Wicked!

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he bellowed.

  ‘I miss my pony so much’ – Dora pretended to cry – ‘Mr Bruce kindly allowed me to spruce up Denmark and the General. I’m just washing behind the General’s ears.’

  ‘Horse must have Arab blood’ – Biffo patted Denmark – ‘with those curved ears and wide eyes and that lovely dish face. Bagley was a good fellow too, not your usual military bonehead.’

  ‘Isn’t it tragic Mr and Mrs Bruce want to melt him down?’ said Dora innocently.

  ‘First I’ve heard of it,’ exploded Biffo. ‘Talk about the old order being ripped away.’

  ‘Our founder flounders,’ sighed Dora, ‘and after he gave us our lovely school. But if he looks nice and clean tomorrow, more people will want to keep him. I’ve only got a bit more pigeon crap to get off, Mr Rudge, and then I’ll race back to Boudicca.’

  Fortunately, Alex Bruce was distracted during the evening by a crisis. The protection teams refused to allow in any more chemicals before the Queen’s visit, so all the glass vessels being replaced in the Zone of Chemical Investigative Science had to be filled up with coloured water, by which time it was nearly ten o’clock.

  ‘No longer Dirty Denmark,’ said Dora, finally handing the hosepipe back to Dafydd. ‘Do you want me to roll it up?’

  ‘No, you get home, lovely. We’ll be working all night. Shame Hengist’s left, he wanted all the Larks kids to collect their GCSE certificates from the Queen, then bloody Bruce killed the idea. Chantal Peck had already bought her hat and been practising her curtsey all round the estate.’

  ‘That’s really sad,’ said Dora. ‘How’s Graffi?’

  ‘Triffic. He and Rupert are thick as thieves. Rupert’s tickled pink with his muriel and I’m getting some triffic winners.’

  Over in his minimalist living room, soon to be abandoned for the vast splendour of Head House, Alex was yet again going through his speech with Vicky Fairchild. The explosion in the emporium had removed his eyebrows so he could no longer raise them quizzically to make a point.

  ‘Just a little more warmth in the words “Your Majesty”,’ cooed Vicky. ‘I know how shy you are, Alex, but let the caring persona shine through.’

  Upstairs, Poppet slept soundly. Tomorrow’s outfit, a crimson, yellow and green bandanna and a warm wool ketchup-red smock, was already folded on a chair. Little Cranberry Germaine was yelling her head off, but let Alex deal.

  Alex plugged Cranberry on to Poppet’s left breast and reflected that if tomorrow went well, he’d be voted head by the governors on Friday and could have mistresses like Hengist. He’d always admired Vicky Fairchild.

  Sally Brett-Taylor turned over a sodden pillow. Tomorrow, so no one would be embarrassed and because she couldn’t bear to look at the butchered school gardens, she’d make herself scarce. She must also pull herself together and find somewhere to live. In the old days, Elaine had slept, often on her back, on the chaise longue at the bottom of the bed. Now she kept vigil in the hall, painful for her bony legs and elbows, always facing the front door, pining, not eating, hoping Hengist would walk in. How do you explain to a dog that Master has gone to kennels?

  Sally was pleased to learn from Patience, on the Bagley bush telegraph, that Paris and Dora had finally got it together and yet she was sad. Paris had comforted her during the bleakest time of her life. Like the Marschallin, she must let him go with both hands.

  Post-Mrs Walton, Cosmo crept back into Bagley very happy. Work experience had been equally rewarding. He had found the initials BP in Ashton’s diary for tomorrow night, after the Queen’s visit. Amber, at work experience at the Gazette, had found BP on the same date in Col Peters’s diary. Dora had found it in Mr Fussy’s.

  Cosmo had also discovered, when a card arrived in a mauve envelope from the egregious Crispin Thomas, that it was Ashton’s birthday tomorrow. Cosmo had therefore arranged for Dame Hermione, when she serenaded the Queen, to slip in a ‘Happy Birthday to Ashton’.

  Cosmo, who went every which way to gain what he wanted, even promising Ashton a blow job for his birthday, had introduced Lubemir into S and C’s offices as a comely bit of rough trade.

  Tomorrow, he and Ashton would spend all morning at Bagley, he to conduct his mother and the school orchestra, Ashton to be presented to the Queen. This would leave the office unguarded for Lubemir, who had already unearthed the shadow of an email from Alex to Ashton on 6 October: ‘HB-T resigned. BR ours.’

  What the hell was BR? Was it a typo for BC or BP? After a lot of thought, Cosmo decided it must be Badger’s Retreat, so Stancombe could chop down Hengist’s beloved trees, which had since been daubed with red plague spots, and, with Russell fiddling planning permission, slap desirable residences with a view all over the area.

  Lubemir had also dug up so much shit on the bringing down of Janna and BC was looking increasingly like Birthday Club and BP like Birthday Party.

  Russell had a planning office in County Hall and Milly Walton, working as a clerk in another department, had found a BP in his diary for tomorrow night. A good day’s work.

  On his way back to his cell, Cosmo called Milly’s mother:

  ‘Angel, can you do one thing for me? Suck up to Stancombe tomorrow, pretend it might be on again and see if you can wheedle your keys back. I desperately need to get into his files. I love you.’

  Going upstairs Cosmo found Paris in his own cell, wrapped against the cold in a Black Watch tartan duvet, reading John Donne and looking happier than ever before.

  ‘“She is all States, and all Princes, I, Nothing else is”,’ mocked Cosmo.

  Paris flushed slightly. ‘Whatever.’

  Cosmo then debriefed him on the day’s findings. ‘Nasty little den of thieves going to that party tomorrow night,’ he said finally. ‘None of them has written down the address, so we may have to trail one of them.’

  ‘Not in anything as obvious as your Ferrari,’ chided Paris, but when Cosmo added that it was Ashton’s birthday tomorrow, all the luminous happiness drained out of Paris’s face.

  ‘The third of November,’ he said bleakly, ‘that means he’s forty-five tomorrow.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Does he have a lisp, can’t say his Rs, and have a big watch on the inside of his wrist and stink of asphyxiatingly sweet aftershave like poison gas?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  Paris shut his eyes, remembering the blindfolding, so every other sense was heightened, the holding down, the soft caressing hands, the laughter. The terrible pain and indignity going on and on, the grunting and heavy breathing: ‘Shut up, you little wat or we’ll weally hurt you.’ The suffocating scent he could now smell on Cosmo.

  As Paris glanced up, Cosmo was shocked by the depths of suffering in his face. He was shaking violently.

  ‘How d’you know him?’

  ‘I was the birthday present at his fortieth birthday party,’ Paris said flatly. ‘Not a bweeze, being gang waped.’

  ‘My God, where was this?’

  ‘In Oaktree Court, in a back room. I never saw any of them; they blindfolded me and tied my hands. God knows how many of them had me, I lost count. I don’t know if Blenchley, the care manager, was one of them. Next day he told me I was imagining things. If I said anything, he’d move me on or have me taken out.’

  Cosmo shook his head in bewildered admiration. ‘And you never grassed?’

  ‘I was only eleven, I was too ashamed, I felt so dirty. Who would have believed me? I was terrified of losing my friends. Ben Longstaff, who ran away from the home after threatening to grass them up, died in a very suspicious fire.’

  If Paris had looked up, he would have found genuine compassion on Cosmo’s face. ‘I’m truly sorry. Was that why you screamed when Theo came into your room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Christ, I’m sorry,’ repeated Cosmo. ‘We’ll nail them. Can you handle Ashton being here tomorrow?’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Paris wandered towards the window
. Through the newly bare trees he could see Dora’s window in Boudicca. ‘I can handle anything now.’

  134

  Bagley Hall was still in shock and in a growing state of mutiny over Hengist’s departure. Both staff and pupils missed his warmth and genuine interest, his great laugh, even his bellows of rage. All they could think was how much he would have enjoyed welcoming the Queen, bounding down the Mansion steps, rubbing his big hands in joy, sweeping her off on a magical mystery tour of the school.

  Instead they had to suffer Mr Fussy as powerless as Canute to keep back the great gold tidal wave of leaves unleashed by last night’s frost, which now covered pitch, path and, mercifully, most of the hideously clashing flowerbeds. Mr Fussy was doing his nut and blaming every leaf on the bursar and his groundsmen.

  Tension had also gripped Boudicca.

  ‘Who’s used all the hot water?’ screamed Jade Stancombe. ‘I’m handing the Queen her bouquet, I ought to have priority.’

  Joan in a pinstripe suit was inspecting nails, hair, even breath for alcohol and that everyone was wearing the regulation on-the-knee sea-blue coat and beige skirt, with sufficiently polished shoes.

  ‘And you’re all to leave your mobiles behind.’

  In the Science Emporium, the brightest pupils, their hair tied back, wearing white coats and goggles, nervously waited at their benches, ignoring the ‘Bring back Hengist’ stickers attached to the liver, the colon and the interactive whiteboards.

  In the RE suite, the Lower Fifth played pass the parcel with a gurgling baby Cranberry and awaited Poppet to give them a lesson on birth as a rite of passage.

  Outside, beneath a bright blue sky, crowds lining the route and gathered on the battlements shivered in the icy east wind. Inside the warmth of the Mansion, as the welcome party paced the black and white checked hall floor, Jupiter, Poppet and the Lord Lieutenant’s wife, who’d arrived early because she’d driven down from London, were the only people not nervous.

  Sweat crystalled Alex’s forehead and was beading Ashton Douglas’s discreet beige make-up. Stancombe’s estranged wife, Lorraine, wheeled in for the occasion to present a united front, had disappeared yet again to powder her rebuilt nose. Stancombe constantly readjusted his gelled black spikes and his new, dark blue suit in the big gilt mirror. Jupiter was being gratifyingly friendly for once, and by chatting up Lorraine had freed Stancombe to rebond with Ruth Walton. Looking particularly sumptuous in an old rose velvet suit, Mrs Walton was clearly delighted to ignite an old flame.

  Jupiter wanted Stancombe’s billions for New Reform. But would this entail asking him to join the party executive, which might mean losing Rupert and Lord Hawkley, who had both formed an antipathy towards Stancombe? Bugger Hengist for letting them down.

  ‘The Principal is within a quarter of a mile,’ the Officer in Command, having received the message on his radio mike, told the welcome party and other relevant security units around the school grounds.

  ‘I cannot think why you’re all so nervous, she’s only a senior citizen,’ said Poppet as Ashton and Lorraine discreetly re-powdered their noses. Even with a respray, Ashton’s cloying aftershave was fighting a losing battle with the stench of vegetable curry drifting from the kitchens.

  ‘Wise of the Queen to move on to lunch at Larkminster Hospital,’ murmured Jupiter.

  ‘Sally Brett-Taylor always provided the most delicious luncheon and the most beautiful flowers,’ grumbled the Lord Lieutenant’s wife, not known for her diplomacy. ‘Garden’s gorn off dreadfully, might be in a municipal park. Sweet thing, Sally. Is she here?’

  ‘Sadly not invited.’

  Nor were the bursar, Patience and Little Dulcie, as they forlornly lined the lower drive, waving flags alongside villagers and children from the local primary, only catching the briefest glimpse of the Queen as her car with its cavalcade of cars and motorbike outriders sailed past.

  Oblivious of a demo of pupils waving ‘Bring back Hengist’ placards and Trafford and the Randy Republican on the battlements brandishing red flags and crying, ‘Down with the Monarchy’, the Queen stepped out of her car. Accompanying her were her personal protection officer, a lady-in-waiting, who had potted biographies of everyone the Queen was going to meet in her handbag, and the Lord Lieutenant in his splendid uniform with its epaulettes, medals and stars.

  Anthea Belvedon, twenty-two rows back, swamped by the 399 dignitaries, was absolutely hopping that no one could see how lovely she looked. On a big screen, she could see the crowds ringing Mansion Lawn and Randal bending over Her Majesty like a street lamp and his ghastly common wife being presented as well. There was Ruth Walton, laughing away, when Randal had sworn it was over between them, and Poppet looking ridiculous in that fearful bandanna and ghastly red smock to disguise the fact she hadn’t got her figure back. Now she was refusing to bob to the Queen. So rude.

  I should be over there, thought Anthea darkly, I’m supposed to be a close friend of Randal and Poppet.

  Beside Anthea, Rod Hyde and Gillian Grimston of Searston Abbey were equally unhappy. Why had they been confined to very hard seats under an awning with 398 nonentities and not been introduced to Her Majesty like Ashton and Russell Lambert?

  Any deficiencies in Poppet’s bob were more than made up for by Dame Hermione’s curtsey, more regal than any queen, as she sank to the floor in her Parma violet Chanel suit, a saintly expression in her wide brown eyes.

  This distribution of largesse was cut short when her son Cosmo leapt on to the rostrum, sharply tapped the lectern and swept the school orchestra into the National Anthem, involving his mother in an undignified scramble to her feet. All four verses were sung fortissimo, rattling the Mansion windows and dislodging more leaves, followed by ‘Here’s a Health Unto Your Majesty’ and Randal’s Largo, as it was now known.

  Everyone was heaving a sigh of relief and preparing for the Queen to move on to the RE and IT suites, when Hermione clapped her hands and announced: ‘Somebody here, Ashton Douglas, head of education in Larkshire, has a birthday today. I’m sure Your Majesty would like to join me in wishing Ashton many happy returns.’

  Ashton looked as though he’d been kissed under the mistletoe. Paris, round the other side of the school, watching him on the same big screen as Anthea Belvedon, fingered his knife.

  And Dame Hermione was off: ‘Happy birthday to You-hoo!’

  Randal, Alex and the Lord Lieutenant were as purple or red as the polyanthus clashing in a nearby flowerbed. Finally Hermione swept off.

  ‘My mother’s kind of hard to stop,’ sighed Cosmo.

  Her Majesty was just moving on when Hermione’s dresser, who’d been bunged a tenner, cried out, ‘Encore,’ and, whisking out of her dressing room, Dame Hermione obliged.

  Alex was about to have a coronary. There were still two students taking Duke of Edinburgh Awards to be presented and they now had only half an hour left and had to whiz through the lesson in the IT suite with no time to look at the pupils’ work.

  ‘We’ll have to switch to plan B and cut the RE lesson,’ said the Officer in Command.

  Alex turned pale. ‘We can’t, my wife . . .’

  Dora, waiting beside General Bagley’s statue to make her presentation and also watching events on the big screen, put down her blue box and wrote in her notebook: ‘Her Majesty is running behind in her tight schedule.’

  Everyone was commenting on how tiny and pretty the Queen was. How kind her blue eyes; how genuinely warm and radiant her smile; how becoming her amethyst hat trimmed with palest green feathers and how even a colour as harsh as the purple of her coat couldn’t diminish her flawless pink and white complexion.

  On to the Randal Stancombe Science Emporium, where the royal party toured the different zones and exclaimed in wonder at the giant tree you could walk inside and the huge ear that could be taken apart and the echo chambers, giant fibre-optics and heavenly light displays. On to the Zone of Chemical Investigative Science, which, although miraculously restored with coloured water i
n all the containers, seemed rather dull after yesterday’s excitement.

  ‘The Queen has the ability to make everyone feel special. Even republicans become monarchists in her presence,’ wrote Dora.

  Not so Poppet Bruce, who, white-faced, tight-lipped, was determined to divert the Queen back in the direction of RE, rites of passage and little Cranberry.

  ‘I am of course known as the Queen of Arts,’ Dame Hermione was telling everyone, ‘and why isn’t my very good friend Rupert Campbell-Black here?’

  Even without Rupert, however, the media were agreeing that the Randal Stancombe Science Emporium was a triumph, that Randal would be assured his handle and Alex Bruce the headship of Bagley.

  As the Queen finally emerged from this futuristic Nirvana, it was at last the turn of Anthea and the 399 very cold other dignitaries on their hard seats to hear Alex’s speech of welcome in front of General Bagley’s statue with the Science Emporium towering in the background. Afterwards, Randal would say a few words about his part in the great endeavour. Jade and Dora had taken up their positions beside Denmark’s hindquarters.

  Paris was crowded together behind the barricade with the rest of the Lower Sixth to watch the ceremony. Gazing across at Dora clutching her blue box, wishing it was his hand rather than the east wind ruffling her pale blonde hair, Paris was overwhelmed with love. The knife was to protect Dora from harm as much as to stab Ashton. He hated to leave her to carry out their great plan, but her official position beside Denmark made it possible.

  Having practised a little bob, Dora turned round and smiled at him. Witnessing this exchange, Randal Stancombe, even at his finest hour, felt a skewer dipped in acid plunged in his heart. His great speech, his knighthood, Ruth Walton were as nothing to his lust for Dora Belvedon. He could see the gap of pink flesh between her skirt and her rolled-over brown socks. He was brought back to earth by the Queen’s gloved hand patting Denmark:

  ‘What a splendid animal.’

  Alex in turn patted the mike, cleared his throat, raised his head self-importantly and began very, very warmly: ‘Your Majesty, on behalf of students, teachers, parents, governors and supporters of Bagley Hall, I would like to thank you very much for visiting us today. It is a huge honour and marks an historical moment of our development.’