by Jilly Cooper
‘The happy highways where I went And cannot come again’, thought Paris, wincing at the pain.
‘“No hats to be worn inside”,’ he went on. ‘That’s crazy.’
‘They’re talking about woolly hats and baseball caps and you’re not allowed jewellery.’
‘I’m not taking mine off. “In cases of bullying, both victim and bully get counselling.”’ Paris shivered. He’d heard a chilling rumour about the Pitbull Club in which older boys arranged fights between new boys and bet large sums of money on which one would first beat the other to a pulp.
‘What the hell am I supposed to do in my free time?’ he added in outrage. ‘It says here, “Any scholar caught supplying drugs or having sex gets sacked.”’
‘Not always.’ Dora went to Paris’s basin to wash silver polish off Plover’s bit. ‘You’re sacked if you’re caught having sex with a girl. If it’s a boy, you’d only get three hours’ gardening.’
‘How d’they work that out?’
‘Boys don’t get pregnant; it’s meant to act as a detergent,’ Dora went on helpfully.
‘God, listen to this: “Swearing, spitting, chewing gum all incur five-pound penalties.” This is a police state. What about smoking and drinking?’
‘Fiver first time you’re caught, then they double up.’
‘What do they do with the money?’
‘Goes to charity. Alex Bruce was hopping last term when brilliant Hengist sent the entire six and a half thousand to Greyhound Rescue. But as that tosser Boffin Brooks keeps saying’ – Dora put her hands together sanctimoniously – ‘one only has to behave oneself.’
59
Determined to familiarize Paris with everything, Dora gave him a map and a tour of the school.
‘Here’s the gym, here’s the music school, here’s the sick bay. Most important, here’s the tuck shop.’
Hengist had put him in Theo Graham’s house, a two-storey neo-Gothic building covered in Virginia creeper, which was north-east of the Mansion with a view over the golf course.
‘Here’s your bedroom-cum-study,’ went on Dora, leading him down a corridor. ‘They’re known as cells.’
The room was tiny – Paris could touch the walls with both hands – and contained a single bed, a desk for his books and laptop and a small cupboard and shelves for his clothes. The joint window was to be shared with the boy in the next cell.
‘Who is it? Oh, Smart, he’s a rugger bugger; hope he doesn’t want the window open all the time. Next year you’ll go upstairs to a bigger room of your own. I’ll bring your Liverpool posters over later.
‘This is Cosmo’s cell.’ She opened a door on the way out.
‘Why’s he got a room twice as big as anyone else?’
‘Because he’s Cosmo. Once he moves in his stuff it’ll look like something out of the Arabian nights.
‘This is Anatole’s.’ Giggling, Dora showed Paris the next cell. ‘He’s got a map of the world as his duvet cover and always sits on the United States because he loathes the Americans so much.’
And I’ve got Thomas the Tank Engine and Peter Rabbit, thought Paris. How could Patience?
‘Oh look, there’s Mummy’s car outside,’ said Dora as they wandered back to the stables.
Although Anthea Belvedon was wildly jealous of Dora’s addiction to Paris and the Cartwrights, it freed her for assignations of her own. Today she had had lunch with Randal Stancombe, who was so attractive, and who hadn’t a high opinion of Paris, who’d evidently tried to rape Jade on the field trip.
Having rolled up to collect Dora, Anthea was looking distastefully at the mess in Patience’s kitchen (riding boots on the table, washing up still in the sink) while enquiring how Paris was getting on.
‘Really well,’ said Patience, terrified Paris might walk in.
‘Emerald found him gauche and awfully tricky,’ went on Anthea. ‘Dora said you were awfully upset Paris never said a word of thanks about his lovely room. The working classes never know how to express gratitude, of course.’
‘I wasn’t upset,’ squeaked Patience furiously. ‘It’s his right to have a nice room.’
‘But such an expense: Sky, tape decks and computers – Dora says you emptied Dixons.’
‘Mummy, I did not,’ screamed Dora, who was standing appalled in the doorway.
Paris had bolted upstairs. Giving a sob, he hurled his precious Liverpool mug against the wall. Then he smashed a china dog, ripped the poster of Heskey off the wall and tipped over the bookshelf.
Hearing crashes, Patience lumbered upstairs, hammering on the door against which Paris had shoved a big armchair.
‘Paris, listen.’
‘Fuck off,’ hissed Paris, grabbing his laptop.
‘Anthea’s a complete bitch; honestly, she’s jealous because Dora loves being here and adores you. We don’t expect you to say thank you for anything. We give you things because we love having you here.’
Oh God, it was coming out all wrong. But Paris put down his laptop.
‘It’ll be shepherd’s pie and just you and me tonight; we can eat it in front of the telly.’
‘So my crap table manners won’t show. I don’t want any supper.’
The window was open. Paris slid down the Virginia creeper and off across the yard.
It was only after ten-thirty, when Ian returned home, that Patience realized Paris had taken the car and just managed to stop Ian ringing the police.
‘We’ll lose him.’
‘Bloody good riddance.’
When they went out looking for him they found the car undamaged behind a haystack.
Paris staggered in, plastered, at midnight.
‘Go to bed at once, we’ll discuss this in the morning,’ shouted Ian.
Alex Bruce often rose at six to train for the school steeplechase and to spy on other masters, particularly Hengist’s cronies, Artie Deverell and Theo Graham, who were both gay; Emlyn, who was engaged to Hengist’s daughter Oriana (sort of); and, more recently, the brusque, dismissive Ian Cartwright: all the King’s men.
Hearing shouts from the Old Coach House, Alex broke his journey, jogging up the path, letting himself into the kitchen.
‘Can I help?’
He found Dora Belvedon taking everything in, Patience by the Aga, looking miserable, and Ian, as boiling over with rage as Paris was icy with fury.
They all turned to Alex: not an attractive sight. A fringe like a false eyelash hung damply on his forehead, his drenched yellow T-shirt clung to his hollow chest, sweat parted the black hairs on his skinny thighs.
‘Can I help?’ he repeated.
‘No,’ snapped Ian.
‘You OK, Paris Alvaston?’
‘Fine, just fuck off.’
‘Paris,’ thundered Ian.
‘If you’d started at Bagley, young man,’ began Alex, ‘you’d be fined five pounds for that. I will not allow foul language. I shall leave your foster parents to deal with you.’
‘Lando France-Lynch owed the swear fund eight hundred and fifty pounds last term,’ piped up Dora, taking croissants out of the Aga and throwing them on the kitchen table. ‘Would you like one, Mr Bruce? You look as though you need feeding up.’
Paris went up to his room and slammed the door so hard all the china and glass crowded on the shelves below rattled and clinked. Ian shut himself away in the drawing room with his confounded computer.
Later, tipped off no doubt by Alex, Nadine the social worker popped in. ‘Gather you’re having a problem with Paris, Patience.’
‘I’m afraid my husband’s working and Paris has just gone out. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Thank you. You must open up.’
‘We’re fine, we love Paris.’
‘Don’t expect him to love you. When you foster a teenager at best you can expect to be a mentor or an authority figure.’
Did Nadine ever wear anything else but that funereal black, wondered Patience as she switched on the kettle. Getting a packet of
chocolate biscuits out of the cupboard, she noticed mice had eaten a hole in one end, and hastily decanted the biscuits on to a plate.
‘I know you want to rescue a young life and Paris longs for a family,’ bleated Nadine. ‘But your expectations are unrealistic. At an age when most adolescents are trying to escape from their parents and forge their own identity, you’re going against the grain and trying to form ties. It’s not easy.’
Then, seeing the tears spilling down Patience’s tired red face: ‘He’s going to need a lot of counselling.’
It was nearly midnight. Paris still hadn’t come home.
‘Thank God he’s boarding and’ll be out of our hair by tomorrow,’ exploded Ian. ‘How dare he tell Alex Bruce to fuck off.’
Patience felt ashamed that momentarily she agreed with her husband. She felt bitterly let down that neither Hengist nor Janna had yet made contact. She turned out the horses and collapsed into bed.
It was a very warm, muggy night. Moths flying in through the window kept torching themselves on Ian’s halogen lamp. Ian winced but there was no time to rescue them. It was after eleven and he was still wrestling with his infernal computer to provide Alex tomorrow with a list of parents who still hadn’t paid up. As the whisky bottle emptied, he grew more clumsy. Scrumpled-up paper shared the threadbare Persian carpet with a snoring Northcliffe.
Ian glanced up at the photograph of himself in the Combined Services rugger team, strong muscular arms folded, hair and moustache still black and glossy, eyes clear and confident. He hadn’t met Patience then. She was a good old girl, but she no longer stirred his loins, and tomorrow there would be no sweet Jenny Winters to sort out every problem and flash delightful pink flesh and thong as she bent over to pull out a file. On Radio 3, Rupert’s older son, Marcus Campbell-Black, was playing a Mozart piano concerto so exquisitely it brought tears to Ian’s eyes – a piece Mozart had evidently knocked off to pay bills. Would he had such talent.
Ian hadn’t slept properly for weeks. How could he hold down the job of bursar if he wasn’t on the ball? He was sixty-one, not twenty-six. He hadn’t touched the pile of messages. Boudicca’s Tampax machine was still jammed. But at least he’d reached the end of the list of the defaulting parents and tapped in Commander Wilkins, Spotty’s father, who’d paid last year with a hogshead of brandy.
Lord Waterlane, Jack’s father, had in the past filled up the school deep freezes with venison and grouse, which made marvellous shepherd’s pie. Anatole paid his own fees with roubles, Lubemir’s father with a Pissarro which turned out to be a fake.
Having been destitute himself recently, Ian felt so sorry for the parents who worked all hours, forgoing cars and holidays and luxuries, to scrape the fees together, and for the grandparents who often paid them and who’d been equally strapped by pension scandals and the collapse of the stock market.
But he didn’t feel sorry for Cosmo’s mother, the great diva Dame Hermione, who, in lieu of a year’s fees, had offered to give a recital to the school with Cosmo accompanying her.
‘Normally, Ian, I never charge less than a hundred thousand pounds for a gig, so Bagley’s getting a real bargain.’
Lando’s parents seemed to be always broke too. Daisy, his mother, had offered to paint Sally Brett-Taylor for free last year. Nor did Amber and Junior’s parents, both on high salaries, ever seem to have any money.
Anthea Belvedon, the prettiest little thing, played every trick in the book to avoid forking out since she was widowed two years ago. He’d have to summon her next week. He had a special Paisley emerald-green silk handkerchief, faintly flavoured with lavender, to mop up pretty mothers’ tears. What a shame Mrs Walton had shacked up with Randal Stancombe, who’d paid Milly’s fees this term. Comforting Mrs Walton had been an even more exquisite pleasure than glimpsing Jenny Winters’s thong.
Bagley, overall, was in great financial shape. Since the geography field trip, the waiting list had doubled, as eager offspring pestered their parents to send them to such a fun palace. Hengist, routing the Education Secretary on Question Time last week, had brought another flood of applications. The school was booked solid till 2012. If only Hengist were as good at picking staff. How dare Alex Bruce steal Jenny Winters?
Thank God for that. Ian switched off the computer. But as he emptied the last drop of whisky into a mug entitled Master of the House, he noticed an envelope on the floor. Inside was a cheque signed by Boffin Brooks’s frightful father Gordon for five thousand pounds. (Two thousand less than normal because of Boffin’s scholarship.) Gordon always paid at the last moment to avoid both a two per cent penalty and losing interest.
Like most first-generation public-school parents, Sir Gordon Brooks clamoured for his kilo of flesh and would have gone berserk and straight to his good friend Alex Bruce if he’d been chased for non-payment, or if Ian had forgotten to put CBE (for services to export) on the receipt. Why didn’t someone export Gordon?
Ian mopped his brow with his shirtsleeve in relief. But when he switched on the computer to delete Gordon’s name, he couldn’t find the file.
Drenched in sweat, heart pounding, blood swept into his brain in a tidal wave, trying to force its way out. Lightning jagged before his eyes. He was going to have a stroke. Nothing. He’d deleted the fucking thing – two whole days’ work with his slow typing. He was far too drunk to type it out again.
‘I can’t go on.’ Ian’s head crashed into his sweating hands. He’d get fired; they’d be destitute again. Snoring Northcliffe and Patience’s horses would have to go.
He jumped, hearing a crash and rattle downstairs, and shoved the empty whisky bottle under the half-completed Times crossword. Hearing a step and a thump of a tail, he swung round. Paris trying to creep in had sent a walking stick flying.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
The boy looked whiter than ever – a ghost postillion struck by lightning, haunting the Old Coach House.
‘For a walk.’
‘Too bloody late.’
Seeing despair rather than rage in Ian’s bloodshot eyes, however, Paris asked if he were OK.
‘No, I’m not, just wiped a bloody file,’ mumbled Ian. ‘Need it for Alex Bruce first thing.’
He banged his fist on the table. Everything jumped: the mug tipping over, spilling the last of the whisky on his written notes; Times crossword page fluttering down to reveal the empty bottle.
‘I can’t go on.’ Picking up the keyboard, Ian was about to smash it.
Paris, rather encouraged by such loss of control, leapt forward. ‘Cool it, for fuck’s sake. Get up.’ He tugged the keyboard from Ian. ‘Lemme have a go.’
Sliding into Ian’s seat, he went into MS-DOS and typed in the command to bring up the list of files.
‘What’s the name of the one you lost?’
‘“Unpaid fees 2002 autumn”.’ Ian slumped against the wall. He didn’t dare to hope. Oh, please God.
A blond moth fluttered on a suicide mission towards the lamp. Cupping his hands, Paris caught it. He got up and shoved it into the honeysuckle outside, before shutting the window. Returning to Ian’s chair, he scrolled down.
‘Reports, expulsions, health, recreations, staff performance, that looks in-eresting – or, as you would say, “intr’sting”.’ His eyes slid towards Ian. ‘“Unpaid fees 2002 autumn.” Got it.’
Ian gave a gasp of relief:
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite,’ said Paris, reinstating the file back on the computer in its original format. ‘Do you need to change anything?’ Then, scrolling down the list: ‘There’s that bitch Anthea Belvedon, Campbell-Black, Harefield, Lloyd-Foxe, Waterlane, always the rich buggers that don’t pay up.’
‘You shouldn’t be reading that, it’s confidential.’
‘I have the shortest memory.’
‘Can you delete Gordon Brooks, Boffin’s father? He’s paid.’
As Paris found the name, highlighted it and hit the delete button, his fingers made an even more e
xquisite sound than Marcus Campbell-Black.
‘Let’s print it out,’ suggested Ian. ‘I can add latecomers in biro. Thank God, Paris, you’ve saved my life, probably my job.’
Slumped on a moth-eaten sofa covered in a tartan rug, Ian looked utterly exhausted, his eyes red hollows, his cheeks and nose a maze of purple veins, the lines round his mouth like cracks in dry paths.
‘Would you like a nightcap?’ he asked, desperate for one himself.
Paris grinned. How could a face so shuttered and cold one moment be so enchantingly warm, almost loving, the next?
‘Thought caps weren’t allowed to be worn indoors at Bagley.’
Getting the joke, Ian laughed.
‘All those rules must seem a bit alarming. Have to have that jewellery off, I’m afraid. Wear it when you come back here for leave-outs.’
Ian rose unsteadily and wandered to the much depleted drinks cupboard, pouring a brandy and ginger for Paris and the rest of the brandy for himself, taking a great gulp.
‘Thank you, Paris, so much.’ Then, seeing the boy’s eyes straying towards the crossword: ‘Finish it if you like. Got stuck on a Tennyson quote. “Heavily hangs the broad . . .”, nine letters, “over its grave in’ the earth so chilly.”’
‘Sunflower,’ murmured Paris.
‘Of course, well done. “Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.” Beautiful poem.’
Paris smirked. ‘Any time, Ian. And if you have trouble with that computer, ring me or text me on my mobile and I’ll whiz out of chemistry and sort it.’
‘I suppose those wretched mobiles have their uses,’ conceded Ian. ‘Sorry, the last few weeks have been rough. All a bit nervous. Promise to telephone or pop into my office if there’re any problems.’
‘Thank you,’ said Paris, feeling much happier.
When Ian looked at his computer next morning, Paris had written, with some scarlet nail polish which Emerald had left in the bathroom, on the frame of the computer screen: ‘To remind you to save it.’
60
Paris’s first weeks at Bagley were hell. At Larks he’d bunked off any lesson he disliked and been free after three-thirty. Now he was flat out from the moment the bell fractured his skull at six-forty-five until lights out at ten, kept endlessly busy racing from chapel to lessons to games to prep and losing his way despite Dora’s map. Used to being easily the cleverest pupil at Larks, he found himself woefully behind in most subjects and, with smaller classes, there was nowhere to hide. Nor had he dreamt rugby would be so brutal, but with Anatole and Lubemir in the scrum, he couldn’t expect much else.