Arabella Balmer as they sat giggling, whispering and then calling teasing questions and nasty names across the common room. It had been agony – and yet no one had spoken up. No one had wanted to draw Sophie’s fire, not
when
she was in the mood for torturing someone. Allegra had leapt to her feet, about to say something, but Romily had jumped up, put a hand on her arm and said an urgent, ‘No!’ Allegra had clearly wrestled with herself and then turned on her heel and stalked out, her face flaming and her mouth set with the effort of keeping quiet.

‘I wanted to shout in her stupid face, tell everyone what a hypocrite she is,’ Allegra said, staring out furiously into the night sky. ‘That awful cow deserves it, you know she does.’

Romily looked over at Imogen and they swapped solemn glances. Imogen stared down hard at the floor and twisted her cigarette uneasily between her fingers.

Allegra turned back to the others and said tetchily, ‘Well? Don’t you think she deserves it?’

Romily took a drag on her Gauloise and released a long steady stream of heavy smoke, then said slowly, ‘You know, in France, we don’t much mind how people prefer to get their thrills as long as it’s all consenting. If two girls want to go to bed with each other, that’s fine.’

‘Very
sophistiqué
,’ retorted Allegra, flushing. ‘I don’t give a shit about that. She can fuck Myers with a giant purple dildo and whip her blue at the same time for all I care! The thing is, Romily, she’s a hypocrite – if it were someone else, she’d be the first to rip it out of them. That’s what I can’t stand. Besides, it’s against the rules.’

‘Come on, Allegra,’ Imogen said, in a light-hearted voice. ‘As if you care about that! You don’t take much notice of the rules.’

She looked at them both, stricken. ‘What’s wrong with you two?’ she demanded. ‘It sounds like you’re against me. Are you on Sophie’s side now or something?’

‘No, no, of course not,’ Imogen said hastily.

‘What about you?’ Allegra demanded, turning to Romily.

Romily met the navy blue gaze with her own. ‘Of course
I’m
with you,’ she said gravely. ‘We’re best friends, aren’t we? We’ll always stick together. The thing is, though, I don’t know if it’s wise to use what we know about Sophie against her.’

‘But can’t you see how she treats other people? Why shouldn’t she have a taste of it herself?’

Romily frowned, thinking hard.
After all, why shouldn’t we just punish Sophie? Hand back a little of what she’s been dishing out for years?
‘Because it’s so serious,’ she said at last. ‘It’s different, that’s all. I just don’t think we should tell anyone.’

‘I wasn’t going to!’ Allegra fired back. ‘I’m just talking about it, getting it off my chest, that’s all.’

But Romily knew that it would be hard for her to keep such a secret. They still had two years at Westfield, and that was a long time to keep quiet, especially in the face of Sophie’s constant provocation. Could Allegra really resist? And what if it came to the attention of the teachers, as things almost always did by the mysterious telegraph that connected pupils to staff? Would Sophie and Martha be expelled? It wasn’t expressly forbidden, but it was obvious that it would be treated as a transgression. How could it not?

They were all silent for a while, smoking and not catching each other’s eye. Then Imogen said, ‘Well, as long as we’re all agreed. We won’t tell. No matter how much of a bitch Sophie is. After all, Martha isn’t half as bad, and she’s bound to get caught up in it if we do.’

‘I wasn’t going to tell!’ protested Allegra again, looking sulky.

‘Good. So there’s no problem,’ Romily said lightly.
I mustn’t let Allegra think we’re against her
. ‘Who knows what the hell Martha sees in Sophie anyway?’

‘I wonder how they got together.’ Imogen grinned, obviously wanting to lift Allegra’s mood. ‘Maybe they had a revelation in the games cupboard or something.’

‘Maybe she tickled her fancy during choir practice,’ Romily put in.

‘Oh, Martha, you’re not quite hitting that top E – perhaps this finger in
here
would help?’ joked Imogen, making Allegra smile, as she always could.

Allegra said, ‘Maybe they had a
Ghost
moment in pottery – Martha’s hands over Sophie’s as they rubbed a nice greasy wadge of clay together.’

They all laughed.

Just then there was the unmistakable squeak of the door to the stairs opening. They froze, staring at each other in horror: they were all out of bounds, all holding cigarettes, there was no mistaking their guilt. They were making too much noise – they must have left the door ajar, and Myers, on patrol for once, had spotted it.

Oh, shit!
thought Romily. Her skin prickled with horror.
This is it. We’re going to be expelled
.