by Jilly Cooper
‘Cadbury,’ shouted Paris. Even Northcliffe opened an eye.
In charge of the beagles, blowing their hunting horns, flicking their token whips, were Amber and Lando, glamorous in their teal-blue coats, breeches and black boots.
‘I shagged that girl last summer,’ said Paris, topping up his glass. He wished he could remember more about it.
And look at her: an utterly stunning blonde with the same cool face, blue eyes and ferociously determined mouth as Rupert. It must be his daughter Tabitha, the silver medallist, and that must be her husband Wolfgang who produced films, to whom Xav had promised to introduce Paris: ‘So he can discover you.’
Close on their heels came a group who’d clearly had an excellent lunch. According to the commentator, they were former members of the England polo team. Except for Lando’s father Ricky, who had a closed, carved, ascetic face and very high cheekbones, they all had handsome, flushed, expensive faces. Two of them, identical twins in their thirties, were holding lead reins attached to the wrists of a beautiful girl. Paris gasped. It was Bianca, inspiring as many cheers and wolf whistles as her father.
She had tied a scarlet bandanna round her dark ringlets and wore a flame-red wool shirt and dark blue breeches which clung to her impossibly supple and slender figure. Her lovely even complexion, the colour of strong tea, was faintly touched with colour. But neither twin could restrain her wonderful wildness. You could more easily have trapped a sunbeam as she skipped and danced, her laughing dark eyes making love to every man in the crowd.
Bloody hell. Paris refilled his glass. For, just behind Bianca and the twins, advancing fast, waving a ‘Bring back Blair-Baiting’ poster, his black curls flowing out from under his flat cap like Sir Lancelot, strode Cosmo.
‘Fuck him,’ said Paris, then his heart lifted as Patience came into view. ‘There’s your mistress,’ he chided Northcliffe who was burying a Bonio in the camellia by the window.
Patience might resemble a scarecrow, but she looked so sweet and carefree as she laughed and gossiped to the Hon. Jack’s father, David Waterlane and – my God – to Sally Brett-Taylor. It was brave of her to stick her neck out. All three of them were walking backwards now to watch and clap a piper who was leading a large contingent from Scotland, marching behind.
He could just imagine them: knights and ladies of the court, straight out of Tennyson, riding through medieval England on their great horses, a bobbing flotilla of white placards lit by the turning plane trees and Patience part of it. How dare Ian put her down so much? And what a tragedy for Xav not to be there.
I loathe what they stand for, he thought despairingly, but I long to be accepted by them. And Bianca was the only person who might get him over Janna, whom he still missed unbearably. He tried not to think of her. He hadn’t glanced at the Gazette for weeks, nor been in touch with anyone from Larks. His mobile was dying from lack of use.
If only Janna were here with him now, discussing some poem, casually ruffling his hair. But if Sally was on the march, that satyr Hengist was probably now at Jubilee Cottage shagging her. Jesus, it crucified him. Paris was about to open another bottle when he realized Rupert was addressing the crowds in Whitehall. The clipped, arrogant, carrying voice hardly needed a microphone.
‘We will not let a politically correct but morally corrupt Government dictate to us. We will fight to the death for what we believe in: England, freedom and the countryside.’
‘What about Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?’ reproached Sally Brett-Taylor, over the roar of approval.
‘And of course the colonies,’ grinned Rupert, chucking an empty hipflask to an adoring fan who rushed off to the nearest pub to refill it.
God, he’s a cool bastard, thought Paris, and Xav was his only route to Bianca. Picking up the Cartwrights’ telephone he rang Xav. ‘Patience and Ian are out. Why don’t you come over? Got any weed?’
‘Some really strong skunk; it’ll blow your mind.’
Happily Alex and Poppet had gone out and the deputy housemaster, Joe Meakin, who was new to the job and engrossed in the Sunday papers, was in charge.
‘Can I nip over to the Old Coach House? Paris Alvaston’s on his own and a bit down, adjusting to a new school and all.’
‘OK, don’t be late,’ said Mr Meakin, glad that Xavier had found a friend. The poor boy seemed so isolated.
‘I’ll sign myself out,’ said Xav, and didn’t.
Collecting the skunk, he put a pillow in his bed.
63
‘Are you sure it’s safe?’ he asked Paris ten minutes later. ‘If I’m busted again I’ll get sacked.’
‘Quite safe. Ian’s out to dinner; Patience is on the march.’
Having finished the red, Paris handed Xav a glass of Ian’s whisky and had one himself.
‘Your dad made a good speech; I taped it. I understand now why you wanted to go.’
Xav’s face sank into sullenness.
‘They wouldn’t want a black bastard like me around.’
‘Don’t talk crap, they all cheered Bianca. Have a look,’ said Paris winding back the tape. He wanted to watch her again. ‘And hurry up with that smoke. Ian’s obviously been watering the whisky; it tastes like gnat’s piss. Who are those dirty old men holding Bianca’s lead reins?’
Xav looked up from the tobacco and the skunk which he was shredding into a king-sized Rizla.
‘The Carlisle twins. Good blokes. The two in front are Bas Baddington and Drew Benedict, friends of my dad’s who played polo for England. All terrific studs, who like to wind up Dad, who was the biggest stud of all, by chatting up Bianca. He goes ballistic,’ Xav added wistfully. ‘He hates people chatting up Mum too. Give me a slug of that Courvoisier; you’re right about the whisky.’ He emptied it into a nearby plant pot.
‘You may not be the brain of Britain,’ giggled Paris half an hour later, ‘but you’re a genius at rolling spliffs.’
Xav had obviously had plenty of practice, and he’d been right about the skunk: it blew their minds, putting them in a really mellow and expansive mood.
There wasn’t anything on television and Patience and Ian had crap videos, so they put on a Marilyn Manson CD and, ignoring shouts of ‘Turn it down’ from all over the campus, they danced. Xav, rocking with the abandon that he drained glasses, was soon rolling another spliff.
After that they got the munchies. Paris remembered a shepherd’s pie Patience had left in the fridge, which he put in the oven, and the remains of a boeuf bourguignon, which he fed to Northcliffe. He also found a nice bottle of white and a plate of smoked salmon sandwiches under clingfilm, which they wolfed down, dropping the crusts on the carpet.
Oh help! Paris noticed a cigarette burn on one of Emerald’s poncy embroidered cushions and two more on the sofa. He’d sort it later. Drugs made him feel he could conquer anything, be the best guy Cameron Diaz had ever slept with, win the poetry prize, score five goals for Liverpool, have Little Cosmo pleading to be his best friend. Then you came down and descended into the abyss when you wanted to hurt and destroy anyone who loved you.
‘Why were you in care?’ asked Xav.
‘My mum dumped me on the doorstep of a children’s home in Alvaston and fucked off. They named me after the town. They reckoned I was about two, so they gave me a birthday on January the thirtieth. Makes me the water carrier – or wine carrier.’ He filled Xav’s glass with Pouilly-Fumé. ‘Aquarians are supposed to be aloof and charismatic. I’ve worked on it ever since. What happened to you?’
Xav drew deeply on his spliff, eyes like black threads, face impassive, a Hiawatha with puppy fat.
‘I was born with a squint and a birthmark, which, probably correctly, is the sign of the devil to the Colombian Indians. So they chucked me into the gutter to die. They shoot stray children along with dogs in Bogotá, so the place looks tidy when foreign leaders roll up. I was rescued by a nun who worked in an orphanage.’ Xav’s voice grew more bitter. ‘Bianca was brought in as a baby when I was about twenty mo
nths. She came from a good family, strict Catholics, who forced Bianca’s mother to give her up. Dad and Mum had placed an order for her and flown over from England; the nuns threw me in as a job lot. I know nothing about my parents. Bianca’s posh but I’m a yob: I can tell that when I look in the mirror.’
Emptying the entire glass of wine, Xav choked. Paris bashed him on the back and said:
‘You’ve got the poshest voice I’ve ever heard. Birthmark’s gone, so’s the squint.’
Xav glared glassily at Paris. ‘Gets worse when I’m pissed.’
‘D’you feel Indian or English?’
‘Indian mostly. I love booze, drugs and fast horses. But I’ve got no stop button. Once I start I can’t stop.’
‘Your father can’t mind that with horses.’
‘My father is the most embarrassing person I’ve ever met. He doesn’t give a shit. Wherever he goes everyone gazes at him and Mum and Bianca, and sees how like film stars they are. Then they look at me, and think: Why’s that ugly black bastard hanging round them?
‘They used to spit at Mum when I was young,’ continued Xav bitterly. ‘They thought she’d been with a black man. They used to finger my hair and ask her if she ever washed it. I wash the fucking stuff every day. Boy, Mum got angry.’ For a second, Xav’s heavy face lifted. ‘She used to yell at people. But no one ever asked Dad questions about me, because they’re too scared of him. So he’s never realized there was a problem.’
Xav was rolling a third joint, breaking cardboard off a cigarette packet for them to smoke through.
‘Least you’ve got parents,’ said Paris.
The bottle of white was empty. The only thing left seemed to be a bottle of medium-dry sherry. He filled up their glasses.
‘Let’s drink to yobbos.’
‘Yobbos,’ shouted Xav, draining his glass. ‘Put on some more music.’
Putting on Limp Bizkit, turning up the volume, Paris opened the curtains on a sky full of stars and lit-up windows all over the campus.
‘Hear that, you fuckers,’ he yelled over the din. ‘God stands up for bastards.’ Then, as the chapel clock chimed eleven o’clock: ‘I’ve got an idea how we can screw up Biffo’s steeplechase.’
On balance, Ian felt the evening had been a success. He had lied to Patience. He hadn’t been dining with a supplier, but with Poppet and Alex Bruce, whom he’d taken to Fidelio in Bristol – on tickets admittedly given him by a supplier.
This had been to melt the distinct froideur which had grown between him and Alex since Patience’s shouting match. As Alex wielded more power, Ian was increasingly edgy about losing his job. He knew Patience would disapprove of this move almost as much as Alex disapproved of her going on the march, so he had kept her in the dark.
Fidelio had been ravishing, with a Bagley old girl, Flora Seymour, singing Leonora quite magically. But although the opera was about liberation from tyranny, he didn’t feel Poppet and Alex were fans of Beethoven – too militaristic perhaps.
‘I prefer Eastern music,’ admitted Poppet. ‘Or early music on period instruments.’
Both Bruces had worn open-toed sandals and Alex, tieless, had displayed fearful short sleeves when he removed his jacket. They had certainly tucked into the smoked chicken, roast beef, avocado and spinach salad and apricot tart Ian had ordered for the interval, and between them downed the bottle of Beaune.
Ian, who couldn’t drink because he’d agreed to drive them, couldn’t stop thinking of that bottle of Pouilly-Fumé in the fridge at the Old Coach House.
On the way home, Poppet and Alex talked insufferably smugly about their daughter Charisma, who went to Searston Abbey.
‘Of course she’s G and T,’ boasted Poppet, which turned out to be ‘gifted and talented’, rather than ‘gin and tonic’, and which made Ian long for a drink even more.
As they crossed the border into Larkshire, it was still mild enough to have the windows open. Conversation moved on to the challenging behaviour of Paris.
‘He’s very troubled,’ said Poppet firmly, ‘and I’m afraid Janna Curtis gave him an inflated sense of his own ability.’
Ian didn’t rise, saying they were finding Paris much easier and he seemed to be getting on well with Xavier.
‘I’m not liking that,’ mused Poppet. ‘Xav is very troubled too. I blame Rupert. Xav gets a detention for challenging behaviour and instead of dropping everything to sort out his son, Rupert swans off on the Countryside March.’
‘I asked Rupert to discuss Xav’s special educational needs recently,’ added Alex petulantly, ‘and he said: “All Xav needs is a kick up the arse. He’s a lazy little sod, like I was at school.”’
In the dark, Ian suppressed a smile.
‘Rupert of course is troubled,’ sighed Poppet, ‘and a very private person.’
Only because he runs like hell the moment you appear on the horizon, thought Ian.
Swinging the car in between the stone lions at the bottom of the school drive, Ian was surprised at the number of lights still on. Must be pupils revising for tomorrow’s retakes. Someone was playing loud music. Through the trees he could see lights in the Old Coach House; perhaps Patience was home.
‘I’ve got a nice bottle of Pouilly-Fumé and some sandwiches in the fridge,’ he told the Bruces. ‘It’s a long time since supper.’
Paris, if up, could open the bottle for them and hand things round.
‘Well, if you insist,’ said Poppet.
‘Christ,’ whispered Paris, who’d been looking out of the window, ‘Ian’s home and he’s brought Mr and Mrs Fussy.’ Turning off Limp Bizkit, he chucked the remains of the spliff into the waste-paper basket.
Then he noticed more burns: in the ‘Mother’s Place is in the Wrong’ cushion and on Ian’s bridge table and on another of Emerald’s cushions, shit, shit, shit. Paris turned the cushions over and shoved a pile of Horse & Hounds on the bridge table.
‘Gather up the empties at once, man,’ he begged, but, cross-eyed and giggling on the sofa, Xav was too far gone.
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Paris scooped up at least four bottles and shoved them in Patience’s little sewing cupboard, producing a chink and crash of glass, which indicated Ian was already secreting bottles there.
Paris was just trying to identify a smell of burning and shoving a swaying Xav out by the back door when they went slap into Ian, Alex and Poppet coming in through the garage.
‘Mr and Mrs Fussy,’ said a beaming Xav. ‘Have you had a good evening?’
Seeing him momentarily handsome, showing excellent teeth and softened features, Alex thought for a moment Xav had turned into the egregious Feral Jackson. Then he caught sight of the shadow of a birthmark in the overhead light.
‘Xavier Campbell-Black,’ he thundered, ‘why aren’t you in bed?’
‘Chill, man, I’ve been counselling Paris. I didn’t realize it was so late.’
‘You were ordered not to leave your house.’
‘I got permission.’
‘Something’s burning,’ said Poppet, fascinated to witness such chaos.
Wrenching open the oven, Ian found a blackened shepherd’s pie. Opening the fridge, he discovered the bottle of Pouilly-Fumé and the sandwiches missing and, striding into the drawing room, found an utterly depleted drinks cupboard and took in the mess.
‘Paris, come in here at once,’ he bellowed.
Everyone unfortunately followed him, whereupon the wastepaper basket containing Paris’s discarded spliff, not wanting to be left out, burst into flames.
‘Fire, fire,’ giggled Xav, emptying the last of the sherry over it, which turned the flame blue. ‘Just like the Christmas pudding at home,’ he added wistfully.
‘We’ll be forgetting that drink and sandwiches,’ said Alex grimly, ‘and take you straight home.’ He seized Xav by the arm and turned to Paris. ‘And I want you in my office before chapel tomorrow to explain yourself.’
Thank God, the burnt shepherd’s pie had blotted out the smel
l of dope.
Giggling hysterically, Xav tripped over a side table, sending flying a ‘World’s Best Dad’ mug and a Staffordshire dog, and fell flat on his face.
‘For God’s sake,’ exploded Ian.
Xav was as unyielding as a bag of concrete as Paris lugged him to his feet. ‘Getta grip,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll help him out, sir.’ Anything to escape from Ian’s fury.
Outside, the peace of the soft September starlight was disturbed by a tantivy of horns and joyful off-key singing.
‘The dusky night rides down the sky,
And ushers in the morn;
The hounds all join in glorious cry,
The huntsman winds his horn.’
‘“And a-hunting we will go, a-hunting we will go, a-hunting we will go,”’ joined in Xav. Lunging forward he yelled, ‘Taxi, taxi, take me to paradise,’ as a lorry, driven by Patience, with Dora, Jack, Lando and Junior, and several beagles falling out of the windows, came roaring up the drive.
‘“The dusky night rides down the sky, the huntsman . . .”’ began Patience. Screeching to a halt outside the Old Coach House and seeing Xav and Paris, she cried, ‘Hello, boys, we’ve all had such a wonderful day.’
The Bruces, however, lurking in the shadows, felt otherwise, particularly when the beagles poured out of the back of the lorry after Joan’s Burmese cat before relieving themselves all over the lawns and the flower beds. The calm of the night was disturbed again as Poppet Bruce’s open-toed sandals encountered Northcliffe’s regurgitated boeuf bourguignon.
Paris fled to bed, trying to blot out the sounds of Patience and Ian arguing furiously downstairs.
Oh hell, there was the main section of the Sunday Times on his bed all crumpled up by Northcliffe, which Ian hadn’t read yet and would be crosser about than the booze. The paper lay open at a piece listing the advantages of boarding school which included ‘the widening of horizons, the development of autonomy, and the relief from tensions commonly built up in a nuclear family around adolescence’.