A Royal Match

by Connell O'Tyne

  It’s true that mine had gone slightly septic and pussy, which admittedly was fairly nasty, but Bob and Sarah totally overeacted the way only Liberal Parents can. First they made me take it out, and then they marched me, yes marched me (I blame all the Save Our Environment marches they went on before I was born) to the shop where I’d had it done. There’s nothing Bob and Sarah like more than a good march.

  Everyone in Los Angeles – give or take a few million people – were staring at us as we entered the shop, which also did a bit of tattooing. I hadn’t noticed that on the sign, but Bob and Sarah did. Initially I refused to get out of the car, but of course that failed and S & B made this hugely embarrassing scene, which I am so ashamed about that I haven’t even told Star.

  Star has no idea what American parents are like because her dad is usually so stoned he doesn’t even remember who she is. She claims the reason he calls her ‘darling’ all the time is because he forgot her name in the early nineties. Her mom is just really chilled. She even has a pierced navel herself.

  Anyhow, Sarah and Bob kept asking the poor guy (who’d been really, really, really, really nice to us and was so fit it was untrue) questions that they’d then answer themselves.

  Bob asked, ‘Do you know how old she is?’

  The guy went to open his mouth, but Sarah replied for him, ‘A minor!’

  To which Bob added, ‘Do you know what would happen to you if we were to get the police involved?’

  I went bright red and tried to shrink so I could hide behind Sarah’s skirt as she answered, ‘You’d be closed down, and very possibly incarcerated, that’s what.’

  For a couple of old hippies, Sarah and Bob can be quite quick to call in the forces of law and order. All in all it was possibly the most embarrassing scene in Sarah and Bob’s long history of embarrassing scenes.

  But that’s okay because I had my outfit. I was going to the ball.

  FOUR:

  The Fine Line Between Honey and Hell

  I came across Oopa a second time as I was lugging my trunk up the damp, narrow, winding, dimly lit stone stairwell of the main building. The main building is the oldest building at Saint Augustine’s, apart from the chapel and the convent, of course. I’m not big on manservants myself, but I felt sorry for Oopa when I heard one of the vertebrae in my own spine cracking as I struggled under the strain of the steamer trunk on my back. I was also carrying my wheelie hand luggage, and sabre kits aren’t exactly light.

  The main building is so ancient, there is always a renovation program in progress, which means the place is always covered in scaffolding. This provides a handy escape route at night, according to the Upper Sixth girls who’d been housed here the year before, but it also makes it very dark and dingy. The only light filters through a stained glass window depicting Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.

  Oopa looked like he needed some succour. He was buckling under the weight of Honey’s heavy trunks and bags, and my American sense of fraternity couldn’t help exerting itself. The English call it wading in where I’m not wanted.

  I was worried he was going to have a seizure and collapse because, seriously, he was gasping for breath and swaying about dangerously.

  Honey was skipping ahead of him, totally oblivious to his struggle and chatting away loudly on her mobile about how she was sharing with a freak that term and how she was so going to have Mummy’s PA speak to Lord Aginet about speaking to his lawyers. ‘Honestly, darling, it’s outrageous that I should have to share with an American Freak. You should hear what she does to her vowels. My ears ache every time she opens her mouth. It’s beyond plebbie even. It’s disgusting.’

  ‘Erm, excuse me, but do you need a hand?’ I asked Oopa, about to reach out the hand holding my sabre kit to help support the enormous LVT trunk on his back. It was a really cool old steamer that Honey’s grandmother had owned – you know, the ones that open up with drawers and hanging space? Cool as they are, they must be really heavy.

  Oopa was not impressed by my offer to help. At first I thought he must still be bearing a grudge about my bumping into him earlier, because he went totally bonkers and started yelling at me. All the other guardians, parents, valets and girls stopped and stared at me too, like I’d just set fire to someone or something.

  I realised in that moment how blatantly stupid I’d been to offer assistance to anyone associated with Honey. My French teacher has always told me that I do a great line in faux pas.

  I didn’t have a clue what he was babbling about because he was shouting at me in his native tongue, which I think might have been something Asian, but I couldn’t be sure. He was definitely quite cross with me, though.

  Honey turned and looked me up and down in that clever nasty way she has. ‘Honestly, you Americans are soooo insensitive. How dare you question Oopa’s ability to carry multiple heavy objects up a dimly lit stone staircase!’

  Well, she didn’t actually say that, but her dismal look said it all, and what’s more the mood of the crowd seemed to be with her.

  Predictably, halfway up the stairs Oopa did tumble down, but this time I wasn’t insensitive enough to look, let alone comment or help. I decided just to carry on towards my room while Honey yelled at Oopa to stop embarrassing her or she’d report him to immigration.

  Finally I arrived at my prettily decorated room to find Portia lounged cat-like on one of the three beds, reading Tatler. She’d already smothered her pin board with magazine pages and photographs. I noticed a really fit boy in the magazine pages who had his arm around her in a society photograph. On her bedside table there was a photograph of her family. There was also one of the school’s ancient oil paintings above her bed. It was of Saint Ursula, the patron saint of virgins. Above another bed was an oil painting of Saint Augustine, the patron saint of our school.

  My focus was on the best bed though, the one against the window overlooking the chapel with a view across to Pullers’ Wood, where the leaves were already beginning to turn various shades of orange and gold. There was no painting above it, but there was a radiator running along the side.

  I watched Portia’s very English valet quietly yet purposefully unpack his mistress’s trunk. All I could think was, how very odd that Portia hadn’t grabbed the best bed, the one by the window with the radiator.

  ‘Hi, Portia, do you mind if I take this bed?’ I asked cautiously. Every girl at Saint Augustine’s dreams of having the bed against the radiator in the winter term and it was beyond me why anyone would pass it up.

  For a second, a paranoid thought that a practical joke was being played on me flashed through my mind, but then Portia looked up from her copy of Tatler and smiled what seemed to be an actual genuine smile. ‘Oh, hi, Calypso. Take whatever bed you want darling, I don’t give a toss frankly. As far as I’m concerned, dorm rooms are all an endurance test any way you look at it.’

  How cool is that? I was thinking as I dumped my trunk beside it and tossed my fencing kit on top of the coveted bed. I was still rubbing my arm to try and get my circulation going when it got even better! Lady Portia tossed her Tatler on the floor, climbed off her bed, walked over to me and embraced me, saying, ‘Darling, I’m so pleased we’re sharing, especially with the British National Fencing Trials coming up this term! I was worried I’d have no one to stress out with!’

  ‘I know, me too. It’s, erm, nice isn’t it,’ I agreed. Why do I say these things? Nice?

  ‘But anyway,’ she continued, ‘how was your summer break? I want to hear all about it. Did Star and Georgina really go out to LA? Has Freddie been txt-ing you? I’m soooo jealous.’

  Portia, the quintessential Saint Augustine It Girl, was jealous of me? I mean, I know pulling an HRH might be the height of cool to some, but for the girls of Saint Augustine’s the world of royals was their natural pulling ground. ‘Yaah, totally cool,’ I replied, automatically falling into the use of ‘yaah’ rather than my Californian ‘yeah,’ which I knew from experience would result in a piss-take of my American-ness
.

  I was just about to tell her about my fantastic summer and how Star and Georgina and I had spent the whole time shopping and how Freddie and Billy had both been txt-ing me. But then Honey strode in with Oopa limping behind her.

  FIVE:

  My Favourite Mad House Spinster Ever!

  I’d always hated Honey and she had always hated me, but at least in the past I’d had the buffer of a wall. Now she would be sleeping in the same room, sharing the same air, the same bathroom, the same wardrobe, and there would be no respite.

  I watched her – the ultimate psycho toff – snapping her tiny and cuter-than-thou bejewelled mobile shut with a sharp clack. I watched as she flicked her long, artistically streaked blond locks over her skinny golden shoulders. I watched her violet contact-lens-covered eyes as they surveyed the prettily decorated room with its breathtaking view of the old oak woods.

  Last year we’d been housed in rickety rundown Cleathorpes, but this year we were in the main building, which had been newly redecorated and now had lovely marble bathrooms. I’d had a peek when I’d deposited my Body Shop Specials in the bathroom cabinet. We all decant vodka into empty shampoo and conditioner bottles. That’s how we disguise alcohol so house mothers don’t catch us. Getting sprung with alcohol usually means a gating – not allowed out on weekends – but it can even lead to expulsion if you’re discovered revoltingly drunk. Anyway, the marble bathrooms were divine and included a separate shower and a bath!

  ‘Oh, isn’t it dismal, darling,’ Honey groaned, pressing her French-manicured hand against her Botoxed brow. ‘Isn’t it all just soooo evil!’

  I accidentally responded, blurting something tragic, like ‘At least we have new mattresses this year.’ As I said, I am marvellously gifted when it comes to the art of the blurt.

  She glared at me. ‘Excuse me? Was I speaking to you, American Freak?’

  I looked over at Portia but she was immersed in her Tatler again. Honey pointed at my fencing kit, grimaced, and instructed Oopa to remove it from the window bed. Predictably enough, she ignored me when I muttered something ridiculously pointless about how I’d grabbed that bed already.

  ‘Oopa, will you stop panting,’ she scolded as he wheezed and limped his way about the room. ‘It really gets on my nerves,’ she warned, pressing her fingers against her temples as if warding off a migraine. ‘I don’t want to have to call Daddy and have you sent back,’ she warned.

  I cringed as I witnessed fear flash across Oopa’s face. I might not know precisely where Oopa was from, but if it was worse than working for Honey it must be grim. I looked over at Portia, hoping she’d concur with a raised brow, but she remained immersed in her Tatler.

  ‘You are soooo NQOC,’ she whispered in an aside to me before turning away and leaning down to Portia for an air kiss. ‘But darling,’ she drawled in her OTT toff voice, ‘at least I’m rooming with you.’

  ‘Yaah darling, really looking forward to it,’ agreed Portia mildly as she flicked a page of her magazine, which slightly annoyed me because if she were my friend Star, she’d say something pointedly cutting like, ‘I’d rather chew through my own cheek than share a night in the same room as you.’

  Rock stars’ daughters don’t take crap from the likes of Honey, you see. Then again, Honey would never even pretend to be glad to share with Star. She hates her almost as much as she hates me. In fact, if Star’s father wasn’t Rock Royalty and the richest father in our year, I suspected Honey would hate Star more than me.

  I watched with horror as Honey roughly threw her mauve Prada pet carrier on her bed (the one by the window that had briefly been mine). Her rabbit was still inside and I was wondering if I could get away with rescuing the poor thing. But Portia put my mind at rest by asking, ‘Oh Honey, is your rabbit in there? Can I hold it?’

  I really wished Georgina would get here so I could cuddle little Dorothy Parker, the black rabbit we shared. Georgina looked after Dorothy on her grand country estate during half terms and holidays. Star was always the last to arrive, but surely Georgina would be here by now and she’d want to find where I was roomed … wouldn’t she?

  Honey picked up her dyed-mauve rabbit, which was wearing a blue Tiffany collar and large diamond hoop earrings. They might well have been real diamonds, as she boasted, but I was more worried about how very big they were. The poor rabbit’s ears were dragged down by their weight. She passed Absinthe, as she referred to the poor little thing, over to Portia with disinterest. Then she started calling people on her phone again to tell them about the hell of her journey, the shoddiness of her manservant and the evil American Freak she’d been landed with.

  ‘Bless,’ said Portia as she stroked the rabbit. ‘Do you want me to take her down to the pet shed for you, Honey?’

  ‘No, I’ll sort out my packing first,’ replied Honey as if she was doing it herself.

  I set about unpacking my own trunk, fighting for what little space I could find in the wardrobe allocated to my inferior bed. As I swung open the door I noticed a few designer jackets already hanging.

  ‘So sorry, darling, I simply didn’t have room in mine, hope you don’t mind?’ Portia asked, making a face of what looked like genuine shame and regret.

  Portia was very beautiful, with long hair – albeit raven instead of the more typical blond of Saint Augustine girls – a willowy figure and the peach-coloured skin of the English aristo. Her most significant feature was her aloofness. I don’t mean aloof in a madly superior way because that would have been unbearable and marked her out for secret hatred. No, Portia was aloof in a quiet, self-contained way that you couldn’t really challenge. Nothing ever fazed her. Her hair was never mussed or sweaty, even after games. When I took off my fencing mask I had fluffy little bits that crowned my face like wet horns, but when Portia took off her mask and shook out her mane of long, dark hair, she looked like she’d just come from the salon.

  I was about to tell Portia that it was fine to steal my precious wardrobe space – which it was, really, because quite honestly my clothing allowance is pretty meagre compared to the other girls – when I was distracted by the sound of clapping.

  We all turned. A four-foot-nine hunchbacked woman stood leaning on a cane in the doorway of our room. She announced in a loud, screechy Essex whine, ‘Hello, girls, my name’s Miss Bibsmore. I’m your new ‘ouse mother. Now, I don’t want any trouble ‘ere, so don’t you go getting ideas! Just because I’m short and hunched doesn’t mean I’m ignorant, understand?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Bibsmore,’ Portia and I replied in the Saint Augustine chant of perceived obedience. That’s the rule with house mothers. You just let them rant on and hope they don’t try to hug you, and eventually they leave you be. House Spinsters, as we called them, love to wield their power so you definitely never cheeked them, which was effectively what Honey was doing as she totally ignored Miss Bibsmore and loudly bossed Oopa about, telling him where to put her designer outfits and shoes while she stroked poor shivering Absinthe.

  That was another thing. Pets weren’t allowed in rooms, and if she’d been anyone other than Honey, she’d be trying to conceal Absinthe from Miss Bibsmore, not openly stroking her!

  Miss Bibsmore entered the room with a series of awkward little steps and shuffles, her eyes glinting with the suspicion of a woman who can see inside a girl’s soul. Finally she was looming over Honey’s bed. Honey looked up at Miss Bibsmore as if she were a mad witch – which of course she was, because all house mothers are mad, although perhaps Miss Bibsmore took mad to a new level. She had a jutting-out chin and messily arranged teeth. Her grey hair had been loosely gathered together in a bun that was doomed not to hold despite the net around it. Last year’s house mother, Miss Cribbe, seemed virtually normal by comparison. And Miss Cribbe had a beard!

  ‘I’m not here to pick up after you nor nothing neither, so don’t you go giving me none of your airy graces, madam, because I won’t ‘ave it, ‘ear?’

  Honey sneered at her. Honey is the queen
of the sneer. Actually she’s sneered so much that she’s upset the balance of collagen in her lips so that the sneer side has a permanent nasty swelling on it.

  ‘Did you hear me, madam?’

  Honey ignored her. ‘Oopa, I said in the top drawer! Are you deaf, because if you are I’ll complain to Daddy,’ she screeched.

  ‘I mean it, madam. I’m not like the likes of ‘im, that fellow there. I’m not ‘ere to doff my cap to no one,’ she warned, making to prod poor Oopa with her cane.

  But Oopa, like his mistress, sneered as he avoided Miss Bibsmore’s prod. Honey snapped, ‘Oh shut up and leave my manservant alone, you mad old witch.’

  Portia and I looked at one another, both of us equally uncertain as to whether we should do or say something to defuse the tension between Honey and Miss Bibsmore. Then Portia raised an eyebrow in Honey’s direction so I knew that she was as appalled as I was at the way Honey had just slacked Miss Bibsmore down. Arousing the wrath of a House Spinster at this early stage of the term would mean misery for all of us. And that made me feel better, like maybe Portia was on my side and actually quite cool. Even her valet with his impeccable manners raised a brow. Portia nodded at him and he made a slight bow and departed.

  Miss Bibsmore glared at Honey. Her eyes actually flashed. ‘Right, that’s it. Off ‘e goes. Go on, git out!’ she shrieked, hustling a confused Oopa out the door with her stick. The poor fellow looked terrified, but soon he was gone and Miss Bibsmore had Honey in her sights again. ‘There’ll be no bowing and scraping ‘ere, madam. Grandee or not, I’m warning you now, I don’t like the cut of your jib. You’ll be treated like anyone else while you’re in my dormitory, understood?’