Wicked!

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Wicked! Page 11

by Jilly Cooper


  ‘As part of his caring, supportive ethos, Wod gives of his valuable time and you put up disgusting paintings of him on the wall and treat him with twuculence and disrespect.’

  ‘He’s a bloody clipboard junkie who upsets the kids.’

  ‘Your school is spiralling out of control,’ said Ashton coldly.

  ‘Ashton to Ashton, dust to dust,’ screamed Janna, slamming down the telephone. When it rang again, she was, for once, able to snatch it up before a suspicious Rowan.

  ‘Janna Curtis,’ she snapped.

  ‘This is Hengist Brett-Taylor.’ The deep lazy voice was laced with laughter. ‘I wonder if you’d like to have lunch this week.’

  Janna was about to refuse when she saw Monster Norman’s mother charging up the corridor, and abandoning her open-door policy, kicked it shut and leant against it.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘How about Wednesday?’

  She had a finance meeting at four-thirty, so she could escape early.

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘I thought we’d go to La Perdrix d’Or in Cathedral Street. Shall I pick you up?’

  ‘No, I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘At one o’clock, then. I really look forward to it.’

  13

  Janna looked forward to lunch with Hengist less and less. She had her prospective-parents’ evening the following day and shouldn’t be skiving. Nor should she be fraternizing with the enemy with Rowan clocking her every move, particularly when Janna came in in her rose-festooned pink suit, with her newly washed russet curls bouncing around her shoulders.

  But, by the time a German teacher and a lab assistant had given in their notice, the boys’ lavatories had blocked yet again and Satan Simmons had been carted off to hospital after an encounter with a broken bottle, Janna was ready for a large drink.

  Only when she had driven past the Ghost and Castle did she pull in to tart up, not helped by her trembling hands zigzagging her eyeliner, spilling base on her pink satin camisole top and drenching her in so much of Stew’s Chanel No 5, big-headed bloody Brett-Taylor would be bound to construe it as a come-on. In an attempt to look school-marmish, she groped furiously for a hairband in the glove compartment, and scraped back as many of her curls as possible. Then she jumped as, in the driving mirror, she caught sight of Rowan, Gloria the gymnast and perfidious Jason Fenton sloping off for an early lunch, no doubt to bitch about her. It was debatable who blushed most when they recognized her car storming off.

  Janna grew increasingly flustered because she was late and Cathedral Street long, punctuated with cherry trees and composed of seemingly identical eighteenth-century shopfronts and she’d forgotten the French name of the restaurant – something like Pederast’s Door. She was scuttling up and down, when Hengist, who’d been looking out, pulled her in from the street.

  ‘You are absolutely sweet to make it.’

  And Janna gasped because he was a good foot taller than she was and undeniably gorgeous-looking, with thick springy dark hair, unflecked by grey, brushed back and curling over the collar. In addition, he had heavy-lidded, amused eyes, the very dark green of rain-soaked cedars, an unlined face still brown from the summer, a nose with several dents in it, a square jaw with a cleft chin and a wonderfully smooth smiling mouth, framing even white teeth, most of them capped after the bashing they had received on the rugger field.

  He was conventionally dressed in a longish tweed jacket, dark-yellow cords, an olive-green shirt and an MCC tie, but as his lemon aftershave mingled amorously with Chanel No 5 on the warm windless autumn air, he seemed utterly in the heroic mould. Casting Hector or Horatius who kept the bridge for a Hollywood epic, you would look no further. Beneath the languid amiability, he exuded huge energy, and after the Hydes and Skunks, who’d been her fare for the last month, he seemed like a god.

  Janna bristled instinctively:

  ‘I’ve got a finance meeting; I haven’t got long.’

  ‘Then the sooner you have a large drink the better.’

  Hengist ordered her (without asking) a glass of champagne and, picking up his glass of red and the biography of Cardinal Mazarin that he’d left on the bar, he led her through a packed restaurant to what was clearly the best table, overlooking the water meadows and the river.

  ‘The view’s breathtaking, but you must sit with your back to it, because it’s so good for my street cred to be seen with you and it means that all the fat cats lunching here will think: how pretty she is, and pour money into your school.’

  ‘I wish,’ sighed Janna.

  ‘I’ve brought you a present,’ said Hengist.

  In a blue box tied with crimson ribbon was a long silver spoon.

  ‘I know you feel you’re supping or lunching with the devil,’ he said, laughing at her. ‘I’ve read all about your views in the TES and the Guardian– “upper-class care” indeed – but I promise I won’t bite except my food, which is excellent here. Thank you, Freddie.’ He smiled at the spiky-haired young waiter who’d brought over Janna’s champagne and the menu.

  ‘Now get that inside you,’ he went on. ‘You’ll need it to endure the appalling Russell Lambert and the even more appalling Crispin and Ashton. What a coven of fairies you’ve surrounded yourself with.’

  ‘I don’t want to discuss my governors,’ said Janna primly and untruthfully.

  ‘I’ve cracked the governor problem,’ confided Hengist. ‘We have two meetings a year. One over dinner at Boodle’s, my club in London, which they all adore. Then, in early November, they all come down to Bagley for dinner and the night. Sally, my wife, is a fantastic cook. Wonderful smells drift into the boardroom throughout the meeting, so they’re desperate to get through it and on to pre-dinner drinks. Then they push off first thing in the morning.

  ‘But my pièce de résistance has been to get the most ravishing mother on to the board, a divorcee called Mrs Walton, so we always get full attendance and all the governors are so busy looking at her boobs, they OK everything.’

  Janna tried and failed to look disapproving.

  ‘Sally and I call her the governing body, but she’d be wasted on Ashton or Crispin,’ said Hengist idly. ‘You’d do better with Brad Pitt.’

  ‘Or Jason Fenton,’ snapped Janna.

  ‘Oh dear, I’d forgotten him.’

  ‘Self-satisfied little narcissist. I passed him bunking off with two other teachers today when they thought I’d left for lunch. He’d have been admiring himself in the shop windows if they weren’t all boarded up round Larks. I’m over the moon you’ve taken him off my hands.’

  ‘At least I’ve done something right.’

  Hengist looked so delighted, Janna burst out laughing.

  La Perdrix d’Or itself seemed to be celebrating both golden partridge and the guns who killed them. Paintings of partridge or sporting prints of shooting parties in autumn, with birds and yellow leaves cascading out of the sky, adorned the dark-red walls. There were silver partridges and vases of red Michaelmas daisies on the white tablecloths and, like Sally B-T’s governors’ dinners, the most delicious smells of wine, herbs and garlic were drifting up from the kitchen.

  The menu was in French, always Janna’s Achilles heel, but Freddie the waiter charmingly translated for her.

  ‘The goat’s cheese fritters are out of this world,’ said Hengist, ‘although they might give you even worse nightmares if you fall asleep during your finance meeting.’

  ‘And the Dover sole’s fresh in today,’ said Freddie.

  ‘I’ll have that,’ said Janna with a sigh of relief.

  Janna always liked people who looked straight at you, but Hengist unnerved her; those amused appraising eyes never left her face. He was just so attractive. Determined not to be a partridge to his twelve bore, she went on the offensive.

  ‘You can’t order venison. Poor deer.’

  ‘A poor deer got into the garden last night and demolished the remainder of Sally’s roses. He’d have gobbled up your lovely suit i
n seconds.’

  Getting hotter by the minute, Janna was too embarrassed about the make-up on her camisole top to undo her jacket.

  ‘How did you turn Bagley round?’

  ‘Fired a lot of masters. Found several old codgers already dead in the staffroom, which saved me the trouble. We were horribly under-subscribed. Every time the telephone rang, it was someone resigning or removing a pupil. The children were running wild.’

  ‘Sounds familiar.’

  ‘They’re still pretty wild,’ admitted Hengist. ‘You think you’ve got delinquents at Larks. I’ve got the offspring of celebrities and high achievers, who are often just as neglected and screwed up. The divorce rate among the parents is frighteningly high.

  ‘My first move was to set off the fire alarm at midnight on my first Saturday of term,’ he went on. ‘Ten Upper Sixth boys were so drunk, they couldn’t get out of bed. In chapel on Monday, I named them all, then fired the lot. The parents, whom I’d alerted, were waiting outside. Then I told the rest of the school, “Your last five days of bad behaviour are up.” I think it shocked them. None of the boys kicked out were very bright,’ he added. ‘One should never fire clever pupils.’

  Janna didn’t know how to take this patter. Hengist, like jesting Pilate, flitted from subject to subject, never waiting for an answer.

  Then he switched tack, unnerving her further by asking her all about herself, her cottage and about Larks. She was too proud to tell him about the antagonism of the staff, but he was so sympathetic, interested and constructively helpful and the cheese fritters were so delicious, particularly washed down by more champagne, Janna was having such a nice time she was ashamed.

  ‘How d’you cope with the workload?’ she asked.

  ‘I have a brilliant PA, Miss Painswick, who’s a dragon to everyone but me and drives my wife Sally crackers. I appointed a deputy head, Alex Bruce, from the maintained system, who understands red tape and I’ve no doubt one day will strangle me with it like Laocoön. He likes filling in forms. He’s a friend of your nemesis, Rod Hyde, same awful class. And I’ve got a brilliant bursar, Ian Cartwright; he’s just back from Africa having extracted two years’ unpaid school fees from a Nigerian prince.’

  ‘With so many people looking after you,’ asked Janna waspishly, ‘what on earth do you find to do?’

  ‘Given the quality of my staff,’ murmured Hengist, ‘my job consists largely of keeping out of the way,’ and again smiled so sweetly and unrepentantly Janna melted.

  ‘Do you have many women teachers?’ she asked as she attacked her sole.

  ‘Alex Bruce’s wife, an Olympic-level pest, teaches religious studies, which includes everything except the Bible. Miss Wormly teaches English and we’ve got a head of science with absolutely no sense of humour, known as “No-Joke Joan”. She also runs our only girls’ house: Boudicca, a “thankless task”. Miss Sweet, the undermatron of Boudicca, takes sex education, poor thing. The girls, who are sexually light years ahead, help her along.’

  He’s got a divinely deep husky voice, even if I do disapprove of everything he says, thought Janna, unbuttoning her jacket.

  ‘You ought to employ more women,’ she said fretfully.

  ‘I’m sure. You don’t want a job, do you?’

  ‘I’d rather die than work for an independent school.’ Then, feeling she’d been rude: ‘This sole is wonderful. How can I stop truancy? It’s shocking among the boys.’

  ‘What do they like best?’

  ‘After Hallé Berry, probably football.’

  ‘Start a football club.’

  ‘We haven’t got any pitches. Lots of land, nearly ten acres, but we can’t afford to have it levelled.’

  ‘I’ll introduce you to Randal Stancombe. You’re so pretty and he’s so rich, he’ll give you some money.’

  ‘Do you have a football club at Bagley?’

  ‘No, we’re a rugger school.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Janna sarcastically. ‘I suppose you played rugby for your school.’

  ‘Mr Brett-Taylor played rugby for England,’ said Freddie. ‘Everything all right, sir?’

  When he’d gone, Janna asked if there were lots of drugs at Bagley.

  ‘Probably. We only expel on a third offence. Why squander twenty thousand a year? A boy was sacked from Fleetley last week because they found cannabis in his study. He’s expected to get straight As and is an Oxbridge cert, so we took him straightaway. His parents are so grateful, they’ll probably pay for a new sports pavilion.’

  ‘I can’t afford to exclude,’ said Janna crossly. ‘I get fined five grand every time.’

  ‘Whatever happened to the word “expel”?’ sighed Hengist. He quoted softly:

  ‘Shall I come, sweet Love, to thee,

  When the evening beams are set?

  Shall I not excluded be?’

  Stretching out a big suntanned hand, on the little finger of which glinted a big gold signet ring, he gently stroked Janna’s cheek.

  ‘Pretty, you are. Don’t work yourself into a frazzle over Larks.’

  ‘Don’t patronize me.’ Blushing furiously, Janna jerked her head away. ‘We’re just hopelessly underfunded. Bloody rural Larkshire. Can you really introduce me to Randal Stancombe?’

  ‘Of course. Randal wants to build us a vocational wing. When I was young, vocation meant pretty girls becoming nuns and plain ones going off to be missionaries in Africa. Now it means thick boys training to be plumbers and thick girls learning to run travel agencies.’

  ‘I know what “vocation” means,’ spat Janna. ‘I didn’t know you took any thick children.’

  ‘Rupert Campbell-Black’s son Xav is destined to get straight Us,’ confessed Hengist. ‘In compensation, it wildly impresses parents to catch a glimpse of Rupert on Speech Day.’

  Janna was getting so flushed with drink, she took off her jacket – sod the spilt make-up. People kept stopping at their table to say hello to Hengist, and praise something he’d written in the Telegraph or said on television.

  Each time, he introduced Janna, then gave the other person twenty dazzling seconds of charm, before saying they must forgive him, but he and Janna had things to discuss.

  ‘My children aren’t thick,’ protested Janna when they were alone again. ‘They know the players and fixtures of Larkminster Rovers inside out. All I want to do is make a difference to children in a community who don’t have the advantages I had. Education is about empowering children to access parts of themselves they haven’t accessed,’ she concluded sententiously.

  Hengist raised an eyebrow. ‘Can it really be English language you teach?’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Janna so loudly lunchers looked round. ‘No, I don’t want any dessert. My teachers stop talking when I come into the room: would I had the same effect on the children. Show them any kindness and they spit and swear at you. But now, the wildest of them all, Feral Jackson, comes to tea with me on Saturdays,’ she added proudly, ‘with Graffi and Paris. Paris is a looked-after kid, I must show you some of his poems, they’re brilliant.’

  Poor little duck, she’s adorable when she gets passionate, thought Hengist, only half listening, examining Janna’s glowing freckles, the fox-brown eyes, the full trembling mouth, the piled-up Titian hair, which seemed to want to escape as much as she did. Lovely boobs too, quivering in that pink satin thing.

  ‘My children have such terrible lives,’ she was saying. ‘My old school, Redfords in the West Riding, was an oasis of warmth and friendliness. I want that at Larks.’ Tears were now pouring down her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She blew her nose on her napkin.

  ‘I know your old head, Stew Wilby,’ said Hengist. ‘Met him at conferences. Brilliant man, a visionary but a pragmatist like me.’

  He took Janna’s hands, stroking, comforting, as if she were a spaniel frightened by gunfire in one of the sporting prints.

  ‘I’ll help all I can. S and C Services worry me. I’m not sure they’re kosher.’

  ‘A
shton Douglas’s vile, and Rod Hyde’s a bully,’ sniffed Janna.

  ‘Sally likes most people, but she can’t bear him,’ agreed Hengist. ‘Says he’s so pompous and stands too close, with terrible coffee breath.’

  ‘How did you find someone as lovely as Sally?’ asked Janna wistfully.

  ‘Have you time for another drink?’ Hengist waved to Freddie.

  ‘Oh, please. Could I have a gin and orange instead, please?’

  Anything, she was appalled to find herself thinking, to extend lunch. Hengist was like the kingfisher or the rainbow, you longed for him to stay longer. Without realizing, she pulled the toggle off her hair.

  ‘Sally, at twenty-one,’ began Hengist, bringing her back to earth, ‘had so many admirers. She was so pretty – still is – but her father, another head, didn’t approve of me. Thought I was a bit of a rugger-bugger and hellraiser, appalled when I didn’t get a first. Anyway, Sally turned me down. I was devastated. My own father, however, told me not to be a drip. Said Sally was the best girl I was likely to meet, I must try again.

  ‘So I invited her to the dogs the following night. She wore a pale blue flowing hippy dress. We backed a brindle greyhound called Cheerful Reply. After a drink or two in the bar, we joked that if Cheerful Reply won, Sally would marry me.

  ‘Darling, it was a photo finish between Cheerful Reply and a dog called Bombay Biscuit. So we had several more drinks and a nail-biting quarter of an hour waiting for the result, which was Cheerful Reply ahead by a shiny black nose.

  ‘Euphoric, probably at winning all that money, Sally agreed to marry me. I’ve never known such happiness: even better than being selected for England.’

  ‘Lucky Sally,’ sighed Janna.

  ‘Lucky me. My parents were living in Cambridge at the time,’ went on Hengist. ‘I took the Green Line bus home, sitting up with the driver, so excited and tanked up, I told him everything and he said:

  ‘“Isn’t it amazing how racing dogs influence events?” Wasn’t that perfect?’ Hengist burst out laughing. ‘Sally and I have had greyhounds ever since.’

 

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