Wicked!

by Jilly Cooper

  Elaine thumped her bony tail in agreement.

  ‘Paris deserves better,’ she went on. ‘He needs time, individual attention and a live-in father.’ And I don’t see enough of you, she nearly added.

  As his hands crept downwards, she willed her nipples not to respond. He had such a hold over her.

  ‘It’d only be the holidays, half-terms and weekends,’ protested Hengist. ‘Give Oriana a bit of competition – a sibling to rival. She might come home more often.’

  ‘Why did she stay away so much in the first place?’ At heart, Sally felt she had failed as a mother to the absentee Oriana. Why should she fare any better with Paris?

  ‘The voice of reason,’ said Hengist irritably. ‘He’s such a lovely boy and such a potential star. I could bask in his reflected glory in my dotage.’

  As his hands slid over her breasts, he felt the nipples hardening, and Sally felt liquid ripples between her legs.

  ‘I was thinking of you,’ whispered Hengist. ‘You can always make time. Those geeks today had never eaten anything like your chocolate cake.’

  ‘Janna and Ian Cartwright aren’t geeks,’ protested Sally, ‘although she was looking awfully peaky, poor child.’

  ‘Paris would be company. Mungo—’ he began.

  ‘Don’t,’ gasped Sally. The pain was still unbearable.

  ‘Sorry. I just can’t bear the thought of the poor boy being abandoned to that grotesque Blenchley, who I’m sure’s a paedophile. His nails looked as though they were steeped in dried blood. Did you know that twenty-five per cent of the homeless are care leavers who’ve been cast out on the world?’

  ‘Stop it.’ Sally clapped her hands to her ears. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Elaine loves Paris.’ Hengist’s hand slipped under the waistband of her skirt, over her flat stomach, to lose itself in warm flesh. ‘I’m going to ring Mrs Axford and tell her to wait dinner half an hour.’

  Despite his brusque, bossy exterior, Ian Cartwright liked children and, as a fine cricketer and rugby player, had always wanted a son. Since his adopted daughters Emerald and Sophy had married and had their own children, the house had seemed very empty.

  Arriving home from the meeting, he could smell shepherd’s pie, made from the remains of the cold meat from Sunday’s shoulder of lamb. If one carved narrow slices, there was always plenty over. He found Patience crimson in the face, reading Horse & Hound as she spread mashed potato over the lamb.

  ‘Good day?’ she asked.

  ‘Interesting.’ Ian poured them both a glass from the bottle of red with which she was jazzing up the mince. ‘Hengist wants to offer a free place to Paris Alvaston.’

  ‘That’s wonderful.’ Patience tested the broccoli with a fork. ‘How brilliant of Hengist.’

  ‘Paris is having a bloody time at the children’s home. They’re looking for a family to foster him.’

  ‘Oh, poor boy. If only we weren’t so old.’

  ‘We may not be. They want an older couple, who, if it worked, might consider adopting him to bridge the gap when he’d normally leave care and be chucked out on the streets.’

  Out of the window, Ian could see Northcliffe, the golden retriever who had a tendency to go walkabout round the campus, cantering back across the fields, pausing to pick up a twig as a peace offering.

  ‘Social services won’t let him come to Bagley unless they can find someone. “Family find” is the awful expression.’

  ‘Oh, Ian.’ Patience sat down. ‘Are you sure? We’ve only just got ourselves sorted.’

  ‘You mean clawed our way back from financial ruin,’ said Ian with a mirthless laugh. ‘I won’t be so stupid again.’

  ‘I’d love to give it a try,’ mused Patience. ‘Dora simply adores him, so does Northcliffe. But I’m sure he’d find us too square. I don’t know anything about Liverpool or pop music or Larkminster Rovers or computers.’

  ‘Why don’t we ask him?’ said Ian.

  They were brought back to earth by the smell of burnt broccoli.

  First thing, Ian rang Nadine, who dropped in later in the day and was most enthusiastic.

  ‘Paris loves coming to you. Your daughters and their kids visit often, so he’d have an extended family. You’ve been cleared by the Criminal Records Bureau; you’ve experienced the ups and downs of adoption. It could take several months, however, because you’d have to go on a course and undergo some counselling and some extensive interviews, I’m afraid.’

  ‘We’ve been there. Last time they kept asking about our sex lives,’ brayed Patience. ‘We’re a bit past that now.’

  Ian frowned. ‘I’m sure Nadine doesn’t want to hear about that.’

  ‘Paris’s behaviour will probably be very challenging,’ said Nadine. ‘Looked-after kids invariably test their carers to the limit, just to prove they really care.’

  ‘Just like rescued dogs,’ said Patience happily. ‘I must start reading the football reports.’

  ‘I can’t bear to think of poor Paris trapped in that children’s home with that repellent man,’ announced Sally the following evening. ‘I’m sure we could make time.’

  ‘Too late,’ said Hengist, almost accusingly. ‘Fools have rushed in. Ian and Patience have offered. They’ve got to undergo loads of ghastly trials, like the labours of Hercules. But Nadine is taking Paris to “meet with” them shortly. “None but the brave deserves the fair”,’ he added bitterly and Sally felt reproached.

  News of the poaching of Paris flashed round the staffroom.

  ‘Just like a feminist version of the Trojan Wars,’ sighed Artie Deverell. ‘Lucky, lucky Cartwrights, but bags I be Helen of Troy.’

  Dora was in ecstasy:

  ‘I’ll come and help you dirty up your house,’ she told Patience. ‘Social workers don’t like prospective foster homes to be too pristine.’

  48

  The first meeting with the Cartwrights was excruciatingly embarrassing. Paris had only had mugs of tea in the kitchen before, but this time Patience had put on a skirt and make-up and heels she had great difficulty walking in, and had plunged into a drawing-room rat race of best china, silver, bread and butter and strawberry jam and ‘Would you like milk, sugar, lemon or another slice of walnut cake?’ all to be balanced on one’s knees or the cat-shredded arm of a chair.

  The drawing room, like Lily Hamilton’s, seemed overcrowded with dark furniture, suggesting departure from a much larger house. Every shelf and table was crowded with ornaments or yellowing silver or blossom from the pink cherry outside rammed into vases.

  Paris wished Ian and Nadine would bugger off and he could sort things out with Patience. Hitherto he’d only seen Ian flitting round Bagley being bossy about overspending and drooling over Vicky Fairchild. He seemed very old and straight, smelt like Mike Pitts of peppermint and stiff whiskies and kept barking, ‘Mind out,’ as Northcliffe’s plumy tail endangered a precious teacup. He was like Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army; Paris couldn’t imagine him wearing jeans or taking him to McDonald’s.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s bought,’ confessed Patience when Nadine congratulated her on her walnut cake. ‘I’m not much of a cook.’

  Anything would be better than Oaktree Court, thought Paris, where, as if Nigella and Jamie Oliver had never existed, Auntie Sylvia boiled mince, diced carrots and onion in water until they were cooked and turned cod the grey of the ancient pair of knickers, almost divorced from its elastic, which a wagging, singing Northcliffe had just laid at Nadine’s big feet.

  ‘Oh Northie,’ giggled Patience, grabbing the pants and shoving them under a cushion.

  ‘The most important thing is to hold back and listen,’ Nadine had urged Patience, who, however, came from a generation and class who regarded it as a crime not to keep conversation going, however inane, and proceeded to do so.

  How the hell was he going to put up with a lifetime of this, wondered Paris. If only he could turn on the television and watch Chelsea play Liverpool.

  ‘This is
our granddaughter, Dulcie,’ said Patience, picking up a photograph of an adorable child with blond curls. ‘She’s a darling.’

  Paris loved children. The best part of the home had always been making up games and stories for the littlest ones and comforting them when they cried. A few years ago, abuse had been rife; now the pendulum had swung. No careworker was ever on for more than forty-eight hours and the majority were so terrified of being accused of abuse, they wouldn’t even take on to their lap a child who’d grazed a knee or been torn away from its parents. Desolation ruled. And if you dared complain of past abuse, you’d be bombarded by social workers, counsellors and therapists, prising you open, gouging out your secrets. Easier to trust no one and keep your trap shut.

  There was another long pause.

  ‘Our daughters Emerald and Sophy both married painters,’ announced Patience, to explain the large, strange pictures rubbing shoulders with the hunting prints and landscapes on the walls.

  ‘You were in the army, Colonel Cartwright,’ accused Nadine, pointing to an oil of a lot of screaming women being mown down by a firing squad and their blood watering the young barley. ‘Is this your taste?’

  ‘Certainly not. It was painted by my son-in-law. He’s actually a war artist, with work in the Tate.’

  ‘You mustn’t be so defensive,’ chided Nadine.

  Ian turned purple.

  ‘Emerald’s a sculptor,’ said Patience quickly. ‘She made me this adorable little maquette of Northcliffe for my birthday. You can almost see his tail wagging.’

  ‘How old were they when you adopted Emerald and Sophy?’

  ‘Just babies.’ Patience reached for more photographs.

  Those children had clearly inspired love, reflected Paris. Could he do the same? He was terrified they’d discover, beneath his cool, that he was as needy and desperate to escape as those mongrels pathetically scrabbling at the bars in a dogs’ home.

  ‘We’ve got to go through some gruelling interviews,’ Patience told him. ‘We won’t know if we’re suitable as parents until August, which is a bore, but more importantly you might hate the thought of living with us.’ She tried to stop her voice shaking.

  Out in the yard a horse neighed, calling out to its stable mate who’d been taken out for a ride.

  ‘Dunno,’ muttered Paris, pulling at a piece of cotton on his chair and releasing an avalanche of horsehair. ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘Paris, that’s not very nice,’ reproved Nadine.

  Shut up, Paris wanted to scream, because he didn’t know what to say, and was even more terrified that if they found out about his red-haze temper, his light fingers, his capacity for demolition, that he occasionally wet the bed, and was racked by fearful, screaming nightmares, they’d chuck him out after a week, a care leaver destined for homelessness.

  ‘We’d so love you to come and live with us,’ stammered Patience, missing the cup as she topped up Nadine’s tea. ‘But first you must get to know us.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ snapped Ian. ‘Let Paris make up his own mind; there’s no hurry.’

  ‘You will come and see us next week?’ persisted Patience.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ exploded Ian.

  Oh God, they’ll reject Ian and me because we don’t get on, thought Patience in panic.

  ‘Careful not to invade Paris’s personal space,’ reproved Nadine.

  Paris scowled round at her. ‘I can go if I like,’ he said curtly.

  The following Saturday, they asked Paris if he’d like to go to the cinema, but he said he’d prefer to muck about at home, and spent a couple of hours looking at Ian’s military collection, which contained pieces of shrapnel, shells and bullets, and even a bit of marble from Hitler’s desk.

  ‘Rupert Brooke and I were at the same school,’ volunteered Ian and, secretly thrilled by Paris’s interest, presented him with a paperback of First World War poems.

  Later, as the evenings were drawing out, Patience took him out to watch the Bagley herd being milked and took a picture of him with Ian and Northcliffe.

  Paris’s next visit was a disaster. Examining the photographs of beautiful Emerald in the drawing room, he knocked off and smashed the maquette she had modelled of Northcliffe. In terror, he shoved the pieces under the sofa, but missed the tail, which had fallen on a rug.

  ‘I’d better go,’ he told Patience, edging towards the door.

  ‘You haven’t had any tea – I’ve got Cornish pasties and chips.’

  ‘Don’t want anything.’

  ‘I’ll drive you back.’

  ‘I want to walk.’

  ‘Oh look, Northcliffe’s tail’s fallen off again. I must stick it back.’ When she found the other pieces under the sofa, her face fell, then she smiled. ‘Doesn’t matter, I’m sure Emo can make me another one. I’m always breaking things. I smashed a vase this morning.’

  Paris flared up:

  ‘Why aren’t you mad at me? You must be, you loved that dog.’

  ‘It’s only an ornament that’s broken – not a promise or a heart.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’ Paris stormed out and, crying helplessly, ran all the six miles back to Oaktree Court.

  Two days later, he received a letter from Patience.

  ‘Please come to tea next Saturday. Longing to see you.’

  It wasn’t natural to be so forgiving.

  Nadine dropped him off, jollying him along, interrogating him all the way, as though she were forcibly opening an oyster with a chisel. He didn’t tell her he was only intending to stay five minutes. Working himself into a rage, heart crashing, his breath coming in great gasps, he marched into an empty kitchen, rehearsing his speech: ‘Look, it’s not going to work. I want to chuck the whole thing: I can’t handle Bagley and sod Hengist and Theo Graham and fucking Homer and Virgil.

  ‘Get out the way,’ he yelled, aiming a kick as Northcliffe, carrying a feather duster, bounded towards him in delight.

  He was about to sweep all Patience’s recipe books on to the floor, and then start smashing plates and mugs so they’d definitely never want to see him again, when he caught sight of his own photographs in a silver frame on the dresser: one of him with Northcliffe, another of him as Romeo. Yet another of him, with Dora and Beluga, Romeo’s fiery steed, had been put in a big frame beside pictures of Emerald and Sophy.

  Paris blushed and blushed, a huge smile spreading over his face, as Patience bustled in:

  ‘Oh, hello, Paris.’ Then, catching sight of the photographs, she added humbly: ‘We hope you don’t think we’re jumping the gun.’

  Paris kicked the kitchen table and shook his head.

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Thank goodness. Plover’s sister’s about to foal, the vet’s on his way, I thought you might like to help.’

  ‘OK.’ Paris then screwed up courage to ask how the interviews were going.

  ‘Pretty well,’ said Patience, putting on her red Puffa. ‘They do ask extraordinary questions. If normal couples went through such hassle, they’d never have children. But it’s all worth it,’ she added hastily.

  After the foal had been born, all covered in blood and gore, the vet and Patience had shared a bottle of white wine with Paris and congratulated him on having such a calming effect on the frightened mare. When Nadine rolled up, Patience hastily dropped the bottle in the bin.

  As he was leaving, she shouted he’d left his jacket, and as she picked it up from the kitchen chair, a photograph of her and Ian fluttered out.

  ‘Must have picked it up by mistake,’ muttered Paris. ‘No, that’s a lie, I wanted one until I moved in, like.’

  ‘Keep it,’ said an enraptured Patience.

  Watching him go off into the hazy blue evening, Patience hugged herself. Until he moved in, like. She ran to the gate to wave him off.

  Back at the home, Paris hid the photo between his under-blanket and the mattress, because he didn’t seem to be wetting the bed any more and because Patience and Ian were pretty old and ug
ly, and he couldn’t bear the other kids taking the piss or, even worse, tearing up the photo.

  As bursars work extremely hard, Paris saw more of Patience than Ian, who was nervous but determined things should work.

  ‘What’m I supposed to call you?’ Paris asked him on the next visit.

  ‘You could call me “Colonel Cartwright”, but that’s a bit formal, and “Uncle” is silly because I’m not. Would it be OK, if we pass the tests, to describe you as “Paris, our foster son”, which would be true, then if things go very well, we can drop the foster.’

  ‘That’s good,’ agreed Paris. ‘I’ll call you Mr Ian, if that’s OK.’

  ‘Good start,’ said Ian.

  ‘As we know each other better, you can call me Patience.’

  Paris really smiled for the first time.

  ‘Going to need a lot, if you’re taking me on.’

  ‘Next week, why don’t we go to IKEA and choose some stuff for your room?’ Treading on eggshells, trying not to presume, she added hastily: ‘If we don’t pass the test, you can always use the room when you come and stay.’

  49

  In the middle of May, when Bagley was looking at its most seductive, with the setting sun warming the golden stone, cow parsley lacing the endless pitches and the trees still in their radiant young, green beauty, Hengist formally offered Paris a place.

  On the wall of Hengist’s study, Paris was intensely flattered to see, alongside other triumphs, a framed photograph of himself as Romeo. Then Hengist had added he was also offering a boarding place to Feral, so he and Paris needn’t be parted, and when Paris accepted, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice and face, Hengist offered him a glass of champagne to celebrate.

  ‘Patience and Ian are a super couple.’ Hengist sat down on the dark red Paisley window seat beside a reclining Elaine, and beckoned Paris to join them. ‘A super couple, salt of the earth, although one’s not, according to Poppet Bruce, supposed to have salt in anything these days. You’ll have fun when their daughters come down – Emerald is stunning – and with young Dora hanging around and lots of horses and a charming dog. But if you find it hard to discuss things with them, speak instead to Theo Graham, who’s going to be your new housemaster. Beneath the rather crusty exterior Theo’s a sweet man.