A Royal Match (28 page)

‘You two are really annoying me,’ she said as she switched her lamp off and groaned again.

A few minutes later, Georgina, Star and a third girl I took to be Indie crept into our room on all fours with their torches in their mouths, which made them look like a pack of pyjama-clad dogs on the prowl. Silently moving the bin and shutting the door, they climbed into our beds. I was pleased that Star climbed in with me.

‘My feet are
frozen
. I need socks,’ she told me.

‘Drawer underneath the bed,’ I told her.

She stayed under the covers as she opened the drawer and riffled round for socks.

I watched with mixed feelings as Georgina climbed in with Honey and started tickling her, and the two of them started giggling together. Just like old times – until a voice piped up from the shadows.

‘Hi, I’m Indie,’ the new best friend whispered as she stood up and shined her torch around our room, finally shining it under her own face so we could see her properly. She was smiling. She was so stunning I was shocked. She looked like Naomi Campbell and she was almost as tall. ‘I’ve heard so much about you all. Especially you, Calypso,’ she said in the sweetest, poshest voice I’d ever heard.

‘Same,’ I replied brightly, determined in that moment to like her and stop feeling jealous.

Portia invited her to jump in under her duvet. Even though it was only September the nights were already quite chilly, especially as they didn’t turn on the central heating until November – even if it was snowing!

‘Isn’t Miss Bibsmore the weirdest?’ Georgina asked rhetorically.

I wanted to say I actually quite liked her, but I knew it would only set Honey off.

‘Oh, she’ll be gone in a week, darling, I’ve got Daddy on the case. Do you know she even had the audacity to confiscate one of my phones! The pikey way she speaks, ugh! Fag, darling, fag?’ Honey suggested.

‘I’ve given up cigarettes,’ Georgina told her. ‘How about a spliff?’

Even Honey seemed surprised, and Honey doesn’t do surprised. It’s quite hard to do surprise when you’ve had as much Botox as she’s had, I guess. Still, even in the torchlight I was pretty certain a look of surprise attempted to flash across her feline features.

A moment later, Georgina and Honey opened up the window to the cold night air, stuck their heads out and fired up their joint companionably.

‘Should you be doing that?’ I asked Georgina when she pulled in after blowing out some smoke and asked if anyone else fancied a puff.

Star pinched me, leaving me in no doubt I’d said the wrong thing.

‘Gee, are you sure you should be doing that?’ Georgina parroted in a bad piss-take of a hillbilly accent.

Honey stuck her head in, blew some funny-smelling smoke towards me and drawled, ‘Oh, go back to LA will you, Calypso! All you Americans are soooo sanctimonious.’

Georgina giggled, just a tiny little bit, but it was a defining giggle.

Honey seized her advantage and carried on. ‘Or maybe you could set up an NA group for us, Calypso? You just love setting up little groups and salons, don’t you? Would you make Georgina and I confess our wickedness to a counselling group? Would you, darling?’

I declined to reply, consumed by embarrassment and squirming with all the old familiar feelings of being an outsider in their exclusive world with its maddeningly tricky English in-jokes which were so much a fabric of their lives. Here I was again, a foreigner in another world where, despite the deceptive similarities, I didn’t really speak the language.

Not that any of that mattered, because Honey was on a roll and anything I said would have only been used as more ammunition against me. This time she sent herself up as a clever way of sending me up. ‘Darlings, my name is The Honourable Honey O’Hare, and this is my friend, The
Honourable Georgina Castle Orpington, and we’re the most ghastly spliff-a-holics.’

I descended deeper into my spiral of dread. What was happening here? Why was Star giving Honey free rein to go on like this? Why had Georgina suddenly done an about-face and cosied up with Honey again? I waited for the inevitable paroxysms of smothered giggles, but instead Indie’s voice came out of the semi-darkness. ‘This is getting soooo boring.’

Honey shone her torch into Indie’s eyes. ‘Oh, go back to fruuping Cheltenham will you.’

Indie shone her own torch straight back into Honey’s face, as the room fell silent in this war of torches. ‘Hardly!’ she said in a madly grand way. ‘I left because of a chav toff like you.’

Honey looked around the room for support. Portia had her back to everyone, Georgina merely giggled and Star and I weren’t even on her radar. Resigned to the mood change, Honey announced, ‘I’ve got the munchies, anyone have sweets on them?’

I smiled at Indie gratefully and she smiled back. Between Miss Bibsmore and Indie, Honey was going to be facing some stiff opposition this term. I definitely wouldn’t want to get on the bad side of Indie. As beautiful as she was, when she’d gone for Honey just then, she’d looked terrifying.

Star stuck her tongue out at me to reveal a new stud in her tongue. She was only doing it to tease in a nice way. I
knew that Star would never want to make me feel bad. She winked at me and gave me a cuddle as well, but something had changed between us. Once she would have sent me a txt to announce a step like tongue piercing. It had always been just the two of us, and while I was pleased that Indie had slapped Honey down, I couldn’t help wishing it had been Star.

The spliff was finally spliffed out and Star sprayed Febreze around the room and things went back to normal as if a tidal wave had receded. We chatted amongst ourselves, catching up on things generally, and Indie joined in as if she’d always been part of our group. It turned out she knew loads of the boys we knew and shared lots of the same opinions as us about them.

‘So Calypso,’ she said to me. ‘I’m really looking forward to watching you fence. I wish I’d taken it up now; it looks so achingly cool in all those movies and ads on television. I adore the outfits, and all the fit boys seem to fence now.’

‘Actually, it’s more aching than cool,’ I told her, and Portia agreed.

Honey made a sarcastic remark, but everyone ignored her. She was sitting alone on the floor now wrapped up in her duvet, devouring our room’s tuck stash with ridiculous abandon, stuffing herself with M&M’s and Jelly Babies like there was no tomorrow. I was really glad that Clemmie wasn’t there to witness it. She cries when people eat Jelly Babies because she thinks they look like her little brother Sebastian. I watched in disbelief as Honey
consumed a term’s worth of tuck, while giggling dementedly to herself and talking drivel. I suppose it was the spliff, although all Star’s father does when he’s stoned is fall into unconscious stupors. As for Georgina, she didn’t seem stoned at all.

When Georgina suggested I bring out my Hershey’s Kisses, as Honey might still be hungry, I directed her to where she’d find them in my cupboard.

Georgina ate a few – well, we all did – but Honey demolished most of the bag. Normally she’s really careful when it comes to sweets, being obsessed as she is with her figure and complexion. I guess she was more affected by the spliff than Georgina because Georgina didn’t appear to have the munchies at all. I’m sure Honey would have grazed on tuck all night if it we hadn’t heard the
tap, tap, tap
of Miss Bibsmore’s stick on the stone stairwell.

‘We’d better scarper,’ Star hissed. And then she did it again. Poked her tongue out at me and grinned. If a nun or even a non-nun teacher saw her stud, she would be gated, if not suspended. But as I mentioned, the school was far from keen to damage relations with such a generous donor to school funds as Tiger from Dirge, so they were just as likely to turn a blind eye to Star, I guess.

Georgina air-kissed me and Indie gave me a cuddle before she left.

‘It was really cool to meet you, Calypso,’ Indie said sweetly.

‘Same,’ I agreed.

‘Good luck with
that
,’ she said, pointing to Honey as if she was an unpleasant problem rather than a girl. Honey was still on the floor, wrapped in her duvet and giggling to herself. ‘Please tell me she’s a one-off?’ Indie begged.

‘Oh, she’s definitely special,’ I assured her.

Indie and Portia both giggled.

Then Indie carefully pushed the bin back and slipped quietly out the door.

In the large refectory hall at breakfast the next morning, the sounds of clattering plates, chatting girls and squawking kitchen staff were deafening. There was no noise on god’s earth that could drown out Sandra, though. Sandra, the head of kitchen staff, wields her power ferociously. Everything about her is fake – from her peroxide platinum hair to her Saint Tropez tan and everything in between. Louie Vuitton belt, Versace t-shirt, Chanel sunglasses – you name the label, she owns the fake. The only thing genuine about her is her Essex screech.

Every morning she stands by the milk dispenser, pointlessly screaming, ‘No
cups
of milk, always jugs, girls, remember! No
cups
of milk, always jugs, girls, remember! No
cups
of milk, always jugs, girls, remember!’

Not even the Year Sevens ever heeded her, of course. Between teachers, older girls and our workload, there was
enough to heed without listening to mad dinner ladies trying to ration our milk.

I grabbed a couple of croissants and stood in the queue by the milk dispenser with my cup and watched the teachers at wretched High table. High table is an ancient long, dark oak table around which high-backed, ornately carved Jacobean-style chairs are arranged. The whole affair looms over the ref on a platform under an ancient portrait of the school’s founder, Sister Angelo Meed.

The teachers were all chatting away, hatching their plans about how horrible they would be making our lives this term. The nun teachers were with them, but every year there were fewer and fewer teaching nuns, as they were getting older and older. The three sitting at High table now were all napping. Mostly you just saw the nuns wandering about the school grounds hand in hand, saying things like ‘Isn’t it a lovely day, girls’ even if a blizzard was blowing their black robes in the air. We all adored the nuns, who always ignored us if we went up to Pullers’ Wood for a fag – not that I smoked, but Star did. Also, they were always telling us they’d pray for us and we loved knowing someone existed just to say little prayers for us.

The non-nun teachers lived in lovely old houses scattered around the school grounds and ate special food, cooked to be edible. The worst part of it all came when they wandered past us during Sunday lunch (having polished off their delicious roasts) and watched over us sadistically as we ate our grey-slop-roasts. They always said things like,
‘Doesn’t that look scrumptious, girls?’ I’m not even sure ‘scrumptious’ is a real word. Teachers are pure evil.

Finally it was my turn to shove my jug under the milk dispenser. After snatching a couple of sachets of chocolate, I joined Star, Georgina and Indie, who were still eating their breakfasts. I noted a couple of madly butch female security guards sitting nearby at a discreet but obvious distance. I figured they were with Indie.

Star and Georgina had their hair identically corn braided like Indie’s and were deep in conversation about the pet shed renovation next year and speculating on what that might mean for Brian, Hilda and Dorothy, the rabbit I co-owned with Georgina.

I was about to join in when Star asked Indie about the animals in the zoo in her palace in Scotland. I dunked a piece of croissant in my hot chocolate and tried to follow what she was saying. I was concentrating on not feeling jealous of Indie when Star nudged me so hard the croissant fell into my hot chocolate.

‘By the way, that wasn’t a real spliff that George was smoking with Honey last night, darling,’ she whispered. ‘It was just a trick.’

‘What?’ I enquired, as if I was wildly cool and not the least bit fazed by the spliff. I began scooping croissant out of my hot chocolate, trying not to let my mind dwell on why she hadn’t bothered to tell me of the trick beforehand. It would have saved me from making a fool of myself.

‘It was all Star’s idea,’ Georgina cut in. ‘Remember how
we were making up ways to get back at her for all the fat remarks she makes about us?’ she reminded me.

‘Yes, but …’

‘Star made a roll-up using these herbs her father’s been using.’

‘He’s trying to wean himself off weed,’ Star interjected.

‘Oh, that’s good,’ I agreed, spooning some soggy croissant out of my hot chocolate.

‘It’s not been any help though,’ she added. ‘He just mixes the herbs with weed.’

‘That’s rock stars for you,’ I sighed, as if rock stars and I were always in detox together.

‘I thought I’d get her to smoke it as payback for the way she’s always having a go at Star for her father’s plebbie drug use.’

‘And how fat we are,’ Star added.

‘I knew she’d share it if
I
offered it to her,’ Georgina told me confidently. ‘And you won’t believe this! She’s already approached me this morning for
more
.’