by Jilly Cooper
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.
‘Why should she cheat on me?’ He flexed his muscles in the mirror, then added curtly: ‘Put on her underwear.’
‘It won’t fit.’
Janna’s much smaller breasts went straight through the cut-outs for nipples of Ruth’s pink lace bra. To stay up, the suspender belt had to be tied behind. The black fishnet hold-ups had to be folded over like long socks.
‘God. She knew how to please men,’ groaned Stancombe. As he lay back on ivory satin sheets bought to please Hengist, his cock was almost a kingpost supporting the beam. Without any foreplay, Janna was dry as the fields outside and screamed as he tried to force his way in.
‘Get that fucking dog out,’ yelled Stancombe as Partner rushed yapping to the rescue.
Terrified he might mistake Stancombe’s cock for a particularly splendid stick, Janna shoved Partner outside and cautiously rejoined Stancombe on the bed, wondering what to do next. Stancombe had no doubts. Waving his penis like a torch, he said:
‘Suck it, you bitch, it won’t suck itself.’
So Janna went down on him, hands going like pistons, licking, sucking, flickering, to an accompaniment of whining and scratching from an incensed and banished Partner. Thinking of Mrs Walton’s leisurely expertise as she despatched Hengist to heaven, Janna gave a despairing sob.
‘Keep going, darling.’ Stancombe’s hand clutched the back of her head. ‘Keep going. Aaah.’ And he shot into her mouth.
Stancombe was showered and dressed in five minutes. On the way out he said:
‘Sorry. I dumped on you in every way.’
Seeing the misery on his face, she said:
‘I’m sure she’ll come back.’
‘No one cheats on Randal Stancombe.’ And he was gone.
Janna felt dirty and utterly desolate. Unable to stop crying, she gulped down the second bottle of Krug to take away the taste of Stancombe.
‘Forgo your dream, poor fool of love.’
The pain was so excruciating, she couldn’t go on.
Ripping some October pages out of her diary, much aided by Chateau d’Yquem, she settled down to write a suicide note. Lily was away; no one would find her until it was too late.
‘My heart has been utterly broken by Hengist Brett-Taylor,’ she began. ‘My life
is no longer worth living.’
When she’d finished, she couldn’t find the bottle of paracetamol. As she tried to climb upstairs to look for it, she fell in a crumpled heap on the bottom step and passed out.
Driving back from Wales early next morning, marvelling at the white biblical rays of sunlight falling through the thinning tree ceiling, Emlyn fretted that he’d snubbed Janna over the Welsh National Opera and Turandot. He was so fond of her and in such a muddle about Oriana. He’d almost sensed Oriana’s relief when he’d announced he wouldn’t be flying out to see her this summer, but it had in no way diminished his longing. Lily, the Brigadier and Sally kept encouraging him to take Janna out. But although he wanted her friendship and her body, he knew if Oriana walked through the door, he’d be as hopelessly hooked as ever, so his muddle was unsorted.
The trip to Wales had at least been a success; the Welsh expert on rugby injuries said Feral’s ankle needed only rest. Emlyn’s mother had spoilt them both rotten. As he’d just dropped Feral off to visit his brothers and sisters in the next village, Emlyn decided to call on Janna.
Partner was ecstatic to see him and promptly led him to his mistress, who had somehow got herself on to the sitting-room sofa. As she was still asleep (and, he noticed, wearing some very saucy underwear beneath her dressing gown), Emlyn wandered off to the kitchen, taking in the empty bottles, the flowers, the fridge door open, the lobsters inside and blood from Janna’s rose-pricked fingers everywhere.
‘I wish you could talk, boyo,’ he told Partner as he fed him and filled up his water bowl.
Then he picked up an envelope on which was scrawled: ‘To whom it may concern – no one probably’.
Inside was Janna’s suicide note, scrawled on pages from Yom Kippur to Halloween. Whistling as he read it, Emlyn felt amazement, sadness and fury. Bastard Hengist, bastard Stancombe.
Having fixed himself a cup of very sweet black coffee and a plate of lobster and home-made mayonnaise, he proceeded to mark the suicide note: F for grammar – ‘two split infinitives and tenses all to pieces’; G for spelling; U for handwriting – ‘almost indecipherable towards the end’; C for imagination; E for narrative skill – ‘confused and repetitive’; D for vocabulary – ‘somewhat repetitive’. Only for melodrama did he award her A star.
Janna came round at midday to find Emlyn polishing off the strawberries.
‘How long has Hengist been shagging you?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Then, slowly registering the suicide note in his hand: ‘About a year and a bit.’
‘And Stancombe?’
‘Oh, not at all, at all.’
Again Emlyn waved the note.
‘Well, maybe last night.’ Janna frowned, trying to remember. ‘Only to stop the pain.’
‘Which must be even worse now judging by the booze you’ve shipped.’
When she reread the suicide note, complete with Emlyn’s marking, Janna started to giggle helplessly.
‘You shouldn’t make horrible jokes when my heart is broken. Why do I get so hurt?’
‘Shouldn’t sleep with married men.’ Emlyn handed her a glass of Alka-Seltzer. ‘If they cheat on their wives, they’ll cheat on you.’
‘According to this, I didn’t sleep with Stancombe.’ Janna shuddered.
Emlyn had caught the sun yesterday, his face was tawny brown rather than ruddy, but the expression on it was unreadable. Janna longed to collapse sobbing into his arms. She put a cushion over her face. ‘I can’t go on. I love Hengist so much.’
‘Don’t be wet,’ said Emlyn briskly, ‘you’ve got forty kids to get through GCSEs. Mrs Walton’s the one in trouble. Who’s going to bankroll her now? Hengist certainly won’t leave Sally.’
‘You won’t tell anyone about Hengist and me?’ pleaded Janna. ‘Stancombe hasn’t a clue’ – she shivered – ‘but he’s out to bury Hengist.’
‘Ruthless in both senses of the word,’ sighed Emlyn.
Hengist was in fact extremely twitchy. Not since David Hawkley went through the effects of his late wife Pippa had he been caught out. At first he and Ruth thought the flat had been burgled, then they saw a copy of the Hamburg evening paper. Hengist had made himself scarce. Only later, after Randal had come round and had it out with her, did Ruth ring him at home in hysterics. Sally, thankfully, was staying with her mother.
‘Randal heard the message about me not wearing knickers’ – Hengist went cold – ‘and he’s keeping the tape as evidence. He didn’t beat me up, but he’s chucking me out in the morning and he’s stopped all my credit cards and taken back the Merc.’
‘God, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all your fault,’ screamed Ruth. ‘Where am I going to live and what about the school fees? You’ll have to give Milly a bursary.’
As Milly was definitely C/D borderline, Alex wouldn’t be at all amused. Oh dear, how rash he’d been.
‘Where did Stancombe go when he found out?’
‘Straight round to Janna Curtis.’ Then, bitchily: ‘You’re always saying how good she is with difficult children.’
‘Christ.’ Hengist had gone even colder. ‘What did she say?’
‘Evidently they talked for hours, and probably ended up in bed. What the hell am I going to do – sue him for palimony?’
Hengist even in extremis couldn’t resist a joke.
‘You could get a flat in the catchment area of St Jimmy’s. Everybody’s doing it for A levels, then the universities couldn’t discriminate against Milly for being at a public school.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, be serious. There’s no way Milly’s going to a state school. My life is ruined.’
So will mine be if the news reaches Sally, thought Hengist.
In the middle of Friday afternoon, more flowers arrived at Jubilee Cottage. For a moment Janna’s heart leapt, hoping that they might be Hengist apologizing, but the card said, ‘Thank you for listening, Randal Stancombe’.
Stancombe had already decided to make a play for Anthea Belvedon. It would infuriate Ruth, who disliked her intensely, and it would mean access at last to Little Dora.
88
Hengist did not officially announce that he would be leaving Bagley at the end of summer 2005, because neither the job as Jupiter’s Minister of Education nor as head of Fleetley had been firmed up. But from the start of the autumn term 2003 he began dropping hints, setting in train a hunt to find his successor, who must be both a giant and a genius at recruitment. The procedure was to appoint someone at the end of the penultimate year of the departing head, which in Hengist’s case would be summer 2004. A small sub-committee of governors would be elected to look for a new head.
Alex Bruce, already hell-bent on getting the job, was consequently even more determined to improve his own house’s results by chucking out potential failures like Xavier Campbell-Black. Poppet was already meddling in the leadership struggle by trying to get herself elected to the sub-committee and urging it to monitor applicants to maintain a gender balance. She then encouraged Joan Johnson to put herself forward as a suitable candidate, to which Hengist exploded that after his predecessor, Sabine Bottomley, he wasn’t having ‘another bloody dyke at the helm’.
A shocked Poppet reproached Hengist for homophobia.
She’s probably right, reflected Hengist ruefully.
He had never stopped regretting that he had passed up Artie Deverell as deputy head in favour of the robotic Alex. He had done this not just because he’d wanted Alex to take over all the tasks he detested, but because he’d felt that having a self-confessed homosexual in the job might deter parents. He had been quite wrong. The parents adored Artie, who in his sweetness had never once reproached Hengist for such a betrayal.
Now Hengist was paying for it. Alex, the tortoise to his hare, was slowly imposing his stranglehold. Last term Alex had tried to sack Rufus because missing coursework had been discovered by a cleaner under his bed. Now, on the first Friday of term, the school photograph was being taken and Alex in a
frenzy of bossiness was making sure everyone was wearing correct uniform, their hair was brushed and their heights similar. A diversion had been created by Dicky Belvedon, one of the smallest boys in the school; in a desperate attempt to make himself look taller, he had coaxed his hair upwards with pineapple gel, which on a warm, windless September afternoon had attracted a swarm of wasps.
It was only after a blushing, mortified Dicky had returned from washing out the gel, and Alex had finally got everyone settled, that Dicky’s sister Dora pointed out that all the Upper Fifths taking GCSEs with Mr Graham were missing, including two star pupils: Cosmo and Paris.
The glorious thing about Theo Graham’s classes was that he was not only inspiring on his own subject – the ancient world being populated with people he seemed to know intimately – but also easily diverted onto others.
On Wednesday, the Upper Fifth had discussed in what kind of ship Ulysses would have returned to Ithaca. Today, Theo had produced a cutting about Sutton Hoo, where a lot of Anglo-Saxon remains had been unearthed. They’d even dug up an entire eighty-nine-foot-long ship with its warrior captain buried inside it. Another warrior had been found buried with his horse.
‘Imagine your father being buried beside Penscombe Peterkin,’ mocked Jade.
Not a road Xav wanted to go down. Peterkin had been scratched from the St Leger. He doubted if his father would ever speak to him again.
‘Siegfried was carried down the Rhine on a funeral ship,’ murmured Cosmo with an evil smile, ‘but he was already dead. Black shit no-hopers like Xavier Campbell-Black ought to be buried alive.’
Theo was about to rebuke Cosmo savagely when Alex Bruce burst in, purple with rage:
‘You have forgotten the school photograph, Theo, how dare you keep everyone waiting. You were reminded of this yesterday – very black mark indeed.’ Then, as the class poured out of the room: ‘And why aren’t you using the whiteboard?’
Arriving at the last moment as usual, Hengist ran his eyes over the rows. Xavier looked dreadful, covered in spots, narrowed, dark eyes sliding in his squashed flat face. Hengist was off to London this evening, but tomorrow he’d have the poor boy in for a drink.
