The Parent Agency

by David Baddiel

  The Secretary Entity turned a leaf together and looked up at Barry expectantly.

  “Uh…?” said Barry.

  “Shoot,” said the Head.

  “Shoot what?” said Barry.

  “Say what sort of parents you’d like. In an ideal world. Which this is.”

  Barry looked back down at his list. The first thing that caught his eye was Number 9, the one he had always felt most guilty about: ‘Being poor’. He realised with a rush that this was a big problem, perhaps the biggest, with his parents. He looked up and saw The Secretary Entity with their pencils poised over their pads.

  “Rich,” he said. “I’d like to have rich parents.”

  “Write that down, Secretary Two,” said Secretary One.

  “I’m writing it down, Secretary One,” said Secretary Two.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Champagne, sir?” said Lord Rader-Wellorff’s butler.

  Barry didn’t quite know what to say. He was overwhelmed as it was, sitting in the back of a stretch Rolls-Royce. He hadn’t even known such things existed until Lord Rader-Wellorff’s chauffeur pulled up in it outside the Parent Agency.

  “I don’t think I’m allowed to drink champagne. I’m only nine,” he said.

  “Ha ha ha! This is special children’s champagne, Barrington!” said Lady Rader-Wellorff, who was sitting at the other end of the stretchy bit of the car with Lord Rader-Wellorff.

  Peevish (the butler) had filled their glasses and moved over to Barry, holding out the bottle and a glass on a silver tray. They had been driving for about an hour down a long road.

  “Yaahs!” said Lord Rader-Wellorff, which Barry had realised by now was how he said ‘Yes’. “Château Bolly-Wolly-Doodle-All-the-Day 1993. Seven hundred pounds a bottle! Tastes of grapes, lemonade and Sherbet Dib Dab!”

  “All right then,” said Barry. “Thank you… Peevish.” Peevish bent his head towards him – well, his whole body in fact, as Peevish didn’t seem to be allowed to sit down and so could only stand in the car by bending over – and filled his glass.

  Lord and Lady Rader-Wellorff lifted their glasses towards Barry.

  “Cheers!” they said.

  “Cheers!” said Barry, raising his own glass. This, he thought, is going to be brilliant.

  It had all happened very quickly. Well, quite quickly. After Barry said the words “rich parents”, the Head had smiled and nodded at The Secretary Entity, who were writing the words down. Then there was clearly a moment where no one quite knew what to do next; and suddenly the Head went, “Oh! Right!” and pressed another button on the machine in front of him and said: “Send up the Rader-Wellorffs!”

  Then there was a second slightly awkward moment when no one said anything for a bit. The Head offered Barry another sour Haribo from his box, but Barry knew that if he ate a lot of sour sweets in one go he’d get a tummy ache, so he said no. And everyone just sat in silence for four or five minutes.

  Then there was a knock on the door and after that things did start happening very quickly. The Head stood up and said, “Come in!” and suddenly into the room burst a man in plus fours and a tweed jacket, holding a pipe, and a woman wearing a huge flowery dress with pearls and a wide-brimmed hat which had what looked like a model of an enormous country house perched jauntily on the top of it.

  “This is the most exciting day of our lives!!” she said, and the two of them immediately circled round to give The Secretary Entity an enormous hug.

  “No, er… Lord and Lady Rader-Wellorff,” said the Head gently as The Secretary Entity began to look quite frightened. “Your one’s over there. He’s called Barry.” He nodded his head towards Barry.

  They looked over, confused.

  “Bah-rie?” said Lord Rader-Wellorff.

  “No, Barry.”

  They looked at each other. “Do you mean… Barrington?” said Lady Rader-Wellorff.

  “Er… Is that what Barry’s short for, Barry?” said the Head.

  Barry sheepishly shook his head. “I don’t think so…”

  “Well, never mind!” said Lady Rader-Wellorff. “We can always change it later. To Jeremy or something. When you’re… our son!!”

  And then the faces of Lord and Lady Rader-Wellorff broke into two very big smiles, which – considering they both had very white, very protruding teeth, like horses – nearly blinded Barry.

  “This is the most exciting day of our lives!” said Lady Rader-Wellorff, and they rushed over, circled round him, and hugged.

  As Barry downed the last drop of Château Bolly-Wolly-Doodle-All-the-Day 1993, thinking, Blimey, it really does taste of grapes, lemonade and Sherbet Dib Dab, the stretch Rolls turned off the main road and into a small village. A sign said Bottomley Bottom. In the middle of the village stood a huge pair of iron gates, which opened automatically as they approached.

  “Would you like a better view of the house and grounds, sir?” said Peevish to Barry, following a wink from Lord Rader-Wellorff. Peevish was still bent over. It didn’t look very comfortable, especially as he was wearing a black suit and tie with a high starchy collar. Barry rather wished he could ask him to sit down.

  “Er… Yes, please.”

  Peevish whispered something to the chauffeur, who pressed a button near the steering wheel. Barry heard a smooth shushing noise above his head and felt a breeze ruffle his hair. He looked up. A rectangular panel in the roof of the car had opened, showing the clear blue sky above. Barry stood up and his top half was out of the car.

  It was amazing. The car was travelling up a long gravel path, bounded on both sides by very tall pointy trees. Barry could feel the wind in his face. Then the Rolls turned out of the trees and up a little hill, to reveal a huge stately home, like ones Barry had only seen before on TV (and once when his family had gone on a day trip to Hatfield House, but then their car had broken down in the car park and they had had to stay there and wait for the AA to arrive, so he only saw it from a distance). And somewhere else… He had seen this house somewhere else…

  A second later, Lady Rader-Wellorff popped up beside him, smiling. “Welcome, Barrington, to Bottomley Hall!”

  And then Barry realised where he had seen Bottomley Hall before. On Lady Rader-Wellorff’s head. Or, to be more precise, on her hat, where the little model of it was presently trembling in front of his eyes as if a wizard had shrunk the real one to a thousandth of its normal size.

  “Yaahs!” said Lord Rader-Wellorff, sticking his head out of the roof too.

  “Oh, that’s better,” said Peevish, whose head appeared last, as he groaned with relief and tried, in the small space left in the roof rectangle, to stretch his lower back.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr Barrington sir…”

  “Delighted to make your acquaintance, young Master B.”

  “At your service, sir…”

  When the car stopped, and Barry was let out by the chauffeur, a line of men and women was there to meet him. The women were all wearing white aprons and black dresses, and the men were all dressed in suits and ties and high collars, like Peevish.

  “If there’s anything I can do to make your stay more pleasant, Master…”

  They were all murmuring things like that, really quietly. As Barry went past them, the men bowed and the women did a movement which involved crouching and bending their knees, like something he’d seen The Sisterly Entity do when they practised their ballet.

  “Thank you,” said Barry to each of them. “Thank you very much.”

  “This is our staff, Barrington. Well, your staff now,” said Lady Rader-Wellorff. She waved towards them as a group. “Cook, cleaner, pants folder, bath runner, personal bogey collector, that sort of thing.”

  “Don’t be silly, Lady R-W,” said Lord Rader-Wellorff. “You know we had to sack the PBC.” He turned to Barry. “Found him eating them on the sly.”

  Barry nodded, feeling a bit sick. He passed the last two members of staff, a man and a woman, who were standi
ng with their heads down.

  “If you need anything at all, Barry…” said the man in a familiar voice.

  “Yes, Barry, anything… at any time,” said the woman in an even more familiar voice.

  They didn’t look up. But there was something about them. In fact, they reminded Barry very much of the couple he had seen on the Parent Profiles at the Head’s office, the blurry ones. Plus, Barry could tell, just from the way they spoke, that they really meant what they said, about being there if he needed anything. This made him feel strangely warm inside, and he was about to say, “Thank you very much,” when suddenly Lady Rader-Wellorff grabbed his hand and started marching him towards the door of the house, up a series of steps. She moved her knees very far up and very far down as she walked, like Barry had seen horses do at the dressage in the Olympics. He tried to look back at the man and woman, but they just kept gazing at the ground.

  Barry was shown to his room by Peevish. It took about half an hour to get there – up various enormous staircases, past hundreds of old paintings, through the West Wing and down the North Wing and round the corner of the Library.

  His room was astonishing. It was, as far as Barry could make out, bigger than his entire house. In the middle was a four-poster bed, and from the windows, which were massive, you had a view of the gardens – which Peevish told him were over a hundred acres – and the Bottomley Hall lake.

  Then Peevish asked Barry if he would like him to put his luggage away.

  “I don’t have any,” said Barry.

  Without even blinking, Peevish said: “No problem, Your Eminence.” (Peevish seemed to improvise quite a lot when it came to addressing Barry.) “We have a selection of clothes already in place for you.” He opened a very big, ornate wooden wardrobe next to him.

  Barry peered into the wardrobe. Hanging inside were about twenty black suits, a hundred shirts, some ties and ten or so pairs of plus fours. Barry did not know what to say. Peevish took out one of the suits and held it up against him.

  “All in your size, honourable Sir B. Specially tailored by Jackson, Jackson, Jackson, Jackson and Jackson of Savile Row.”

  “The Jackson Five?” said Barry, who knew about them because his dad only listened to music from the 1970s.

  Peevish looked at him as if he was a bit simple. “I suppose so, Your Heavenly Brightness.”

  Then Barry was taken to meet Lord and Lady Rader-Wellorff again. He and Peevish stood outside the door of the dining room. Peevish knocked.

  “Come!” barked Lord Rader-Wellorff’s voice from inside.

  There was a short pause.

  Peevish frowned. “What, in?” he said.

  There was another short pause.

  “Yaahs, of course, you big idiot!” said Lord Rader-Wellorff. “It’s time for Barrington to meet his new brothers and sisters!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Peevish sighed and opened the door. Inside, Lord and Lady Rader-Wellorff were seated at the end of a very long table. Lady Rader-Wellorff still had a hat on, only now with what appeared to be a model of the garden and grounds, rather than the house, on it: there was even a small working fountain in the middle.

  Also seated round the table were – Barry counted them quickly; he was good at maths – eight other children, of varying ages, boys and girls, all wearing plus fours and tweed jackets, of varying sizes.

  “Barrington!” said Lady Rader-Wellorff, leaping up and slightly sprinkling him with fountain-splash. “Come and meet your brothers and sisters!”

  “Potential brothers and sisters, Lady R-W…” said Lord Rader-Wellorff. “Let’s not jump the gun!”

  “Fiddlesticks!” she replied. She came round and stood behind Barry, gently pushing him in the direction of the other children, who were all looking up at him. Most of them, it has to be said, in a not very friendly way. “Everybody! This is our new son – or soon will be, I’m sure – Barrington! Barrington, meet… Jeremy, Teremy, Meremy, Heremy, Queremy, Smellemy, Sea Anemone and Dave.”

  “Hello…” said Barry.

  “Hello…” they all said back. Not, it has to be said again, in an especially friendly way.

  Lady Rader-Wellorff was looking at the boy called Dave, a small thin child with glasses. “We really must get around to your name change, Dave. What do you think of… Bellamy?”

  Dave didn’t answer.

  “Er… Lord Rader-Wellorff? Lady Rader-Wellorff?” said Barry.

  “Please,” said Lord Rader-Wellorff. “Call me Henry. George Tristram Forbes Benedict Louis Jerome Mumford St Aubyn B’nard-B’nard Eugene. Rader-Wellorff.”

  “Yes, and please call me…” said Lady Rader-Wellorff, “…Penelope. Virginia Phoebe Sienna Nigella Bubbles Daphne Clarissa Jemima Elizabeth B’nard-B’nard Virginia. Rader-Wellorff.”

  “Er… you said Virginia twice?” said Barry.

  “Yes. I’m called it twice! What was your question?”

  “Why…” Barry continued, “…do you want to have more children if you’ve already got so many?”

  Lady Rader-Wellorff and Lord Rader-Wellorff looked confused, as if this had never occurred to them before.

  “Well! To be honest,” said Lord Rader-Wellorff eventually. “I think, when the Agency asks children what kind of parents they want, quite a lot of them say, um…”

  “Rich…?” said Barry.

  “Well…” said Lady Rader-Wellorff, “we don’t like to say. But yes.”

  “And…” said Lord Rader-Wellorff, “some of our lot are growing up – Jeremy, Queremy and Meremy are almost ready to fly the coop! – so we really wanted a new young’un. Didn’t we, Lady R-W?”

  “We did, Lord R-W!” said Lady Rader-Wellorff. “So, Barrington, tell us about this party we’re going to organise for you!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  In his bedroom, Barry looked at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t, it has to be said, entirely comfortable in the suit. Peevish had helped him put it on, which had felt a little weird as his mum and dad hadn’t helped him dress for a long time. But then again he didn’t normally wear suits. And certainly not shirts with cufflinks. And bow ties. Well, he had once worn a bow tie, to a party of Taj’s, but it had been a clip-on.

  The shirt even had a high stiff collar, like Peevish wore, which you had to tie the bow tie around. Barry had tried to tie the bow tie himself, thinking it couldn’t be that different from the knot he tied in his laces, but it just meant that his neck ended up looking like a big shoe.

  So Peevish helped him. And, even though he wasn’t comfy, he looked good, Barry thought, surveying his image in the mirror once more. He looked a bit… a bit… like James Bond. Which was very good. As that was what the party was meant to be about.

  It had been difficult to explain the party theme, as neither Lord nor Lady Rader-Wellorff nor any of the children with names like Jeremy had ever heard of James Bond.

  It was becoming clear to Barry that this world, although very like his in some ways, was also quite different, and not just in the obvious children-choosing-their-parents way. But he had done his best to explain to his prospective mother and father about his spy hero. Although they’d been confused about a lot of things – MI6, Spectre, jet packs and Barry going Dah Da-Da-Da/Dadada/Dah!da-da-da/Da-Da-Da/DAH-DAH!/Dadada – they had jumped up in the air, clapping when he said two little magic words:

  casino.

  And:

  guns.

  “Oh!” said Lady Rader-Wellorff. “We’ve got loads of those!”

  “Casinos?” said Barry.

  “No! Guns. But we can do the casino in the Great Room, can’t we, Lord R-W?”

  “Yaahs,” said Lord Rader-Wellorff. “As long as you don’t lose another three million like you did last time, Lady R-W!! Ha ha ha!! Hmm? Hmm?!”

  “Ha ha ha!”

  Barry had laughed along with this, but then stopped, realising he didn’t actually know what he’d been laughing at.

  There was a knock on the door. Barry thought about what to sa
y. Then he remembered.

  “Come!”

  Silence. Then, from outside the door: “What, in?”

  “Er… yes.”

  The door opened. Peevish leant in. “Your guests are waiting for you, oh great Punjab,” he said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Barry had never seen anything like it.

  The Great Room alone was bigger than his school assembly hall. It was lit by a series of enormous hanging chandeliers, whose light sparkled off the silver turning handles of three large roulette wheels, which had been set up in the middle, and off the jewellery of all the amazingly dressed ladies who were filling up the space beneath.

  There were also loads of green tables, around which some of these ladies – but mainly men in tuxedos – were sitting, playing cards. Everyone was holding drinks in tall glasses and talking and laughing. In the corner, a man in another tuxedo, only with a really long jacket, was playing a grand piano. It did look, Barry had to admit, very like some of the scenes in Casino Royale (the proper one, not the one with David Niven in it).

  It even sounded a bit like it as the man on the piano was clearly trying very hard to play Dah Da-Da-Da/Dadada/Dah!da-da-da/Da-Da-Da/DAH-DAH!/Dadada. Only not getting it quite right.

  Above the piano, strung between the walls, was a large banner – made, as far as Barry could make out, of silk – on which someone had managed, in the few hours since he had told Lord and Lady Rader-Wellorff the idea, to embroider the words BARRINGTON’S JAMES BOUND PARTY.

  “Barrington!” screamed Lady Rader-Wellorff and rushed over. She was wearing a long ballgown and a new hat, which had a model on it of what looked like a… stretch-limo sports car. “Do you like it?” she said, seeing Barry look up.

  “Yes…”

  “It’s an Aston Martin. That’s what you said James Blond drives, didn’t you?”

  “Bond…” said Barry.

  Lady Rader-Wellorff opened her arms and gave him an enormous hug, squeezing him tightly between her quite large bosoms. As she bent down, the stretch Aston Martin at the top of his vision wobbled.