Wicked! (46 page)

‘I am so thrilled Milly’s playing Juliet,’ she whispered. ‘Randal’s livid that poisonous Jade didn’t get it. Have you met Taggie Campbell-Black? She can’t sleep for worrying Xav’s going to move the wrong chair, or Bianca forget her dance steps.’

Janna smiled up at Taggie, who, slender as a young birch, with a dark cloud of hair, kind, silver-grey eyes and soft pink lips, seemed infinitely sweeter and more beautiful than Mrs Walton.

‘I gather Bianca’s champion,’ she said. ‘She’s doing her dance with one of my most adorable pupils.’

‘Is that Feral? Bianca chatters about him all day. Rupert’s getting very jealous. But we’re so pleased Xav’s got involved. Darling, you’ve met Janna,’ Taggie called out to Rupert who, detesting school events, was cringing behind a pillar talking into two mobiles.

Peering out nervously, he waved at Janna.

‘I’ve still got that sheepdog that fell on my head when I visited your school – much better behaved than my dogs.’

Absurdly flattered to be remembered, Janna was thanking him once again for sending
Gladiator
and the huge cheque, when she lost her audience as Rupert muttered, ‘Oh God,’ and shot behind his pillar again, as a large woman, outcleavaging Ruth Walton and with the wide innocent eyes of a doll, appeared in the doorway awaiting adulation.

‘There’s Dime Kiri,’ shouted Stormin’ Norman, who was well away. ‘’Ello Dime Kiri.’

‘That ain’t Dime Kiri,’ chided Chantal as the large woman expanded like a bullfrog, ‘that’s Dime Hermy-own, stupid. ’Ello, Dime Hermy-own.’

‘It’s Dame Hermione, Cosmo’s mother, silly old bat. Hengist can’t stand her,’ said Ruth Walton with rare venom as Randal shot forward to kiss Dame Hermione’s hand, determined to harpoon this great whale to open his hypermarket.

‘Can I take your photograph, Miss Curtis?’ said a shrill voice. It was Dora, ostensibly covering the play for the Bagley school mag. ‘Oh bugger, here comes my mother, she’s crazy about Rupert.’

‘Christ!’ Rupert had now disappeared round the other side of the pillar to avoid Lady Belvedon, a very slim pretty blonde, crying: ‘Rupert, Rupert.’

‘Did I hear Rupert’s name?’ cried Dame Hermione roguishly and, leaving Stancombe in mid-supermarket pitch, rushed off in pursuit.

Advanced on from right and left, Rupert bolted for the bar.

‘Poor Rupert, he’s so naughty,’ laughed Taggie, then, lowering her voice: ‘He can’t stand Dame Hermione or Anthea Belvedon, but they’re like cats and always crawl over people who are allergic to them.’

‘Oh look, he’s now been clobbered by Poppet Bruce,’ giggled Dora. ‘I expect she’ll invite him to her workshop on behaviour management.’

Strains of Prokoviev’s
Romeo and Juliet
were rising above the din of chat as the five-minute bell went.

‘God, I loathe school plays,’ grumbled Amber and Junior’s mother, Janey, a blonde Fleet Street journalist who’d seen better days. ‘This one’s going to be even direr, since Bagley bonded with that grotty comprehensive . . .’

Ruth Walton laughed.

‘This is the grotty comp’s headmistress, Janna Curtis.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Janey, filling up Janna’s glass from her brimming half-pint mug, ‘I’m so sorry. You’re much too pretty and young for a head. I’m covering this for the
Mail
. I’ll say you’re charismatic and deeply capable.’ Then, as Uncle Harley sauntered in looking sleek and dangerous: ‘Who’s that utterly ravishing man covered in diamonds?’

‘Some African prince,’ said Janna slyly.

At least someone’s come for Feral, she thought as she waved at Harley. She was also delighted Nadine and Mr Blenchley from Oaktree Court had showed up.

‘Christ.’ Rupert had joined them again. ‘Hermione, Lady Belvedon and that ghastly Poppet: I thought the three witches came in
Macbeth
.’

There was an explosion of flashes as Hengist swept in with Anatole’s father the Russian Minister and his glamorous wife, who was wearing a floor-length fur.

‘It must have accounted for a hundred bears,’ said Dora furiously, ‘I’m going to blow her up.’

‘I feel one has a duty to support these functions,’ Lady Belvedon was telling Stancombe, then squawked as the long pink tongue of Elaine, the greyhound, relieved her of the vol-au-vent she was clutching.

The sixty-second bell was ringing imperiously. As everyone surged into the theatre, Taggie turned shyly to Janna.

‘Good luck. I’m so sick with nerves for Bianca, I can’t imagine what it would be like to worry about a whole school. You’ve done so well, Xav and Bianca have really taken to your Larks children.’

If only all posh people were like you, thought Janna, noticing Graffi’s dad tucking a bottle of red wine inside his jacket.

‘Thank you for helping our Graffi with his muriel,’ said his wife.

‘You must come and see it,’ said Janna happily, then any joy was drained out of her as she saw the Tusk Force: Russell, Crispin, Rod Hyde and Ashton Douglas, in a dark purple smoking jacket, with an uncharacteristically adoring expression on his bland, pink face.

‘Dame Hermione.’ He seized both her hands. ‘You were the most wonderful Elisabetta I ever saw. Pawis nineteen eighty-five.’

‘You’re very kind.’ Hermione bowed gracefully. ‘Perhaps you could rustle me up another glass of bubbly?’

‘Indeed.’ Ashton belted off.

‘You’re looking very iconic this evening, Dame Hermione,’ snuffled fat Crispin.

‘Where’s Vicky?’ asked Russell.

‘Backstage.’ Rod Hyde’s voice thickened. ‘The good general is always with his troops.’

Catapulted forward by the crowd, Janna couldn’t avoid them.

‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ she said coolly.

They nodded back equally coolly.

‘Good of you to turn up.’

‘We felt we must support Vicky,’ said Ashton.

Janna glanced at her ticket. ‘I must find my seat.’

Next moment, a big warm hand grabbed hers. ‘Gotcha,’ said a familiar deep husky voice. ‘Come and watch with me.’

‘I’m sitting with Tim and Mags Gablecross,’ shrieked Janna, aware of Ashton and Co’s delighted disapproval and wriggling like a stray cat to escape.

‘The Gablecrosses won’t mind,’ said Hengist. ‘We started this together, I want to share it with you,’ and he dragged her off to sit in the middle of the tenth row, making everyone move up.

‘Sally’s backstage, doing last-minute repairs,’ he told Janna. ‘Half our girls are so besotted with your Feral, the other half with your Paris. They’ve all had to have their costumes taken in.’

Oh God, thought Janna in panic as a flurry of ‘Excuse me, sorry, excuse me’ indicated that the Tusk Force had taken the seats directly behind her.

I haven’t seen Hengist since I last saw you, Janna wanted to scream at them, but then she thought defiantly: I don’t care, I don’t care. Maybe it’s three glasses of wine on an empty stomach, but I still really adore him.

Giving her a slug of Courvoisier from a silver hipflask, Hengist introduced her to two masters on her right.

These were Artie Deverell, the handsome, languid, gentle head of modern languages, whom Mags Gablecross, who taught the same subject, had fallen in love with on balloon day, and Theo Graham, the bald and very wrinkled head of classics, revered for his translation of Euripides.

‘I’ve got Jack Waterlane, Junior, Lando and Lubemir in my house,’ whispered Artie. ‘Theo’s got Cosmo and Anatole, so we both have our crosses.’

The Russian Minister and his wife were seated on Hengist’s left. Next moment, everyone jumped out of their skins as Dame Hermione started singing along to Prokofiev.

‘Lurex tremendous,’ murmured Hengist as Chantal Peck swept up to the front.

44

It was a wonderful theatre, stark and forbidding, with black brick walls forty feet high and black leather seats. Saxophones and clarinets glittered like jewels in the pit; pearly drum skins gleamed in the half-light.

The only prop in front of the crimson curtains was a big cardboard television with the screen cut out. As Prokofiev’s menacing ‘March of the Capulets’ faded away, Kylie Rose appeared inside the now lit-up screen as a presenter.

‘“Two households, both alaike in dignity . . .”’ She held up cards saying Bagley and Larks:

‘In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their laife.’

‘Christ,’ muttered Rupert, ‘she’s been here half a term and she talks like Anthea Belvedon.’

Chantal was in ecstasy: Kylie looked so dignified.

Back creaked the crimson curtains to a howl of police sirens and a burst of clapping. Against Graffi’s fantastic backdrop of mosques, tumbling twin towers, tower blocks and army barracks strangled by barbed wire was a street in Verona with an ice-cream van, AC Milan posters, a large bullet-pocked Shakespeare Estate sign, and a signpost saying ‘Bagley 5 miles, City Centre ½ mile’. There was the Ghost and Castle and Mrs Kamani’s newsagent’s with a broken window.

Oh God, thought Janna, but, rising out of her seat, she could see Mrs Kamani laughing. Revelling in the roars of applause, Janna forgot her nerves. This was no school production; it was slick, yet bursting with exuberance and passion. Larks’s confidence had grown so much, they were as assured as their Bagley counterparts.

Here was Rocky lumbering out of the Ghost and Castle and turning on the Montagues.

‘“No, sir, I do not bite my fumb at you, sir, but I bite my fumb, sir. When I have fought the men, I will be civil with the maids, and cut off their heads.”’

‘“The heads of the maids?”’ demanded Junior.

‘“Ay, the heads of the maids or their maidenheads.”’ Rocky leered round; the audience laughed.

Then Feral erupted on to the stage to huge cheers and boos.

‘“What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,”’ he spat, his fury scattering the Montagues, then paused.

Although the cast knew he’d dried, the audience thought it was terrific timing.

‘“I hate the word,”’ repeated Feral, recovering, ‘“As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. Have at thee, coward!”’ And guns were flashing and blanks ringing out.

‘That’s Bianca’s boyfriend,’ whispered Taggie. ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’

‘Very black,’ muttered back Rupert.

Paris stood apart in the wings, psyching himself up, mindlessly chewing gum. I am Romeo; I am in Verona; I am empowered; I am lovesick for a woman who hardly knows I exist.
Plus ça change
, he thought bitterly, I am about to crash a ball and fall in love for the first and last time in my life.

‘Good luck, Paris.’ Vicky’s clap on the back nearly shot him on to the stage. ‘Remember to speak up.’

Roars of applause greeted each new set, particularly the Capulets’ ballroom with long-legged beauties in masks and paparazzi hiding, like Rupert, behind every pillar.

‘That’s my Jade in cerise,’ said Stancombe loudly to Dame Hermione.

‘That’s my Cosmo playing Lord Capulet in a navy military jacket,’ said Hermione even more loudly.

‘Shut up,’ said Janna.

‘Don’t wepwove Dame Hermione,’ hissed a horrified Ashton.

Cosmo, having played the genial host, whipped off his jacket and joined the Cosmonaughties and Kylie Rose in a number he’d composed called ‘Cocks and Rubbers’, the words of which were fortunately obscured by the din of the band. Looking at Cosmo’s pale dangerous face, ebony curls flopping maniacally as he lashed his guitar, Janna thought: That is one whole lot of gorgeous trouble.

Then the stage cleared for Feral and Bianca’s tango. Never taking their eyes off each other, talking through their bodies as they danced, their red-hot passion branded the floorboards. Rupert, woken by his wife just in time to watch them, led the bravoes and thunderous applause. This resulted in two encores, which broke the mood for Paris’s big entrance.

‘Oh poor boy,’ muttered Janna in anguish as the applause petered out.

‘He’ll be OK,’ whispered Hengist.

And Janna moved her body against his so the comforting hand he’d laid on top of hers couldn’t be seen from behind by Ashton and Crispin. Any minute, she imagined Crispin’s fourth chin resting on her shoulder so he could peep over.

Despite a balloon bursting and Rocky now dressed as a waiter nudging him in the back, saying hoarsely: ‘Nibbles anyone?’ Paris remained motionless, waiting until he’d got everyone’s attention, gazing in wonder at the young girl in white muslin standing with the shy dignity of the daughter of the house at the foot of the stairs.

Pausing for five seconds on that first ‘“Oh!”’ then, glancing up at the flambeaux flickering round the room, he murmured: ‘“She doth teach the torches to burn bright!”’

‘Christ,’ murmured Theo and Artie.

I must have that boy at Bagley, thought Hengist.

Offered another swig of Courvoisier from his flask, Janna shook her head, refusing to be distracted for a second. As Paris ended his speech, vowing he’d never seen true beauty till this night, you could have heard a pin and also the jaw of Dora Belvedon drop.