Wicked! (104 page)

‘Emlyn celebrated victory so full-bloodedly last night,’ simpered Vicky, ‘I had to bring him home. I’m coaching Jack and Lando at eight o’clock – not that they’ll be in any fit state, after drowning their sorrows – so I borrowed one of Emlyn’s rugby shirts. Rather fetching.’

I’m not hearing this, thought Janna.

‘Emlyn is so gorgeous.’ Vicky stretched voluptuously. ‘Oriana needs her head – or rather the lower parts of her anatomy’ – Vicky giggled coarsely – ‘examined. You must come to kitchen sups in my little flat in the hols. Shall I ask Ashton to make up a four, or don’t you two still get on? Anyway, must fly.’

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ said Emlyn looking down from his first-floor window. That had not been the way to get over Oriana.

Dora’s streak ensured that Larks’s victory over Bagley was headlined in most of the papers.

‘Welsh dragon turns heat on old school’, said
The Times
.

‘Full back’, was the
Scorpion
’s caption on a charming, naked rear view of Dora, which she agreed was one way of reminding all her press contacts what she looked like.

104

Larks High’s pupils were on such a high on the morning after the match, they failed to notice that both Janna and Emlyn were very subdued. Over at Bagley, an equally ecstatic Cosmo was spending a free period stretched out on the fur-covered triple bed in his study. As token coursework, he was making notes on Andrew Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’, and thinking about Ruth Walton, who wasn’t at all coy and might very soon become his mistress. What a coup. Cosmo was so elated, he had no need of his elevenses spliff.

As it was nearly Easter, he was also playing a CD of his father’s recording of the Good Friday music from
Parsifal
. Hearing distraught sobbing and finding Dora and a worried Cadbury outside, he pulled them into the room and slammed the door.

‘Whatever’s the matter?’

‘The music,’ wailed Dora. ‘It was Daddy’s favourite. They played it at his funeral. I miss him so much.’

Cosmo let her cry, tempted to comfort her in the only way he knew. She’d looked extremely fetching streaking round the pitch yesterday.

‘Daddy would have saved Cadbury. He liked dogs almost more than people. Hengist’s Elaine is the great-niece of Daddy’s greyhound Maud. Mummy’s so furious about me streaking and Cadbury threatening her, she’s insisting he’s got to be put down, or castrated, or go to the nearest rescue kennels. I can’t let him go. He’s my only friend except for Mrs Cartwright,’ she added, as Cadbury put a large paw on her knee in agreement.

‘Bianca was a best friend, but after she took up with Paris, she got too embarrassed to talk to me. And having sworn she couldn’t help herself because he was the great love of her life, she’s now bats about Feral again and I so don’t want to hear how dreadful she feels about breaking Paris’s heart.’

‘No, I can see that.’ Cosmo handed her a handkerchief and a glass of orange juice.

‘Thanks,’ sniffed Dora. ‘I daren’t keep Cadbury at Boudicca, because if Joan finds him she’ll shunt him straight back to Mummy and the gas chamber. Mummy’s terrified I’ll be expelled and she and Randal won’t be able to have revolting sex all the time. I think Randal’s a paedofeel. He groped my non-existent boobs last time I fell off my skateboard.’

‘Hum,’ said Cosmo.

‘I’ve got a double period of English. Can Cadbury stay here for a couple of hours?’ pleaded Dora.

‘Sure.’ Cosmo looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got maths, but he’ll be OK on his own.’

‘Can I use this for water?’ said Dora, emptying some alabaster eggs out of a Lalique bowl.

‘Yeah,’ said Cosmo, ‘it’s insured.’

Left to his own devices, Cadbury whined for a bit, scratched at Cosmo’s door, jumped on to the bed, peered out of the window, growled at Theo’s cat Hindsight, then started to sniff round the room. Finding an open packet of biscuits, he devoured them, then smelt something much more exciting under the mattress. Pink nostrils flaring, snorting wildly, tail frantically waving, Cadbury began burrowing.

Double English with Miss Wormley droning on about
The Tempest
seemed to go on for hours. Wheedling a Pyrex bowl of shepherd’s pie out of Coxie, Dora rushed over to Cosmo’s study to find Cadbury sitting on Cosmo’s bed, swaying from side to side, yellow eyes glazed, an inane grin on his panting cocoa-brown face.

‘Whatever’s the matter with you?’ wailed Dora.

Concern turned to panic when Cadbury refused the shepherd’s pie. Labradors have to be dying not to eat. Hearing a step in the corridor, Dora leapt to close the door and leant against it. Cosmo, however, shoved his way in.

‘Cadbury,’ gasped Dora. ‘He’s been poisoned.’

‘Don’t be silly, there’s nothing poisonous in here; he’s probably stuffed his face with too many biscuits.’ Cosmo picked up the remains of the packet.

‘He’s never been ill before – look at him,’ sobbed Dora as Cadbury, pink tongue lolling, swaying like a windscreen wiper, beamed up at Cosmo.

‘Looks more like the village idiot than ever.’

‘He does not. The vet’s too far away’ – Dora’s voice was rising hysterically – ‘You must help me get him to the sick bay.’

‘I must not,’ snapped Cosmo, who was expecting a call from Ruth Walton. ‘I’ll get thrown out for harbouring an illegal immigrant.’

Dora didn’t care. Rushing outside, she found one of the builder’s trolleys which had been nicked last night to wheel home a drunken Anatole.

‘Help me,’ she begged Cosmo.

‘I’m bloody well carrying the front end then. Christ, he’s heavy. I’ll rupture myself,’ grumbled Cosmo as they heaved Cadbury on to the trolley. ‘You’re on your own now.’

Stumbling, swearing, diving into alleyways and behind trees to avoid Poppet Bruce, who as eco-chief was furiously fingerprinting dropped empties, Dora trundled him round the back of the school.

‘Please don’t die,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t give up on me. Please God, save Cadbury, don’t make Matron shunt him back to Mummy.’

Luck, however, was on Dora’s side. Only two pupils were in the waiting room: a boy with athlete’s foot and a girl from Boudicca wanting the morning-after pill.

‘It’s an emergency,’ panted Dora. ‘Can I go in first?’

Even better, as she dragged Cadbury through the door, a deep, expensive voice exclaimed, ‘Why, Dora, darling, how lovely to see you.’

‘Dr Benson. It’s even nicer to see you.’

James Benson was the raffishly handsome, ultra-charming private GP who for the last thirty years had looked after her family, the Campbell-Blacks and the France-Lynches.

‘Whatever are you doing here?’

‘A locum. Rather like working in a sweet shop with so many gorgeous girls around, and talking of gorgeous, you’ve grown really pretty, Dora.’ James Benson smoothed his black and silver hair. ‘And so like your father, such a sweet man.’

‘Thanks so much.’ Dora had no time for pleasantries. ‘It’s Cadbury I’m worried about, I think he’s been poisoned or having some kind of fit. I haven’t got time to get him to the vet. Please help.’

Cadbury, dopier than ever, collapsed on the rug, pupils vast, beaming inanely and swaying rather more slowly from left to right.

‘He’s going to die.’ Dora burst into noisy sobs. ‘I bet it’s Mr Fussy or Poppet who’s poisoned him.’

James Benson shot his very white cuffs and looked at Cadbury’s eyes, his tongue, listened to his heart, then proceeded to laugh a great deal.

‘It’s not funny,’ exploded Dora.

‘I think he’ll live.’ Dr Benson wiped his eyes. ‘If I were you, Dora, darling, I’d take him home, turn down the lights and put on a Bob Marley record.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Dora huffily.

‘I don’t know where your dog’s been, but he’s completely stoned.’

Even Cosmo found this amusing. In fact he was in such a good mood after hearing from Mrs Walton, he forgave Cadbury for tunnelling between two mattresses and locating and swallowing a whole eighth of skunk wrapped in cellophane, and agreed that Cadbury could sleep off his excesses on the fur-covered bed.

‘He could have a brilliant career as a sniffer dog,’ said Dora in excitement. ‘According to the
Daily Mail
, dogs get paid five hundred pounds a morning searching for drugs in state schools.’

‘He can start by sniffing out all the drugs at Bagley,’ said Cosmo evilly, ‘and then we can confiscate them.’

Returning for the summer term, Bagley discovered that Poppet Bruce as eco-chief was becoming more and more of a bully, waddling very pregnant round the corridors, charging vast fines for lights left on or doors not closed to preserve heat.

On a late-night patrol on the first Friday of term, Poppet discerned noises coming from the art department. Hammering on the door, she found it locked and, hearing a crash, fumbled for her master key. ‘Let me in, let me in.’

Switching on the light, she was confronted by the excesses of the Upper Fifth’s coursework, which included a six-foot straw donkey, a robot Christ on a steel cross, and Lando’s sin bin: a flame-red tent painted with demons. Hearing a cough, her gaze was drawn to a naked member of the Upper Fifth, who was clutching a palette in an abortive attempt to hide a very large penis.

‘Cosmo Rannaldini,’ squawked Poppet, ‘what are you doing?’

‘You’re not going to believe this,’ mumbled Cosmo, ‘but I come here to be near you.’

‘How d’you mean?’ asked Poppet, thinking how beautifully the lad was constructed.

‘Your p-p-p-picture,’ stammered Cosmo, pointing a trembling finger at Boffin’s half-finished but already absurdly flattering portrait of Poppet breastfeeding little thirteen-month-old Gandhi.

‘What a caring interpretation,’ cried a delighted Poppet.

‘Indeed. This is seriously embarrassing,’ went on Cosmo, ‘but I’m so obsessed with you, Mrs Bruce. I come here sometimes to, er, jerk off in front of your portrait. I have such strong sexual urges, which I don’t want to impose on my fellow students. It helps me to destress. Please don’t be angry with me.’ Cosmo hung his dark, curly head, a tear glittering like a diamond on his cheekbone.

Poppet was deeply moved and very understanding. She appreciated the pain of young love. Cosmo mustn’t feel guilty about masturbation. He would get over her and find some lovely young woman of his own.

‘Never,’ swore Cosmo, ‘I think of you constantly. At least let me have hope.’

‘Alex and I have a very strong partnership.’ Poppet perched on a fibreglass wildebeest. ‘Not that I haven’t had my admirers.’

‘I bet you have.’

Cosmo’s penis was pushing most excitingly through the hole in the palette. Alex was rather meanly endowed, although Poppet knew size had nothing to do with pleasure. A snort from the direction of the sin bin made them both jump.

‘What was that?’

‘Probably a rat. Lando keeps leaving half-eaten Cornish pasties around.’

Poppet noticed Cosmo was shivering. ‘You mustn’t catch cold.’

‘Could you bear to leave me to get dressed?’ begged Cosmo adoringly. ‘And have a moment of quiet reflection on your words of wisdom?’

‘Of course, I’ll lock up in a quarter of an hour,’ said Poppet. ‘Good night, Cosmo.’

‘Good night, sweet princess,’ said Cosmo soulfully, then, ten seconds later, ‘All clear,’ and a naked Ruth Walton, who’d been stuffing Cosmo’s shirt into her mouth to stop her laughter, emerged from the sin bin into his arms.

‘Thank you for saving me.’

‘We’ve got ten minutes.’

‘No, we haven’t, it’s not safe – well, perhaps it is,’ gasped Ruth as Cosmo pushed her down on Primrose Duddon’s ethnic quilt and plunged his cock into her. ‘Oh God, what heaven!’

They escaped down the corridor just in time.

‘You are the biggest thing in my life,’ confessed Cosmo, kissing her in the shadows of the car park.

‘And your thing is the biggest I’ve ever had in my life,’ teased Mrs Walton to hide how enamoured she was.

Cosmo was chuffed to bits. He and Ruth couldn’t get enough of each other and the pillow talk was as exciting as the sex. He was learning so much about the governing body and the sexual and social habits of Randal Stancombe. The only blot was that Poppet Bruce, unable to keep a secret, revealed Cosmo’s passion to Alex, who was casting even blacker looks in Cosmo’s direction.

A fortnight later, Poppet had her baby, another girl, Cranberry Germaine, a little Taurus, whom Poppet breastfed in public at every opportunity, particularly in front of Cosmo: ‘To domesticate his passion and help him see my breasts in a different light.’ She also bombarded him with leaflets from SHAG: the Sexual Health Action Group.

105

Over at Larks, Feral’s football trial, a midweek friendly at Larkminster Rovers, approached. Good as his word, Emlyn spent hours helping Feral transfer back to football, increasingly conscious that he was dealing with genius.

When the trial day arrived, Feral in turn felt more positive than ever before. Emlyn had given him such confidence. If he could get a place with the Rovers, who looked like they’d be going up to the first division next season, he’d soon be on serious money, then he’d be in a position to look after his mother, his brothers and sisters and even ask Bianca out. Suddenly he had hope.