Wicked! (45 page)

‘We all miss you,’ said Emlyn as he went out. ‘Particularly Paris.’

Returning to Jubilee Cottage, Janna and Partner wandered into the garden. The rain, at last, had stopped and the stars for the first time in days were scattered across the sky like a sweep of white daffodils.

‘Give me my Romeo,’ she cried out:

‘And, when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night.’

Oh Hengist! Oh Emlyn! She was so lonely for love and a pair of arms round her.

Even though it was nearly midnight, she rang first Mr Blenchley and then Nadine, Paris’s social worker.

‘I’ve got a few spare tickets. It’d mean so much to Paris if you came along.’

43

Paris was gratified next day to get lots of cards, including one from Aunt Lily and another from Nadine, delivered to school by hand: ‘So looking forward to seeing you tonight.’ Normally she wasn’t remotely interested in his academic progress, only his social welfare. There was even a card from the children in the home: ‘Sorry we took the piss.’

Patience sent him a silver horseshoe and some chewing gum. Dora had bought him a fluffy black cat, which, entitled ‘Dora’s pussy’, became the subject of much ribaldry. Cadbury sent him a good-lick card.

After last night’s success, the cast were cheerful and over-excited.

‘You’ve got to calm down,’ Emlyn kept telling them.

It was a glorious evening, with the setting sun flaming the flooded playing fields below a vermilion and Cambridge-blue sky, which was considered a good omen, as the Montagues’ uniform was flame red and the Capulets’ pale blue.

All afternoon Pearl worked her magic on the cast, particularly Jade, who couldn’t stop admiring herself in the mirror. Amber was less sanguine.

‘Pearl’s still convinced Feral’s got the hots for me,’ she whispered to Milly, ‘but frankly he can’t take his big eyes off Bianca C-B. So humiliating to be cuckolded by someone from the Lower Fourth.’

‘“There’s no trust, No faith, no honesty in men,”’ sighed Milly.

Amber was not cast down. Both Eton and Radley boyfriends had sent her huge bunches of flowers and their undying love.

‘I’d still like a night with Feral,’ she confessed. ‘Do you think Paris is gay?’

‘That could explain it,’ said Milly in delight. ‘All the time he’s fantasizing I’m Feral, not me. I still fancy him rotten.’

‘One can’t not,’ agreed Amber.

‘He stares and stares but it’s to observe, not to lust. If Sally Bloody-Taylor hadn’t forced me into such a prissy dress with that gross sash, I might have scored.’

Paris was shivering uncontrollably. Thank God he wore a flimsy white shirt in the first act, so the circles of sweat wouldn’t show. Already he could hear strains of Tchaikovsky as the orchestra warmed up.

Emlyn was everywhere, calmly encouraging, dealing with last minute crises. ‘No, the Prince can’t wear gel, Jack, go and wash it out.’

As Mr Khan had shot off to Pakistan on business, Aysha had bravely applied to be a stage hand. Hearing the news from Bianca, Xavier Campbell-Black had applied as well. They had only been working with the cast for a week. Occasionally Xav’s hand touched Aysha’s as they shifted balconies, beds and coffins around. There were twenty scenes to be set up. They were both very nervous. Aysha looked more beautiful than ever in a shalwar kameez of midnight-blue silk.

Xav had avoided Cosmo and his minions since they tried to drown him in the bog. Now as he and Aysha made sure that Paris’s plank was in place, stacked in a corner of the pit ready to form a bridge across the orchestra, Cosmo shouted nastily:

‘Good thing you and Miss Khan are black, so the audience needn’t see you when you’re shifting scenes.’

Next moment, Feral had grabbed Cosmo’s dark curls, holding a knife to his throat. ‘Take that back,’ he hissed.

‘I’ll have that.’ Emlyn grabbed the knife. He also confiscated Anatole’s vodka. ‘You can get drunk after you’re killed off.’

‘“Why, uncle, ’tis a shame”,’ grumbled Anatole.

Jade had got forty-eight red roses from her father, and a huge bunch of pink lilies that she’d sent herself and made a lot of fuss wondering who they came from. Stancombe also sent yellow orchids to Milly. Milly’s mother was not as biddable as Stancombe would have liked. He had wanted to arrive with her in the helicopter this evening, but perversely she insisted that, as a governor, she should make her own way.

‘When’s Hengist going to make me a governor?’ grumbled Stancombe.

‘When a vacancy occurs. No one resigns because meetings are such fun,’ said Mrs Walton.

Mags Gablecross and Sally B-T were working flat out on final alterations to costumes.

‘Where’s Vicky?’ demanded Monster fretfully.

‘Gone to the hairdresser’s,’ said Mags dryly. ‘She felt the need to pamper herself before her big night.’

‘I bought her these flowers,’ protested Monster.

‘How very thoughtful of you,’ said Sally, recognizing five of her rare irises and the only spotted hellebores not squashed earlier by Cosmo. ‘I’ll put them in water for Vicky.’

Mrs Kamani, thrilled to be sent a ticket, had closed her newsagent’s especially early and was now sitting in the second row next to Vicky’s proud parents.

Janna crept into the dressing room, where everything seemed chaos. So many ravishing girls and boys. Whatever happened to spots and puppy fat? Such smooth flesh to make up, she thought wistfully, no crevasses for it to sink into.

Milly’s streaked ponytail was being brushed out by Sally, before being put up with a white rose. Bianca Campbell-Black, watched surreptitiously by every boy in the room, was being zipped into her scarlet spangled dress.

Feral paced up and down, muttering, ‘“Have at thee, coward!”’ He must remember to speak up.

‘Who’s coming tonight, apart from my mum?’ asked Kylie as Pearl toned down her flushed post-orgasmic face.

‘Press, parents, friends of the school.’

‘Din’t know we had any friends,’ said Graffi.

‘“Why Uncle, ’tis a shame”,’ muttered Feral.

‘I’m going to throw up again,’ said Paris.

‘No you’re not.’ Hengist swept in resplendent in a beautifully cut pinstripe suit, sky-blue shirt and dark blue spotted tie. ‘The audience are arriving. I want you all down in the General Bagley Room. Take the back stairs so no one sees you.’

On the way they passed props tables groaning with policemen’s helmets, Sally’s old scent bottles filled with coloured water for Monster’s chemist shop, pots of rosemary, camomile and foxglove for Friar Lawrence’s garden, phials of fake blood, retractable knives and pistols, which Emlyn constantly checked for the real thing.

Self-conscious yet astounded how newly beautiful Pearl had made so many of them, the cast took up their positions in rising tiers on three sides of a square. Amber and Jade had become glamorous society hostesses, Milly an innocent vast-eyed angel, towards whom even Paris felt a flicker of lust.

‘I look almost as good as Mummy,’ sighed Milly.

Graffi, aged up with wrinkles, parsnip-yellow bags under the eyes, a shaggy grey wig and a Norland Nurse’s uniform, with a fob watch on his starched bosom, looked nearly fifty and decidedly unattractive. Milly loved him but she wished once again he looked as sexy as Feral who, with his lithe beautiful body encased in black, his amazing tawny eyes elongated to his temples and with a suggestion of ebony whisker, looked indeed the Prince of Cats. Paris had refused blusher or lipstick, but Pearl, with bronzing gel, had warmed his deathly pallor to the olive glow of an Old Master and defined his pale unblinking eyes with eyeliner and mascara. He looked drop dead gorgeous with his officer’s peaked cap shoved on to the back of his head.

‘I must not fancy Paris,’ pleaded Milly.

Standing facing his young audience, Hengist smiled.

‘You all look fantastic.’ Then, sternly: ‘But remember your job tonight is to entertain. Invite the audience on stage with you, invite them to become part of this amazing story. It’s all about eye contact, even if you’re a bad guy or one of the crowd – look out at the audience.

‘Up until now, no one’s given more than seventy-five per cent. Tonight I want one hundred and fifty per cent. It’s already a great show. I want it to be a brilliant show. I want you to change what the audience feels about you. Your parents are out there, longing to be proud of you.’

Not for Paris, thought Janna in anguish.

‘Stand up,’ ordered Hengist.

As the children struggled to their feet, the girls swaying on their high heels, his voice became almost messianic:

‘Shut your eyes. You are young, you are beautiful, you’re energetic, you have ability and gifts. You have time to entertain.’

‘Yeah, man.’ Rocky punched the air with his fist.

Kylie suppressed a nervous giggle. Aysha was horrified to feel her hand creeping into Xav’s, and nearly fainted when he squeezed it back.

‘Make the audience want to be what you are,’ Hengist’s voice dropped seductively: ‘Make them adore you. Your job is to break their hearts.’

Against the force of Hengist’s personality, Feral wrenched open his eyes and caught Bianca gazing at him; then she smiled shyly. Feral was jolted, he must get a grip on himself. Quickly he looked away. Cosmo, intercepting this exchange, was determined to negate it.

‘Good luck, God bless you all,’ ended Hengist to a round of applause. Hovering at the back, glancing at the rapt, inspired faces of the children, Janna was reminded once again why he was head of one of the best schools in the country. He could have sent entire armies over the top.

And he looked so divine. The strong features, the ebony eyebrows, the high colour, the slicked-down hair already leaping upwards, the vitality tamed by the dark-grey establishment suit. An arrogant public-school shit, and yet, and yet . . .

‘My only love sprung from my only hate’, she thought helplessly, stepping out from behind a tier of seats, then leaping back as Pearl shouted, ‘Miss, Miss,’ and all the children took up the cry.

But Janna had fled, racing down the corridor, losing herself in the crowd gathering in the foyer outside the theatre. All round the walls were Cosmo’s blown-up photographs of the cast. Janna swelled with pride. Paris, Feral and Kylie looked so beautiful.

Even more beautiful to the Larks parents was a splendid array of free drink. Two coachloads had been ferried over from the Shakespeare Estate by the heroic Wally and were fast losing their shyness. There was Pearl’s mother and her very young lover, who didn’t look capable of beating Pearl or anyone else up, and Chantal Peck in gold lurex and a high state of excitement, telling everyone she was a parent governor. Stormin’ Norman, in a black trouser suit, had been spoiling for a fight, but her aggression evaporated when she saw the blow-up of Monster as the apothecary. The small stocky man with black curls and naughty laughing eyes, drinking red wine out of a pint mug, must be Dafydd Williams, Graffi’s dad.

Out of loyalty to Vicky, but not bothering to change out of very casual clothes, Skunk Illingworth, Sam Spink, Robbie Rushton and Chally had overcome their loathing of private education enough to get stuck into Hengist’s drink.

Bagley parents, however, were in the ascendancy.

‘Darling darling, kiss kiss, yock yock, ha, ha ha, skiing, the Seychelles, the Caribbean, Egypt, Aspen, Florida, Klosters. Are you going to the Argentine Open? Must come over to kitchen sups,’ to show they’d got a dining room. Listening to the confident yelling and exchange of proper names, Janna had forgotten how much she detested the upper middle classes.

It was still light outside; through the open windows, birds were competing with the orchestra. Chantal and Stormin’ Norman were pointing out celebs.

‘Look, there’s Rupert Campbell-Black, ain’t he beautiful?’

‘Best owner-trainer in the country,’ agreed Dafydd, ‘and there’s Billy Lloyd-Foxe,’ as Amber’s father, clutching two large whiskies, pushed his way through the throng.

‘Never miss him on
Question of Sport
,’ said Stormin’. ‘’Ello Billy, don’t drink it all at once.’

Billy grinned back at them: ‘I hate running out.’

Dafydd was over the moon and in turn helped himself to two mugs of red.

‘And there’s Jupiter Belvedon, our Member,’ squeaked Chantal. ‘Evening, Jupe.’

Jupiter nodded coolly as he joined the group round Rupert Campbell-Black.

‘Pity I didn’t bring my autograph book,’ sighed Chantal.

Such was Janna’s paranoia, having been warned off by Ashton and Crispin and imagining everyone would be dubbing her a whore, that she was amazed so many parents hailed her.

‘She’s so nice, she’s our head.’

Maybe all those home visits were paying off.

Randal Stancombe, hovering hopefully round the Campbell-Black clique, kissed Janna on both cheeks. Mrs Walton, ravishing as ever in a Lindka Cierach cream velvet suit, to which she had pinned a big pink rose, Calèche rising like morning mist from her ravine of a cleavage, rushed up and insisted she and Janna have lunch soon.