Wicked! (49 page)

‘As a result, Paris’s behaviour has been very challenging. Last week he nearly strangled a boy who ran off with a snow fountain of the Eiffel Tower, the only gift left him by his birth mother.’

‘If he moved to Bagley,’ continued Nadine in her sing-song voice, helping herself to another tomato sandwich, ‘conflict at Oaktree Court would escalate and he would be subject to peer pressure on two fronts. We therefore feel that if he were to go to Bagley, he should leave the care home and be fostered. Over to you, Gordon.’

In his shiny grey suit, with his brutal pasty face, nicotine-stained hands and dirty nails, Mr Blenchley looked both seedy and sinister. He had reached an age when his black and silver stubble merely gave the impression he had forgotten to shave. Hengist, Janna and Ian Cartwright shuddered collectively.

Mr Blenchley then said in his thick, clogged voice that he’d be extremely sorry to lose Paris.

‘The lad’s been with us for nearly four years; reckon we can congratulate ourselves. Before that he had over twenty placements. In some ways a difficult boy, inscrutable, but very able, needs challenging.’

Mr Blenchley was in fact desperate to get shot of Paris. In the past, the lad had been too terrified of being parted from his friends at Larks, the only family he knew, to blow any whistles. But at five foot nine, whippy and well muscled, Paris could no longer be intimidated into accepting that doors stealthily sliding over nylon carpets and creaking floorboards in the dead of night were the work of ghosts – or that predatory fingers creeping inside pyjama trousers and under little nightdresses were figments of the imagination.

‘It costs fourteen hundred pounds a week to keep you at Oaktree Court, you ungrateful little shit,’ he had shouted at Paris that very morning.

To which Paris had shouted back, ‘Give me the fucking money then.’

‘What we feel Paris needs,’ chipped in Nadine, ‘is a sympathetic foster family, a middle-aged couple whose kids perhaps have grown up. It will be challenging, coming from an institution, however admirable, and a maintained school like Larks, then mixing with the protected, privileged students at Bagley. Paris gets ten pounds a month clothes allowance.’

‘Jade Stancombe gets about a thousand,’ sighed Hengist.

Janna gazed out into the park at the young green trees in their little wooden playpens. Even trees that soared twenty-five feet still retained their wooden cages. Paris would have no such protection.

‘Children of Paris’s age seldom find a home,’ said Crispin, who’d been too busy filling his face to contribute to the debate, ‘because potential adopters think they’re too damaged.’

‘Paris isn’t damaged,’ cried Janna in outrage. ‘He’s a sweet boy, so kind to the little ones and intensely loyal to his friends.’ Then, as hateful Crispin smirked again, she went on: ‘It would be like trapping a skylark to send him to Bagley, away from Feral and Graffi. What he needs is love and some kind of permanence.’

‘I agree,’ said Nadine. ‘Ideally Paris Alvaston needs a forever family to facilitate the adjustment.’

Hengist had put his chocolate butter icing on the side of his plate. Was he watching his figure or keeping the best bit till last? He kept glancing across the table trying to make Janna laugh each time Nadine murdered the English language, but she refused to meet his eye. She was unable to forgive him for not consulting her before offering Paris a place or for looking so revoltingly sexy in those shorts that she wanted him to drag her upstairs and shag her insensible.

And yet, and yet, however much she loathed the idea of private education, she had to recognize Bagley would give Paris a step up the ladder that Larks never could. But if Oaktree Court had given him such hell for getting posh, surely Bagley would roast him for being a yob?

If only she could foster him herself and provide him with a haven at weekends, half-term and during the holidays. Then she’d have someone to love and to cherish; they’d have such fun together.

But I’m too busy, she thought despairingly.

The spring holidays might never have been. The dark circles were back under her bloodshot eyes. She had 400 kids, 399 if Paris went to Bagley, and a school to save.

‘You haven’t had any cake.’ Ian Cartwright, silly old blimp, was about to slide the last piece on to her plate. ‘It’s awfully good.’

Janna shook her head. She didn’t want anything from Bagley. As the meeting roved on over pros and cons, she fought sleep, finally nodding off only to wake with a start, crying, ‘Bagley won’t hurt Paris, will they?’ making the others stare at her in amazement.

Fortunately, at that moment, Sally Brett-Taylor wandered in, rivalling the spring’s freshness in a pale-green cashmere jumper, asking if the teapot needed more hot water and discreetly giving Hengist an escape route by reminding him his next appointment was waiting. Everyone gathered up their papers.

‘To sum up,’ snuffled Crispin, licking chocolate icing off his fingers, ‘unless we can find a foster family for Paris, you wouldn’t recommend a move to Bagley.’

‘That’s right,’ said Nadine. ‘I think the contrast would be too extreme.’

‘Beautiful garden, Mrs Brett-Taylor,’ said Mr Blenchley, gazing out on Sally’s riot of tulips, irises and fritillaries. ‘Do you have a sprinkler system?’

‘I prefer to water plants myself.’ Sally smiled. ‘That way you get to know them individually.’

Like my children, thought Janna. Why did everything at the moment make her cry?

47

Hengist returned from Rutminster Cathedral, where the school choir had been singing at Evensong, around nine. On the bus home he had sat next to Dora Belvedon, who, having somehow discovered the meeting had taken place, was desperate for Paris to come to Bagley.

‘Just think, he’ll mention you and Bagley one day in his acceptance speech at the Oscars.’

Hengist was greeted by a squirming, pirouetting Elaine, who left white hairs all over the trousers of his dark suit, the jacket of which Hengist hung on the banisters before removing his tie and pouring himself a large whisky.

He found Sally at the drawing-room piano playing the beautiful second movement of Schubert’s D Major Sonata, which was slower and easier than the first. Only holding up her cheek to be kissed, she didn’t stop. Hengist slumped on the sofa with Elaine to listen, watching the lamplight falling on his wife’s pale hair, on Mungo’s photograph and on a big bunch of white tulips, which shed petals each time she played more vigorously.

Swearing under her breath at the occasional wrong note in the difficult cross rhythms and vowing to set aside time to practise in the future, Sally reached the end.

‘How would you feel about adopting Paris Alvaston?’ asked Hengist.

Sally looked down at her hands, closed the music and shut the piano with a snap.

‘Or, for a start, fostering him?’

‘Not fair to him,’ said Sally, with unexpected harshness. ‘He’ll be conspicuous enough coming from Larks; imagine being the head’s son.’

‘Easier than if he was our actual child. No one could blame him for my cringe-making idiosyncrasies. Nor would he be upset by other children slagging us off.’

Rising and crossing the room, he massaged Sally’s rigid shoulders for a moment, then slid his hands down inside her pale-green jersey, which had been washed in Lux so many times.

‘We don’t have the time,’ said Sally angrily. ‘You want Fleetley, the Ministry of Education; you want to write. You have eight hundred children and an army of staff. You’re always away and poor Elaine doesn’t get enough walks.’

Elaine thumped her bony tail in agreement.

‘Paris deserves better,’ she went on. ‘He needs time, individual attention and a live-in father.’ And I don’t see enough of you, she nearly added.

As his hands crept downwards, she willed her nipples not to respond. He had such a hold over her.

‘It’d only be the holidays, half-terms and weekends,’ protested Hengist. ‘Give Oriana a bit of competition – a sibling to rival. She might come home more often.’

‘Why did she stay away so much in the first place?’ At heart, Sally felt she had failed as a mother to the absentee Oriana. Why should she fare any better with Paris?

‘The voice of reason,’ said Hengist irritably. ‘He’s such a lovely boy and such a potential star. I could bask in his reflected glory in my dotage.’

As his hands slid over her breasts, he felt the nipples hardening, and Sally felt liquid ripples between her legs.

‘I was thinking of you,’ whispered Hengist. ‘You can always make time. Those geeks today had never eaten anything like your chocolate cake.’

‘Janna and Ian Cartwright aren’t geeks,’ protested Sally, ‘although she was looking awfully peaky, poor child.’

‘Paris would be company. Mungo—’ he began.

‘Don’t,’ gasped Sally. The pain was still unbearable.

‘Sorry. I just can’t bear the thought of the poor boy being abandoned to that grotesque Blenchley, who I’m sure’s a paedophile. His nails looked as though they were steeped in dried blood. Did you know that twenty-five per cent of the homeless are care leavers who’ve been cast out on the world?’

‘Stop it.’ Sally clapped her hands to her ears. ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Elaine loves Paris.’ Hengist’s hand slipped under the waistband of her skirt, over her flat stomach, to lose itself in warm flesh. ‘I’m going to ring Mrs Axford and tell her to wait dinner half an hour.’

Despite his brusque, bossy exterior, Ian Cartwright liked children and, as a fine cricketer and rugby player, had always wanted a son. Since his adopted daughters Emerald and Sophy had married and had their own children, the house had seemed very empty.

Arriving home from the meeting, he could smell shepherd’s pie, made from the remains of the cold meat from Sunday’s shoulder of lamb. If one carved narrow slices, there was always plenty over. He found Patience crimson in the face, reading
Horse & Hound
as she spread mashed potato over the lamb.

‘Good day?’ she asked.

‘Interesting.’ Ian poured them both a glass from the bottle of red with which she was jazzing up the mince. ‘Hengist wants to offer a free place to Paris Alvaston.’

‘That’s wonderful.’ Patience tested the broccoli with a fork. ‘How brilliant of Hengist.’

‘Paris is having a bloody time at the children’s home. They’re looking for a family to foster him.’

‘Oh, poor boy. If only we weren’t so old.’

‘We may not be. They want an older couple, who, if it worked, might consider adopting him to bridge the gap when he’d normally leave care and be chucked out on the streets.’

Out of the window, Ian could see Northcliffe, the golden retriever who had a tendency to go walkabout round the campus, cantering back across the fields, pausing to pick up a twig as a peace offering.

‘Social services won’t let him come to Bagley unless they can find someone. “Family find” is the awful expression.’

‘Oh, Ian.’ Patience sat down. ‘Are you sure? We’ve only just got ourselves sorted.’

‘You mean clawed our way back from financial ruin,’ said Ian with a mirthless laugh. ‘I won’t be so stupid again.’

‘I’d love to give it a try,’ mused Patience. ‘Dora simply adores him, so does Northcliffe. But I’m sure he’d find us too square. I don’t know anything about Liverpool or pop music or Larkminster Rovers or computers.’

‘Why don’t we ask him?’ said Ian.

They were brought back to earth by the smell of burnt broccoli.

First thing, Ian rang Nadine, who dropped in later in the day and was most enthusiastic.

‘Paris loves coming to you. Your daughters and their kids visit often, so he’d have an extended family. You’ve been cleared by the Criminal Records Bureau; you’ve experienced the ups and downs of adoption. It could take several months, however, because you’d have to go on a course and undergo some counselling and some extensive interviews, I’m afraid.’

‘We’ve been there. Last time they kept asking about our sex lives,’ brayed Patience. ‘We’re a bit past that now.’

Ian frowned. ‘I’m sure Nadine doesn’t want to hear about that.’

‘Paris’s behaviour will probably be very challenging,’ said Nadine. ‘Looked-after kids invariably test their carers to the limit, just to prove they really care.’

‘Just like rescued dogs,’ said Patience happily. ‘I must start reading the football reports.’

‘I can’t bear to think of poor Paris trapped in that children’s home with that repellent man,’ announced Sally the following evening. ‘I’m sure we could make time.’

‘Too late,’ said Hengist, almost accusingly. ‘Fools have rushed in. Ian and Patience have offered. They’ve got to undergo loads of ghastly trials, like the labours of Hercules. But Nadine is taking Paris to “meet with” them shortly. “None but the brave deserves the fair”,’ he added bitterly and Sally felt reproached.

News of the poaching of Paris flashed round the staffroom.

‘Just like a feminist version of the Trojan Wars,’ sighed Artie Deverell. ‘Lucky, lucky Cartwrights, but bags I be Helen of Troy.’

Dora was in ecstasy:

‘I’ll come and help you dirty up your house,’ she told Patience. ‘Social workers don’t like prospective foster homes to be too pristine.’