Wicked! (54 page)

Oh, the length of those blond lashes. Not wanting him to catch cold, Janna pulled the blanket over him and couldn’t resist bending over and dropping a kiss on his damp forehead.

‘Good night, sweet Arctic Prince.’ If only she’d been able to adopt him.

Paris opened his eyes a millimetre, next moment a tentacle hand had closed round her neck.

‘Get away with you,’ she protested.

Lifting his head, dizzy this time with longing, Paris kissed her. For a second her lips went rigid, then they relaxed and opened and kissed him back. Then she seemed to shake herself, prised away his hand and laid it on his chest.

‘You’re delirious,’ she told him firmly. ‘I must check on everyone else and find myself somewhere to sleep.’

‘I love you, miss,’ called out Paris, as he drifted into sleep.

52

‘You’ve got to be better by tonight,’ Jade Stancombe told Paris next morning as she dropped a box of white chocolates on to his bed. ‘We’re off to our mystery destination.’

She was followed by Cosmo, who’d clocked the burgeoning friendship between Xav and Paris and, wanting to punish Xav further, decided to take Paris away from him. Cosmo therefore rolled up with mangoes, peaches and Paris’s baseball cap, which he claimed he’d found down the seat of a bus.

‘But that won’t keep the sun off back and front though, like this will,’ and he plonked a panama on Paris’s head.

‘I don’t want your fucking hat.’

‘You will when you see how much it suits you.’

Paris was about to chuck it in the bin when Janna walked in: ‘Oh Paris, you look gorgeous.’

‘Just like Jude Law,’ agreed Cosmo.

So Paris kept it.

Pearl was terribly excited.

‘If you make me up for the mystery party this evening,’ Jade had told her, ‘you can borrow and keep one of my dresses.’

Then, when Pearl said she hadn’t brought much make-up, Jade suggested they buy some in Hereford and proceeded to spend £300, also splashing out £550 on an aquamarine and diamond ring.

‘I’ve brought a nice blue wraparound cardigan with me. You can have that too, Pearl, if you do my hair as well.’

It didn’t look as though anyone would need cardigans: the weather was getting steadily hotter and muggier; huge white clouds rose like whipped cream on the horizon.

Terrified of being sent home, Paris kept telling everyone how much better he felt.

‘You can come,’ said Janna, ‘if you take it really easy and keep that hat on.’

The panama was almost unbearably becoming. With the brim over his nose, he could have drifted out of
Brideshead
or
The Great Gatsby
.

But I’m Julien Sorel, he told himself. When I’m sixty, Janna’ll be eighty, not a huge gap. Anyway, with her hair in a ponytail and freckles joining up on her face, she looked about fourteen.

As the coaches splashed through huge puddles, they seemed to be galloping back in time. Meadowsweet overran the emerald-green meadows, brown rivers struggled through great tangles of water lilies and dense primeval forests swarmed down the hills.

‘That’s a riffle, that’s a meander,’ yelled the children.

‘God it’s hot, are you OK, Paris?’ asked the girls repeatedly.

Joan, the eternal chaperone, marched up and down the coach in search of bad behaviour. Boffin, still engrossed in
A Brief History of Time
, hummed a Bach prelude in a reedy tenor.

‘Prince Harry’s been done for drink driving,’ said Amber, drinking Bourbon out of a Coke bottle, ‘he’s my hero.’

‘Pity he’s got a girlfriend,’ sighed Milly. ‘Boffin Brooks tried to snog me this morning. He must have month-old pilchards lodged in his brace. Where d’you think we’re going tonight? It’s so exciting.’

Jade stretched out long, newly bronzed and waxed legs.

‘Good book?’ she asked Paris.

‘Very,’ said Paris, not looking up.

Rufus was telling Kylie about whales.

‘They’ll be extinct quite soon.’

‘That’s really sad.’ Kylie’s big eyes filled with tears. ‘Just like the dildo.’

Pearl had been sad too on the trip to Hereford because Cosmo had gone off in another coach with Vicky. Now he was back sitting beside her, reading
Classical Music
magazine, smiling wickedly, caressing the outside curve of her breast with his little finger.

And so, after four nights of rigorously enforced celibacy, the coaches rolled over the border into Wales. Biffo Rudge sat at the front, directing the driver.

‘Here we are,’ he shouted as they rounded the corner. On the other side of a wide river, hazily reflected in its water like a forgotten child’s fortress, stood Castle Gafellyn against the darkening green trees.

As they crossed the river and drove through huge wrought-iron gates, flanked by rampant lions, they saw that the stern grey walls ahead were softened by rambling pink roses and pale blue hydrangeas.

‘Castle Gafellyn was a most important military outpost,’ read Biffo from Emlyn’s notes. ‘An early owner burnt it down to stop it falling into the predatory hands of the English.’ He pointed to a square green field framed by crumbling stone walls. ‘This was the enclosure into which livestock was herded at night to protect it from the wolves.’

‘Sounds just like us,’ said Pearl, sticking her tongue out at Cosmo.

I’ll teach you, he thought.

‘This is the sort of property in which the Macbeths might have resided,’ announced Boffin, ‘repelling other warlords and of course the English.’

The moat circling the castle was as green, still and smooth as mint jelly; all around dark forest encroached like stealthily invading armies. Like Burnham Wood advancing on Dunsinane, thought Paris, glancing at Janna, whose eyes were wide, her hands clasped in excitement like a child at her first pantomime. She deserved some fun; if only he could provide it.

Once inside, the children swarmed about, peering out through narrow, vertical windows, racing up winding stone staircases leading to turrets. Tapestries, swords and armour covered the walls. Meissen and Ming softened every alcove.

The owner, smooth, pewter-grey-haired, butterscotch-tanned, roving-eyed, was a childhood friend of Hengist called Bertie Wallace, who seemed deeply amused by the whole invasion.

‘When one’s ancestors have been accustomed to invading English hordes, Larks and Bagley seem very small beer,’ he observed dryly as the children fell on tomato sandwiches and rainbow cake.

‘It would have been fun to dine in the great hall, but it’s so hot, I thought you’d prefer the garden room which opens on to the terrace. Hengist used to stay here as a child,’ he told the somewhat awestruck teachers. ‘His parents were friends of my parents who sold the place to pay death duties. My wife and I bought it back and are planning to turn it into an hotel, but first it’s got to be extensively rebuilt and redecorated. Then I read about Larks joining forces with Bagley and thought you might like to stay here as a climax’ – he smiled knowingly at Janna – ‘to your trip.’

‘You are so kind,’ stammered Janna. ‘What a treat. The kids have behaved very well so far. I hope they don’t get carried away.’

‘In olden days, castles like this would have had rushes and meadowsweet all over the floor instead of carpets,’ pronounced Boffin.

A flurry of notes and a burst of
Rigoletto
indicated that Cambola had found the piano. Shrieks of joy echoed round the garden as the children discovered a croquet lawn and the swimming pool, a rippling turquoise expanse of water, framed by limes in sweet scented flower, heavy with the murmuring of bees.

‘We can go skinny-dipping later,’ purred Amber.

‘Or fatty-dipping, in Xavier’s case,’ said Cosmo evilly.

Bertie, soft-voiced and rakish, was decidedly attractive. Janna could imagine him and Hengist getting up to all sorts of tricks and because he was Hengist’s friend, she wanted to make a good impression.

‘I cannot think of a more wonderful end to our trip. And it will really help them to relate to history and Macbeth. “This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses”,’ she quoted happily.

‘“This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve By his lov’d mansionry that the heaven’s breath Smells wooingly here”,’ quoted back Bertie. ‘I used to be an actor. Hengist told me I’d like you.’

Janna squirmed with pleasure.

A smell of mint was drifting from the kitchen.

‘We’ve got smoked salmon, duck and puds. Do you think they’ll like that?’

‘Adore it, that’s absolutely perfect. Thank you, particularly’ – she thought of Calorie Towers – ‘after the food they’ve been having.’

‘I’m sorry I won’t be with you,’ said Bertie. ‘A friend’s having a dinner party five miles away, so after the servants have served up your dinner and it’s mostly cold, I hope you’ll forgive me if I hijack them to help my friend. They can clear up first thing. You’ll probably feel freer on your own.’

‘You’re awfully trusting.’

Vicky and Gloria, who, seeing Bertie, had raced to their rooms to tart up, now drifted in.

‘What a lovely property,’ gushed Vicky.

‘I could say the same for you two,’ quipped Bertie. ‘What amazing taste Hengist has in women.’

‘We’re expecting him later,’ said Vicky. ‘Oh, tomato sarnies, how yummy. I’ve just checked on Paris, Janna, he seems OK.’

Calm down, Janna told herself fiercely. What if Hengist was rolling up just to pull Vicky, who would wear something amazing tonight? ‘You are old, Father William.’

Janna’s room, at the end of a long corridor, was tauntingly romantic. The big four-poster with deep blue curtains embroidered with silver stars needed only a handsome prince. Other delights included a pale yellow Chinese screen, painted with narrow-eyed warriors, a bottle of champagne in ice and a dapple-grey rocking horse with a rose-red saddle. On the wall was a tapestry of Diana the huntress, her chariot drawn by a purposeful stag who looked very like Joan. Joan, putting an arm round Janna’s waist this morning, had definitely slid a hand upwards to grab a breast.

Janna and Joan: perhaps that was her destiny. Collapsing on the bed, she noticed even the blanket had a coat of arms, a golden ram with a motto, ‘Fidelis et Constans’. ‘An Atkinson Blanket, made in England’, said the label. Janna Curtis, made in Wales. Hengist was on the way. Would he be faithful and constant to Sally? She liked Sally so much; how hideous it would be if Hengist were to cheat on her with Vicky.

In another part of the castle, Cosmo, who intended to enjoy his evening, was lacing the fruit cup with vodka and brandy. By studying the guidebook, he had located, ten miles away, a renowned observatory with some adjoining historic troglodyte caves. His suggestion that Skunk and Biffo should give them a ring had resulted in both of them, plus Boffin and Rufus’s two minions, being invited to supper to view some rare eclipse and visit the troglodyte caves.

Cosmo had also arranged for his mother to invite Joan and Cambola to
Ariadne auf Naxos
in which she was singing in Cardiff, which would occupy them for several hours.

Rufus should have stayed at the castle too, but getting no answer from his wife Sheena on her mobile or at home, where she should have been with the children, he had panicked and decided to miss dinner and slope home for the evening.

Situation excellent, which meant only Janna, Vicky and Gloria left in charge. If Hengist did show up, reflected Cosmo, Janna would be oblivious to everything else, so his plan to seduce Vicky and Gloria looked feasible.

Cosmo emptied another bottle of vodka into the fruit cup.

53

Before dinner everyone met on the terrace. The pupils in particular were amazed how unfamiliar and glamorous they looked in their party dresses. Jade, made up by Pearl, in a clinging white dress slashed to the waist from top and bottom, showing off St Tropez tan applied by Pearl, her hair plaited and threaded with flowers by Pearl, looked over the top but sensational.

Pearl glowed like a pearl, her normally pinched, sharp, pale little face softened and flushed by sun, love and Jade’s flowered dress and pale blue wraparound cardigan.

‘Designer clothes are certainly worf the price,’ she admitted.

‘Because I’ve got designs on you,’ said Cosmo, patting her bottom.

Janna had washed and curled her hair, oiled her body and hidden sleepless nights with a lot of eye make-up. In her bronze speckled dress, which moulded her body and merged with her freckles, she looked like the Little Mermaid.

The children thought she looked stunning, but not as stunning as Vicky, who wore flamingo pink and who, perhaps trying to appear sophisticated for Hengist, had piled up and knotted a pink rose into her dark hair.

Everyone was agreeing they were having a fantastic time, when Bertie Wallace wandered in with a call for Joan Johnson.

‘She’s gone to the opera,’ said Janna.

‘It’s Hengist.’