Wicked! (30 page)

Hengist filled in five across and let her run. If he kept saying, ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ a glowering Biffo, Alex and Joan might go away.

Having ascertained from the noticeboard that the Cosmonaughties, the Chinless Wanderers and the Bagley Babes were all rather surprisingly included in the party to entertain Larks, Cosmo Rannaldini decided to give physics a miss.

Humming Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1, which he was playing and conducting in a concert at the weekend, he sauntered across the quad to the school office to discover Painswick, Hengist’s secretary, was off sick. She must be ill to desert Hengist. Instead, Painswick’s junior, the ravishing but daffy Jessica, whom Hengist only employed to keep visiting fathers sweet and because her typos made him laugh, was in charge. Jessica was an old friend of Cosmo, having worked as a production secretary on his late father’s last film. Jessica wanted to pop down to Bagley village to buy a birthday card for her nan. So Cosmo offered to man the office.

Having checked the weekly bulletins and Hengist’s diary, he tapped into Painswick’s computer to find out who was coming from Larks, and whistled. Talk about the dregs: not just Johnnie Fowler and his hell-cat girlfriend Kitten Meadows, and Rocky who went berserk if he didn’t take his Ritalin – that had possibilities – but all the Wolf Pack.

Feral was four inches taller than Cosmo and had once hit him across Waitrose’s drink department. Cosmo did not want his crown as the Byron of Bagley taken away.

He therefore proceeded to email the entire school and most of the parents in histrionic terms, listing the dramatis personae, warning that barbarians were at the gate and that Bagley could anticipate the worst mass rape since the Sabine Women.

‘A marauding army of Sharons and Kevs will plunder your cattle and your mobiles. Lock up your Rolexes, iPods and your credit cards; pull up the drawbridge; get the oil boiling on the Aga: we will fight to the death.’

He was just enlarging Janna and Hengist’s photo in the
Gazette
to stick on the noticeboard when Dora Belvedon sidled in.

‘What do
you
want?’

‘To be part of the welcome party when Larks comes over,’ said Dora piously. ‘It’s so important to break down social barriers.’

‘Bollocks,’ said Cosmo, ‘you want to flog the story to the press.’

Unlike his current squeeze Jade Stancombe who considered Dora to be ‘a mouthy disrespectful brat’, Cosmo rather liked little Miss Belvedon. Her blond plaits were coming untied, her blue-green eyes were suspicious and disapproving and her little nose stuck in the air, but her pursed mouth was sweet. He liked her fearlessness, resourcefulness and jaundiced view of life. She could be trained up as a useful accomplice. And if he won over Dora he could gain outwardly unthreatening access to the desirable Bianca.

‘You were waiting at dinner when Janna dined with the B-Ts,’ said Cosmo, offering Dora one of Painswick’s humbugs.

‘So?’

‘Must be something going on between Hengist and Janna for him to allow scum like this in here.’

‘If you’ll stop bullying my brother Dicky . . .’

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. So what gives with Janna and Hengist?’

‘She’s got a ginormous crush on him. I delivered a sealed love note to her house on Sunday; it was like chucking petrol on a bonfire: whoosh!’

‘Is Randal Stancombe after her too?’ Cosmo got a fiver out of the inside pocket of his tweed jacket. ‘Giving her that minibus?’

‘No.’ Dora accepted the fiver. ‘He was showing off to Mrs Walton. He had his hand up her skirt all dinner – disgusting letch.’

‘Lucky Stancombe.’

Dora accepted another fiver, and another after the revelation that Piers Fleming had come in at six that morning.

‘Piers likes Sheena Anderson. He put his hands between her bosoms when no one was looking. Thank you.’ She shoved yet another fiver into her bra.

‘What a decadent world we live in,’ sighed Cosmo. ‘If we can instigate a punch-up or, better still, a broken jaw tomorrow, it’ll make every national. You pick up what you can behind the scenes. Here’s my mobile number. I’d better have yours. If you’re good, I’ll buy you a mobile that takes photographs, then you can photograph the Duddon valley in the shower.’

Sally Brett-Taylor picked up a telephone and rang Larks.

‘Janna, my dear, we’re so looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. Tell me, what do your chaps really like best to eat?’

Sally was such a brick, reflected Janna, you could chuck her through a window.

27

The morning of Larks’s visit began for Hengist with a glorious fuck. His favourite breakfast aperitif was going down on his beautiful wife, licking her clitoris, seeing it and the surrounding labia swelling pink, hearing her squeaks and gasps of pleasure, then her breath coming faster until she flooded into his mouth, so slippery with excitement that he could instantly slide his cock inside her.

Sally was like a clearing in the jungle no one but he had ever discovered. No one else knew the joy of making love to her. No one had warmer, softer, sweeter-smelling flesh, or higher, more rounded breasts and bottom, or prettier legs.

Sally’s clothes were so straight. No one seeing the silk shirts tucked into the wool skirts which fell just below her knees suspected the luscious underwear: the suspender belts, French knickers and pretty bras in pastel satins; the Reger beneath the Jaeger. Strait is the gate; once through it was all pleasure, which left Hengist purring and utterly relaxed.

Downstairs he switched on the percolator, threw a croissant into the Aga, later smothering it with Oxford marmalade, chatted to Elaine the greyhound and turned on BBC 1 to hear Oriana’s latest brief bulletin from Kabul, protesting on the plight of Afghan women. Thank God, she was alive.

Sally knew her husband was excited about Larks’s visit. In turn, recognizing the slight widening and worry in Sally’s eyes, Hengist murmured that Janna was only an Oriana substitute. ‘I like someone to spar with – chippy, chippy, bang, bang – and she’s so desperate to make Larks succeed.’

Sally understood Hengist’s craving for novelty. She watched his confident lope, head thrown back, wind lifting his dark hair, shoulders squared. Last leaves were tumbling out of the trees, tossed in every direction, gathering round the bole of a big chestnut, whirling like the tigers circling until they turned into melted butter in
Little Black Sambo
. Sally’s heart swelled as she saw Hengist suddenly dance and skip as he rustled through the dry leaves.

She must get on. There was lots to do: organizing smoked salmon and scrambled egg and puds for the Larks pupils; arranging a wrapped bottle of champagne and a light lunch for Randal Stancombe; and masterminding an Old Bagleian reunion dinner this evening.

Swinging out of sight, Hengist ruffled the hair and asked after the parents of two Upper Fourth boys, before grappling briefly with the second fifteen’s scrum half and then discussing with him Bagley’s chances against Fleetley on Saturday.

‘We’ll bury them, sir.’

Mist was curling ghostly round the last fires of the beeches as he stopped to joke with gardeners, busy putting the flower beds to rest; ferns hanging limp and dark and a few pinched ‘Iceberg’ roses being the last inhabitants.

Robins and blackbirds stood round indignantly glaring at a squirrel who, having taken over their bird table, was wolfing all their food. Hengist shooed it off. It was after all the duty of the strong to protect the weak.

It was going to be a beautiful day. The sun was breaking through as he settled into his big office chair, upholstered in burgundy leather, which had once belonged to the Archbishop of Singapore. Radio 3 was playing Brahms’s Third Symphony, written when the composer was hopelessly in love, as Hengist leafed through his post. He so adored not being pestered to do things by Miss Painswick.

Then his telephone rang. Jessica wasn’t good at fielding calls. This one was from a father, furious that his tone-deaf daughter hadn’t been awarded a music scholarship.

No sooner had Hengist put down the telephone than Jessica rushed in to say the
Daily Telegraph
was on the line.

‘We wondered what had happened to your copy,’ asked John Clare, the hugely respected and influential education editor.

‘What copy?’

‘On the contribution of competitive sport to the public-school ethos.’

‘Christ, when was it due?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Jesus, I’m sorry.’

‘I can give you till four o’clock.’

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ yelled Hengist. Painswick would have reminded him. He dialled Emlyn Davies. ‘You’ll have to kick-start this Larks operation.’

‘I’ve got rugby all afternoon.’

‘Not any more you haven’t. I’ll get shot of this piece as fast as I can.’

‘Absolutely fucking typical,’ roared Emlyn as he slammed down the telephone.

Next Hengist dialled Alex Bruce.

‘I’ve got to borrow Radcliffe. Someone’s got to type this piece.’

‘Why can’t Jessica?’

‘Jessica’s not safe. Remember “There’s no such word as cunt”?’

Alex Bruce winced. ‘High time you learnt to use a computer.’

‘You know technology makes me cry.’

‘Absolutely typical,’ screamed Alex slamming down the telephone and, turning to Mrs Radcliffe, his PA: ‘Hengist wants you to type out his article.’

Mrs Radcliffe tried not to look pleased. Hengist was so attractive and so appreciative.

Rufus then rang in and said he wouldn’t be able to organize the team-building exercise as one of his children had chicken pox and needed looking after.

‘Why can’t your wife do it?’ snapped Hengist.

‘She’s in London.’

28

‘What is the dress code?’ Gloria had asked for the hundredth time.

‘Trousers, jumper, warm jacket and flat shoes to run around in,’ Janna had replied firmly.

Then, early on Wednesday morning, watched by a bleary-eyed Partner, she had proceeded to wash her hair and scatter rejected clothes all over the bedroom before settling for shiny brown cowboy boots, cowgirl dress in woven pink and blue wool and a dark red jacket with a rich red, fake-fur collar. It looked wacky but sexy and elicited wolf whistles from all the children when she arrived at Larks.

‘You said we had to wear trousers,’ reproached Gloria, who’d shoehorned herself into her tightest jeans, but added a Sloaney twinset, Alice band and Puffa.

Jason, rolling up in a tweed jacket, grey flannels, a striped shirt and round-necked dark blue jersey, looked as though he’d already crossed over. Mags Gablecross, in a lilac coat and skirt that reminded everyone what a pretty woman she was, was having great difficulty not laughing at Cambola, who looked equipped for a Ruritanian shooting party in a moss-green belted jacket, plus fours and a Tyrolean trilby trimmed with a bright blue jay’s feather.

Knowing the other staff were waiting for things to go wrong, Janna had organized everything to the nth degree. Then Chally came bustling smugly into the office. ‘Cara’s just rung.’

‘Yes?’ said Janna through gritted teeth.

‘The poor dear’s sick.’

‘Is she ever anything else,’ said Janna, instantly regretting it as Chally bridled.

‘Let’s pretend you never said that. Cara’s been signed off with stress for at least a week.’

‘She could have rung in earlier,’ snapped Janna, thinking of a hundred children with their minds and mouths open and only young Lydia and martyred Basket to cope.

‘It was perhaps a mistake for both you and Jason to desert the English department.’

‘Cara was perfectly OK last night.’

‘Outwardly, perhaps,’ reproved Chally. ‘Inwardly she was humiliated by your announcing a joint play with Bagley. She feels her authority slipping away – we all do.’

Janna was tempted to throttle Chally with today’s bright orange scarf. It was too late to get in a supply teacher.

Instead Wally rigged up a new film of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
in the main hall for the children to watch and then write an essay about.

Janna hugged him. ‘Thank God for you.’

Stancombe’s minibus was already twenty minutes late. The selected children were getting edgy. No matter that they’d knocked off Bagley’s caps for generations. That had been on the streets of Larkminster. Now they faced an away fixture in toff country. Those not chosen to go were jealous and taunting. Fights were breaking out all over the playground.

Matters weren’t helped by Kylie Rose turning up in a pretty mauve pansy-patterned wool dress and a little blue velvet jacket, saying she hadn’t realized they had to wear uniform.

‘And you look wicked, miss,’ she added to get the attention off herself.

‘She just wants to hook a toff boyfriend,’ said Pearl furiously, ‘and we’re stuck in bloody uniform.’

‘That’s enough, Pearl,’ said Janna. ‘And take off those hoop earrings. A dog could jump through them. All right, Aysha?’

Aysha, the cleverest girl in the school, nodded. Despite dark hair hidden by a headscarf, her features were serene and lovely. Inside she fought panic. Her father, in Pakistan on business, was due back any day. Her much more liberal mother had bravely signed today’s consent form. If her father found out he would beat both of them.