by Jilly Cooper
‘Come and sit down, Mrs Bruce.’ Vicky patted Jason’s chair. ‘I’m Vicky Fairchild, Larks’s head of drama. Of course we welcome input. We’re planning to have Arab/Israeli overtones in the street fighting and put the play in modern dress with perhaps Friar Lawrence as a mullah.’
‘Are we?’ muttered Janna to Hengist, who muttered back: ‘Friar Lawrence of Arabia.’
To Poppet’s noisy approval and much clashing of bracelets, Boffin Brooks read two of Friar Lawrence’s speeches in the high fluting voice of a curate at choral evensong.
‘Excellent, excellent, Boffin, although I wish you’d read for Romeo.’
‘Only with a recycled carrier bag over his head,’ muttered Cosmo.
‘Essential, in the bedroom scene and with the rise of STDs,’ Poppet was now saying, ‘that Romeo is shown to wear a condom.’
‘And has a green courgette as a willy,’ said Milly, ‘which Friar Lawrence has grown in his garden.’
‘Ah, here’s Jade,’ cried Boffin.
‘Oh good,’ said Poppet.
Jade Stancombe’s legs were longer and her pleated skirt shorter even than Amber’s; her cream silk shirt and blue cashmere jersey clung to her lovely rapacious body.
‘“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet,”’ began Jade, overacting appallingly.
Everyone tried not to giggle.
‘She’s dreadful,’ whispered Dora.
‘“Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,”’ went on Jade.
‘And a whole lot of Clarins,’ hissed Dora.
‘“The more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite,”’ concluded Jade, rolling her eyes and clutching her cashmere bosom.
‘Bravo, bravo! That was very convincing, Jade,’ called out Poppet.
By contrast, Amber, with her hair piled up, her charming lascivious smile and air of insouciance, decided to go for Lady Capulet – ‘just for a laugh’ – and was brilliant.
‘You’re booked,’ called out Piers. ‘Lady C was only twenty-seven.’
Emlyn wondered how long this was going to last. He had a two-hour period on Hitler and the Nazis and rugby practice for the first and second fifteen after that.
Ah, here was Feral. God, the boy was beautiful. There was a chorus of wolf whistles as he prowled in to audition for Tybalt, ‘Prince of Cats’, the furious playground bully who picks fights with everyone, who has comparatively few lines but huge impact on the play.
Coached by Paris until he was word perfect, not caring if he got the part, Feral kept exploding into violence:
‘What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagues and thee:
Have at thee, coward!’
He was booed, hissed, then cheered to the stuccoed ceiling as he sauntered back, grinning, to sit beside Amber.
Cosmo, whose heart was set on playing Tybalt, was not amused.
‘Why not give Cosmo Capulet?’ Piers was muttering across Janna to Hengist. ‘He’s the biggest shit in the play, which figures, then Jack Waterlane might just manage the Prince, if I cut his lines to nothing.’
‘Good idea,’ said Hengist. ‘Yes, Vicky?’ as she perched on the end of the table beside him.
‘At the Capulet ball, why don’t we get a wonderful little dancer to play Romeo’s ex-girlfriend, Rosaline, and do a fantastically sexy dance with Tybalt, if Feral gets the part – he’s an incredible dancer. Then, after being wildly jealous, Paris takes one look at Juliet, and Rosaline is forgotten. It makes the coup de foudre so much more dramatic.’
That was my idea, thought Janna indignantly, particularly when Hengist congratulated Vicky and put forward little Bianca Campbell-Black, who was being tipped as the next Darcey Bussell.
‘Let’s audition her. At least it would ensure Rupert rolled up on the opening night.’
‘Kylie could sing with the band at the ball,’ went on Vicky, ‘she’s got a lovely voice, and Cosmo’s Cosmonaughties must be the band.’ She smiled winningly at Cosmo, who smouldered back. He must pull Vicky before the opening night.
Pearl, everyone agreed, would be in charge of make-up.
The auditions were nearly over.
Primrose Duddon of the huge boobs, who’d been taking a Grade 7 piano examination, was now making a pitch for the coveted comedy role of Juliet’s nurse. Squawking, slapping her thighs, overacting worse than Jade, she reminded Janna of Sam Spink.
‘Thank you, Primrose,’ said Hengist after a minute.
They were down to the Ws and no one had been outstanding enough to play Juliet. They couldn’t have Jade. Then Milly Walton wandered in. Like Amber, she’d only come along for a laugh and a chance to see Graffi. Her auburn curls were scraped back, her ski tan shiny and Graffi had kissed off all her lipstick in a nearby classroom.
‘“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,”’ she said thoughtfully. ‘“My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.”’
Then she turned to Graffi and smiled and Graffi’s shaggy black locks rose up on the back of his neck, and his toes turned over. Even Paris took his nose out of The Iliad.
Hengist turned to Janna, running the back of his hand down her cheek. ‘That’s our Juliet. Ruth, her mother, will be so pleased. She’s always worried about overshadowing Milly.’
I can’t help it, thought Janna, when he strokes me I have to purr.
Graffi, being Williams, was the last to go. He was still clapping Milly when a terrible thought struck him. If Paris got Romeo and Milly got Juliet, Paris would spend the whole play kissing and shagging her. Paris was much too good-looking. Graffi hated the thought of his woman making out with someone else.
He had been going to pitch for Benvolio but, nipping off into the nearby dining room, he grabbed a white damask napkin from the table laid for the African Archbishop, folded it into a triangle and wrapped it round his forehead, tying two ends behind his head. Then he grabbed a drying-up cloth from the kitchens, tying it round his waist. Leafing through the text, he found the place and bustled in as Juliet’s nurse, the most irritating woman in literature, and brought the house down.
‘The nurse in drag, why didn’t we think of it?’ said Hengist.
‘We can cut a lot, but he’s hilarious,’ agreed Piers.
Then, after all the teasing and horseplay, Graffi’s grief when he found his beloved Juliet apparently dead – the scene Primrose Duddon had dreadfully overplayed – was truly touching.
Hengist hugged Janna once more.
‘Your boy’s come good, darling.’ Then, rising to his feet: ‘Thank you very much, you all did very well. Think we’ve found some real stars. Go off and have lunch and we’ll let you know.’
40
When the cast list was pinned on the noticeboards of both schools two days later, whoops of excitement and not a little jeering at Larks greeted the news that Paris would be playing Romeo; Feral, Tybalt; Graffi, the Nurse; and Kylie Rose both the Chorus and a blues singer at the Capulets’ masked ball.
Janna was particularly gratified that Rocky had been cast as the Capulet heavy who bit his thumb (the Shakespearean equivalent of giving a middle finger) to the Montagues and Monster had landed the small, crucial part of the apothecary who sells deadly poison to Romeo, ‘and probably will,’ quipped Graffi. Monster was chuffed to bits at the prospect of his own chemist’s, open on Sundays, with druggies hanging around. Other members of Year Nine would be filling in as members of the Watch, guards, street fighters, paparazzi and guests at the ball.
The casting over at Bagley caused more ructions. Primrose Duddon, much championed by Poppet and No-Joke Joan, was hopping that Graffi, not she, would be playing the Nurse.
‘There are only four parts for young women in the play and the most characterful one’s gone to a male student.’
Stancombe was outraged that Juliet had been given to Milly rather than Jade – and so was Jade, particularly when bloody Cos
mo applauded the decision, claiming that by no stretch of the imagination or shrinking of the vagina could Jade ever pass as a thirteen-year-old virgin.
Jade was, in fact, over Cosmo. Now it was Paris who robbed her of sleep. She detested indifference and loathed her fellow Bagley Babe Milly for landing the part and the chance to snog and more with Paris for the next two months, particularly as she herself had been cast as Lady Montague, Romeo’s mother.
‘And this play ain’t Oedipus Rex,’ mocked Cosmo.
Nor had Jade realized Lady Montague only had two lines.
After prolonged hysterics through splayed fingers, it was agreed she could swap with Amber and play the much longer and meatier part of Lady Capulet.
‘Lady C was a sassy, glamorous woman in her late twenties,’ Vicky explained to Jade. ‘And as you’re married to a rich peer, with a wedding and a funeral in the offing, there’s scope for a fantastic wardrobe.’
Amber, who’d been bribed with a Joseph dress she could keep after the play, was only too happy to play Lady Montague instead, particularly since Pearl, now in charge of make-up, was threatening to add arsenic to the face powder of anyone who flirted with Feral.
Cosmo had been outraged only to be offered Capulet, rather than Tybalt, until he discovered subtleties and ironies in the part as Capulet changed from a kind, tolerant father and genial host to an evil bully. He was delighted that the Cosmonaughties would be playing at the Capulets’ ball with Kylie as their lead singer. He intended to bill the school £1500 a night and as the group would be providing the music for a sizzling dance routine performed by Feral and Bianca, Cosmo would be able to clock to the second the comings and goings of the divine Bianca.
Xavier, still terrified of Cosmo, and having learnt that Aysha’s father had forbidden her to take part, had refused to get involved with the production. Everyone therefore was relieved Bianca was participating, which would at least ensure the presence of her crowd-pulling parents on the opening night.
‘I can’t wait to meet Rupert Campbell-Black,’ gushed Vicky.
As soon as the play was cast Vicky, a genius at delegating – often a euphemism for extreme laziness – called a staff meeting to discuss what help she needed with the play.
The Larks art department was soon coaxed into designing scenery; Gloria into coaching Bianca and Feral in their dance routine; design and technology into producing costumes and props. Cambola was in cahoots with Cosmo over the music. Johnnie Fowler’s father Gary, when sober, was an ace electrician and agreed to help with the lighting.
Once Gary Fowler was involved, other fathers felt impelled to follow suit. Most of them DIY experts, they were soon building and painting scenery, and their wives and girlfriends, having clocked Vicky and determined to keep an eye on their other halves, were giving a hand with costumes – over which there was fierce debate.
Anatole, who had sensational legs, wanted doublet and hose. This meant long skirts for the women, deduced Jade, which meant her even more sensational legs would be hidden, so she pushed for modern dress and won.
‘Alex Bruce has a finger in every tart,’ grumbled Anatole, who in the end was delighted to wear a Red Army mess jacket and tight black trousers with a red stripe down the side. Other boys in the cast wore paramilitary uniform: berets, peaked caps or red and white keffiyehs borrowed from fathers and masters. Chief Inspector Gablecross provided policemen’s uniforms for the Watch. This meant more could be spent on female members of the cast.
Janna contented herself with giving lessons to Year Nine on the background of the play, pointing out its topicality; how innocent people were always caught up in the crossfire of war – particularly domestic violence.
‘“Poor sacrifices of our enmity,” Old Capulet called them, who’d caused a few in his time.’
Determined Larks would be word perfect, she also helped cast members learn their parts.
Rehearsals took place at Bagley every Tuesday and Wednesday after school from 4.00 to 5.30 p.m., and often in the lunch hour but only using the actors that were needed, which involved endless round trips for Wally.
Caught up in Vicky’s enthusiasm, none of the teachers seemed to mind covering for her. Basket had a massive crush. Even Sam Spink was looking quite moony and presented Vicky with a pair of Piglet character socks, causing squeals of delight.
‘Piglet is my most favourite character.’
Even though the school was a happier place, Janna herself was still ridiculously overstretched. There was always some desperately crying child needing comfort over cigarette burns or cracked ribs. There was always some furious parent: ‘My daughter was top in English last term, why isn’t she playing Juliet?’
February brought incessant rain, pouring in through the roof on classes and on coursework, and the heating broke down. The classes not involved in the play were also very jealous. Janna tried to compensate by organizing trips to the ballet or ice skating or football, but she understood how they felt and found it hard to not feel jealous herself. Hengist, so adorable on casting day, had not been in touch since.
Vicky, on the other hand, flaunting those vogue words ‘Transparency and Accountability’, insisted on keeping her boss up to date with events, particularly late one evening, when she dropped in on a very cold, still-working Janna and announced:
‘“My boys”, as I call Emlyn, Piers and Jason, are working so hard. Hengist is constantly popping in to see if I’m OK and Sally Brett-Taylor is being so supportive. She’s insisting on making Juliet’s dress. We discussed it over a drink last night. Jade Stancombe’s ordered a dress for the Capulet ball from Amanda Wakeley, which costs well into four figures, which made Ian Cartwright, the darling old bursar, frightfully uptight till I calmed him down.
‘His wife Patience is a pet; she teaches riding at Bagley. His “mistress of the horse”, Hengist calls her, claiming Patience couldn’t be anyone else’s mistress because she’s so plain, naughty man! But Patience has agreed to teach Paris to ride, so he can clatter up the gangway when he storms back from exile, believing Juliet’s dead.’
‘Paris is terrified of horses,’ interrupted Janna icily. ‘There’s no way he should be forced to ride.’
Ignoring her, Vicky glanced over her shoulder:
‘What are you wrestling with? Oh, figures. You ought to talk to Ian. Ian Cartwright. He’d be able to sort them out for you. He’s been ringing round other independent bursars, checking their fees all week. I thought I might ask him and Patience to supper, and Hengist and Sally and Emlyn, of course. Emlyn is such a tower of strength. I hope you’ll come too, Jannie. You ought to get out more, you look so tired.’
Stop patronizing me, Janna wanted to scream.
‘I’ve no time for jaunts,’ she snapped, turning back to her computer. ‘Sorry, I must get on.’
The following week, however, Vicky forgot to book the bus for Year Ten’s ice-skating trip. As a result, dreadful fights broke out. Not only were Year Nine having all the fun and the kudos, no one could organize anything for Year Ten.
When Janna summoned Vicky back from Bagley and bawled her out, Vicky sobbed and sobbed, rivalling the overflowing River Fleet, and fled into the dusk.
Arriving home from work around midnight, Janna was splashing up the path, lamenting yet again that rain had stopped stars, when Partner went into a frenzy of barking. Lily’s cottage was in darkness. Catching sight of a huddled figure in the porch, Janna gasped with terror – had Cara escaped from prison?
‘Who’s there?’
She was overwhelmed with a divine smell of spring. It was a still-sobbing Vicky, thrusting out a huge bunch of narcissi.
‘I’m so sorry to let you down, Jannie. I wanted you to be proud of me and put Larks on the map. I’ve been so thoughtless.’
So Janna opened a bottle and they ended up crying on each other’s shoulders, and Vicky staying the night. But once again, as Janna made up a bed on the sofa, the goalposts changed.
‘I never meant to make you jealous, Jann
ie. Has Hengist upset you? He can be so dismissive. Piers and Jason were saying only the other day, it’s a shame you’ve had no input.’
Vicky looked so enchanting curled up under Janna’s duvet, cuddling Janna’s only hot-water bottle.
And I meant to slap you down for neglecting Year Ten and your tutor group, thought an exasperated Janna, and vowed once again to spend more time at Bagley.
But the following day, Ashton Douglas and Crispin Thomas summoned her to their plush S and C Services headquarters, overlooking an angry, grey and still rising River Fleet.
Even though the appointment was for midday, not a cup of coffee nor a drink was on offer. Janna’s spirits were lowered by a huge wall chart, showing Larks at the bottom of the league tables of Larkshire schools.
Both men had big desks side by side. Crispin, who had gained another chin over Christmas and whose pink pullover had shrunk in the wash, was fussily arranging papers. Ashton, wafting his cloyingly sweet chloroform scent, his apple blossom complexion flushed up by tropical central heating, had removed his jacket to flaunt his trim waistline.
S and C must be making a fortune, decided Janna, judging by the fuck-off lighting, the leather sofas in beiges and browns and the suede cushions to match suede cubes on which to rest your feet.
The pictures on the walls were even more impressive. The bunch of red tulips was certainly by Matthew Smith and the lookalike photograph of Beckham by Alison Jackson. Also blown up over the fireplace was the artwork for S and C’s latest logo of a grown-up’s hand on a child’s back both propelling forward and comforting: a symbol of support and challenge, except the hand was placed a little too low. Janna shuddered.
Ashton was examining his very clean fingernails, the diamond set in the gold band on his third finger catching the light.
‘This is wather embawwassing, but we feel you ought to spend less time at Bagley in future.’
Janna’s bag tipped over, spilling out biros, lipstick, hairbrush, perfume, Bonios for Partner and diary on to the thick pale beige carpet.