by Jilly Cooper
‘It was the way she was born, poor child.’
‘Bloody wasn’t. How could she treat poor Emlyn like that?’
‘She loves Charlie, who was sweet when they left. She apologized and hoped she hadn’t come on too strong at dinner, but she didn’t know how to handle Emlyn and she was so nervous about meeting us.’
‘Bollocks,’ raged Hengist, ‘she’s as nervous as a basking shark.’
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Dora, of course, leaked the entire story to the press, who came roaring down to Bagley, wildly interested in the coming out of Oriana.
‘Of course we support Oriana,’ Sally told the Telegraph, ‘Hengist and I are naturally disappointed as we’ve always longed for grandchildren and feel life is easier if you have a conventional marriage.’
‘If your daughter does something reprehensible,’ Hengist was quoted as saying, ‘you take it on the chin.’
Rupert put down Lord of the Flies, which he was rather enjoying, to ring Hengist to commiserate.
‘Same thing happened to us with Marcus. Hell of a shock at the time. But he’s very happy with his boyfriend and it didn’t do his career any harm.’
Bianca was absolutely fed up with Rupert staying at home to read his set books during the holidays, which meant she couldn’t slope off and see Paris. Why the hell couldn’t he take up blood sports again?
Although most of the staff at Bagley were very sympathetic towards Hengist, Sally and Emlyn, there was a faction, headed by Poppet Bruce, who felt the Brett-Taylors had been a little too smug about Oriana’s achievements.
Janna tried to comfort a monosyllabic, devastated Emlyn, who was outwardly stoical, thinking more of Hengist and Sally. Inwardly he identified with the Brett-Taylors’ Christmas tree, which had held up the lights, the tinsel, the fairy and the coloured balls, with everyone oohing and aahing. Now the decorations had gone back into their box until next year, but the tree had been chucked out on the terrace on Twelfth Night, destined for the bonfire. That’s how he felt Oriana had treated him.
Somehow he had survived the beginning of term, welcoming back boys, taking lessons and rugby practice, drinking only a little more than usual, refusing to talk to the press, who nevertheless quoted him as saying: ‘I feel a proper Charlie, although that’s probably Oriana’s role now.’
On the other hand, history mocks were never marked down more savagely. Even Boffin Brooks only got a D, while one boy ordered to run ten times down to the boathouse on frozen ground was carted off to the sick bay with a broken ankle. Emlyn was again taking no prisoners. He coped until the second week of term when he and Sally were wandering towards the lake discussing the situation.
The snow had nearly thawed. The brightest thing in the landscape was the warm brown keys of the ashes and Elaine in her red tartan coat, bounding ahead. A soft grey mist was coming down. The press, thank God, had retreated.
‘I’m so worried about Oriana’s career and her relationship with Hengist,’ Sally was saying as she tightened her dark blue silk scarf under her chin. ‘He so adores her. When you and she were together, you always made room for him, but Charlie seems to be all-consuming. I doubt, even if he came round, she’d let him back in again.
‘I like lesbians,’ she added firmly, ‘Joan’s a dear. But I just feel their chances of happiness are limited and it’s more difficult to gain social acceptance because the world is so ignorant and the press is so cruel.’
Emlyn gathered up a remaining patch of snow and hurled it into the lake. ‘Guys get excited by the idea, but only if it’s two lush blondes on a bed and they can watch or join in. They’re threatened by the reality.’
He and Sally were so engrossed they didn’t notice Poppet Bruce waiting like Horatius as they stepped on to the Japanese bridge which crossed a narrow stretch of the lake. Poppet looked very cheery in a woolly hat, muffler and gumboots all in orange and, because she was pregnant, she had added a blue and orange wool cloak. She was full of her own Christmas.
‘We enjoyed goat’s cheese quiche for the festive meal and instead of exchanging Christmas gifts, we donated a goat to a family in Africa. I’m very excited by my latest project: swimming for Asian women.’ Then, eyes sparkling with malevolent enthusiasm, she went on, ‘I’m so pleased to bump into you, Sally, because I so rejoice for you.’
‘Whatever for?’ Searching for carp in the grey water, Sally braced herself.
‘That Oriana’s gay. What a thrill for you and Hengist. What a new and fascinating take it will give you on life, with particular resonance for Hengist who’s so homophobic. I would urge him to have immediate counselling. As a professional, I’d be happy to oblige.’
Reading their silence as approval, Poppet turned and walked back across the bridge with them. ‘What is more, I much look forward to meeting Charlie Delgado. I so admire her oeuvre. Might Oriana be prevailed on to address the Talks Society, not just about the war, but about coming out? She and Charlie could do a fascinating double act.’
They had reached the other side.
Sally, quite unable to speak, was gazing in horror at Poppet. Not so Emlyn, who was so angry, he gathered up his deputy headmaster’s wife and threw her into the lake.
‘It’s not just Asian women who go swimming. If you were a bloke,’ he roared, ‘I’d smack you round the face, you insensitive bitch. And you’re not going to rescue her.’ He seized Sally’s arm.
As he hurried her away, Sally reflected on life’s ironies. She had been so delighted when she thought Oriana had a new man, but now, how lovingly and gratefully she’d have accepted Emlyn as a son-in-law. Furiously spitting out pond weed, Poppet swam to the bank.
Emlyn had hardly got back to his flat and poured himself a vast whisky when Alex Bruce, glasses steaming up in righteous indignation, barged in.
‘How dare you chuck Poppet in the lake? You could have killed her and our babe.’
‘Witches deserve drowning,’ yelled Emlyn. ‘My only mistake was not to do it sooner. If you come down to the lake, I’ll be happy to hold you under.’
Such was Emlyn’s fury, Alex backed hastily away, knocking over a chair overloaded with unopened Christmas presents.
‘You’re only resorting to vulgar abuse, taking it out on your colleagues, because you can’t handle rejection. Oriana is clearly seeking closure.’
‘Shut up about Oriana!’ Emlyn drained his glass of whisky and got to his feet, his massive frame blotting out any light from the window. Next moment, he had grabbed Alex’s lapels, dislodging his spectacles. ‘You little weasel.’
‘You’ll get fired for this.’
‘Good,’ said Emlyn, ‘I couldn’t work under the same roof as you and that vindictive cow a moment longer,’ and his fist propelled Alex through the air on to a rickety sofa, sending flying piles of rugby shirts and unmarked mocks papers and face-down photographs of Oriana.
Despite a possibly cracked cheekbone and his terror of this vast, fire-breathing Welsh dragon, Alex felt a surge of satisfaction. Emlyn, with his working-class, state-school background, was an ace in the Hengist-Artie-Theo pack, because he saw good in their traditions, whereas Alex only saw evil. Emlyn was also young, left wing and progressive and so loved by parents and pupils alike that Alex feared him as an outside candidate for headmaster. His loss to the old guard would be immeasurable.
‘Can I accept this as your resignation?’ he spluttered.
‘You certainly can, now get out.’
That day Emlyn walked straight to Janna, who took care of him. For twenty-four hours he was delirious, ranting and raving in the pits of drunken despair. It was hard to tell if the bitch he was inveighing against was Poppet, Charlie or Oriana.
Janna, therefore, hid a letter she had been amazed to receive from Oriana, which apologized for being rude.
‘I’m protective towards my mother and I mistakenly thought you were after Dad. Will you keep an eye on her and on Emlyn? I really do care for him and I bungled the whole thing. Charlie sends her best. We hope to see
you when we’re next in England.’
Janna felt oddly comforted.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked Emlyn when he finally sobered up.
‘I’ve been screwed by the Brett-Taylors.’ Emlyn gazed moodily into a cup of black coffee. ‘Until Charlie rolled up, they had no real desire for me to marry Oriana. To that lot, being working class is worse than being lesbian. Fucking upper classes, fucking independent schools.’
He rubbed his stubble reflectively. ‘I might go back to the maintained system; I might go and work for the Welsh Rugby Union. I dropped in on them when I was home at Christmas. They said there was always a job going. I’d like to be part of building up a team to bury England at Twickenham. But for the next two terms, I’d like to help you out at Larks, if you’ll have me?’
Janna gazed at him, eyes and mouth opening wider and wider. ‘Have you?’ She frantically wiped her eyes. ‘It’s the best news ever. Are you sure? God, we need you. They love the Brig and Pittsy and tolerate Skunk and Mates, but they worship you. The Brigadier’s awesome on Nazi Germany, but he’s rusty on the Russian Revolution and it’d be wonderful to have someone to referee fights and see off Ashton Douglas and just have you around.’
Hengist, by contrast, was devastated. He’d lost a marvellous master, a soulmate and a favoured heir apparent. He tried to persuade Emlyn to reconsider.
‘We could always claim Poppet provoked you. None of your class has completed its coursework. Their parents are going to be livid. You can’t let them down. Look at the way Janna stood by her no-hopers. What the hell are you going to do?’
‘Go to Larks to help out Janna,’ which didn’t please Hengist one bit.
‘Well, don’t break her heart then. And what about our rugger teams?’
‘Denzil will have to get up in the afternoon for a change.’
‘Where are you going to live?’
‘I’ve got temporary digs in Wilmington High Street, opposite Brigadier Woodford,’ which pleased Hengist even less.
The pupils were equally enraged at Emlyn’s departure. Posters and graffiti everywhere demanded his return. Alex was shouted down and booed in chapel and he wrongly blamed Theo when someone painted ‘Ite domum’ on the roof of his house.
Nor did having Boffin caringly applying rump steak to one’s black eye compensate for being called ‘Alex Bruise’. Alex festered as he corrected the proofs of his Guide to Red Tape, which was due out in June.
Poppet, on the other hand, was nauseatingly forgiving. ‘Emlyn was hurting,’ she told everyone, ‘it came out as anger.’
Artie and Theo walked to chapel past the lake, on whose banks, as a result of the gales, twigs, branches and even ivy-mantled trees were strewn like an antler factory. The wind of change blowing out dead wood, thought Theo, with a shiver.
‘How’s Emlyn?’ he asked.
‘Resigned,’ replied Artie sadly.
‘Is that a verb or an adjective?’
‘Both.’
‘We have lost our Hector,’ said Theo mournfully.
Dora leaked the story to the papers, who all came roaring back to Bagley: ‘Top rugby school loses star coach’.
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The despair of Bagley at losing their star coach was only equalled by Larks’s joy at inheriting him. By blacking one of the detested Mr Fussy’s eyes, Emlyn had achieved cult status and it rocketed morale to have such an attractive man round the place. Even though it was winter, the gap suddenly increased between jeans and crop tops, skirts climbed, Rowan’s dark bob was highlighted for the first time, even Miss Basket, sparked up by snogging Skunk at the Christmas party, drenched herself in lavender water.
‘Lovely for the boys to have a role model,’ said Mags.
‘I’m a roly-poly model,’ sighed Sophy, who’d put on seven pounds over Christmas and now joined the netball team in the lunch hour.
Weatherwise, Emlyn’s first morning was unpromising, with lowering skies and a bitter east wind sending leaves scuttling like mice across the playground. Inside, all was warmth. Graffi had designed a banner for reception showing a red dragon being greeted by a lot of larks. Pupils wandered in and out of a staffroom thick with cigarette smoke when they wanted to talk to a teacher. The purple and cyclamen-pink ball dresses worn by Pittsy and Skunk as Ugly Sisters in the staff pantomime still hung on a rail with everyone’s coats. The noticeboard was thick with cuttings about Larks and a mocks timetable with a red line through it. Thought for the week was: ‘Chewing gum: we’re gumming down.’
Sophy had brought in her daughter, Dulcie, who was playing with Kylie Rose’s Cameron and being monitored by several pupils taking GCSE child care.
Miss Cambola rushed up and kissed Emlyn on both cheeks.
‘At last, we have a baritone. We aim to sing the German Requiem in the cathedral.’
At break, Taggie Campbell-Black brought in a rainbow cake she was trying out for coursework and gave Emlyn the biggest slice.
After break he gave his first lesson on the Russian Revolution: a great success, particularly when Rocky retreated once more to the cupboard at the back of the room and kept the class in fits of laughter.
Emlyn told them about the first general strike in Moscow when there was no electricity and Tsar Nicholas, in his amber room, had to read and write his letters by candlelight.
‘What was he experiencing for a first time?’ asked Emlyn.
‘People power,’ boomed the voice from the cupboard.
‘Excellent, Rocky. Well done.’
Knowing their attention span was short, Emlyn moved on to the Monk with the burning eyes who had such a hold on Queen Alexandra.
‘Can anyone tell me his name?’
‘Omar Sharif,’ intoned the cupboard.
Rocky, who liked talking to adults, wandered into the staffroom during the lunch hour.
‘Get out before I kill you,’ bellowed the Brigadier in mock fury as Rocky helped himself to Lily’s last cheroot.
Both Brigadier and Lily, Emlyn noticed, were in fine fettle, the Brigadier arranging his teaching days to coincide with Lily’s so he could give her a lift in and out.
In the afternoon, Janna went through the children’s mocks papers with the Brigadier and Emlyn, expressing doubts whether any of them would manage a decent grade in history.
‘If they’d been marked down as ruthlessly as they’re supposed to be, they’d have been in minus figures,’ she added dolefully.
‘If it’s any comfort’ – the Brigadier patted her hand – ‘Rupert Campbell-Black asked me to mark his English lit. mocks papers for him. I’m afraid I had to fail him too. In an exam, one really cannot say: “Sylvia Plath’s the most fucking awful woman I’ve ever come across,” or, “Mrs Bennet’s exactly like Anthea Belvedon.”’
Emlyn grinned.‘He got that bit right.’
Emlyn was keen to improve Larks’s history marks but, filled with underlying rage against the whole arrogant, elitist public-school system, his ambition was to thrash them at the game at which they considered themselves invincible: rugby football. The boys at Larks were already fired up by the World Cup, so Emlyn had no difficulty in forming a rugby team, who grew markedly less enthusiastic when they had to run through the frozen water meadows before sunrise and train after school in the dark evenings. Admittedly, Emlyn jogged with them and shed twenty pounds and his gut. With his soft Welsh lilt becoming a sergeant major’s roar, he had no difficulty keeping the roughest, toughest boys in order, particularly when he dropped them from the team if they didn’t shape up.
Johnnie Fowler was kicked out for two weeks because he rolled up in a dirty shirt.
‘You’re meant to be covered in mud at the end of a game, not the beginning.’
‘The washing machine’s broke.’
‘Go to the launderette.’
‘Haven’t got no money.’
‘Wash it by bloody hand then.’
Emlyn’s genius was to draw the most out of players, so they achieved way beyond their own a
nd everyone else’s dreams. He knew which boys, like Johnnie and Monster, to slap down and which, like Xav and Rocky, to build up. He was an expert at pinpointing a player’s weakness and finding a solution, adapting teaching to the individual. Rugby, above all, taught boys teamwork and to keep their temper. As a result, flare-ups and loutish behaviour within the school dramatically decreased.
Emlyn increasingly appreciated the difficulties in getting these children through GCSE. Not that they were thick, but they were flowers planted in stony, dry, infertile soil, buffeted by winds.
‘Try and speak French with your family at home,’ he heard Lily urging, ‘c’est très bon.’
‘Our family don’t even speak in English,’ said Johnnie. ‘They just throw fings at each other.’
But as the weeks went by, the children gradually mastered the basics of volcanoes, earthquakes, heredity, the rise of Hitler, the Cuban missile crisis, the effect of tourism on world debt, the splitting of the atom, the circulation of the blood, the reflexes of the eye, electricity, dissecting sheep’s hearts and learnt how to book a ticket in French or to go shopping in Spanish.
They had fun with geography coursework, deciding where to locate a factory.
‘In Miss Miserden’s front garden,’ said Pearl.
‘That won’t mean a lot to the examiner,’ said Basket.
‘Well, Baldie Hyde’s back garden then.’
In his coursework, Graffi wrote eloquently about how roadworks in Shakespeare Lane, which ran into the Shakespeare Estate, inconvenienced people. ‘Makes me late for school. Mum can’t get to Tesco’s. Dad can’t get to the pub. Cavendish Plaza can’t get to their hairdressers. Randal Stancombe takes a helicopter, so the rich get inconvenienced less than the poor.’
Emlyn found the teaching much tougher than Bagley; it was like having to crank up an old Ford for the shortest journey when one had been driving a Lamborghini, but the rewards were greater, seeing understanding dawning on children’s faces. Increasingly too he admired Janna, how she exhausted herself worrying about Wally’s son in Iraq, Mags’s premature grandchild, Mr Mates’s arthritis.