by Jilly Cooper
‘But if you ever think of running away from Bagley’ – Hengist was lovingly smoothing Elaine’s white, velvet ears – ‘I want you to promise to pop in on Sally and me first, and we’ll give you some sandwiches and a can of Coke for the journey. Give me your hand and your promise,’ and his big suntanned hand enveloped Paris’s, which was almost as white and slender as Elaine’s paw.
Paris promised. He’d never met anyone as charismatic as Hengist. The thick, dark hair, olive skin, heavy-lidded eyes, beautiful clothes, the element of danger, the desire not exactly to corrupt but to stir up and subvert reminded him so much of Lord Henry Wotton in The Portrait of Dorian Gray. The same sweet, seductive scent of lilac, so memorable in the book, was now drifting in through the window, overpowering the clean, healthy, soapy smell of hawthorn.
Paris had been jealous of Hengist in the past, because Janna smelt so lovely and always seemed to be laughing when Hengist was around. Paris still thought and dreamt of her constantly. At the end of term, they would be split up, but at least before that, at the end of June, she would be coming on the geography field trip, when Larks and Bagley would be taking off together for Wales, and he might slay a dragon for her. He was very proud Hengist had chosen him, and with Feral by his side, he could face anything.
Hengist, predictably, was not just enlisting Feral entirely for Paris’s benefit. As a dazzling athlete, who’d really profit from decent coaching and pitches, Feral would bring glory to Bagley. Nor could Hengist resist unsettling that pompous ass Biffo Rudge by installing a gloriously priapic black boy in his house.
Alas, the next day, Feral was summoned off the cricket field, having just been bowled after knocking up a useful fifty in twenty minutes, and flabbergasted Hengist by turning down his offer of a place.
‘Kind of you, man, but I don’t like the thought of being locked up in the evening.’
He didn’t add that he was worried his family would fall apart if he wasn’t there to hold it together.
‘“Why, uncle, ’tis a shame”,’ said Paris when he heard the news. Although devastated by Feral’s refusal, he wasn’t prepared to betray regret or try and talk him round.
‘As I’m locked up already, I might as well accept a more upmarket gaol.’
Nor was everyone pleased about Paris going to Bagley. Joan Johnson thought free places should have been offered to clever Aysha, or Kylie for her pretty voice, or Pearl for her artistic skills.
And if the masters at Bagley were excited, the staff at Larks were outraged that Paris would be thrown to the wolves of private education.
Emerald and Sophy Belvedon, who liked to dump their own children on Granny Patience whenever they needed a break, also expressed doubts.
‘He’ll be bringing his rough friends home and breaking the place up. He’s already smashed my maquette of Northcliffe,’ raged Emerald. ‘And I hope Daddy’s not going to get any silly ideas like Jupiter about sons inheriting everything.’
Sophy was more worried that teenagers were wildly expensive and that her parents had just got straight financially after Ian going bankrupt in the nineties.
Janna, meanwhile, had not made it up with Hengist. Ringing up to ask her to lunch, he received an earful, but refused to admit he’d pulled a fast one by poaching Paris.
‘Darling, from the moment we met at La Perdrix d’Or, you kept telling me how wonderfully clever Paris was, thrusting his poems and essays at me, saying he needed to escape from the poverty trap. I honestly thought that was what you wanted.’
‘Oh, go to hell.’ Janna slammed down the telephone.
She was having a very tough summer. The GCSEs loomed and unless their results improved, they would again be branded one of the worst schools in the West. Exams also meant the gym would be out of action, so the children couldn’t work off any energy. The Wolf Pack were demoralized and acting up because Paris was leaving. Half the staff were moonlighting and exhausted and tetchy, after four or five hours marking GCSE papers every night.
After the good publicity generated by Romeo and Juliet, many parents had put Larks as their first choice. Then the wretched council had changed the bus route, which meant buses no longer stopped outside the school gates and parents, worried about kidnapping and sexual abuse, changed their minds.
One step forward, one step back.
But despite not a week passing without a slagging off in the Gazette, Janna felt the school was steadily improving. Thanks to frequent visits from Gablecross’s constabulary, there was much less fighting in the playground or in the corridors. Teachers were mostly able to teach. Mrs Kamani no longer complained of shoplifting and rowdy behaviour. Even Miss Miserden, the old biddy who lived at the bottom of the drive, stopped grumbling about Feral’s football after Graffi rescued her cat Scamp from the top branch of a pear tree. The children had also been on some terrific jaunts to the seaside, to the Blackpool illuminations, to Longleat and the London Eye. A production of Oliver! was planned for next term.
Vicky, who would direct it, was not enjoying the summer term as much as her spring one. She couldn’t slope off to Bagley all the time and had to face up to the rough and tumble of Larks.
In the last week in May, in the middle of the GCSEs, having gained Mike Pitts’s permission and claiming it was ‘vital for her professional development’, Vicky sloped off for two days at a National Theatre workshop.
In her absence, Janna discovered a shambles of homework unmarked and work unset. Worse still, Vicky was hardly engaging with her tutor group, with the result that one girl was being so badly bullied, she tried to hang herself with a pair of tights during break.
Janna, who had already received a warning from the girl’s mother, had ordered Vicky to sort it out. Vicky had clearly done nothing.
Bitter shame that she herself hadn’t prevented it fuelled Janna’s anger. Vicky was due back on the Wednesday morning before half-term, then rang in to tell Rowan her train had broken down and she wouldn’t be back till after lunch.
She had eventually floated in around two-forty-five, Little Miss Demure in a navy blue suit, with her shining clean hair drawn into a neat bun, pale cheeks flushed, wafting Trésor. Immediately, she started wittering on about ‘cutting-edge productions’ and ‘unique opportunities to discover my own creativity’.
Janna let her run, then let rip, epitomizing every cliché about redheads and fiery tempers. Partner shot under the sofa.
‘I trusted you, Vicky. How dare you bunk off like this? Year Eight is totally under-rehearsed for their play on Parents’ Day. Year Eleven can’t quote a single line from A View from the Bridge and they’ve got Eng. lit. tomorrow. You left no lesson plans for this morning.’
‘I rang in,’ bridled Vicky.
‘You should have come back. Lottie Hargreaves, one of your tutor group, tried to hang herself. We’ve had the police here all morning. I told you to keep an eye on her. You’ve let me down!’
‘And you’ve let me down,’ shouted back Vicky. ‘You never warned me this school was completely out of control. A parent slapped my face the other day.’
‘Why didn’t you report it?’
‘I didn’t want to sneak.’ Vicky burst into tears and fled.
Overnight, Janna cooled down. The fact remained she needed Vicky. Whatever her limitations, she had reduced truancy among the boys, and with so many children taking drama and English GCSEs next year because of her, Janna couldn’t really sack her. She’d better call her in first thing, before she caused too much havoc.
She was greeted on the morrow by a furious Rowan.
‘You’re not going to like this.’
It was a letter from Bagley’s personnel department asking for a reference for Vicky who had applied for a job teaching English and drama. Janna flipped and rang Hengist who, as Painswick had gone to the dentist, picked up the telephone. Bruckner’s Eight was on fortissimo. Hengist only turned it down fractionally and when Janna started screaming at him, became quite sharp. Education was a free-for-all. Vicky w
as entitled to work where she wanted. As long as her notice was in by 31 May, which was tomorrow, she could start in the autumn.
‘Anyway, I can’t see why you’re making such a fuss. You seemed pretty anxious to be shot of the poor child yesterday. I also wanted to make things easy for Paris,’ he went on, even more infuriatingly, ‘who will feel happier if he’s acquainted with a member of staff.’
Out of the window, Janna could see a Year Eleven pupil so deep in last-minute revision, she bumped into an oak tree.
‘“All my pretty chickens and their dam, At one fell swoop?”’ she said tonelessly. ‘How dare you poach my staff and pupils without asking?’
‘Because I knew you’d try and stop me,’ said Hengist unrepentantly.
‘Vicky has ensured three-quarters of Year Ten will be taking drama GCSE next year.’
‘That’s great. We can hold joint Larks–Bagley classes. Means I’ll see more of you.’
After that, Janna’s shouting could be heard all over Larks, and Partner took refuge in Rowan’s office.
‘I’m not going to talk to you until you cool down,’ said Hengist and hung up.
‘We’re well shot of her, she’s an applause junkie and a dozy bitch,’ said Rowan, rushing in with a box of tissues and a cup of black coffee laced with brandy. ‘Give her a good reference to show you’re magnanimous. Lord Brett-Taylor can pick up the pieces when she fucks up.’
‘Rowan,’ said Janna in awe, ‘I’ve never heard you swear before.’
Janna’s magnanimity was sorely tested when she and Vicky met.
‘I’m tired of sticking up for you, Jannie.’
‘Who first approached you?’ asked Janna numbly.
‘I don’t remember, but Hengist, Emlyn and nice Alex Bruce, such a sweetie, all suggested I’d be an asset to Bagley, and frankly’ – Vicky smiled helplessly – ‘Hengist is so charismatic, I can’t resist the chance of working with him. And if I can ease Paris’s transition and Hengist believes I can . . .’ Then, misinterpreting the anguish on Janna’s face: ‘But don’t worry, I won’t let you down over the geography field trip. Emlyn’s going and Hengist even said he might drop in. He’s arranged for us to stay in some Welsh stately castle. I can’t wait.’
Vicky didn’t add that she herself had applied for the job, and at her first interview over lunch with Hengist on Wednesday, had presented him with a rare work on rugby football or that yesterday, after Janna had carpeted her, she had driven over to Bagley and sobbed on Alex’s narrow shoulder, telling him:
‘Larks is out of control: a Year Nine boy tried to rape me’ (mild lunge from Monster) ‘and I was punched by a parent’ (mild lunge from a mother whose husband Vicky had inveigled into Larks to paint cupboards).
‘I loved Jannie so much in Yorkshire,’ Vicky had continued to sob. ‘She was such fun. Now she seems to have lost her creativity. She’s so hard now.’
Dora Belvedon, busy weeding up wallflowers under the window, heard everything, which the following day appeared in the Gazette as ‘Star teacher and pupil to leave Larks’.
Red Robbie, who’d been hoping to get his leg over Vicky on the geography field trip, was so shocked by her defection to an independent, he flatly refused to go.
Janna also received lots of flak.
‘Just learnt of your tragic loss,’ emailed Rod Hyde, ‘you must try and hang on to your good staff.’
‘I don’t know what we’ll do without our little Vicky to bring sunshine into our life,’ moaned Basket.
Monster proceeded to trash the drama department.
I’m just jealous of Vicky having constant access to Hengist and Paris, thought Janna in despair. She wished she could pour her heart out to Emlyn, but he’d taken the opportunity of half-term to fly to Afghanistan to see Oriana.
Janna spent most of the break sobbing for her mother. She had to face up to the fact that hard work cannot blot out loneliness for ever.
The only positive thing she did was to telephone her friend Sophy Belvedon. Sophy was Ian and Patience’s daughter, married to Alizarin, the brother of Jupiter, Dora and Dicky. Sophy was also an English and drama teacher, with whom Janna had worked in Yorkshire, who now lived in London.
Sophy was her usual cheerful, adorable self.
‘It’s so lovely to hear from you. Mum says you’re making a brilliant job of Larks. It must be so beautiful down there now.’
‘How’s Dulcie?’ asked Janna. ‘She must be nearly eighteen months now.’
‘She’s heaven, but I’m not sure being a full-time mother’s quite me. I’m so turning into a cabbage, leaves are sprouting out of my head. I’m sure some German’s going to make me into sauerkraut.’
‘You don’t want a job, do you?’
‘God, I’d love one.’
‘Head of English and drama in the autumn.’
‘Oh yes, yes please.’
‘It’s a pretty rough school.’
‘Couldn’t be rougher than London. Someone chucked a brick through our drawing-room window yesterday. We could get an au pair or perhaps Mum could look after Dulcie during the day. Might put her and Dad off their latest mad project of fostering a looked-after kid of fourteen.’
Alex Bruce, while delighted by the annexing of Vicky, bitterly regretted that Hengist’s ability to poach clever children and staff was only equalled by his irrational refusal to boot out the stupid children of his friends.
The Chinless Wanderers: Lando, Jack and Junior, although dazzling at games, were predicted to get straight Us in their GCSE exams in two years’ time. Xavier Campbell-Black bumped sulkily along the bottom of the class and his sister Bianca, even more intellectually challenged, had recently revealed that she didn’t know on which side Hitler fought in the last war.
Alex was anxious to single out any pupils on the Grade C/D borderline and give them early coaching. Anyone below that level would endanger Bagley’s place in the league tables and should be asked to leave.
‘Bianca will stay,’ said Hengist firmly. ‘She’s destined to be the next Darcey Bussell. Screw the league tables. We must cultivate individual excellence.’
‘You said you wanted to beat Fleetley and ward off any challenge from St Jimmy’s.’
‘Maybe I did. The secret of greatness is to admit one is in the wrong.’
Hengist’s inconsistency drove Alex crackers.
‘Thank God this school is in a safe pair of hands,’ he told Miss Painswick.
‘Thank God for a handy pair of safes,’ smirked Little Cosmo, as he and Lubemir cracked the combination of the safe in the school office, photostatted the 2002 GCSE and A level papers stored inside and flogged them for five hundred pounds a go to needy candidates.
‘We need never work again,’ crowed Cosmo, ‘and we’re doing our bit for Bagley by ensuring it does really well in the league tables.’
Having insinuated himself as a regular in the school office by plying Miss Painswick with chocolates and Dame Hermione’s latest CDs, Cosmo also overheard Alex chuntering over Bianca’s lack of intellect.
After his success at photographing the stars of Romeo and Juliet, Cosmo had been asked to do the pictures for the school prospectus and achieved an excellent multicultural mix by putting Anatole, Lubemir, Nordic blonde Amber and Bianca on the cover. No one could sack Bianca if she was in the prospectus.
Cosmo also found the proofs of the prospectus on Painswick’s computer and added ‘binge-drinking, buggery and Bruce-baiting’ to the list of pupils’ favourite activities. Fortunately this was picked up and deleted by an amused Hengist.
Alex also had to accept the fact that during Wimbledon, which coincided with the last fortnight of term, Hengist would be virtually incommunicado, claiming to be writing a crucial piece for The Times, when all you could hear was the thwack of tennis balls and the rattle of applause.
This year, Anatole’s father dropped in for ‘an important meeting’ and to thwack and rattle were added the chink of bottles and roars of laughter as he and Hengist
enjoyed the dazzling Miss Kournikova in the first round.
Hengist fiddled, while Alex burnt with resentment.
50
Field trips are very hard work and enmeshed in red tape, so once Red Robbie refused to go as a matter of principle, the rest of Larks’s staff were only too glad to use their disapproval of the private sector as an excuse to opt out. Anyway, they were far too busy marking exams and writing reports.
So Janna buried her pride and pleaded with Robbie to change his mind: ‘Next term Year Nine will begin their two-year GCSE course. This trip will whet their appetite not just for geography but for history and English. There are wonderful activities planned. They’ll learn self-esteem and the ability to relate to people of a different background.’
Robbie had folded his arms and gazed mutinously up at the damp patch in the ceiling, until Janna lost it.
‘You’re just terrified of being shown up because Rufus Anderson’s such a brilliant head of geography.’
This caused a rumpus, with the senior staff blanking Janna and Sam Spink marching in accusing Janna of humiliating Robbie.
‘Good,’ snapped Janna.
So in the end, Janna only had Vicky who, having sworn she wouldn’t let Janna down, couldn’t back out, and Gloria who had a crush on Emlyn, and Skunk Illingworth who would do anything for a freebie and who also had a crush on Vicky, and Cambola who was always game for a jaunt. Mags would have come but her new grandchild was about to be born and the ever dependable Wally had his son, Ben, home on leave.
Batting for Bagley were Rufus and a couple of his young geography teachers, No-Joke Joan who also had a crush on Vicky and didn’t want to let any of her young women loose unchaperoned with Cosmo and all those dreadful Larks youths around, and, of course, Emlyn.
