Wicked! (35 page)

Sheena flared up immediately. ‘The
Guardian
have commissioned this piece. I’m flying straight back to London with Randal to file copy.’

‘You can write it from home. Rufus was supposed to supervise operations today. He’s paid to look after Bagley’s children, not his own.’

Sheena glanced up at Hengist, so handsome, so hard, so contemptuous, and ached with reluctant longing.

‘I earn four times as much as my husband,’ she said furiously. ‘Only way we can make ends meet on his piddling salary since you passed him over as housemaster.’

‘Since we passed
you
over as a housemaster’s wife. There’s nothing wrong with Rufus. If you’re capable of earning that kind of money, why the hell don’t you get a nanny?’

Quivering with rage, Sheena caught up with Stancombe.

‘That bastard B-T’s ordered me home to look after the kids.’

‘Got a point. Mother’s place is with her kids when they’re sick.’

‘I can’t write against that din.’

‘You promised I could see copy.’

‘I will if there’s time; they want it this evening. I’m going to bury the Brett-Taylors if it kills me.’

32

Pearl and Graffi were in ecstasy. The drama department were doing
Bugsy Malone
and researching all that thirties kit and make-up. Graffi, having discovered the art department, was going berserk with a spray gun. Miss Cambola had already had a lovely time exploring the music library. Now, wandering round with Kylie, she suddenly heard a pianist pouring forth his soul in a ravishing fountain of sound. Miss Cambola stiffened like a pointer.

‘This I must see.’ Pushing her way into the music hall, followed by an enraptured Kylie, she found Cosmo at the piano, black curls flying, pale face maniacal as he thundered up and down the keys, producing notes of such crystal beauty, yet somehow managing with his head and occasional free hand to conduct the orchestra as well.

‘Stop, stop.’ The orchestra slithered to a nervous halt. Cosmo was hurling abuse at them when he heard a footstep and swung round. ‘Get out,’ he screamed. ‘Get fucking out, out, out.’

But Miss Cambola strode on undeterred.

‘Maestro,’ she cried, sweeping off her Tyrolean hat like a principal boy and seizing Cosmo’s pale hand. She kissed it lovingly. ‘You can only be the son of Roberto Rannaldini, the greatest conductor of the twentieth century, if not all time.’

Cosmo was mollified. Whatever his contempt for humans, he loved music and was soon gabbling away in Italian. Miss Cambola then introduced Kylie Rose.

‘She has an extraordinarily beautiful voice.’

‘I must hear it. What instrument do you play, signora?’

‘The trumpet,’ replied Cambola.

‘There’s a spare here.’

‘The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton and various other good public schools,’ wrote Hengist.

Normally he rattled off journalism. Today he was struggling, especially as Painswick wasn’t here to do his research and find out how many acres of playing fields had been sold off in the last twenty years – or hectares. Stupid word. ‘Hectors’ ought to be sorting out Greeks on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

‘Crash, bang, wallop, de dum, de, dah – de, dum, de dah,’ anyone would think the Rolling Stones were warming up in the corridor. Hengist glanced irritably up at the timetable. ‘Orchestra rehearsal: Cosmo Rannaldini.’

Sixty seconds later, Hengist roared into the music hall—

‘For Christ’s sake, Cosmo, take that bloody din down.’

Only to find Cambola, Tyrolean hat on the back of her head, jamming away on a trumpet.

Feral, who had a great capacity for kissing the joy as it flies, had just jolted Ex-Regimental Sergeant Major Bilson, who ran the small arms range, by hitting everything in sight. Feral in turn had been fascinated to learn that the sixth-form pupils listed on the walls had sharpened up their shooting here before immediately setting off for two world wars to kill real people and be killed themselves.

Now he was playing golf in the fading light with his new friends Anatole, Lubemir and the Hon. Jack, who seemed a good bloke for a toff and who also supported Arsenal.

‘You played before?’ Jack asked Feral after a few holes.

‘No, man.’

‘Christ, well, keep practising, Tiger.’

‘My father will sponsor you,’ said Anatole. ‘We will bury Americans.’

‘Golf is excellent game,’ said Lubemir. ‘You can combine other pleasures, enjoy country air . . .’ and, reaching into the bole of an oak tree, he produced what looked like a large stock cube wrapped in cellophane.

‘Don’t do drugs, man,’ said Feral.

‘Have a slug of this, then.’

‘Nice guy, Emlyn,’ observed Feral as neat vodka bit into his throat.

‘Tough as sheet,’ grumbled Lubemir. ‘As punishment he make you run round the pitch in the middle of the night. But you can have a laugh with him. And he takes the teams to the pub when they win matches.’

‘Good teacher,’ Jack said, who was looking for his ball in the long pale grass. ‘Annoying sometimes; always got a reason why the English didn’t really win a battle.’

They were passing Badger’s Retreat and the Family Tree, its three bodies writhing together in love and resentment. Down below in the valley, lights of farms and cottages were twinkling.

‘Very left wing, Emlyn,’ Jack went on disapprovingly.

‘What’s his woman like?’ asked Feral.

‘Good-looking but even more of a leftie than Emlyn. Wants to abolish public schools, hunting and the House of Lords – what the fuck would my father do all day?’

Feral was teeing up a ball, white as his eyeballs, squinting towards the distant green as he’d watched Tiger do so often on television.

‘This is a five,’ said Lubemir, passing the spliff to Anatole.

‘Oriana is in Afghanistan,’ said Anatole approvingly. ‘Talking about war, always attacking American imperialism, very good girl.’

‘Emlyn must be worried,’ said Feral.

‘That’s why he’s so bad-tempered.’

Johnnie Fowler, Kitten and Gloria were having a lovely time working out in the gym with Denzil. Alex Bruce, by contrast, was having a dreadful day. He’d failed to get on television. Hengist had stolen Mrs Radcliffe for another draft. He was furious with Emlyn for sloping off to fine tune the rugby team, leaving that coven of thieves playing golf with Feral Jackson. God knows what they were plotting. Alex had ordered Boffin Brooks, the one dependable boy in the school, not to let Paris Alvaston out of his sight.

Paris was now in the library. He had never seen such rows of temptation, magic carpets waiting to fly him to distant worlds. He had found the plays of Noël Coward and Oscar Wilde. How could anyone be so funny? But Paris couldn’t really concentrate; he wanted to write sonnets to Janna. She had held his hand and let him see her cry. If only Boffin would fuck off and stop rabbiting on about IT.

Paris took down a copy of Donne’s poems.

I am two fools, I know,

For loving, and for saying so

In whining poetry.

Summed it up really.

Boffin, bored with books, insisted on showing Paris the science lab. Here Dora, forcibly removed from the window by No-Joke Joan, was furiously writing an essay on ‘The Journey of the Sperm’.

‘The sperms venture inside the womb’ – her Biro was nearly ripping the paper – ‘trying to swim towards the eggs – yuk – eventually they find them and fertilize them.’

‘Do they do the breast stroke or do they crawl?’ asked Bianca.

‘Dog paddle, I would think. Just imagine all those tiny tadpoles swimming around to produce one. Yuk. Imagine our parents doing that.’

‘Being adopted, I don’t know who my parents were,’ sighed Bianca.

‘Must have been beautiful to produce you. My brother Dicky says you’re the prettiest girl in the school. Oh, look, here comes that tosser Boffin and Paris Alvaston.’

Dora and Bianca watched Boffin sidle off to chat up No-Joke Joan.

‘The old buzzard’s looking quite starry-eyed. Boffin’s her favourite pupil.’

‘He’s gorgeous-looking, Paris,’ observed Bianca.

Paris’s face was as still as a statue, the white streak down the side of his tracksuit trousers emphasizing the lean length of his leg.

‘Hengist said we’ve got to be nice to them,’ said Dora, then, edging up to Paris: ‘Would you like to take part in an experiment?’

‘Depends.’

Dora handed him a piece of stiff white paper and a bottle of blue-black ink. ‘Now, drop some ink on the paper.’

So Paris shook out a dark-blue blob, which trembled, then settled.

‘Now dip the bit of paper in this flask of water.’

‘What for?’

‘Trust me. Good. Now watch.’

When the paper was removed from the water the dark blob had metamorphosed into a royal-blue, turquoise and olive-green oval.

‘Look,’ cried Dora in excitement, ‘it’s a peacock feather.’

‘That’s cool,’ said Paris, examining it.

‘You can all turn from blobs into peacock feathers if you work hard enough,’ said a marching-up Joan. ‘Now get on with your work, Dora. What are you writing?’

‘The Journey of the Sperm.’

‘Finding the eggs,’ piped up Bianca. ‘Dora wanted to know if the eggs were free range.’

‘No, the sperm is,’ said Paris.

Dora and Bianca got the giggles.

‘Don’t be sillier than you need be,’ snapped Joan.

‘I’m going to blow her up soon,’ muttered Dora as she handed the peacock feather to Paris.

Paris put it in his pocket, thinking how nice it would be to have a little sister like Dora.

High tea was held in the General Bagley Room, which was used by the debating and literary societies, and for visiting non-crowd-pulling speakers. It was a charming room with flame-red walls, grey silk curtains, framed prize-winning pictures from the art department and a lovely view from the window of the General astride his charger gazing down the Long Walk.

As Hengist still hadn’t finished his piece, Sally stood in for him and made the Larks children feel even more special by offering them a great mountain of delectable scrambled egg, dripping with butter and cream and served with smoked salmon and wholemeal toast. Larks, who had never tasted anything so delicious, went back for second and third helpings. A big cheese and onion pie had been set aside for the vegetarians, but everyone tucked into that too and into salads, slices of melon with glacé cherries, fruit salad and chocolate brownies.

‘Yum, yum, yum,’ said Milly. ‘You must come over more often. We don’t usually get food like this.’

‘Such a happy day,’ Mags Gablecross was telling Sally. ‘I feel as though I’ve had a week’s holiday. The kids are overwhelmed by such kindness.’

Mags was like a hot-water bottle on a cold night, thought Janna, who was ashamed of feeling so depressed when they were all enjoying themselves. Even Emlyn had shrugged off his ill humour. The teams looked sharper than he’d expected and he was electrified by Feral. If ever there was a natural talent . . . That golf swing was utterly instinctive; he couldn’t wait to get him on to the rugby field. Where was he? he wondered.

All around, the children were chattering nineteen to the dozen, arguing about GCSE subjects, football and clothes.

Boffin Brooks, who strongly disapproved of smoked salmon being wasted on such ruffians, noting Aysha and Xav sitting together, contented but not speaking, decided to join them. He was so caring about ethnic minorities.

‘Mustn’t neglect you two,’ he said loudly.

Patronizing bastard, thought Xav, who’d never met anyone as adorable as Aysha. She had the same timidity and sweetness as his mother and he was sure she had the same rippling dark hair beneath her headscarf. He longed to tell her what he couldn’t tell his parents: how lonely it was being black in a white family, particularly when, unlike Rupert, he wasn’t good at anything.

‘There is a myth that independent students don’t work hard,’ Boffin was saying sententiously. ‘In fact I rise at six-thirty and am often still at my computer at eleven at night.’

And I clean the house, cook, wash, iron, shop, go to the mosque, learn from the Koran and do my homework, thought Aysha, and my father still beats me. But Xavier had protected her from Jade. She didn’t know how to thank him. He had such a nice face when he wasn’t scowling.

‘Qualifications are indeed the only things that matter,’ went on Boffin.

‘No they ain’t.’ Graffi squeezed Milly’s hand. ‘Straight As don’t teach you how to hang doors or unblock a bog.’

‘I agree,’ said the Hon. Jack. ‘We’re learning about agriculture in geography. Bloody waste of time. My father’s got a farm. Rufus can’t teach me anything new.’

Kylie felt Jack’s big hand edging up her thigh. The hand of a lord’s son. Her mother would be in raptures.