The boys turned down her offer politely and smiled at Portia and me. Then our uneasy little party wandered through to reception, where the noise of the crowds milling round and running about was deafening. The arched ceilings made everything echo ominously. I felt like a tiny ant as I joined the queue with Portia to have our names ticked off.
After registration, I took Freds aside for a word about Bob. He was really sweet and assured me not to worry. Billy was still going through registration, so Freds called Malcolm over and the mug shot of my father was passed around once more. I suddenly felt like I was presenting my father as some kind of target to a group of hit men.
‘Don’t worry yourself, young Calypso, my little champagne-quaffing chum,’ Malcolm assured me. ‘He won’t know what’s hit him if he comes within a hundred yards of you. You saw what I did to that Gandalf chap. I’ll plant a Glasgow kiss on him if he starts mucking the glorious Sarah about while I’m around.’
‘He’s not dangerous,’ I shrieked. ‘He’s my father. I don’t want him hurt or anything!’ I was beginning to feel that I had ignited a fire that could never be extinguished. This is what I always do. It’s what I’ve done all my life. ‘I just don’t want him upsetting Sarah,’ I tried to explain as the boys were jostled away by a fencing team coming through.
Freds and Malcolm told me they were off to see if they could find Billy before saying their laters and leaving me alone. Well, not alone. I had my posse, but I still felt like a little ant in a giant hive. I didn’t know my way around.
Having only come an hour away from school, Portia and I were already in our kit, but after registration we went to the loo to confab. That was where we found Sarah applying makeup – odd in itself, as she was a great believer in ‘natural beauty.’
‘Hello, darlings, isn’t this super? You must be excited. I know I’m exhilarated by all this bustle.’
‘You won’t be for long,’ I almost blurted. And then it turned out I’d actually said it. Typical. Stupid, stupid, stupid Calypso.
‘Whatever do you mean, Calypso? Is something wrong?’
‘Just nerves,’ Portia assured her, giving me a warning look.
‘Yes, well the adrenaline is bound to be coursing through you, Boojie, but you have to learn to centre yourself. Find your chi.’
‘My chi? And where on earth might I find my chi?’ I asked, my nerves jangling around my body.
Sarah looked lost. ‘Erm, well, you can find your chi anywhere. It can just sneak up on you, really. The point is, nothing exists beyond the now. Remember what Bob always says?’
‘Oh, I remember what Bob always says,’ Portia said brightly. ‘Swell.’
Sarah laughed. ‘Oh dear, I do miss the old boy. I’m really quite giddy at the thought that he might turn up today to support you.’
‘No, you’re not,’ I told my mother. ‘He oppresses you. You don’t want him to see you, he’ll ruin your equilibrium. And how do you even know he’s going to turn up?’
Sarah wrapped her arms around me and rocked me gently. ‘Oh, Boojie, you rock my world.’
‘My world is rocking, that’s for sure,’ I told her. ‘But that doesn’t answer my question.’
‘Well, enough navel gazing,’ Sarah insisted briskly as she grabbed Portia and me by the hands and led us out into the swarming humanity of the hall.
TWENTY-SIX
And Just as They Were Bringing in My Crown!
Portia and I passed Billy and the others en route to our pools, which were to be held in the basketball courts. It was so packed in the hall now with fencers, BFA representatives, parents, fans and Bell End’s saboteurs, that no one even noticed Billy and Freds giving Portia and me a pre-match snog-age session.
Sarah spotted Sister at the cafeteria on the first floor and said she’d watch us from up there, where there was a glass front and comfy seats. Also, the scoreboards were in there, she explained. ‘I saw it on the map.’
Bell End was nowhere to be seen.
I felt a tug on my arm as I was walking on the walkway towards the basketball courts. A Year Seven girl from Saint Leonard’s offered me her fencing kit bag and a pen. ‘Could you sign my bag please, Miss Kelly?’ she asked sweetly.
‘Erm, why?’ I asked, confused.
‘I saw your picture in The Sword when you won the South East Cup.’
‘Oh, sure,’ I agreed, signing my name, feeling like a total fraud.
After the girl left, Portia took the piss, ‘When I grow up, I want to be just like you, Miss Kelly.’
I was about to laugh when I spotted him, my father, Bob, standing down in the pit, an arena where the boy’s pools were taking place. He was on his own, but Freds and Malcolm were only yards away from him. I felt this terrible, almost painful, pang of affection for my poor father in that moment. He looked so small and lost down in the pit and I was hit with memories of all the times he’d been there for me, cheering me on, applauding all my efforts. However hopeless I was at something, Bob had always said, ‘You did swell, Princess, just swell.’ I remembered how Bob had built the little stage in the living room so I could act and do my tragic little song-and-dance routines. My rendition of ‘How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?’ used to have him in tears.
‘Oh shit,’ I said to Portia, pointing. There he is.’
‘Bell End?’
‘No, Bob. Look down in the arena.’
Portia took me by the shoulders. ‘Honestly, Calypso, now is not the time to obsess about him. Sarah is fine. She’s with Sister upstairs in the cafeteria.’
‘But she’ll see him.’
‘I don’t get the impression she minds. She sounded like she was looking forward to seeing him.’
I was confused but just then I could hear my name being called, so I charged off to my designated piste.
The next time I saw Bob was in the arena during my second direct elimination bout. The boys’ matches were going on down one end and the girls’ were at the other. Sister and Sarah were still upstairs with their tea. Their enthusiasm for fencing must have dwindled somewhat from those heady days in Sheffield because now they were content to watch us from afar, waving vaguely as they chatted and dunked their biscuits in their tea. After all their mad enthusiasm, a part of me now felt neglected.
But I had other things on my mind. Bob knew where I was now because the announcers had insensitively called my bout over the intercom.
Bell End was furious. ‘I asked them to use your code name too.’
‘I don’t have a code name, sir,’ I reminded him.
‘You do now, girl. I told them your name was Princess Jelly Bean.’
‘Princess Jelly Bean? What? Couldn’t you do better than that?’
‘Well, I didn’t want to get you mixed up with any other princesses that might be here. Figured Jelly Bean was safe.’
‘It’s also insane.’
‘Still, the point is, that they didn’t use it. Saboteurs, see! I warned you. I’m going up there now to sort this out. They’ve put you in jeopardy. This Bob will sniff you out now, no trouble.’
That reminded me. I sniffed my pits – just at the point that Freds came over with Malcolm to wish me luck.
‘How’s Billy doing?’ I asked, windmilling my arm as if I were merely exercising rather than pit sniffing.
‘He’s still in. The last bout was close, though.’
‘Got a cigarette, Calypso?’ Malcolm asked.
‘Are you mad?’ I asked him. I was, after all, wearing a skintight white fencing outfit electrically wired and sans pockets. Quite apart from the fact that I wasn’t a smoker, the only thing I could keep on my person was sweat.
‘No? Oh well, Portia? Got any fags?’
Portia continued with her low lunges, not even deigning to answer his absurd request with a look.
‘Bit whiffy in here,’ Malcolm remarked, and then wandered off.
After trouncing my next opponent, I went up to the cafeteria with Portia, as we both had a break. Bob hadn’t approac
hed me so far, but I could feel him watching me, so I took a circuitous route with Portia up the stairs. Sister and Sarah had clearly OD-ed on tea and biscuits and were bouncing about the cafeteria like Ping-Pong balls.
Sarah was wearing the mauve collar that Sister must have finished. ‘Look, look what Sister made me!’ Sarah squealed, dancing about with glee.
The collar was too tragic for words, but I wasn’t going to be the one to pop her bubble. The poor old madre may as well squeeze in what fun she could before Bob turned up to break her heart.
‘It’s very, erm, fetching,’ I told her, trying to get her to sit and calm down.
‘Oh, darling, I’m glad you like it. Today is such an exciting day, isn’t it?’ she asked with an intensity I put down to the caffeine.
‘Yes, Sarah, it is an exciting day.’
‘I have a special surprise for you too, later,’ she said, bopping about like a wind-up toy.
Oh dear, I thought, fearing she’d commissioned Sister to knit me a collar too. ‘Fabulous,’ I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. ‘I’m really looking forward to it.’
Portia came back with juices, and we sat down and stretched our aching muscles before our names were called again.
Bell End must have worked his magic because when the final bout was called, my name was announced as Princess Jelly Bean.
As I forced my way through the crowd onto the piste, I was aware of Sarah, Sister, Bell End, Malcolm and Freds all together. I shrugged off my concern that Bob may have already seen them, because while people weren’t exactly jeering me, there was the odd bit of tittering and a few snide cries of, ‘Go, Princess Jelly Bean!’
Portia had been knocked out in the semi-finals so she was there to wire me up and give me a few words of encouragement. ‘Darling, don’t think of anything else. This bout is all that matters to you now. Everything else can wait.’
My opponent was my old foe from the finals in Sheffield, Jenny. I feared for poor Jenny and her fans, with Bell End being as wound up as he was, but I smiled at her kindly, figuring she probably still hadn’t recovered from his horrible abuse at our last match.
But I was wrong. Oh, so wrong. When we tapped one another’s equipment to make sure the electrics were working, she ‘tapped’ my blade clean out of my hand.
I watched as it bounced across the floor beyond the piste. Okay. We were playing nasty.
‘Slay the foul little bitch,’ came Bell End’s echoing roar, audible to everyone in the enormous arena. Sister Regina added, ‘Yes, you go on and slay her, Calypso! Nasty girl, nasty girl.’
Jenny punched the air with her fist. ‘You’re dead meat, Jelly Bean!’ she yelled to the mighty cheer of her fans.
What did she think this was, Gladiator II?
I put my hand out to shake hers. She twisted it behind my back and was about to threaten me, but the president stepped in and handed her a red card, meaning she had already lost herself a valuable point.
Her emotional decrepitude could only work to my advantage, I decided. Even so, there was every chance that the two of us would be asked to join the National Team regardless of who won. Actually, that would make her my fencing buddy – but I could deal with that. After all, my roommate this term had been Honey, and I’d survived her.
Just the same, my first advance was poor. The spirit of Jerzy Pawlowski seemed to have abandoned me just when I needed him most. For all Portia’s encouragement, my mind wasn’t focused on the game. It was on Bob and Sarah, so I couldn’t believe it when I began to strip points from Jenny. Jenny’s blade was a secondary consideration as I took my eyes off Jenny to search the crowd for my father. I just couldn’t force myself to concentrate the way I knew I should. My brain kept telling me ‘Focus!’ but my heart kept telling me ‘Your family needs you.’
I heard Freds yell my name, and as I turned to look, I inadvertently clipped my blade on Jenny’s glove, earning me yet another undeserved point. Just as the fight was meeting its climax of thirteen, nine in my favour, I spotted Bob making his way towards Sarah.
In my horror, I stumbled backwards, clearing myself of Jenny’s attack and my guard connected with the pit of her stomach. Another point to me. It was ridiculous. I was playing like a random bluffer in a poker game, and yet it was my lack of strategy which seemed to be throwing Jenny off. Then I realised what was really happening. Jenny thought she was in combat with the girl she’d fought in Sheffield and was trying to outwit me by referring to my previous form. But the Calypso Kelly she’d fought in Sheffield was not the Princess Jelly Bean she was up against now.
And then it happened – Bob tapped Sarah on the shoulder, she spun around, he took hold of her shoulders and kissed her.
The president called play again, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from Bell End, who wasted no time in launching his body into Bob’s, rugby tackling him to the ground. At that moment, Jenny launched into a lethal lunge. I flailed about with my blade impotently, causing her blade to run harmlessly up my left sleeve. Yet even in my emotional turmoil, I was winning. The president was about to call halt for the sake of my arm’s safety, but I brought my blade down on Jenny’s shoulder before he had the chance. The victory was mine.
I tore off my mask as the buzzer blared and the crowd roared its support. Jenny threw her blade across the piste in a fit of fury as I went to shake her hand.
Okay. Fine.
So to Bell End and Bob I flew. The scene that awaited me was not dignified. Bell End was rolling and flailing about the floor on top of Bob with Sarah on top of him, begging him to ‘leave my man alone.’
Sister was getting in the odd kick at Bob’s head, but mostly she was running around the heap, entangling their bodies with her yarn.
Neither my parents nor Sister Regina were the best of fighters, and Bell End was more of a mouthpiece for violence than a physical threat, so no real damage was being done. Still, it wasn’t quite the dignified end to my winning the Nationals that I had envisioned.
Freds and Portia helped me pull them all apart.
‘Miss Kelly,’ a be-suited man said as he extended a hand to me. ‘I represent the British National Fencing Team and I wondered –’
‘Is this the blighter?’ yelled Malcolm, suddenly appearing on the scene, fag in mouth.
The BFA rep took a step back, but Malcolm was pointing at Bob, who was now being dusted down lovingly by Sarah. What on earth was she thinking? If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was thrilled to see him. Freds was occupied keeping Bell End in a headlock. Sister was happily rewinding her yarn into a neat ball.
‘Yes, that’s the subversive bastard, git him!’ Bell End yelled to Malcolm, who happily obliged by removing his fag and head-butting my poor father with an effortlessness only a true Scot can carry off.
I was still holding the BFA representative’s hand. ‘Hello, I’m Calypso Kelly. These people have nothing to do with me.’
‘No, I would hope not. Could we go somewhere quiet to speak,’ he suggested.
So I went off with Jim, the BFA representative, and he asked me if I’d join the National Team. It should have been the happiest news of my life, but I couldn’t shake off the image of Bob kissing Sarah, which diluted my joy considerably.
Of course I said how excited I was to be invited onto the National Team, but after we’d gone over the formalities and I’d given him my details, I immediately rushed back to the aid of my parents. I had half an hour at most to sort their marital problems out before I would have to go on the stage to collect my cup.
Sarah grabbed me in cuddle. ‘Oh, Boojems, we’re soooo proud of our baby, aren’t we, darling?’
Darling?
‘Bob has sold his Big One for two million pounds – that’s sterling, not dollars – isn’t that marvellous, Calypso?’ Sarah cooed like a dove. We reconciled last night. It was heaven.’
Sister Regina agreed it was a lot of money but I silenced her with a glare.
Two million pounds was a lot of money (well, to
me it was – even if it would seemed chump change to girls like Star and my other friends), but that wasn’t the point. There were principles at stake and I was nothing if not a girl jam-packed with principles.
‘You don’t just reconcile with someone because they sell a script for a lot of money, Sarah,’ I lectured. ‘And you well know it! After everything that’s happened, I think you might have consulted me or at least Bunny. I’m sure she won’t be too thrilled to learn that you are back with your oppressor merely because he’s come into some loot,’ I scolded.
‘Nice to see you too, Princess Jelly Bean,’ my father said.
Naturally I ignored him and turned to my boyfriend for backup. ‘Don’t you agree, Freddie?’
A Royal Mess Page 19