High Jinx

by Sara Lawrence

  ‘That’s fine, totally fine.’ Jinx was also relieved she wouldn’t have to entertain Jennifer all day and all night – she wasn’t sure she could stand it. ‘Don’t worry about a thing. If she calls here I’ll tell her you’re in the shower or something. So Jen, how is school? I’ve not seen you for ages.’

  ‘Yah,’ Jennifer laughed rather harshly. ‘Three years to be exact. I thought you’d gone off me. So does Jessica actually.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Jinx lied through her teeth, desperate to get Stella’s back-story. ‘You know what it’s like when we’re all so far apart.’ She waved her free hand expansively to illustrate the great distance between Stagmount and Bedales. ‘Geographically I mean, of course,’ she added hastily, not that Jennifer was likely to pick up any implicit metaphorical slur.

  ‘Yah. Know what you mean.’ Jennifer finished her wine and lit her third cigarette. ‘It’s school, you know, but it’s fine. There’s some nice people there, but the fucking lessons aren’t all that. They’re all the same though, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jinx nodded. She certainly couldn’t be bothered to get into a chat about the relative merits of Stagmount versus Bedales.

  ‘In fact,’ Jinx added, keen to get the business of Stella done and dusted before Todd turned up to whisk Jennifer off to God knows where, ‘we got one of your old girls at the beginning of this term.’

  ‘Yah?’ Jennifer looked curious as she ripped off the foil covering on Caroline’s second to last bottle of her favourite wine. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Stella Fox,’ Jinx said neutrally, waiting to see Jennifer’s reaction.

  ‘Stella Fox? Hmmm …’ Jinx could hardly believe that Jennifer didn’t immediately know who she was talking about. Maybe Jennifer really was a raving lunatic.

  ‘Oh, I know!’ Jennifer smiled and poured more wine. ‘Bloody boring, we all thought. Well,’ she leaned forward conspiratorially, ‘until she left of course.’

  ‘What do you mean “until she left”?’ Jinx was having trouble maintaining her composure, but didn’t want to influence Jennifer’s train of thought. Boring? Stella? Whatever she was she certainly wasn’t boring. Not in the conventional sense, definitely.

  ‘None of us paid her much attention, you know. She was one of those girls who never had anything to say and just faded into the background all the time. She stayed there, basically.’

  Jennifer noted Jinx’s shocked face and started ticking off reasons on her fingers, ‘She wasn’t in any of the teams, she never had a boyfriend and she didn’t come to any of our parties or anything – well, if you want the strict truth, she probably wasn’t invited to any. But you know what I mean.

  ‘In fact,’ Jennifer mock yawned as if to emphasise how very little impact Stella had made on her, ‘I barely knew her name until the beginning of this term. And I’d forgotten about all the commotion what with being involuntarily sectioned and all.’

  ‘So,’ Jinx quickly butted in as she desperately didn’t want Jennifer to segue off into another rant about her mother and how unfairly she’d been treated, ‘what happened?’

  ‘Well,’ Jennifer lowered her voice slightly – she loved a good gossip as much as the next girl, ‘it was really weird. Like the mouse that roared.’

  Jinx was stroking one of the cats, she didn’t know which one it was – some of the stables ones looked very alike, and thinking deeply. Roaring yes; but a mouse? This did not sound like the Stella she knew at all.

  ‘Yah,’ Jennifer smirked, obviously enjoying Jinx’s confusion. ‘It was très bizarre. Basically, Stella had auditioned for the lead part in the school play at the end of last term. Some Chekhov bollocks or something. Anyway, none of us knew why she’d even bothered auditioning – I mean, it was obvious that Frances Levy was going to get it. She’s had the lead in every production probably since she was born and she’s just been accepted at the RADA summer school, the youngest person ever, I think. And none of us had ever seen Stella act in anything – she’s probably crap at it.’

  Jinx grimaced. She was beginning to think quite the opposite but held her breath. ‘We didn’t see the audition,’ Jennifer continued, ‘as our drama teacher, Mr McGregor, holds them all individually in his office. He’s always done it like that. Or he did anyway.’

  ‘McGregor always makes his mind up over the summer holidays and posts the cast list on the drama board on the first day of the Christmas term. Frances, naturally, got the lead – playing a sister or something? I can’t remember exactly what the part was but it looked bloody boring if you ask me – and Stella was down to be in a couple of crowd scenes.

  ‘Which actually …’ Jennifer sat up and fumbled in her navy corduroy slouch bag for her lighter, ‘was pretty fucking good when you consider she’s never been in a school production before and never shown any interest in the theatre department. And she’s got no friends – and everyone knows it’s the popular people that do drama.’

  ‘I mean, even I,’ Jennifer nearly burned a hole in the front of her T-shirt as she jabbed the cigarette at herself, ‘for example, wouldn’t bother trying out for the school play even though I’m totally one of the most popular girls in the school. They get agents and stuff down from London to come and see it. It’s a big deal and they only want people who can act in it – in fact, they always use the same people every year.’

  ‘So Stella tried out and didn’t get in,’ Jinx said, looking confused. ‘So what? I don’t understand what the big deal is.’

  ‘Well,’ Jennifer stubbed out her cigarette and swung her feet on to the table, ‘None of us understood it either, but a couple of people said they saw her storm off crying after she saw the list. Anyway, the next thing you know, McGregor mysteriously disappears and all our parents get a letter saying he’s been suspended from teaching pending an inquiry into his conduct.’

  ‘So …’ Jinx couldn’t get her head round this at all, ‘what’s that got to do with Stella?’

  ‘Come on, Jinx,’ Jennifer was practically frothing at the mouth, positively delighted at having such a captive audience, ‘isn’t it obvious? She accused him of sexually harassing her because she was so cross about not getting the part she wanted! It was a total lie to pay him back.’

  ‘But …’ Much as she wanted to believe it, Jinx was wondering how they knew for definite that it was Stella who’d made the accusation and also how they knew the accusations were false.

  ‘I know exactly what you’re going to ask,’ Jennifer interrupted, ‘and I’m going to tell you how we know. Firstly, if you’d met McGregor you’d totally know that he would never do anything like that. He’s been teaching at the school for ever and there’s never been a hint of anything like that – he’s just a nice old man for Christ’s sake. All the drama students loved him.

  ‘Secondly,’ she continued, waving her hand to shush Jinx, ‘and, more importantly, Frances Levy’s mum knows Stella’s parents. Mrs Fox told her all about it at a dinner party a few weeks ago. She said that Stella had phoned home in a right state in the first week of term, saying she’d gone to see McGregor about the play and he’d put his arm round her and tried to snog her in his office. Which is absolute crap. Honestly, if you knew McGregor you’d know it was total bullshit. Or wishful thinking probably as far as she was concerned.

  ‘Anyway,’ Jennifer was on a roll, ‘obviously Stella’s dad gets straight on to the head and demands he call the police. He had to, I guess. And the next thing you know Stella’s left too. Not,’ she yawned again, ‘that we’d have noticed. It was only when Frances told us the reason that we connected the two things. Frances was well cross – she loved McGregor and hated Stella. She used to have to see her sometimes in the holidays and said Stella was always hanging around, trying to chat to her and stuff and pretend they were friends. Frances says she always used to ignore her.’

  ‘Right,’ Jinx thoughtfully slurped her wine as she processed this astonishing news, ‘that’s really, really weird.’

  ‘Why? What’s
she like now then?’ Jennifer was abruptly cut off as Flash came storming through the swing door, knocking over the stool on which the Slater family’s vast pile of magazines and newspapers sat, and stood, barking and growling, by the back door.

  ‘Daft thing,’ Jinx murmured affectionately as she caressed his head and opened the door for him to get out. He raced off round the corner by the utility rooms where he was joined by Missy, the Slaters’ ancient chocolate Labrador and Trojan and Bella, George’s Yorkshire terriers.

  They all headed to the front of the house in a pack, barking furiously the whole time. ‘Wonder what’s wrong with them?’ Jinx mused. ‘Shit!’ as the penny dropped she jumped up and raced off in hot pursuit of her dogs, leaving a very confused Jennifer lolling half-drunk on the sofa.

  ‘Aaaaargh,’ a lovely looking blonde boy, at least six foot tall with a gorgeous hint of a tan and piercing blue eyes was leaping about the drive as four dogs circled around him, jumping about and barking, ‘what the fuck is this? Get these fuckers off me! Help, HELP!’

  ‘Ha!’ Jinx wanted to help, but the sight of the dogs pretending to be so fierce and guard the house was too much for her. They were pathologically friendly that’s all, especially Flash. Every time Jinx tried to call him off she couldn’t help herself from singing ‘Dada, he saved every one of us’ from the Flash Gordon theme tune. She was bent double, laughing hysterically and crying weakly for Jennifer.

  Eventually, after much leaping and anguished screaming from Todd – especially when Flash bent low and pretended to pounce in the boy’s terrified face before twisting away at the last minute, Jinx managed to get a grip on herself and call the dogs off. At the same time, Jennifer threw open the front door and launched herself into the boy’s arms.

  ‘Did I hear you scream, babe?’ she enquired brightly of him when she’d finished snogging his face practically off.

  ‘No, love,’ he grinned weakly at Jinx, ‘just shouting your name that was all – couldn’t see the doorbell anywhere.’ Jennifer looked at the huge ring-pull bell hanging smack bang in the middle of the wall next to the front door, but didn’t mention it as she introduced her boyfriend.

  ‘We’ve just met,’ Todd smiled, ‘Jinx was introducing me to her lovely dogs.’

  ‘But you don’t like dogs, do you babe?’ Jennifer said, puzzled. ‘You didn’t even like it when Mum’s miniature pug tried to sit next to you on the sofa, did you?’

  ‘He loves Flash, just loves him,’ Jinx was leaning against the low wall at the front of the house, gripping Flash’s red-leather and gold-star-studded Harrods collar, weak with laughter. ‘From the first moment he saw him I should imagine. It was like love at first sight, wasn’t it, Todd?’

  Jinx was waving Jennifer and Todd off when a familiar battered Golf pulled into the driveway, tooting its horn as it spun round in a handbrake turn in front of the house, spraying even more gravel behind it than Mrs Lewis had achieved with her Range Rover Vogue. The dogs started barking again, in delight this time, and jumping up at the driver’s door, scrabbling on the paintwork with their sharp nails and drooling all over the window.

  ‘George!’ Caroline Slater had dashed over from the stables when she heard the telltale tooting, ‘how many times have I told you not to do that in front of the house. I am forever picking bits of gravel out of the dogs’ water bowl and the hanging baskets. Come here!’ She enveloped him in a huge hug and laughed delightedly as he picked her up and swung her round, patting his back in a futile attempt to make him stop. ‘George! Put me down!’

  ‘All right, Ma, keep your wig on.’ George winked at Jinx as he carefully lowered his mother to the ground, slammed the car door shut and slung his arm round Jinx’s shoulder. ‘This is a surprise, Jinx – you’ve not been suspended again, have you?’

  ‘Um, basically,’ she muttered into his shoulder, ‘yes I have. But not for anything too serious this time. I only got a day.’

  ‘Ha! I knew it. Actually, I did know it. I spoke to Dad this morning and he told me. Seemed pretty pleased with it all in fact – you’ve got more lives than a bloody cat, young lady. I was locked in my room for the entire week when I got caught shagging Claudia McCartney. Nearly killed myself climbing down the fucking drainpipe every night. Pub later?’

  ‘No!’ Caroline was picking gravel out of the dogs’ bowl and flinging it futilely into the new deep grooves on the drive. ‘I want you both here tonight. We’ve not seen you for ages, George, and we’ve only just got Jinx back. We’re having a family dinner and I don’t want any arguments – it’s non-negotiable!’

  ‘Come on, Mum …’ After dumping a huge mound of dirty washing in the utility room, George was delightedly picking bits of crumbly feta cheese out of the delicious Greek salad Caroline had made for Jinx and Jennifer which had remained untouched in the fridge and winding up Caroline. ‘Nothing’s non-negotiable. Dad always tells us that – can’t we just nip out for a couple of pints before dinner? I’ve not seen my sister properly since Jamie’s party, and that was weeks ago! And she spent half the night snogging Matthew Wicks in the broom cupboard, so it wasn’t like we really talked to each other.’

  ‘I freaking well did not!’ Jinx, also well used to George’s little jokes, threw a dishcloth at him from where she was lying top to toe with Flash on the sofa. ‘You’re nothing but a dirty liar.’

  ‘George’ – although she was pretending to be stern Caroline was smiling: she loved nothing more than being wound up by her boys – ‘if I have to tell you again it’ll be bed with no dinner for you. And as for you,’ she turned to point at Jinx, picked up the cloth and threw it back to her, ‘you can bloody well go and clean Pansy’s tack. You left it in a disgusting state.’

  Jinx, moaning loudly about slave drivers and child labour, shuffled off wearing a pair of wellies at least three sizes too big for her because she couldn’t be bothered to get her own from the front of the house, leaving George and Caroline to put on the first of his five loads of washing.

  The Slaters ate steak and chips, drank three bottles of lovely red and spent the rest of the weekend sleeping in, reading the papers, winding each other up, walking the dogs and admiring Caroline’s new rose garden.

  Jinx didn’t say a word to any of them about what Jennifer had told her about Stella, nor did she discuss her fallout with Liberty but when Martin dropped her back to school on Sunday night she was in a much better mood. Refreshed after her weekend at home, she was convinced everything would turn out OK.

  After dumping her bag in her room and grabbing the bottle of vanilla-flavoured Absolut vodka she’d lifted from the drinks cabinet at home, Jinx stuck her head round Liberty’s door, planning a grand apology followed by a big drinking session. The lights were blazing and her window was flung wide open – as per, but she wasn’t in.

  Jinx ripped a pink heart-shaped Post-It note off the pad on the desk, scrawled a hello and stuck it in the middle of the mirror. She left the bottle on Liberty’s desk as a peace offering. Where the bloody hell was she? Since the girls in the year above them had made a Sunday tradition of getting absolutely wrecked all day in a pub in the Marina, Mr Morris now wanted all the lower sixth to be back in Tanner House by nine-thirty on Sunday nights.

  Jinx flicked the light off, shut the door and wandered into the common room. Fanny Ho was the only occupant. She was sitting cross-legged on a beanbag on the floor wearing a pair of sharply tailored men’s pyjamas, eating a huge bowl of stinking greasy noodles with the special bone-china chopsticks she took to every meal and watching News 24.

  ‘Fucking hell, Fanny, those reek!’ Jinx flopped herself down on the other beanbag, kicked off her shoes, smiled at her and did a double take. Christ – she’d changed her hair again. She was sure it was at least six inches longer than it had been last week. ‘Good hair though. How did you do it?’

  ‘Thanks, Jinx,’ Fanny looked very pleased about something and Jinx somehow doubted it was related to the turgid analysis of the budget playing across the screen in fron
t of them. ‘I go to that Chinese place in the North Laines. The woman put a few extensions in.’

  ‘Wow,’ Jinx was peering at the top of Fanny’s head, ‘she must be awesome – I can’t see any of the joins.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s very good. Do you want some of these? I’ve got loads here.’ Fanny was still smirking as she proffered the bowl in Jinx’s direction and Jinx had to stop herself from retching as she caught a disgusting whiff of something way too fishy and saw what looked suspiciously like chunks of eel floating about in the grey liquid at the bottom.

  ‘No thanks, Fan. You couldn’t pay me to eat that.’ Jinx – who was not ordinarily a fussy eater – had gone a bit green. ‘Have you seen Liberty anywhere? Did she spend the weekend here?’

  ‘Nah, haven’t seen her all weekend.’ Fanny – the little freak – was giving the television a longing look, obviously desperate not to miss out on any more of the budget talk. She loved stuff like that. Jinx thought it was downright weird. ‘Actually I’m sure I saw her going off in a taxi with Stella on Friday. They had their weekend bags with them.’

  ‘Right.’ Jinx scowled and stood up. Her good mood was rapidly dissipating. ‘Thanks. See you later.’

  Jinx kicked the bin on her way out and decided to bloody well take that vodka back. She’d share it with Chastity instead.

  ‘Jinx! How was home?’ Chastity was lying on her bed with a green clay facemask plastered from her hairline to the base of her neck, wearing her Cath Kidston dressing gown and listening to her Dido CD when Jinx walked in. Jinx hated Dido.

  ‘Cool thanks, Chas.’ Jinx pulled Chastity’s chair out from under her desk, turned it round and sat back to front on it with her arms resting along the top of the back, before reaching over to turn the volume on the CD player right down. ‘What did you get up to?’