A Royal Mess (50 page)

‘What do you mean?’

I can’t show this on Film Night at Eades. Everyone would walk out in despair. No, I need to find a happy ending. Someone has to buy that duckling. I’ve paid the guy for Rex already and said he can offer him for free. So, hopefully when we come back tomorrow he’ll be sold.’

I clung to Malcolm like I clung to the hope that Rex would find his home. I felt so emotional. Not just because I was touched by the plight of Rex, but because I was touched that Malcolm had taken me to the pet shop. I was touched that he wanted to share the whole thing with me. He was not your ordinary boy. I mean, of course I already knew that, but now I could hear Star egging me on. Saying, ‘Go for it, Calypso, he’s so the one.’

Maybe she was right. Unlike Freds, Malcolm was anything but ordinary.

THIRTY-ONE
The End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End

That evening was a quiet one. Jenny went to bed in a strop. ‘That bloody Italian cheated, and that wanker of a president saw it,’ she railed.

‘Professor Sullivan sees everything,’ Portia told her, her black eyes flashing. ‘He’s the most upright man you’re ever likely to meet.’

Jenny flounced out of the room muttering obscenities. ‘I think I almost prefer Honey,’ I told Portia later. ‘At least she’s a worthy combatant.’

‘You just think that because Honey’s hundreds of miles away, Calypso. It’s like in that song, “If you can’t be with the one you hate, hate the one you’re with.”’

Portia can be
molto
wise. Probably all those generations of inbreeding.

We went to bed early, leaving the nuns to play cards
with Bell End and Signora. In the morning we showered and bathed and made ourselves look
molto
gorgeous for the tournament. Except for Jenny, who exuded horribleness. Even though she’d been culled, Biffy was making her attend the tournament to boost team spirit. Spectators were allowed today, so the nuns were up at breakfast, bright-eyed with excitement.

‘Signora helped make a banner,’ Sister Regina announced proudly as she and Sister Bethlehem held up a white tablecloth.

‘But Sisters, there’s nothing written on it,’ I said, hating to be the one to burst their bubble. Poor mad little things.

The Sisters exchanged a knowing look, at least I think that’s what it was. It’s hard to tell with those big thick spectacles. Then they turned their cloth around, which took a while because they kept getting twisted up in it. But eventually the reverse side was displayed.

The words GREAT BRITAIN RULES THE PISTE were painted professionally in red and blue paint.

Portia and I gave them a cuddle.

Bell End said, ‘That’s the spirit, Sisters, we’ll show them.’ Then he turned to us. ‘Right, girlies, today’s the day you rend the flesh from the bones of the fascist Italian witches. No backbone, these Italians, see, no front bone for that matter. A bunch of big girls’ floral blouses with bows on them. No, Great Britain will wipe the salle with their Italian blood. They can bloody well go home and cry in the bosoms of their mothers.’

‘Mr Wellend, I think you’ll find this is
their
home. We’re what’s known as the visiting team,’ The Commodore explained, laughing into his walrus moustache.

‘Not for long, Biff, not for long. Fencing’s not a game, as well you know, my old comrade. It’s war! Yesterday we let them think we were a bunch of wets. Well, not today! Not today. If blood must be spilled, better theirs than ours is what I say. To your arms, girls, to your arms!’ he yelled – and then he blew his whistle.

‘Okay, thank you, Mr Wellend, most colourful,’ Biffy responded patronisingly. ‘But I think you’ll find I’m the manager here, and well, to strike a more instructive note, let’s just say, may the best team win.’

God I hated him.

Bell End wasn’t going to have Biffy pop his mad balloon, though. ‘Have their guts for garters!’ he cried, and we all punched the air with our fists and cheered.

Jenny said, ‘God, you are soooo stupid.’

‘You’re the bloody idiot that got knocked out in the pools, yer big girl’s blouse,’ Bell End reminded her.

The boys from the Eades Film Society were waiting for us at the salle where the beautiful Carlotta and her teammates were ready to rinse us. Malcolm was there filming away, and I gave him a little wave. I put on a brave face, which fortified me a bit, but the calibre of these girls was the alpha and omega of perfection – and I don’t just mean their looks. As we started our stretches, a mighty roar erupted from
the Eades boys, which made me blush. Then they started on a series of chavie football chants.

‘Eng-ga-land! Eng-ga-land!’

As play was called for the first match, their cries intensified to include classic hits of the football stadiums.

Itwas soooo embarrassing. Especially when I lost my bout.

As I saluted my opponent in the next bout, I went into a zanshin – a samurai swordsman state of being. Zanshin is a state of mind of complete action when there is no time to take back or fix a stroke or a stride. Zanshin means going beyond technique, because you can’t force your opponent to conform to your moves in the way you want. The angle and force of a strike must be adjusted immediately to the energy of your opponent.

I emptied my mind of the English cheer squad. I emptied my mind of Freds and Malcolm and the duckling and asked for divine guidance.

Professor Sullivan and Bell End had two very different styles. Professor Sullivan was all about speed and efficiency and the physical game of chess. Bell End was more a slam ‘em with your blade and rain on their parade sort of guy. I wondered what would happen if I drew on both styles for inspiration. As ‘play’ was called, I was psyched for an aggressive game of chess.

I scored my first hit with a classic Professor Sullivan manoeuvre: advancing down the piste in a seemingly obvious attack by threatening my opponent with a cut to the head. This provoked her into a parry of quinte. I
rotated my blade to score an effortless cut to her flank. The point was mine, and we returned to the
en guard
line. As I’d hoped, my opponent’s mind ran along predictable lines, which I used to my advantage throughout the game.

The bout was mine. As I was being wired up for my next bout, I ignored my aching muscles and throbbing bruises and remained totally zanshin. I kept up the game of bluff and double bluff, going in for the aggressive attack only to slay her with an unexpected manoeuvre. Professor Sullivan had always been big on wrist action, and I used the adroit strength of my wrists to full advantage that day.

As I made my way back to the
en guard
line between each point, I was vaguely aware of Bell End blowing his whistle while running up and down the various pistes like a madman. I closed my mind and went back to my zanshin state so that his violent instructions to ‘slay the filthy witches’ would fall on deaf ears.

I won each bout using the same Professor Sullivan/Bell End combination of tactics. Yet despite my own personal victories, ultimately the Great British team was proclaimed the loser.

I know this probably sounds like I’m not a team player, but actually I didn’t feel that bad about losing our first international match, because something extraordinary had happened to me on the Italian piste that day. I had metamorphosed into a totally different sabreur than the one who had left England just two days before. By fusing the finesse of Professor Sullivan with the brutality of Bell End I had developed the
ability to deliver a ferocious onslaught on the head of a pin. The speed and ferocity of the Italians had taught me that Bell End was right; you needed a lot of aggression to be a sabreur. But Professor Sullivan was right as well; your aggression had to be tempered with precise manoeuvres and intellectual finesse. The British team had lost this time, but I’d played well. Next time we’d wipe the floor with our opponents.

The Italians shook hands graciously and insisted on taking us out to dinner that night. In the changing rooms afterwards, the girls were
molto
charming and gave us a great deal of help with our Italian accents. Even sentences like ‘my hair is soooo sweaty’ sounded sexy with an Italian accent. When we returned to Saint Augustine’s, everyone would think we were Italian goddesses.

After changing, we all went our separate ways. Billy and Portia were off to the Duomo and to do some shopping on the Vecchio. Malcolm took me behind the Medici chapel for another snog-age.

‘You were amazing,’ he told me, and then he gave me another soulful kiss. ‘What on earth happened to you on the piste today? You were like a storm of avenging angels, darling. You really are unpredictable and full of surprises, Calypso Kelly.’

Freds was always telling me that I was full of surprises too. But when he said it, he made it sound like a bad thing. The way Malcolm said it made me feel interesting, mysterious and jam-packed with undiscovered possibilities.

So I kissed him in a very unpredictable way.

THIRTY-TWO
The Italian Duckling Job

As we burst into the pet shop, Giuseppe put down the paper he’d been reading and shook his head. My prayers to Mary, Saint Francis of Assisi (the patron saint of animals) and every other saint I knew the name of had gone unanswered. Which is challenging to a young girl’s faith, I can tell you that now.

We could hear Rex peeping before we even looked in his carton. He was flapping his little useless wings, and I was almost certain I saw tears in his eyes. ‘How can Italians, the great people who have given us philosophers and theologians by the lorry load, be so horrible to a helpless duckling?’ I asked Malcolm.

‘Jerkism is an international affliction,’ he said as he commenced filming.

‘Well, I don’t think the pope will be too pleased when he hears about this,’ I muttered, only very, very softly, because
Malcolm might have been an atheist or an agnostic or even a communist for all I knew.

‘Oh, Rex,’ I sobbed. ‘There you are, pathetically flapping away in your pathetic paper carton, and us helpless to help.’ I wanted him to know I felt his pain.

Rex was peeping himself sick while Malcolm filmed him. Giuseppe put down his paper and came over. I could tell that underneath his mustachioed bravado beat the heart of a duckling lover, because he indicated with a flick of his hand that I could cuddle Rex after all.

I was very tentative at first, but Rex practically dived out of my cupped hands, so I clutched him more firmly as I brought him up to my face for a kiss. I swear he was the most adorable duckling in the entire world. I’d seen his lucky evenly coloured peers on Malcolm’s video, and none of them, not a one, had his pluck and character. Rex, for all his speckled blotchiness, was a king among ducklings.

His frantic peeping didn’t let up. If I could have translated Italian duckling speak, I’d swear he was begging me to take him home. His little beak felt like batting eyelids on my neck and cheeks. It was very tickly, actually, and I started to giggle. Not that I wasn’t
molto
moved and despairing. I held him away from my face a bit and looked at him, girl to duck. His little eyes were all wet and pleading.

I turned to Malcolm – well, Malcolm’s camera lens – and wondered if he was thinking the same thing: This whole situation was rum.