We spent almost the entire day getting ready, and by six o’clock, when Honey called Nobu for sushi, I was actually starting to feel excited about the ball again. And although Honey opened up the Aladdin’s cave of her wardrobe to me again, I couldn’t find anything nicer than the skirt and bejewelled cashmere top I’d bought in LA.
‘What bag are you taking, darling?’
I held up the little Gucci bag Sarah and Bob had given me last Christmas, but Honey wrinkled her nose job. ‘Darling, that’s not on trend, nor is it old enough to be vintage. Try this,’ she insisted, passing me a tiny little bejewelled fur Fendi.
‘Oh, Honey, I can’t – it must have cost thousands and thousands!’ I protested.
‘Only four or five,’ she insisted. She pressed the bag into my hand, even though I didn’t really want the responsibility of such an expensive bag, especially as I planned to spend the night dancing and would have to leave it in the cloakroom or on a chair. But I didn’t really have a choice. Honey had a marvellous knack for getting what Honey wanted.
‘Darling, it looks perfect with the rest of your outfit. I’m going to do my eyes and just use a dab of lip-gloss, what do you think?’ she asked as if she really cared about my opinion.
I leaned over to examine her palette. ‘I love the browns; I think they’re really sultry and old-movie glamour.’
‘Exactly, let’s do old-movie glamour, darling,’ she agreed, smiling up at me. ‘But first you’ll have to put some make-up on that rash of yours; with all that calamine lotion you look like you’ve got measles.’
I took the foundation she passed me and despite my doubts, I went into her en suite to apply it. When I returned, Honey was holding my phone. ‘What are you doing with that?’ I demanded crossly; I didn’t want her deleting any more messages.
She looked surprised and hurt as she put the phone into the fur Fendi she was lending me. ‘I was just swapping all your stuff from one bag to another,’ she explained.
‘Sorry,’ I said, but she didn’t reply.
We were back on speakers by the time we climbed into the limo, thank goodness. I even accepted another one of the tiny Veuves from the fridge and sipped it through the straw. My heart was racing as to what the evening was going to be like. Honey tried to get me to see the humour in the acute discomfort in which I’d spent the previous night, but I was still all bumpy with the rash.
‘Oh darling, don’t be mad. The foundation has totally covered them up; you’re so paranoid. No wonder you have such bad luck with boys, darling. Besides, who’ll be looking at you when I’m there?’ she asked, faux-jokingly. Then she pinched me, only not in a playful way.
‘My skin has the texture of a relief map, Honey. I look diseased.’
Honey laughed uproariously until not only did the collagen in her lip bubble up, but after a choking fit, she did a little vomit, which she spat in my handbag.
‘Sorry darling, it was the first thing to hand. Don’t worry, I’ll buy you another one tomorrow.’
I was beyond caring, though. I found myself saying, ‘That’s okay,’ and ‘Thank you, that’s so sweet of you,’ and ‘Actually no need – I mean, in fact it’s really your handbag anyway.’ She looked a bit cross then.
On our arrival I stood with Honey on the long snaking queue outside the Hammersmith Pallais, caked in foundation, holding my bag of vomit and trying to summon the feelings of excitement I had felt earlier in the evening. It wasn’t easy. I wondered how the party at Star’s was going. I imagined fit boys and all my friends lounging around Tiger’s chill room with the Angel of Death peeing Jim Beam over the black Japanese stones. I imagined them dancing to Star and Indie’s music, and then I looked down the queue at the hordes of Year Eight and Nine girls and boys Star and the others had tried to save me from. There was the odd tragic parent on the other side of the road, sitting in their Range Rover, waiting to see their daughter get into the party safely.
This is when I had my epiphany. I think hubris is the word. We had studied the word both with Ms Topler and during Ancient Greek lessons. To presume that one is greater than the gods. Well, the gods were having a good old laugh now. I looked up at the sky as a few drops of rain fell on my foundation-coated body.
Honey’s phone rang.
‘Hi, darling, yaah, we’re here now about to go in. We had the maddest night at Calm-a-sutra on Friday. I pulled Charles, remember we met him …’
I tried not to listen in, but then Honey shoved her mobile hard against my ear. ‘Here, she wants to speak to you,’ she said in a really pissed-off way.
It was Georgina on the other end.
‘Hi, Georgina, how is –’ I started.
‘Demand Honey give you back your SIM card immediately!’ she insisted firmly.
‘My SIM card’s in my phone, I already checked.’
‘Believe me, that is not your SIM card.’
‘I don’t understand … ?’
‘So just trust me because I know Honey a lot better than you do, okay? We always used to nick the SIM card out of one another’s mobiles in Year Ten. Well everyone’s mobile, actually, you know, just so we could check who was receiving txts from whom. It’s easy to do. We always kept a whole collection of the various pay-as-you-go cards and replaced them.’
‘That’s horrible.’
‘Yaah, I know. Sorry. I don’t do it now!’
I whispered into the phone with my back turned on Honey. ‘Honey’s a complete bitch, Georgina. I’m having a horrible time!’
‘Calypso, you didn’t just work that out? Anyway, we don’t have time to discuss this now; just ask her for your SIM card back, now.’
Turning around, I casually said, ‘Honey, can I have my SIM card back, please?’
Honey rolled her eyes.
‘What did she say?’ Georgina asked. I could hear a party in full swing on the other end of the line.
‘She rolled her eyes.’
‘Repeat these three words out loud, then: Village. Pleb. Shag! And then say you know and you’ll tell everyone if she doesn’t hand it over this very moment.’
I turned to Honey, who was looking at me beadily. ‘Village. Pleb. Shag!’ I said, enunciating each word carefully, slowly and loudly so I wouldn’t have to repeat them. ‘I know everything and I’ll tell everyone,’ I warned her with a bravado I didn’t feel.
‘Fine.’ Honey rolled her eyes. ‘It was for your own good, if you must know,’ she sneered. But she took her phone back, shut it and, after a scramble in her bag, passed me over what must have been my real SIM card.
‘But why?’ I asked, confused.
‘It amused me.’ She shrugged her skinny sun-kissed shoulders.
‘It amused you?’
‘Yes – do you know how sickening it was, watching Portia becoming best pals with a pleb like you! Treating me as if I were the freak! It was just soooo wrong,’ she said as if she was being madly logical or something.
‘So, you stole my SIM card and deleted my txts to redress the social balance?’
‘Yes. I mean no, I borrowed your SIM card occasionally and then put it back occasionally. I didn’t delete the messages, well, not strictly speaking, anyway. I forwarded the messages to my SIM and just deleted them from your SIM, so you see they’re not really deleted. I was just borrowing txts from your txt library, really. Think of it that way.’ She smiled sweetly.
I was aghast at her total lack of shame – I don’t know why.
‘And it was going to be a surprise but you may as well know I did you the most enormous favour. When you were putting the body makeup on I forwarded all the messages I borrowed back onto your SIM so everything is just as it should be now. Don’t get so worked up about it. I always nick SIM cards, like any normal person does. Even your precious friend, Georgina does. In fact, it was her idea,’ she added.
‘Her idea to steal my SIM card?’
‘Not your SIM, obviously. But when she was my best friend we used to steal everyone’s, apart from yours because we wo
uldn’t have had much fun with your SIM before this year, would we, darling?’ She laughed. ‘We used to do it together before you came along and ingratiated yourself into our world and ruined everything!’ she explained crisply as she shuffled forward with the moving queue.
As we moved ever closer to the entrance, I tried to absorb what her game had meant to my relationship with Portia as well as with Freddie and Billy. Without Honey’s interference how would the half term have played itself out? I reflected on the first time we went to Windsor, and I bumped into Billy on the bridge. I remembered leaving him alone with Portia, the two of them chatting away happily. Was that when they realised they liked each other?
‘And don’t think you’re so special,’ continued Honey, gathering outrage as she ranted. ‘I nicked Portia’s SIM too. Only of course I had to put hers back more frequently because she has a family that loves her and she gets loads of txts. When I first found out you were txt-flirting Billy and Freddie, I thought it might be amusing. Then once I discovered that Billy was keen on Portia, I couldn’t resist. Darling, it was like watching a gripping soap opera unfold. You can’t blame me, not when you pushed in on my world, stealing Georgina and chumming up with Portia.’
‘I bloody well can blame you and I will,’ I told her furiously, realising now that she must have deleted that txt Billy had asked me about. All the time I had been considering pulling Billy as a second-best, less complicated boyfriend, Portia had already pulled him. Actually, rather than her stealing Freddie, I had been stealing Billy – at least that’s how it must have appeared to Portia.
I felt sick.
Honey smiled at me and poked her tongue out. ‘So sue, sweetie,’ she shrugged. ‘I still love you!’
At that moment we arrived at the head of the queue and Honey handed her ticket to the door gorilla and skipped in to join the warm dry throb of the party.
I followed, handing the door gorilla my ticket.
‘Stand aside, luv. That’s not valid.’
‘But my parents bought it online,’ I told him desperately.
‘Like I said, you isn’t valid, move aside.’
‘But can’t I go in with my friend?’ I begged – using the term ‘friend’ loosely, you understand. ‘It’s raining.’ I did my special little-girl-lost face, but it didn’t work.
‘Stand aside, you’re blocking the door,’ he repeated without so much as looking at me as he continued to check and take tickets from others on the queue and allow them through. ‘You isn’t valid.’
‘Honey,’ I called out, ‘he won’t let me in.’
She didn’t come out but spoke to me from behind the door gorilla. ‘Never mind, darling, just wait there for me. I’ll be out at two when Oopa is picking us up. The servants have the night off or I’d suggest you wait for me at home. Big kiss!’ With that, she shrugged and disappeared into the noise and bright lights of the ball.
I took shelter with one of the tragic parents standing nearby under an umbrella and watched the girls and boys as they filed into the party. They all looked soooo young! Eventually the parent who had offered me shelter under her umbrella waved desperately as her little girl finally disappeared into the party. She apologised to me but said she and her umbrella were leaving. I almost pleaded with her to take me home with her, but I resisted the temptation.
So there I was, the tragic American Freak who had actually imagined that Honey, the toxic psycho toff, had liked me. I wiped a tear before it could fall down my face and ruin my make-up, before realising there was no need to worry about that now. I wasn’t going anywhere. Why shouldn’t I cry my heart out?
I stood in the rain with my SIM card in one hand and my clutch bag of vomit in the other. I opened up the Fendi and tried not to breathe in as I found my phone and wiped it free of vomit. It was a bit of a struggle, and I dry-retched a few times, but eventually I managed to swap the SIM cards and start my phone up.
My message bank was near to full. The first few txts were from Freddie, just the usual flirty txt. The next was from Billy, and even though I wanted to delete it and scroll down to see if there were more from Freddie, it was quite long for a txt, so I began to read.
I know this is a shity wy 2 tll u. but after I saw u in W I kind of pulled Portia. I feel really bad but I guess that dusnt help? Sorry. B.
It was sent the day I’d kissed Freddie in the rain under the awning in Windsor. Which meant the same day I’d decided Portia was stealing Freddie from me, Portia was actually pulling Billy. I felt stupid as I remembered flirting outrageously with Billy the next time I saw him with Portia. To think – I’d interpreted his embarrassment as a sign that he was desperately keen on me when actually he was desperately keen on Portia!
It was hard to absorb the full enormity of how not receiving that txt from Billy had destroyed my friendship with Portia. I scrolled down to the next txt, which was from Freddie.
sorted the euro ball. Where will I pck u up? Txt me or do u stll wnt me 2 bugger off? Freds x
The tears were streaming down my face, and I didn’t care that every time I wiped them away I was smearing my eye make-up even more. Freddie had wanted to take me to the Royal Bore after all. My crying jag was interrupted by a suited door gorilla who came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. I expect he wanted to offer me a tissue, so I waved him away. Only unlike your average door gorilla, he spoke really nicely to me. ‘Excuse me, miss, are you Calypso Kelly?’
‘Yes, I am and I need to get into that ball,’ I told him, resisting the urge to throw myself into his big comforting-looking chest. ‘I am totally drenched –’
‘I understand you had trouble entering the party. Sorry about that, miss, but His Royal Highness didn’t think we’d manage to find you in there, and …’
I looked around. ‘Is Freddie here?’ I asked.
He gestured toward another man in a suit, only this suit wasn’t a door gorilla; this suit was Freddie, my Freddie. Freds.
‘Freds? What’s going on?’
How romantic was this? How utterly fairy fable-ish, I thought as I swooned with excitement – right up to the point where Freds wrinkled his nose and asked me,
‘Have you just vomited on yourself, Calypso?’
THIRTY-TWO:
My Royal Wake-Up Call
I began to explain about Honey and how she’d vomited into my handbag, but Freddie started to laugh. ‘It’s not that bad,’ he teased. ‘At least not as bad as your skin, which appears – if I’m not mistaken,’ he added, peering closely at my arm, ‘to be peeling off you.’
And then he did the coolest thing! He took his hand and ran it down my arm. Only it wasn’t cool when he looked at the gunk on his hand and grimaced.
‘That’s the make-up she made me put on to hide the rash from the prickly blanket….’
He put his arm around me. ‘You can tell me all about it on the boat. Right now we have a ball to get to.’
‘You mean the Royal Bore? I mean, the Annual Euro Royal Bash Thingamee?’
‘Yes, now put this on,’ he instructed, handing me a motorbike helmet and leather jacket. ‘Quick spin down to the river and we take a boat straight to the castle pier.’
I wanted to pinch myself as I climbed onto the old Norton behind Freddie and we sped beneath the Hammersmith fly-over. I clasped my hands around him tightly as we rode Bond-like down some old stone steps. I swear my heart was in my mouth by the time we got to the little strip along the Thames called the Lower Mall. I could see the jetty and a giant boat with security guys hanging about it, waiting for us.
Two men in chinos who were chatting into mouthpieces were there to take the bike from Freddie. We handed them our helmets and jackets and walked down the jetty hand in hand. I had to carry my lovely shoes, though, because they kept slipping through the slats.
Just before we climbed onto the boat, Freddie wrapped his arms around me and kissed me, only not for very long as he pulled away to ask, ‘Is there actually anything valuable in that bag of yours?’
&
nbsp; I looked at the fur Fendi Honey had lent me and shook my head. ‘No, I washed my phone in the rain and now it’s in my …’ I looked down at the phone wedged in the elastic part of my bra where my cleavage would have been – if I had any.
Freddie looked too and grinned. ‘So, no passport? No valuable item of jewellery, no wallet, no government documents of vital importance, no driving licence, car keys?’
‘Nothing. The only item of value is my Lancôme Juicy Tube lip-gloss.’
‘In that case,’ he said, removing the bag from my hand and tossing it into the Thames, ‘I think we can dispense with it.’
‘Oh,’ I said sadly as I watched it sink to the bottom of the river. ‘I was really quite attached to my Lancôme Juicy Tube lip-gloss.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, putting his arm around me. ‘I was lying about the spew thing, though. It really did stink. Besides, I’m planning on kissing you quite a bit, and I hate lip-gloss.’
I smiled. ‘It was actually Honey’s bag.’
‘Really?’ He rubbed his jaw in a madly sexy way, appearing to ponder the situation for a split second and then smiled as he announced in a Sean Connery piss-take, ‘Well, my dear, the bateau awaits us!’ Then he bowed down, really, really low, and ushered me onto the bateau.
On the boat he directed me to the shower, where I scrubbed the make-up from my body. It was like being in a really cool dream – only one I’d never even dared to dream, although I still regretted losing my lip-gloss to the Thames. Being without lip-gloss always makes a girl feel slightly vulnerable, but then I reminded myself that a prince had just whisked me off on a motorbike and now we were en route to a ball. A real ball – and not just any ball, the Royal Bore!
There was a knock on the door as I was about to climb back into my soggy clothes. I opened it an inch. Freddie was standing there, only he was facing the other way as he passed me the most stunning ball gown I had ever seen. It was black silk taffeta spangled with tiny multi-coloured diamonds and thousands of sparkles. It looked like a long ballerina’s dress, like a summer night sky sparkling with stars.
A Royal Match Page 34
