A Royal Mess

by Tyne O'Connell

  Bell End dived on a tall gentlemen in a cravat. The guy looked like he’d just swallowed his own bottom when he clapped eyes on our mad master.

  ‘Ah, Commodore!’ Bell End cried, shaking the man’s hand vigorously. ‘How the devil are you, mate?’ Then he slapped the poor fellow hard across the arse. I think Bell End was aiming for the guy’s back but missed. The Commodore was very tall compared to Bell End.

  But Bell End laughed like there was no tomorrow.

  ‘Girls, meet The Commodore, the head of the GBR national team. He and I were warriors once. Mano a mano and all that.’ He then gave a little bow and – I am not lying – clicked his heels together. It was all rather tragic and tear jerking. I know it’s disloyal, but sometimes I wish Bell End had a bit more élan like our last fencing master, Professor Sullivan.

  The Commodore didn’t look pleased to see his old comrade. ‘Yes, well, that was all a very long time ago.’

  Bell End winked at Portia and me. It was très, très mortifying. ‘Many a time I gave The Commodore here a good thrashing, eh?’

  Comparing the implausibly tall form of The Commodore and the short, stocky build of our master, I somehow doubted it.

  I think Bell End sensed a collective dubiousness amongst the crowd because he continued. ‘Bigger the target, the more you’ve got to work with, see.’ Then, he started leaping and darting about The Commodore, using his finger as an imaginary sabre to jab him.

  It was beyond mortifying.

  ‘I’m sure you distinguished yourself admirably, Mr Wellend,’ Sister Regina said, her little arms folded neatly inside the sleeves of her habit.

  I could tell Sister Regina wasn’t impressed by The Commodore. Years of convent living had bred in her an innate distrust of men. Bell End was one thing – apart from anything else he was very kind and gallant with her. But I could tell she definitely considered this chap in the cravat a stuck-up fool of the highest order.

  I was inclined to agree with her on the basis that the guy was wearing trousers that barely reached his ankles, and don’t even get me started on the cravat. I gave him a little bow just the same, which sent Portia off into a fit of chortles. Sister Bethlehem had fallen asleep on my hand luggage by this stage, so we agreed to leave her there until the rest of the team arrived.

  Portia and I sat on her hand luggage and practiced the élan, panache, vitesse, finesse and va-va-voom we’d need if we were to cope with the sophisticated rigours of Italy. Come to think of it, all those qualities were French, though I’m sure the Italians have the same qualities and more. It’s no secret that the Italians rule the world in matters of amore and la dolce vita, which I think means beautiful life, or nice biscuits – one or the other. Also, Italy gave us Michelangelo’s David, the fittest statue ever chiselled. I think His Marbleness might even be in Florence, actually.

  ‘We must visit David while we’re in Florence,’ I remarked to Portia, as she sat glamorously on her hand luggage, flicking through Italian Vogue. How anyone could look glamorous on the floor of an airport, I’ll never know. I suppose the Italian Vogue helped. The centuries of breeding didn’t hurt either.

  ‘Yaah, deffo,’ she agreed, turning another page. ‘And lots of lovely leather shops,’ she added. ‘The moment we arrive we shall hit the Ponte Vecchio. Pronte!

  That was another thing; Portia spoke Italian. Not surprising really, given she did and knew everything that is deemed to be sophisticated. No wonder Freds had dumped me. I was about as sophisticated as Disneyland. ‘I think the only word I know in Italian is amore,’ I told Portia dismally. ‘And the only boy I’ve ever amore-ed, dumped me.’

  ‘Pazzo,’ Portia said.

  I wasn’t sure pazzo sounded very simpatico, so I added, ‘Oh, and I know simpatico, molto, grazie, prego, bella, avanti and mal.’

  ‘So practically fluent,’ Portia remarked.

  ‘Molto fluento,’ I agreed as I fanned myself with my ticket at the shock of discovering I knew an entire language I’d never even studied. ‘Sister Constance is right. The teenage brain truly is remarkably absorbent.’

  ‘Still, you’d best absorb pazzo while you’re at it darling,’ Portia insisted.

  ‘Pazzo?’

  ‘It means “bonkers,”’ she explained.

  I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that remark, but I didn’t want to go there. ‘Do you think we should start smoking?’ I asked. ‘I mean, all Italians smoke, don’t they? We don’t want to appear feverishly unworldly in front of all those fit Italian fencing boys.’

  Portia shook her head. ‘I’m not smoking. We’re not going to choke our lungs when we’re going to Italy to represent our country in a sporting event.’

  I almost fainted when she said that – the representing ‘our’ country bit, I mean.

  As I looked around at our entourage, it started to really sink in. We were going to Florence to represent our country. I know I’m American. I mean, I was born there. I grew up on cheeseburgers and Cokes just like millions of other American teens with pazzo’rentals. But as I was going to school in England, I could hardly be much use to the American fencing team, could I? But maybe, just maybe, if I did really, really feverishly well, one day I would fence for my real country. My secret dream – the dream of me fencing for the US in the Olympics – suddenly seemed closer.

  I was distracted in my wild imaginings by Jenny, who had embarked on a pathetic attempt at chatting up Billy. I wondered briefly if Portia was jealous, but I suppose she noticed, as I did, that he didn’t take his adoring gaze off Portia for a moment.

  The rest of the team arrived in dribs and drabs. There were eighteen fencers on the team altogether; three girls and three boys on the foil, épée and sabre teams, respectively. It didn’t escape Jenny’s notice that Portia and I were the only team members with an entourage.

  ‘God, you’re such babies, needing a teacher and nuns to look after you,’ she scorned. ‘My parents let me do everything on my own,’ she boasted.

  I was rather disappointed in her standard of poisonous put-downs. Jenny had a long way to go before she could challenge Honey for the crown of Torture Queen.

  The schools and families of the other team members clearly trusted their charges to The Commodore, which struck me as molto irresponsible. In addition to Bell End and the nuns, we also had a physiotherapist – a man of rather extraordinary physical proportions. Mind you, he’d be more likely to trip over a muscle than be of any use in a skirmish.

  Bell End had introduced him earlier as Dr Draculo-chovichidoo or some mad name like that and then went on to explain that Dr Draculochovichidoo was there to tend to muscular aches and injuries.

  ‘To keep your body oiled and fully operational’ was how he actually put it.

  Utterly pazzo.

  Gatwick was experiencing delays that day. Big surprise there. We finally boarded the flight nine hours later. Yes, nine. I counted off the passing of each torturously boring hour out loud, hoping to teach Bell End a lesson about arriving too early for flights. But he pretended to ignore me.

  Portia was seated between Billy and another really fit boy on the sabre team who had every jaw on the Alitalia plane scraping the floor in awe. Some heiresses get all the luck.

  Bell End sat beside The Commodore. The physio guy was in front with a couple of pimply foilists. His name being unpronounceable, we decided to call him Fizz Whiz. When I say we, I mean Sister Regina and Sister Bethlehem, who were seated on either side of me. Sister Bethlehem was out like a light before they started showing us how to put our seat belts on and jump off the inflatable shoots. Sister Regina proved a chatty and lively companion, especially after the drinks trolley had been around a few times.

  ‘Sister, you can’t keep stealing all those brandies,’ I scolded my little bearded nun as she pocketed another handful when the flight attendant wasn’t looking.

  ‘They’re for Sister Bethlehem,’ she explained sweetly when the flight attendant turned around and caught her red-handed. The flight at
tendant must have fallen for her charms because she said ‘va bene,’ handed Sister another bundle of brandies and winked.

  By the time we disembarked at Pisa airport, Sister had pocketed about five dozen brandy miniatures. Mind you, I think Bell End had drunk about the same amount on the flight. He wove around customs like a shopping trolley with a dodgy wheel, boasting about his Olympic medal, flashing it to the customs officials and anyone else we passed. The Italians showed a congenial aloofness, which I admired.

  Because there were so many of us, we needed a coach to take us all to our pensione in Florence. I was too tired to take much in, but from the little I saw from the coach window, Florence was the very apex of bellissima. Everything looked so postcard historic, and as for the Italians, well, they were everywhere; smoking their heads off and sipping espresso just as I had always imagined.

  ‘I think you might be wrong about the smoking thing,’ I told Portia. ‘They’re all at it.’

  But she assured me she was right. ‘I bet they’re tourists anyway,’ she told me with enormous authority. ‘Probably French. Then she curled her upper lip in distain.

  The Pensione Bella was down a cobbled lane that was far too narrow for the coach, so we had to lug our kit for something like, oh, five thousand yards. I finally saw the sense in the hand luggage rule.

  Pensione Bella was lovely. It was bella, in fact. It was run by a little old lady about the same height as Sister Regina who refused to speak to anyone other than our little nun. And it wasn’t because no one else spoke Italian either. She snubbed Portia like she was of lowly peasant stock and sneered at my feverishly convincing Italian-accented English. Also, she kept using words that began with ‘mal,’ which I know from my Latin classes means ‘evil.’

  Bell End and the Signora had a bit of a battle over the luggage-carrying business, but Signora Santospirito physically beat him off. Hitting him over the head, she shouted, ‘Tchuk! Tchuk! Malfagio, tchuk!’ Which I can only imagine was très, très unkind. Poor Bell End.

  He valiantly attempted to regain his gallantry by carrying Sister Bethlehem in a fireman’s lift up the stairs. But as she slept through the entire exhausting haul, it was a thankless task. Jenny made a sneering remark about him, which made me feel even more protective of our mad old master.

  We’d agreed to convene in the courtyard in half an hour, or as The Commodore put it – twenty-three-hundred hours sharp, whatever that meant. Despite how exhausted and grotty we all felt, and the lateness of the hour, The Commodore was most insistent that we go over our strategies for the fencing pools tomorrow. The sensible suggestion offered up by Billy that we chat about it over breakfast the next day was spurned. Apparently, The Commodore liked total silence at breakfast.

  When the Signora finally deigned to hand over the key to our funny little attic room, Portia and I were left with Jenny as our roommate. A feverish deja vu feeling of sharing with Honey last term washed over me.

  Our scheduled meeting only gave Portia, Jenny and me ten minutes in which to fight over who could use the bathroom. Portia and I decided with a shared look to let Jenny win. At Saint Augustine’s we knew the importance of avoiding the small battles and saving your muscle for the big ones. I think Jenny was peeved that we’d caved so easily.

  To freshen up, Portia and I squirted one another with Evian. Then we changed into something more stylishly belle. Also, while Jenny was taking a bath, we enjoyed our view of the sepia-and-burnt-umber-tinted city with its narrow lanes, arched bridges and domed roofs. Portia tried to teach me a bit more vital Italian, but I assured her that I’d get by with my gift for accents.

  From where we stood on the funny old metal beds with their lovely white damask spreads, we could see the Ponte Vecchio arched over the Arno River. It looked most tranquillo, which according to Portia means … tranquil.

  A last look in our aged-speckled mirror revealed that while Portia oozed style from every aristocratic pore of her being, Jenny and I would have to make do with lashings of lip-gloss and mascara. I thought I sensed a slight thawing in Jenny as I offered her my lip-gloss. Everyone knows lip-gloss is the international symbol of friendship for girls everywhere. But then she dashed my hopes by saying, ‘You’d better not have herpes, Kelly.’

  She still used it, though.

  Then I began to worry that she might have herpes, but I didn’t say anything. I had to save my energy for the big battles.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The Insubordination of The Commodore

  The meeting was held in the lovely downstairs courtyard. It was a large open tiled area lit by tea-lights. In the centre, there was a marble fountain with a cherub peeing in its own little puddle. The atmosphere was most un-tranquillo, though.

  I had imagined we were convening to get to know one another. We’d all been introduced at the airport, but I had forgotten almost everyone’s names because we’d peeled off into our own little groups pretty much straightaway.

  Eventually, The Commodore stood up, which was daunting in itself given his height, and then he coughed. I moved my chair away a bit in case he had a germ – I mean, I didn’t want to be sick for my first international tournament.

  ‘Right, well, everyone seems to be present and correct,’ he began – whatever that meant. ‘Welcome to, erm, Florence. I hope you have all settled in. The tournament will kick off with the pools at eleven hundred hours tomorrow. I propose we go on patrol at o-six hundred hours.’

  ‘What do you mean by “on patrol,” exactly?’ I asked anxiously. I am not a girl born to patrol at o-six hundred hours or any other hour for that matter.

  ‘I agree,’ Billy added. ‘If we’re not going to the salle until eleven, why do we have to go on patrol at six?’

  The Commodore pointed at Billy, which according to Sister Constance is the vilest thing you can do to another human being. Then again, Sister Constance has led a very sheltered life in the convent and doesn’t watch cable television. ‘I’ll warn you now, Pyke, I won’t tolerate insubordination in my ranks.’

  ‘Oh, sod off then,’ Sister Regina told him, which turned the courtyard into a gigglerama that even had Signora Santospirito joining in. That was how The Commodore’s authority began its downward slide. I sensed it would be a festival of insubordination from that point on.

  I also confirmed that Sister Regina had already been tucking into her brandy stash when she brazenly pulled a few miniature bottles from her sleeve and poured them into glasses, which were miraculously produced by the Signora. She passed the miniatures to Sister Bethlehem, Bell End, Fizz Whizz and the Signora – significantly, there was no glass set down for The Commodore. I noticed a vein in The Commodore’s neck throbbing violently, but he didn’t say anything.

  Bell End gallantly held up his glass to the Signora in a toast, and Signora’s eyes twinkled. She nodded approvingly and smiled. Bell End had a way with the prickliest ladies, that was for sure.

  Even though everyone started complaining about how exhausted they were, Sister Regina insisted we explore the nightlife. ‘Let’s go and have a jig at one of those discotheque thingamees I read about in the travel guide to Florence,’ she suggested, nudging Sister Bethlehem to back her up. Sister Bethlehem took a sip of her brandy and smiled serenely. ‘Come on, we don’t get out much. Don’t be such sticks-in-the-mud,’ she urged. ‘Take pity on us poor nuns and take us out for a jig.’

  ‘But we’re underage,’ Portia said.

  Sister Regina tutted. ‘Nonsense child! This is Italy; they don’t worry about details like age. Besides, I won’t tolerate ageism. We take a very dim view of that at the convent, I can tell you.’

  Nuns really are in a special little pazzo world. And Bell End was no saner. He fully backed Sister up.

  ‘Champion idea,’ he agreed, nudging The Commodore in the ribs. ‘What do you say, Commodore, eh? Let’s get our dancing shoes on. Show these young ones a few steps on the dance floor, shall we? Eh? Eh? What do you say, Commodore?’

  By this stage The Commodo
re’s neck vein looked on the verge of bursting. He spoke to Bell End through gritted teeth. ‘My name is Mr Rogers, as you well know, Oscar. But I’m happy for you to call me Biffy if you’d prefer.’

  I know, how sad and funny to know your teacher’s first name!

  ‘Can we call you Biffy too, sir?’ I blurted, which sent Portia, Jenny and the rest of the team into fits of giggle-dom. One of the other guys, an épéeist, I think, even stood up and shook my hand.

  Biffy didn’t respond to my request, but he agreed with Sister and Bell End that a ‘bit of light entertainment’ might help the team unwind and bond. I suspect he was trying to claw back some authority.