Wicked! (101 page)

Hengist, who’d combined a governors’ meeting over lunch, had laid on a bar and buffet in the pavilion and buses to transport Larks supporters to the game. He had also invited local bigwigs: the Mayor and the Bishop. Ashton and Cindy who, like Randal, loved to pretend they’d been responsible for saving Larks, had also rolled up.

Ashton, eyeing up the Bagley boys, who were certainly pretty, was in fact feeling bleak. The business pages that morning had launched blistering attacks on S and C and other private companies that had specialized in education. Not only were LEAs they’d taken over not meeting their targets, but the buildings they’d imposed on schools had turned out to be shoddy, poky, taking too long to build and not able to withstand the wear and tear of children. S and C badly needed a hit.

Still, it was hard to be bleak on such a lovely evening. Crowds already thronged the touchline and, although the daffodils were nearly over, primroses starred the banks and a pale haze of green leaf softened many trees, while others were pinky roan from buds about to burst. Heavy rain earlier enhanced the jade green of the pitch.

It was even mild enough for Randal Stancombe to descend from his chopper in a new, exquisitely cut off-white suit. Still smarting from being cuckolded by Hengist, he had rolled up with Anthea Belvedon, radiant in Parma violet, with a calf-length mink flung round her shoulders and a huge sapphire ring on her right hand.

‘What a ravishing fur,’ sighed Vicky Fairchild.

‘A gift from Randal,’ said Anthea, loudly enough to be heard by Ruth Walton, who’d just arrived, flushed from lunch, in last year’s Lindka Cierach. ‘I didn’t realize it was going to be so warm – hello, Ruth – Randal and I feel for Dicky, Dora and Jade’s sake it’s so important to show one’s face at such functions.’

‘And I’m reporting you to animal rights,’ hissed Dora, feeding roast beef sandwiches to Cadbury. ‘That coat is so pants.’

Alex Bruce was fuming. How dare Hengist schedule a rugby match on the same day as a GCSE science revision workshop, which no one would now attend. Even Boffin had defected and, already miked up with a silver whistle round his scrawny neck, was poised to referee the game. And how dare Hengist invite back Emlyn, who had nearly drowned Poppet?

‘Ten Downing Street is deceptively large once you get inside,’ Poppet, several months pregnant, was now boasting to Anthea.

Noticing Mrs Walton looking a shade disconsolate, Cosmo thrust a large vodka and tonic into her hand.

‘Ever considered a toyboy?’ he murmured.

Hengist, not confident of shaven-headed Denzil, who preferred any game to rugger, was himself revving up the rest of the Bagley third fifteen. ‘Never take any team coached by Emlyn for granted. He’ll have told them to attack and attack and that nothing matters except getting points on the board.’

‘It’s still going to be three hundred to nil,’ grumbled Lando. ‘Christ, my head hurts.’

‘Here they are, here they are,’ went up the shout as Randal’s crimson minibus rumbled up the drive.

‘Larks wouldn’t still exist without Daddy,’ boasted Jade. ‘He’s given them so much financial support.’

‘Oh shut up,’ muttered Dora.

Bagley, incensed by the loss of Emlyn, watched Larks emerge with mixed feelings.

‘There’s Graffi, still lush,’ sighed Milly.

Graffi, still grinning although black under the eyes, was reeling with relief because he’d completed his ten-hour art exam earlier in the week and was happy with what he had produced.

‘My God,’ said Amber, cutting off her conversation with the Master of Beagles at Radley, ‘is that really Xavier? He must have lost a couple of stone and grown a foot. Looks quite attractive.’

‘Very attractive if one remembers his trust fund,’ agreed Milly.

‘Hi, Xav.’

‘Hello there, Xav,’ purred Jade.

‘Welcome back, Xav,’ shouted Amber.

‘Booo!’ shouted Dora, who’d been at Dicky’s hipflask. ‘Have you forgotten he tried to kill my brother?’

‘Shut up,’ hissed a discomfited Dicky, as an equally discomfited Xav belted across the grass to the visitors’ changing room.

‘And here comes the Larks Lothario,’ shouted Amber.

A pair of black-jeaned legs, as long and pliable as liquorice, were finally followed down the bus steps by a Nike scarlet jacket and a haughty black face.

‘God he’s awesome,’ sighed Milly.

Glancing coldly round, reluctant to take a first step on enemy territory, Feral caught sight of Bianca standing on top of a car, in a bright orange poncho, her dark hair lifting in the breeze; he started violently as they gazed and gazed and gazed at each other.

‘Move it, for fuck’s sake.’

From behind, Johnnie, Monster and Rocky ejected Feral on to the gravel.

Oh God, thought Bianca in panic, I still love him.

Thank God, thought Feral in ecstasy, she still loves me.

In a daze he glanced up to see if she was real, then, smiling, shaking his head, waving his hands, he reeled after Xav.

Paris, who’d witnessed this eye-meet from the home changing room, felt punched in the gut. Then he saw Janna jumping out of Emlyn’s muddy Renault. At first he was shocked how tired, pale and old she looked, but when both Larks and Bagley pupils ran forward to welcome her, and her face was illuminated by that tender, joyful smile, he realized how her new, short, curly hair became her, and how protectively Emlyn was towering over her, sheltering her from the mob as it surged around them.

‘Mr Davies, Mr Davies, look, it’s Mr Davies back.’

Paris wanted to join the throng and beg Janna’s forgiveness and friendship. He wanted to bolt back to the Old Coach House and hide. He couldn’t play rugby with so many crosscurrents.

‘Janna, darling.’ It was Hengist, hugging her and then shaking hands with Emlyn. ‘Marvellous to see you both. Sally sent her apologies, she’s had to go and see her mother.’

Like hell, thought Janna. Normally such a trooper, Sally had taken Oriana’s coming out very badly, particularly the press delving around and raising the ghost of Mungo. Today, with Emlyn’s return, they would be out in force, and she hadn’t been able to face it.

‘Tell her her bulbs are being miraculous,’ said Janna. ‘Sheets of daffodils and hyacinths, even fritillaries; they’ve cheered everyone up so much.’

‘I will; she’ll be so pleased. Come and have a drink.’

‘Janna can,’ said Emlyn. ‘I’m going to crank up my team.’

Emlyn found his Larks players strangely silent as with clumsily shaking hands they tried to find the necks of their crimson and yellow striped shirts and zip up shorts less white than most of their faces.

‘Ouch,’ yelled Johnnie Fowler, as he bit the inside of his cheek instead of his chewing gum.

Emlyn smiled round, steadying them, then placed a rugby ball on the floor in front of them.

‘This is your best friend, so don’t give him away. He has one destiny, over the line or between the posts. Don’t let them bait you, don’t swear at the ref, don’t spit, or bite, kill the ball, or collapse in the scrum. However much you want to, it’ll only put points on the board for the other side, not for us. Watch, watch the whole time.’

Larks parents were out in force. Cigarettes slotted into their lower lips, fathers with tattoos, earrings and T-shirts, they looked so young compared with the tiny sprinkling of Bagley parents.

‘S’pose you have to grow old before you’re rich enough to afford fees here,’ observed Graffi’s father, Dafydd, who was getting tanked up with Stormin’ Norman.

Pearl’s boxer dad had a whole quiche in one hand and a pint of red in the other.

Pearl and Kitten, in crop tops showing off grabbable waists, their purple flares sweeping the damp grass, tossed their shining, straightened manes as they paraded up and down, giggling and being eyed up by the Bagley boys.

Randal moved around pressing the flesh, getting himself and his beautiful suit photographed as much as possible, distributing largesse to the inhabitants of the Shakespeare Estate.

‘So pleased Larks is doing well; what subject is your youngster taking in GCSE?’

‘Sex and violence,’ quipped Dafydd cheekily and regretted it when Stancombe’s face blackened and he made a note on his pocket computer.

Through the cobweb-festooned window, Xav could see everyone nudging and staring as his parents arrived. Bianca, full of chat, dragged Taggie off to the bar. Rupert, who had no desire to socialize, stayed in the car with a bottle of brandy and
Opening Lines
, the OCR poetry set book, which, after repeated slugs, he was finding increasingly difficult to understand. He’d never met such a bunch of whingers moaning on about their dreadful childhoods. He could relate to Philip Larkin or Simon Armitage stealing from his mother’s handbag and punching an irritating wife, but what the fuck was this guy Stevie Smith going on about?

To carry a child into adult life,

Is good, I say it is not.

To carry the child into adult life

Is to be handicapped.

In his wild youth, Rupert had had a Rolls-Royce with black windows. He could have done with it now, to stop so many ghastly mothers waving and gazing in. Nor could he avoid seeing Taggie being welcomed by all her dreadful new friends: Pittsy and fearful stinking, whiskery Skunk and that ghastly football manager, Pete Wainwright, who’d clearly got the raging hots for her, not to mention that fat Welshman who seemed to have bewitched Xav.

Rupert knew he was in the wrong. Since he’d decided to take this wretched exam and Taggie had proved such a hit at Larks, he’d been vile to her and ratty with the children.

Christ, she was even allowing the caretaker Wally to peck her on the cheek. Rupert was finding it as hard to climb out of his mega sulk as to break out of Broadmoor. Bloody hell, Stancombe, looking an absolute prat in his white suit, was now kissing Taggie – pity a snow plough couldn’t run him over. Rupert was going to win this bet if it killed him. He took another slug.

Knowing they would expect great things, Paris observed that Ian and Patience had formed a merry party with Artie, Theo, the Brigadier and Lily.

‘Larks look alarmingly fit,’ grumbled Jack Waterlane as Monster, Johnnie and Danny the Irish thundered past chucking a ball to each other.

‘Only because they stayed in last night,’ said Anatole.

Bagley’s shirts, sea blue with white collars, gave them a look of deceptive innocence. The sun, darting in and out of big white clouds, spotlit the Mansion one moment, an acid-green lime in Badger’s Retreat another, Mrs Walton’s laughing face as a passing Cosmo waved to her the next.

It was Larks’s first glimpse of Paris for eighteen months. He had shot up and filled out, his jewellery had gone, his white blond hair, no longer gelled upwards, was longer with a side parting and, like Rupert Brooke’s, poetically brushed back from his forehead. He was as dead pan as ever, but he had a new confidence. Nodding to his old classmates, but not stopping to say hello, he turned to Junior Lloyd-Foxe, yelling at him to pass the ball.

‘Parse, parse,’ mocked Monster.

‘Lord, la-di-da,’ shouted Johnnie, ‘listen to the Prince of Posh “parsing” the “bawl”. He’s too grand for his old friends now.’

Paris ignored them, but a flush crept up his cheek.

Bagley won the toss, and chose the Mansion end, with the soft west wind behind them.

‘Bagley to kick off.’

‘OK, boys,’ quietly Xav echoed Martin Johnson, ‘let’s take this game.’

‘Very plucky of your lads to take on Bagley,’ Poppet was saying patronizingly to Janna.

‘Have you ever seen anything so gross as Boffin’s bum in those shorts?’ hissed Dora as Boffin blew a shrill plaintive note on his whistle.

Lando booted the ball over the heads of the Larks forwards. Next moment Feral moved into its path, caught it and set off for goal, dodging round Anatole and Lubemir, flashing his teeth at them, charging straight for the Hon. Jack, aiming for his right side, luring him on to his right foot, then bolting past on his left.

‘Tackle him,’ bellowed Lando, but Lubemir, hurling himself at Feral, only caught air as Feral skipped out of the way, streaking over the line, burying the ball under the posts to ecstatic, flabbergasted cheers.

‘That gorilla won’t kick it ten yards,’ drawled Cosmo, as Rocky, having laboriously readjusted the plastic stand, finally managed to balance the ball on top of it.

‘Our Farver,’ mumbled Rocky and belted it over the bar to even more flabbergasted cheers.

‘Very plucky of you to take on Larks,’ Janna told Poppet.

‘I ain’t no gorilla.’ Rocky marched up to Cosmo, shoving a huge fist in his terrified face.

‘Rocky, no!’ howled Xav.

Reluctantly Rocky lowered his fist.

‘If you do that again, Rocky,’ Boffin’s miked voice echoed round the field, ‘I shall send you to the sin bin.’

Three minutes later, Rocky leapt miles in the air in the line-out and catching the ball, passed to Xav, who passed to Graffi, who trundled down the field like a little Welsh pony, black hair tossing, slap into the Bagley defence, powering his way through them and crashing face down in the mud over the line, but with the ball staying firm between his palm and the pitch. Again Rocky converted.