Wicked! (87 page)

‘Do you know it’s illegal to have sex out of doors?’ Janna had teased him on his last visit. ‘I’m sure Miss Miserden’s got a periscope.’

‘It’s called outreach, because I reach out for you,’ said Hengist.

Above them on the right of an apricot-pink harvest moon, Mars, like an angry red-gold lion tossing his mane, dominated the evening sky.

‘This year’s belonged to Mars,’ said Hengist, as he zipped up his trousers, ‘that’s why you won your battle over Year Ten, but you must watch Ashton. I don’t know what he can still do to hurt you, but I don’t trust him. Two thousand and four, thank God, will be Venus’s year. She’ll shine so brightly, I’ll fall in love with you all over again.’

As he smiled down, he noticed, like scratches on a scraper board, new lines on her face.

‘Darling, you must get a break. Why not come and crash out for a few days in the house we rent in Tuscany? I’ll call you.’

But after that visit in late July she had heard nothing for nearly five weeks. She knew he was back because she’d read in the
Independent
about the fundraising evening and Rupert’s GCSE, which he’d only finally agreed to take because all the papers claimed he’d never pass. Janna had been tempted to drop him a line and ask him if he’d like a place at Larks. That would solve any woman-teacher recruitment problem.

Throughout the summer, her thoughts had flickered too often to Emlyn. She was so grateful to him for helping sort out Feral that she called him to say the Welsh National Opera were doing
Turandot
at the Bristol Hippodrome. If she got two tickets, would he like to come?

‘And I’ll buy you dinner afterwards.’

‘I can’t, lovely; I’ve got a lot on.’

And Janna felt snubbed.

‘When I suggested another night,’ she told Lily, ‘he said he was going to see his mother. He hasn’t flown anywhere to see Oriana this summer. Do you think’ – Janna loathed the thought – ‘he’s got someone else?’

Lily shook her head.

‘I’m sure he’s still crazy about Oriana and thinks that somehow, if he’s faithful, God will reward him.’

‘How complicated,’ sighed Janna. ‘What’s she like?’

‘Bit chilly and critical. Ambitious like her father, but she lacks Hengist’s warmth and
joie de vivre
.’

87

Hengist was full of joy as he changed for dinner at St Matthew’s, his old Cambridge college. He and Sally had had such a magic evening last night, listening to Mahler Three at the Proms and watching a rainbow soaring out of the turning trees, which after rain were all glittering gold in the setting sunlight. They had then rushed up to bed and made such warm, passionate love that they had forgotten their mobiles, lying like lovers side by side on the terrace table, both still working perfectly in the morning, despite a further shower of rain – like our marriage, thought Hengist.

He was still battling not to be too triumphalist over Bagley’s leap in the league tables; they were only a place below Fleetley. What matter if, to Alex’s fury, St Jimmy’s were only five places behind Bagley?

Dear Theo had, once again, got everyone through everything. He must put him forward for a Teaching Award, it would so annoy Alex.

The evening at St Matthew’s was all Hengist could have wished for: exquisite food and wine and, although he loved women, as a man who had always charmed his own sex, he found there was something so wonderfully uncorseted about an all alpha-male evening. He loved keeping the table in a roar. He adored the wheeling and dealing, the superior gossip, learning of a brilliant undergraduate who, after he came down, might like to spend a year or ten teaching at Bagley, and dropping in turn hints about a brilliant Bagley boy.

‘We plucked him out of the state system and a children’s home. Theo’s been coaching him.’

There was a lot of chuntering about admissions tutors being forced to accept lower grades from poorer students and a great deal of laughter over Rupert Campbell-Black’s GCSE.

‘You know him well, Hengist.’

‘Love him – but he’d rather die than fail.’

‘His son is a rare pianist, I never thought the Grieg could reduce me to tears.’

Over the port, people started table-hopping and the Master drew Hengist into a window seat, and in a voice as soft as the bloom on the black grapes asked him if he’d be interested in Fleetley.

‘Hatchet Hawkley’s retiring in two thousand and five.’

‘The end of a great era,’ said Hengist lightly.

‘May we put your name forward, Hengist?’

Hengist looked at the wise, knowing face:

‘I don’t know how delighted Hatchet would be. I used to be one of his junior masters . . . Our son Mungo . . .’

Hengist didn’t add that his passionate affaire with Hatchet’s wife, Pippa, had only been discovered by Hatchet after her death.

‘I know you have painful memories,’ said the Master.

‘Sally more.’ Through the dusk Hengist could see the first yellow leaves falling on yellowing lawns.

‘Hatchet has always been laid back about recruitment,’ urged the Master, ‘you could raise it to new heights.’

‘I’ll think about it very seriously,’ said Hengist with that smile that could melt icebergs.

After a college restoration meeting the next morning, followed by a light, excellent lunch and a trip to buy a lovely oil of a greyhound for Sally, Hengist was in celebratory mood, and picked up his mobile:

‘Darling, I’ll be with you around eight and don’t wear any knickers.’

As he left, he noticed a mower cutting to pieces any fairy rings on the college lawn.

In Hamburg, negotiating the building of a hypermarket, Randal Stancombe rang Ruth Walton between meetings. Their relationship had recently suffered a setback. Lorraine, his estranged wife, had not been amused when reports on Randal, goading Rupert into taking a GCSE, had referred to Ruth as ‘the utterly gorgeous new love of his life’. Nor had Milly; outraged at being banned from seeing Graffi, she had promptly accused Randal of groping her. Ruth had staunchly dismissed this as fantasy on Milly’s part, but did suggest it might be better if she and Randal cooled it until next week, when Milly was safely back at Bagley.

Randal now rang in the hope that the coast might be clear. Sadly it wasn’t.

‘We’ve got to do Milly’s trunk. She’s put on seven pounds in the holidays, most of it round the bust.’

Like her mother, thought Stancombe. He must keep his hands off Milly.

‘And I’ve got a Bagley’s governors’ meeting early evening. After that Milly and I are getting a takeaway; she says we never talk these days.’ Ruth added more hot water to a jacuzzi as big as the Bagley lake. ‘But once term starts, I’m all yours.’

‘What a lovely “all”,’ purred Stancombe.

Ten minutes later, racked with lust, he decided to kill the meeting and fly home for the night. He bought Milly a bottle of Obsession at the hotel shop and he would sweep her and Ruth out to the La Perdrix d’Or. Somehow he must persuade Ruth to marry him. To hell with Lorraine taking him to the cleaners; he could afford it. Ruth made him feel like a god in and out of bed and after all the surgery he’d paid for, he felt he owned most of her anyway.

As he let himself into the Cavendish Plaza flat he allowed her to live in for nothing, he was touched at first to find candles on a table. Ruth, like the good mother she was, was taking her bonding session with Milly very seriously. Two bottles of his Krug, lobster and strawberries in the fridge were pushing it a bit, as was the Château d’Yquem. There was even a rocket and asparagus salad and, most caring of all, home-made mayonnaise.

On the triple bed, on the other hand, was a Janet Reger carrier bag with a suspender belt, tutu and negligee spilling out, too good even for Milly’s trunk, and sweet-scented roses and lilies everywhere.

Stancombe flicked on the machine. The deep, lazy, patrician tones were unmistakable.

‘Darling, I’ll be with you around eight and don’t wear any knickers.’

Clearly this governors’ meeting was only for two people. Quivering with clumsy rage, Stancombe removed flowers, food, bottles, underwear – all Ruth’s seduction kit – from the flat. He wanted to kill them both so badly, he nearly ran his Ferrari into the Casey Andrews sculpture adorning the exit to Cavendish Plaza. The bastard, the bitch, the bitch, the bastard. His brain was a red fuzz. He’d cancel the Stancombe block at Bagley, but it was already a quarter up, which was more than he was. Desperate for a pretty shoulder to cry on, he drove straight round to Janna’s.

Janna had been anticipating a quiet evening. She was delighted to see Lily off on a date with the Brigadier, which would include watching a recording of
Buffers
. Emlyn had swept Feral off to see a Welsh rugby sports doctor about his ankle and spend the night with Emlyn’s mother in Wales.

The birds in Janna’s garden had stopped singing, too exhausted by caring for their young at the end of the summer holidays. She had just opened a tin of Pedigree Chum for Partner when she heard a car outside.

At first, when she saw the bottles of Krug in Randal’s hand, she thought he’d come to exact payment in kind for financing the rebuilding of Appletree. When he plonked them on the kitchen table, along with a bottle of Château d’Yquem and a carrier bag spilling over with pink underwear, she asked him if he’d won the lottery.

She was just hastily washing Pedigree Chum off her hands, when he returned with armfuls of flowers and a carrier bag containing two lobsters, strawberries and a bowl of mayonnaise and told her to put them and the Krug in the fridge.

‘How lovely,’ squeaked Janna. ‘Would you like some of your own drink, or shall I put these in water first?’

Then she noticed Stancombe was wearing a suit and tie, as though he’d just come from the office, that he was shuddering and there was a green tinge to his permatan.

‘Whatever’s the matter?’

Stancombe slumped down at the kitchen table and started to cry.

‘Oh, my poor love.’ Running round, Janna put her arms round him. ‘Is it Jade? What’s happened?’

‘Ruth,’ sobbed Stancombe.

‘Oh my God, is she OK?’

‘She’s OK, the fucking bitch. She’s seeing someone else.’

‘Are you sure? She always seems mad about you!’

Ashamed of breaking down, Stancombe blew his nose on a piece of kitchen roll and proceeded to pace up and down the tiny kitchen like a tiger penned in a travelling crate.

Janna took down a vase and as the roses were beginning to droop, found a rolling pin to bash the stems.

‘God I loved her, the bitch,’ said Stancombe despairingly.

‘She was just probably being friendly with whoever.’

‘Like hell. I decided to surprise her and she had dinner prepared and my flat decked out for your friend Hengist.’

‘Ouch!’ The rolling pin crushing her fingers and the rose thorn plunging into her thumb were nothing to the pain. ‘Hengist? It can’t be. He and Sally . . .’

‘Fucking hypocrite. “My darling Sally”, indeed.’

‘How long’s it been going on?’ asked Janna numbly.

‘Dunno. A bit – he left a message on her machine telling her not to wear any panties.’

Ouch, thought Janna. Why can’t men get a new script?

‘He’s always treated me like shit,’ went on Stancombe, getting the Krug out of the fridge. ‘No wonder he wouldn’t make me a governor – interrupt their little footsy footsy under the boardroom table. It’s the lies I hate, pretending Milly needed some quality time with her mother, when she only wants to be shagged by Mr B-T.’

They went outside and Stancombe and (mostly) Janna drank the first bottle of Krug. Janna had the sprinkler on, defying the hosepipe ban, and kept drenching herself as she moved it round the parched lawn, or leapt up to liberate a Japanese anemone or late delphinium bent double by bindweed. Occasionally an apple thudded to the ground.

Partner, sensing her desolation, stayed very close as Stancombe ranted on and on about expensive trips, surgery, designer clothes for both Ruth and Milly and Milly’s school fees.

‘Ruth’ll be begging for a place at Larks. She won’t be able to afford Bagley any more.’

In the middle, Janna rushed next door to Lily’s to feed the General and found, instead of cat food, she had emptied a tin of pineapple chunks into his bowl. On her return with the second bottle of Krug, Stancombe was still cataloguing grievances.

‘And I’m getting those emeralds back. I really loved Ruth.’

And I really, really loved Hengist, thought Janna. In the dark Stancombe couldn’t see the tears pouring down her cheeks.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she muttered. ‘Shall we open this?’

‘I’ve got a better idea.’ Seizing her hand, Stancombe dragged her upstairs. ‘Nice little property, this.’

‘“What gat ye to your dinner, Lord Randal, my son?”’ cried Janna wildly. ‘“Make my bed soon, For I’m weary wi’ hunting and fain wald lie down.”’

‘Say again?’ asked Stancombe.

‘Only an old lay – rather like me,’ muttered Janna. Was she going mad? Aware what a pathetic figure she must cut, compared with radiant, bosomy Ruth, she dawdled over undressing, tripping as she tried to escape from her knickers. Stancombe, by comparison, was resplendent, far sleeker than Hengist.