A Royal Match

by Connell O'Tyne

  I felt ill again and with the smell of spew in the air I vomited. The others filed off back into the hall while Star arranged for us to go back early on the minibus.

  I couldn’t stop sobbing and feeling ashamed. I suppose I shouldn’t have let anyone else hear his messages, but then I hadn’t really had any choice in the matter. Star had grabbed my phone, then Georgina and after that … oh, it was all such a mess.

  When we got back, Sister Regina insisted I spend the night in the infirmary. She said she blamed herself for making me go in the first place and started crying as well.

  I woke up late in the morning to find her still sleeping, slumped in an uncomfortable chair at the foot of my bed. As I watched her I replayed every horrendous moment of the night before in my head.

  Star walked in with the newspapers. Every paper you can name had a photo of Freddie and me tongue-fencing in the bushes. The photograph showed my hair covered in leaves and the papers all had clever headlines. My favourite (not) was The Prince and His Bit of Rough-and-Tumble.

  ‘I just can’t believe the audacity of the guy!’ Star ranted. ‘A girl stinking of spew, whom he’s virtually told you he despises, tells him that you’ve been trading on his royal status and he believes her? Now his own bloody security guy, or one of his other mates, sells a photo to the press! Talk about Prince Bloody Charming.’

  Sister Regina, who had woken up and was reading one of the papers, shook her head. ‘What a bounder. What a bounder. You are well out of it, luvvie.’

  Star said, ‘Well I’ve got a mind to bound right over to Eades and tell him exactly what I think of him.’

  Georgina flew into the room next. ‘This is so random, darling,’ she cried out. ‘I can’t believe it – what a bastard!’ Then, seeing my puffy eyes, she dispatched Sister Regina for cucumber slices. ‘I’ve never seen such puffy eyes in my life, darling. Now that you are a national icon you have to look your best.’

  Then she sat on the bed and gave me a cuddle.

  ‘National icon?’

  ‘Darling, you are the first girl that Freddie, heir to the British throne, has kissed! You will go down in history. This is huge, sweetie. Huger than huge.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I replied in my drollest droll voice, ‘this is what my parents have invested their swimming pool, holiday and car fund money into – my place in history as Prince Freddie’s bit of rough-and-tumble.’ I couldn’t believe that Georgina was so shallow, as if being made out to be an utter slapper was the loveliest thing in the world. All because Freddie was a prince!

  ‘Oh, darling, don’t dwell. No one believes what they read in those trashy papers. Believe me, you will be the envy of every girl in this country.’

  My next visitor was Sister Constance. Her mood was a little more circumspect, to say the least. She had her hands tucked up inside the sleeves of her robe. ‘Your parents will be arriving the day after tomorrow, Miss Kelly. I have given them permission to take you to their hotel for the weekend and filled out the necessary exeat form.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Sister.’

  She gestured with her chin towards the fan of newspapers on the floor. ‘It would seem that news of your liaison with His Royal Highness has crossed the Atlantic. Your parents, quite understandably, feel you may need them. I shall discuss the details with you after you’ve been signed out of the infirmary. Needless to say, both Eades and Saint Augustine’s will mount a full and thorough investigation into how this sordid story manifested itself.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister,’ I replied in the most humble voice I could muster, which was pretty humble, quite frankly, after all I’d endured recently.

  She made the sign of the cross, told me she would pray for my soul and swept out of the room imperiously.

  ‘“News of your liaison has crossed the Atlantic,”’ Star and Georgina mimicked once they were sure she was out of earshot.

  I couldn’t see anything funny about it, though. All I could think of was Freddie and what he must be feeling. Or rather what I hoped he must be feeling. Was he having second thoughts? Was he missing me?

  Basically, was he even thinking of me?

  At all …?

  He probably hated me. His own parents must be furious. I must be the most hated girl in Britain where the royal family was concerned.

  I was so obsessed with Freddie, in fact, I hardly gave a thought to my parents’ impending arrival and what that would mean …

  SEVENTEEN:

  Wear Your Pain Like Lip-Gloss

  After the Prince and His Bit of Rough-and-Tumble episode, the school swarmed with paparazzi. Sister Constance immediately doubled the number of security men and guard dogs patrolling the grounds. They could be seen everywhere – behind trees, the stone crosses along the driveway, next to sheds and bushes, talking in that strange language they use when they communicate on walkie-talkies – ‘Ten-four,’ ‘That’s a copy,’ and that sort of thing.

  The sight of terrified cameramen being chased by dogs, security men and nuns through the grounds became routine. Sister Hillary and Sister Veronica caught one photographer hiding in the chapel when he’d ‘popped in for a quick prayer,’ and wasted no time in pressing the fire bell, then whipping him with gladioli from the altar. He was finally rescued, cowering in the confessional, by security guards. Later that day, Sisters Veronica and Hillary regaled us with stories of the episode, embellishing their bravery and righteous fury with each telling, until the tale sounded very much like that bit in the Bible where Jesus chases the money-lenders from the temple.

  The press were desperate to speak to someone in the school who actually knew me, but no one would say a word. Apart from anything else, we were collectively threatened with expulsion if we so much as made eye contact with the press.

  Sister Constance broke her own rule when she had Mr Morton move the umpire’s stand from the tennis court onto the playing fields, where she broadcast a scathing message to the press on a megaphone, suggesting they pray for mercy and forgiveness and describing them as emissaries for Satan and the servants of Beelzebub.

  We were all in our classrooms at the time, but the teachers let us peer through the mullioned windows for a glimpse of our Mother Superior in all her superiorness. We were very proud of her, but we had no idea who Beelzebub was.

  My parents’ arrival had all the fanfare and status of a Hollywood premiere. Even though they drove up in a taxi, everyone had lined up in the driveway as if expecting royalty to climb out. Instead, Bob and Sarah clambered out in their trackie bums and hoodies, trying to look all young and hip and ‘street.’

  God, it was embarrassing. Why they couldn’t just wear Laura Ashley and Savile Row suits like everyone else’s parents, I’ll never know.

  I hadn’t really given myself time to think about how I would feel about their arrival, which I suppose sounds very self-centred and un-daughterly. I know it was very sweet and parentally responsible of them to take that horrible flight across the world to be with me in my hour of need, but all I could think of was Freddie.

  He hadn’t called and he hadn’t responded to my text messages. I’d sent him three. The first one asked for a chance to explain. The second asked if he’d received my first text. The third text was a repeat of the first. Tragic, I know.

  Clemmie’s brother, who was in a lower year at Eades, had said that although I was the talk of the school, Freddie was being very tight-lipped over the situation. When she’d told me this, all I could think of was how soft and loose his lips were when we’d kissed.

  ‘He probably thinks you orchestrated the whole thing, darling,’ Honey had remarked, sitting on my bed smoking a fag.

  Star had grabbed the cigarette and flung it out of the window.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Honey had shrieked.

  ‘You’ll set the fire alarm off and only get us all suspended, you idiot.’

  Honey had sighed heavily. ‘OK, whatever, Star!’

  Honey had been hanging around in our room again
as if nothing had happened.

  As if her sister, Poppy, hadn’t slapped Georgina across the face.

  As if she hadn’t mounted a campaign of Post-it note harassment against me.

  As if she hadn’t spiked my lunch with laxatives.

  As if she wasn’t the total psycho toff who had ruined my life.

  Instead, it was all ‘darling’ this, and ‘sweetie’ that, and we were sort of playing along with it because, well, it was just so random and none of us really knew how to deal with it.

  It was only Georgina and Star who hardly spoke to her, and when they did, they were polite, but left her in no doubt that they loathed her. I wondered how it made Honey feel that Georgina, after all their years of friendship, now hated her. And not just hated her, but was now friends with Star and me – the two girls they had had so much fun taking the piss out of over the past three years.

  ‘So, as I was saying before Star went berserk,’ Honey continued, staring pointedly at Star, ‘Freddie is probably worried that you are still trying to trade on his royalty, darling. Princes do tend to get the teeniest bit worried about these things.’

  Star snapped, ‘Funny that, Honey, given that you were the one who told him that Calypso was doing just that.’ Honey raised her eyes towards the ceiling and stood with her hands on her hips, her puffy, pouty lips bursting with indignation. ‘That is so untrue, darling. I was just mucking about. I thought that he might have a sense of humour. If being amusing is a crime now, fine, shoot me.’

  I really would have liked to shoot her.

  Honey was the first to introduce herself to my parents too, charging down the stairs, clutching her ghastly new pink rabbit, Duchess. ‘Sooo thrilled to meet you, Mr and Mrs Kelly,’ she smarmed. ‘My name’s Honey O’Hare. I’m a very close friend of Calypso’s. We’re more like sisters, really.’

  What? Why on earth was Honey sucking up to my parents, my ‘nobody’ parents – untitled, without so much as a helicopter or a pile in the country to make them worth wasting her breath on.

  ‘Swell,’ Bob said.

  ‘Super,’ agreed Sarah.

  ‘Any friend of Calypso’s is a friend of ours. Call us Bob and Sarah, Honey,’ Bob told her vaguely, looking about the crowd for me.

  I was standing on the steps, but Star pushed me forward so that I sort of fell into their arms and they cuddled me really hard. Then Dad picked me up and swung me around like I was five or something. He had tears in his eyes. ‘Oh, Calypso,’ he sobbed.

  Could he make more of a spectacle of me? I wondered as I applied more lip-gloss.

  Yes. He could.

  Sister Constance swooped down in an attempt to restrain the atmosphere. She extended her hand stiffly, speaking in her most imperious voice. ‘Mr and Mrs Kelly, welcome to England. Perhaps you’d like to come into my office. As I said, you are free to take your daughter for the weekend, although as you will appreciate her workload …’

  Bob, being Bob, was having none of her imperiousness, though. ‘This is just swell, Sister. Just swell. Sarah and I can’t thank you enough.’ With that, he grabbed her in a bear hug and gave her a little spin, which caused the entire school, teachers included, to smirk.

  I just kept reapplying my lip-gloss.

  ‘Quite,’ was Sister’s response.

  She smoothed her habit down and rearranged the large wooden crucifix that hung around her neck, and without further lapses into the strange realm of my parents’ Californian informality she bustled them through the doors and down the corridor into her office.

  I waited for the onslaught. At least when I was just the class freak I was largely ignored. I would gladly swap those good old days of invisibility for this new hell of being the subject of an international news scoop and having my parents turn up and swing my nuns around.

  ‘Your parents are so cool,’ Clemmie cooed.

  ‘Wow,’ was all Star could say. And this from a girl whose father thought nothing of falling backwards off his chair at breakfast and spending the entire day on the floor with cereal all over his face.

  ‘They certainly have a lot of energy, don’t they? I mean, for parents, that is,’ Georgina said.

  ‘They do yoga,’ I explained.

  I didn’t really know what else to say. I was running out of lip-gloss.

  EIGHTEEN:

  Hollywood Hits Windsor

  My parents had booked a room in a chintzy hotel near Heathrow. It was quite strange being on my own with them after everything that had happened this term. I suddenly realised how much I’d changed. I mean, hello, I’d pulled the Prince and become a media sensation.

  We ordered dinner from the room service menu. I had the most enormous burger with chips and my parents didn’t so much as mention the word ‘carbs’ or the dangers of eating gluten products. I kept waiting for them to start on me about being a slapper, and complain about how they’d had to drop everything and spend exorbitant amounts of money on flights across the Atlantic, etc, but all they did was ask me to take them step by step through the evening of the Eades social.

  They wanted every detail.

  Especially my dad, who kept asking questions like, So where was Star when this was happening? Or where was this Honey girl when you were dancing, and how much do you trust Georgina? It was like an interview, but not a threatening one. I got the impression they were really keen for me to realise that I was the victim and not the criminal.

  They didn’t once tut or sigh but made sympathetic noises, and when I told them about Freddie accusing me of trading on his royalty I noticed a knowing look pass between them. At the end of the story my dad declared that I’d been framed, and Mom agreed. Dad said he was going to get to the bottom of it.

  Later, we watched an in-house movie. Actually it was all really cool. It was weird, though, sharing a room with my folks. My parents were in the same bed together. I mean, they always sleep together, but not when I’m in the room, if you know what I mean. They had offered to get me my own room, but I would have felt too lonely. Actually it was kind of nice. Apart from when my mom started snoring. I swear I don’t know how my father puts up with it.

  Saturday was great. We went for a ride on the London Eye and Dad kept telling lame jokes the way he does when he thinks I’m down, but I didn’t mind. On the Eye I even snuggled close to them and told them I was really pleased they’d come.

  And I was.

  On Saturday night my parents – or rather, Bob and Sarah, as everyone was now calling them on their insistence – took Clemmie, Arabella, Georgina, Star, Honey and me to dinner at Pizza Express in Windsor. I’d tried to convince them that I didn’t want Honey there, but Sarah (even I had been reduced to calling my parents by their first names now) said, ‘Nonsense, she’s one of your closest friends, Calypso. It will be super.’

  Honey brought the horrible pink Duchess in her new matching pink Prada bag and my mother made the most awful fuss of it, and asked me why I didn’t have a rabbit.

  I was gobsmacked. HELLO, you were the one who said being deprived of a pet was character building!

  But I didn’t get a chance to say it because Honey said, ‘I know. Isn’t it a shame, Sarah? I offered her my old rabbit, Claudine, but she refused.’ Honey looked at Sarah sadly and sighed heavily.

  I glared at her, as did the other girls, but my parents were completely taken in. So I said, ‘You don’t just give pets away because you’re sick of their colour.’

  Honey made her ridiculously puffy lips wobble as if she were about to cry. ‘I just thought it would be really sweet if our rabbits could be as close as we are, darling,’ she explained – only she was looking at Sarah when she said it.

  My mother was such a softie. She reached out and took Honey’s hand and my hand. ‘Come on, you two. I suppose in a way, Calypso, Honey was just, well … maybe it’s a bit like recycling?’ she suggested, trying to smooth things over.

  Surely, though, even she could see what an utter psycho toff Honey was for giving away her pet because
it wasn’t this season’s colour?

  ‘It’s a pet,’ I reminded my mother. ‘Not an empty milk carton, Sarah!’

  ‘Calypso. Don’t be churlish,’ Bob chastised.

  ‘Oh, whatever,’ I said churlishly.

  Sarah explained to Honey that the whole tabloid fiasco had been really hard on me.

  I couldn’t believe my parents were being so taken in by Honey. I know I’d never told them about her horribleness, but wasn’t it blatantly obvious in her every mannerism that she was evil incarnate?

  ‘Swell,’ Bob said, trying to change the subject. ‘Let’s order.’ Then he called over a waiter and asked which pizzas were gluten- and carb-free, which made all the girls giggle. Apart from me. I was still feeling extremely churlish.

  Star gave my hand a supportive squeeze under the table, which helped a bit, and then my father asked about her father’s band and that cheered me up even more because it meant Honey was left out of the conversation entirely.

  The pizzas (loaded to the rafters with carbs and gluten) arrived and we all tucked in. Arabella asked Sarah about her work and my mother was surprisingly funny, regaling us with stories of the latest melodramatic plot lines and the hissy-fits the stars were always throwing – especially the men.

  I started to relax. I even started to look at my parents in a different light. I mean, it was quite sweet of them to drop everything and come all this way to see me in my hour of need, and they seemed to be making a surprisingly good impression on my friends. I was glad they’d come. It hadn’t occurred to me that I wanted them to come, but now they were here I realised how much safer I felt. And their visit had helped to take my mind off Freddie … for a while.

  My parents had been really kind about the Rough-and-Tumble photographs. Bob had told Sister Constance that we shouldn’t be too hasty in blaming the paparazzi for the photograph. ‘From what I understand, Sister, there were an awful lot of security guards patrolling the grounds that night, what with the Prince there and all. More often than not, you find these things turn out to be inside jobs.’