by Jilly Cooper
‘And I’m reporting you to animal rights,’ hissed Dora, feeding roast beef sandwiches to Cadbury. ‘That coat is so pants.’
Alex Bruce was fuming. How dare Hengist schedule a rugby match on the same day as a GCSE science revision workshop, which no one would now attend. Even Boffin had defected and, already miked up with a silver whistle round his scrawny neck, was poised to referee the game. And how dare Hengist invite back Emlyn, who had nearly drowned Poppet?
‘Ten Downing Street is deceptively large once you get inside,’ Poppet, several months pregnant, was now boasting to Anthea.
Noticing Mrs Walton looking a shade disconsolate, Cosmo thrust a large vodka and tonic into her hand.
‘Ever considered a toyboy?’ he murmured.
Hengist, not confident of shaven-headed Denzil, who preferred any game to rugger, was himself revving up the rest of the Bagley third fifteen. ‘Never take any team coached by Emlyn for granted. He’ll have told them to attack and attack and that nothing matters except getting points on the board.’
‘It’s still going to be three hundred to nil,’ grumbled Lando. ‘Christ, my head hurts.’
‘Here they are, here they are,’ went up the shout as Randal’s crimson minibus rumbled up the drive.
‘Larks wouldn’t still exist without Daddy,’ boasted Jade. ‘He’s given them so much financial support.’
‘Oh shut up,’ muttered Dora.
Bagley, incensed by the loss of Emlyn, watched Larks emerge with mixed feelings.
‘There’s Graffi, still lush,’ sighed Milly.
Graffi, still grinning although black under the eyes, was reeling with relief because he’d completed his ten-hour art exam earlier in the week and was happy with what he had produced.
‘My God,’ said Amber, cutting off her conversation with the Master of Beagles at Radley, ‘is that really Xavier? He must have lost a couple of stone and grown a foot. Looks quite attractive.’
‘Very attractive if one remembers his trust fund,’ agreed Milly.
‘Hi, Xav.’
‘Hello there, Xav,’ purred Jade.
‘Welcome back, Xav,’ shouted Amber.
‘Booo!’ shouted Dora, who’d been at Dicky’s hipflask. ‘Have you forgotten he tried to kill my brother?’
‘Shut up,’ hissed a discomfited Dicky, as an equally discomfited Xav belted across the grass to the visitors’ changing room.
‘And here comes the Larks Lothario,’ shouted Amber.
A pair of black-jeaned legs, as long and pliable as liquorice, were finally followed down the bus steps by a Nike scarlet jacket and a haughty black face.
‘God he’s awesome,’ sighed Milly.
Glancing coldly round, reluctant to take a first step on enemy territory, Feral caught sight of Bianca standing on top of a car, in a bright orange poncho, her dark hair lifting in the breeze; he started violently as they gazed and gazed and gazed at each other.
‘Move it, for fuck’s sake.’
From behind, Johnnie, Monster and Rocky ejected Feral on to the gravel.
Oh God, thought Bianca in panic, I still love him.
Thank God, thought Feral in ecstasy, she still loves me.
In a daze he glanced up to see if she was real, then, smiling, shaking his head, waving his hands, he reeled after Xav.
Paris, who’d witnessed this eye-meet from the home changing room, felt punched in the gut. Then he saw Janna jumping out of Emlyn’s muddy Renault. At first he was shocked how tired, pale and old she looked, but when both Larks and Bagley pupils ran forward to welcome her, and her face was illuminated by that tender, joyful smile, he realized how her new, short, curly hair became her, and how protectively Emlyn was towering over her, sheltering her from the mob as it surged around them.
‘Mr Davies, Mr Davies, look, it’s Mr Davies back.’
Paris wanted to join the throng and beg Janna’s forgiveness and friendship. He wanted to bolt back to the Old Coach House and hide. He couldn’t play rugby with so many crosscurrents.
‘Janna, darling.’ It was Hengist, hugging her and then shaking hands with Emlyn. ‘Marvellous to see you both. Sally sent her apologies, she’s had to go and see her mother.’
Like hell, thought Janna. Normally such a trooper, Sally had taken Oriana’s coming out very badly, particularly the press delving around and raising the ghost of Mungo. Today, with Emlyn’s return, they would be out in force, and she hadn’t been able to face it.
‘Tell her her bulbs are being miraculous,’ said Janna. ‘Sheets of daffodils and hyacinths, even fritillaries; they’ve cheered everyone up so much.’
‘I will; she’ll be so pleased. Come and have a drink.’
‘Janna can,’ said Emlyn. ‘I’m going to crank up my team.’
Emlyn found his Larks players strangely silent as with clumsily shaking hands they tried to find the necks of their crimson and yellow striped shirts and zip up shorts less white than most of their faces.
‘Ouch,’ yelled Johnnie Fowler, as he bit the inside of his cheek instead of his chewing gum.
Emlyn smiled round, steadying them, then placed a rugby ball on the floor in front of them.
‘This is your best friend, so don’t give him away. He has one destiny, over the line or between the posts. Don’t let them bait you, don’t swear at the ref, don’t spit, or bite, kill the ball, or collapse in the scrum. However much you want to, it’ll only put points on the board for the other side, not for us. Watch, watch the whole time.’
Larks parents were out in force. Cigarettes slotted into their lower lips, fathers with tattoos, earrings and T-shirts, they looked so young compared with the tiny sprinkling of Bagley parents.
‘S’pose you have to grow old before you’re rich enough to afford fees here,’ observed Graffi’s father, Dafydd, who was getting tanked up with Stormin’ Norman.
Pearl’s boxer dad had a whole quiche in one hand and a pint of red in the other.
Pearl and Kitten, in crop tops showing off grabbable waists, their purple flares sweeping the damp grass, tossed their shining, straightened manes as they paraded up and down, giggling and being eyed up by the Bagley boys.
Randal moved around pressing the flesh, getting himself and his beautiful suit photographed as much as possible, distributing largesse to the inhabitants of the Shakespeare Estate.
‘So pleased Larks is doing well; what subject is your youngster taking in GCSE?’
‘Sex and violence,’ quipped Dafydd cheekily and regretted it when Stancombe’s face blackened and he made a note on his pocket computer.
Through the cobweb-festooned window, Xav could see everyone nudging and staring as his parents arrived. Bianca, full of chat, dragged Taggie off to the bar. Rupert, who had no desire to socialize, stayed in the car with a bottle of brandy and Opening Lines, the OCR poetry set book, which, after repeated slugs, he was finding increasingly difficult to understand. He’d never met such a bunch of whingers moaning on about their dreadful childhoods. He could relate to Philip Larkin or Simon Armitage stealing from his mother’s handbag and punching an irritating wife, but what the fuck was this guy Stevie Smith going on about?
To carry a child into adult life,
Is good, I say it is not.
To carry the child into adult life
Is to be handicapped.
In his wild youth, Rupert had had a Rolls-Royce with black windows. He could have done with it now, to stop so many ghastly mothers waving and gazing in. Nor could he avoid seeing Taggie being welcomed by all her dreadful new friends: Pittsy and fearful stinking, whiskery Skunk and that ghastly football manager, Pete Wainwright, who’d clearly got the raging hots for her, not to mention that fat Welshman who seemed to have bewitched Xav.
Rupert knew he was in the wrong. Since he’d decided to take this wretched exam and Taggie had proved such a hit at Larks, he’d been vile to her and ratty with the children.
Christ, she was even allowing the caretaker Wally to peck her on the cheek. Rupert
was finding it as hard to climb out of his mega sulk as to break out of Broadmoor. Bloody hell, Stancombe, looking an absolute prat in his white suit, was now kissing Taggie – pity a snow plough couldn’t run him over. Rupert was going to win this bet if it killed him. He took another slug.
Knowing they would expect great things, Paris observed that Ian and Patience had formed a merry party with Artie, Theo, the Brigadier and Lily.
‘Larks look alarmingly fit,’ grumbled Jack Waterlane as Monster, Johnnie and Danny the Irish thundered past chucking a ball to each other.
‘Only because they stayed in last night,’ said Anatole.
Bagley’s shirts, sea blue with white collars, gave them a look of deceptive innocence. The sun, darting in and out of big white clouds, spotlit the Mansion one moment, an acid-green lime in Badger’s Retreat another, Mrs Walton’s laughing face as a passing Cosmo waved to her the next.
It was Larks’s first glimpse of Paris for eighteen months. He had shot up and filled out, his jewellery had gone, his white blond hair, no longer gelled upwards, was longer with a side parting and, like Rupert Brooke’s, poetically brushed back from his forehead. He was as dead pan as ever, but he had a new confidence. Nodding to his old classmates, but not stopping to say hello, he turned to Junior Lloyd-Foxe, yelling at him to pass the ball.
‘Parse, parse,’ mocked Monster.
‘Lord, la-di-da,’ shouted Johnnie, ‘listen to the Prince of Posh “parsing” the “bawl”. He’s too grand for his old friends now.’
Paris ignored them, but a flush crept up his cheek.
Bagley won the toss, and chose the Mansion end, with the soft west wind behind them.
‘Bagley to kick off.’
‘OK, boys,’ quietly Xav echoed Martin Johnson, ‘let’s take this game.’
‘Very plucky of your lads to take on Bagley,’ Poppet was saying patronizingly to Janna.
‘Have you ever seen anything so gross as Boffin’s bum in those shorts?’ hissed Dora as Boffin blew a shrill plaintive note on his whistle.
Lando booted the ball over the heads of the Larks forwards. Next moment Feral moved into its path, caught it and set off for goal, dodging round Anatole and Lubemir, flashing his teeth at them, charging straight for the Hon. Jack, aiming for his right side, luring him on to his right foot, then bolting past on his left.
‘Tackle him,’ bellowed Lando, but Lubemir, hurling himself at Feral, only caught air as Feral skipped out of the way, streaking over the line, burying the ball under the posts to ecstatic, flabbergasted cheers.
‘That gorilla won’t kick it ten yards,’ drawled Cosmo, as Rocky, having laboriously readjusted the plastic stand, finally managed to balance the ball on top of it.
‘Our Farver,’ mumbled Rocky and belted it over the bar to even more flabbergasted cheers.
‘Very plucky of you to take on Larks,’ Janna told Poppet.
‘I ain’t no gorilla.’ Rocky marched up to Cosmo, shoving a huge fist in his terrified face.
‘Rocky, no!’ howled Xav.
Reluctantly Rocky lowered his fist.
‘If you do that again, Rocky,’ Boffin’s miked voice echoed round the field, ‘I shall send you to the sin bin.’
Three minutes later, Rocky leapt miles in the air in the line-out and catching the ball, passed to Xav, who passed to Graffi, who trundled down the field like a little Welsh pony, black hair tossing, slap into the Bagley defence, powering his way through them and crashing face down in the mud over the line, but with the ball staying firm between his palm and the pitch. Again Rocky converted.
‘Rocky by name, Rocky by nature,’ yelled the increasingly intoxicated crowd of Larks supporters.
‘Steady, steady,’ pleaded Emlyn, a great golden bear prowling the touchline. ‘Oh Christ, well done,’ as Xav kicked eighty yards up the field into touch.
Bagley rallied. Lubemir, winning the scrum, passed to Anatole, who passed to Jack, who found himself running into a solid Berlin wall of defence: Monster, Rocky and Johnnie Fowler, who brought him crashing down. Xav took the ball off him and kicked it up field, where it was gathered up by Feral, who with Ferrari acceleration charged up to the Bagley defence, their gumshields glaring, waiting to flatten him, and popped over a glorious left-footed drop goal.
As he sauntered back, festooned with cheering, thumping, ecstatic Larks players, Miss Cambola, who’d been practising with Kylie Rose and the choir, started to sing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’, as, from all sides, crimson Larks banners were waving.
‘That’s our tune,’ snorted Biffo Rudge.
Bagley were now displaying all the symptoms of nerves, losing in the line-out, high tackling, killing the ball, sledging, biting, resorting to every dirty trick. What was also plain to everyone was that Paris was out of it, passing to the wrong people or the other side, kicking in empty spaces, and when Boffin blew the whistle, first on Monster for high tackling, and then on Johnnie for swearing and spitting at Cosmo, Paris missed two easy penalties.
‘Lord Posh, Lord Posh,’ barracked the Larks crowd.
‘Lord, la-di-da, nose in the air,’ bellowed Stormin’ Norman to the edification of the entire field, ‘you’re as useless as tits on a bull.’
Pete Wainwright laughed happily because he was gaining intense pleasure watching Feral. You could see the boy thinking, glancing around each time he had the ball, using his brain. The others mostly kicked and hoped. Xavier was playing beautifully too. It was gratifying to see two black boys working so well together, cleaning up in the white heartland of an English public school. Pete was so pleased to see the delighted pride on Xav’s sweet mother’s face.
‘The directors loved your lunch – it was a great success,’ he told Taggie.
Johnnie Fowler’s mother, Shelley, swayed up to Rupert’s car. ‘Your Xav’s playing like a little king, Lord Black.’ Then, when Rupert lowered the window a millimetre: ‘My Johnnie’s the good-looking one, didn’t go into Larks much in the old days, had a lot of days off, but since Emlyn, Taggie and the Brig’s taken over, he’s hardly missed a day.’ Noticing how handsome Rupert was, she added, ‘Would you like me to get you a drink?’
‘If you’re going that way.’
Seeing Rupert looking more friendly, Poppet Bruce rushed over. ‘Rupert, Rupert, how’s your GCSE Eng. lit. going?’
‘Fine,’ snapped Rupert.
‘Oh! You’re reading Opening Lines. Charisma’s finding it so enriching. Each poem yielding its meaning.’
‘Not to me, they don’t. I can’t make head nor tail of this chap Stevie Smith.’
‘Oh, how priceless.’ Poppet went off into peals of laughter. ‘Smith’s a woman, Rupert.’
‘Explains why the poem’s such crap.’
‘Don’t be so sexist. You’ll never pass your GCSE that way. Why not join our workshop in the Easter holidays?’
Fortunately relief arrived in the form of Shelley Fowler and a large brandy and ginger.
‘Get in,’ hissed Rupert, winding up the window.
‘Johnnie’s got that book too,’ said Shelley, picking up Opening Lines. ‘Didn’t understand a word till Janna explained it.’
Half-time. The sides gathered in two groups, towelling away sweat, swigging bottled water, pouring it over their heads. Hengist strode on to the pitch.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’
‘They’re as tough as shit,’ protested Jack Waterlane. ‘I think I’ve cracked a rib.’
‘They really vant to vin,’ grumbled Anatole.
‘I’ve fucked my ankle, sir,’ lied Cosmo.
‘Well, you better go off for the second half.’
Larks were down to fourteen men: Danny the Irish had cramp. Wally was working on his instep.
Emlyn was talking in a low voice to his team, praising them to the now pink and blue flecked sky, isolating individual triumphs.
‘But the second half’s going to be tougher; you’ll be getting tired. If I sub any of you, it’s a compliment, means you’
ve played your hearts out. Rocky, you’ve been awesome, and Monster and Johnnie.’ Emlyn’s square face glowed. ‘I can’t tell you how great it’s been, good as scoring for Wales.’
Janna, watching Emlyn’s joy, felt conflicting emotions. How glorious to see Larks ascending, but she felt so sorry for Paris.
Dora’s despair, on the other hand, was total. She could see Hengist giving the team hell. Poor Paris, head hanging, face concealed by a damp curtain of blond hair, must be feeling suicidal, not just about his dud performance, but about Feral and Bianca as well.
‘Stop bullying him,’ she shouted. ‘It’s so unfair.’
Cadbury, who’d been stuffing his face all afternoon, wandered off to drink from Middle Field Pond. Following him, Dora decided she must save Paris.
102
As the pep talk ended and the teams changed ends and took up their positions, they were distracted by howls of laughter and wolf whistles as a streaker came running out of Middle Field and raced across the pitch skipping and dancing, arms outstretched. Her high breasts and bottom were too small to wobble. The waist, in between, as yet lacked definition, the racing legs were still a little plump. A pale blonde triangle was just discernible between her thighs. Her face was hidden by a pulled-down baseball cap.
‘Who is it? Who is it?’ yelled the delighted and cheering crowd. Then, as the streaker did a cartwheel and two handstands, her baseball cap fell off, her blonde plaits tumbled out and a chocolate Labrador bounded on to the pitch after her.
‘My God, it’s Dora,’ said Lando. ‘Look, sir, a streaker.’
Hengist swung round and laughed.
‘Good heavens, so there is.’
‘Gone away,’ brayed Jack Waterlane as Siegfried’s horn call rang out joyfully on Miss Cambola’s trumpet.
Binoculars and little oblong silver cameras were being raised all round the pitch as the cheers escalated. The press raced along the touchline.
‘Go for it, Dora,’ yelled both teams, momentarily distracted from despair and elation.