Wicked! (79 page)

There was a roar from the gallery as Graffi stopped snogging Milly and dropped into the hall, slithering across the umbrellas.

‘That’s Boffin Brooks, you snotty bastard.’ Racing up the aisle, Graffi reached into the row, seizing Boffin by his Alex Bruce house tie. ‘Don’t you dare slag off our school.’ Egged on by a roar of Larks approval, he was about to ram his fist into Boffin’s face when Johnnie Fowler tugged him off.

‘Let me do the honours.’

‘Don’t touch me,’ screamed Boffin.

‘Put Boffin in a coffin, boom, boom, boom,’ yelled Bagley and Larks in delighted unison.

As Johnnie raised his fist, Emlyn once more shot across the room, prising Johnnie and Graffi off by their collars.

‘Stop it,’ he bellowed, then, lowering his voice: ‘You’re not helping Larks.’

‘Nor’s Boffin, dissing us like that.’

Trying to wriggle free, Graffi made another lunge, but Emlyn hung on, tightening his grip.

‘Stop it, both of you.’

‘You’s choking me.’

Fortunately a nasty scrap was averted by Amber Lloyd-Foxe crying out, ‘Oh, why don’t you manhandle us, Mr Davies, it’s so sexist to pick on boys every time.’

‘Why are we being discriminated against?’ chorused Kitten, Milly and even Primrose from the gallery. ‘We all want to be manhandled by Mr Davies.’

The hall rumbled with laughter.

Blushing furiously, Emlyn dragged Johnnie and Graffi outside and shoved their heads under the kitchen tap.

A scented, blond jangle of jewellery had meanwhile risen to her feet.

‘That kaind of behaviour says it all, reely.’

‘Oh shut up,’ said Pearl, glancing up from the dress she was designing.

‘I won’t shut up,’ said the blonde shrilly. ‘As a resident of Cavendish Plaza, Larks kids make our lives a misery. They graffiti our walls, key our cars, carpet our pavements with chewing gum, beat up and spit at our kids. Why should we fork out for security guards to protect us? This isn’t the inner city.’

‘Larks should be closed down,’ shouted a Cavendish Plaza husband in broad pinstripe. ‘It’s a breeding ground for thugs and drugs. If you live in a pleasant private estate, you don’t expect a sink school that is almost a pupil referral unit on the doorstep.’

The platform was nodding in delight as an old biddy knitting in the front took up the cudgel.

‘I don’t have the privilege of security guards,’ squawked Miss Miserden, ‘I live next to Larks and I never feel safe in my bed.’

‘You’d be quite safe in anyone else’s bed, darling,’ yelled Graffi, who’d somehow found his way back to the gallery, ‘no one’s going to jump on you.’

This was followed by more cheers and cries of ‘Shame’ and ‘Disgusting, insulting a pensioner’.

‘Who’s she?’ asked Dora, who was furiously making notes.

‘She’s the one who brings letters of complaint in every day,’ said Junior, who’d been doing work experience on the Gazette. ‘She’s called Name and Address Supplied.’

And so the slanging went on, with the closure brigade attacking Larks and its record and Larks supporters defending it.

When a rather flushed Milly Walton shouted from the gallery:

‘We at Bagley love meeting young people from a different background and Larks kids are great, we’ve had so much fun together,’ Randal Stancombe made a note to alert Ruth, who didn’t at all approve of her daughter’s liaison with Graffi.

Sophy Belvedon then made an impassioned plea for the children and particularly Year Ten, who mustn’t be abandoned in mid GCSE course.

‘Year Ten will be accommodated and taught much better in other schools,’ said Ashton, rising to his feet. It was time this meeting was wrapped up. ‘My name’s Ashton Douglas,’ he told the assembled company smoothly, ‘S and C Services Diwector of Opewations.’

‘Operations performed without the use of anaesthetics,’ shouted Hengist. ‘No wonder your collaborator is called Payne. As she keeps informing us: “Closing a school is a Payne-f experience.”’

As the audience cheered, Ashton’s soft, bland features set into a cement of hatred.

‘It is also an unnecessary and dishonest operation,’ went on Hengist, rising to his feet, his deep, husky, bitchy voice carrying to every corner. Again he seemed to have shaken off his tiredness and worry. ‘This discussion is about surplus places. The education department, we have been told, are very worried about the one thousand six hundred surplus places in Larkshire schools, which will evidently double by two thousand and ten.

‘Why then,’ he asked coolly, ‘if our child population is ebbing away, does the housing department predict that two thousand five hundred extra houses will be built – no doubt roughshod over Larkshire’s loveliest green belt – in the next three years? Will all these houses be inhabited by childless couples?’ He paused for effect. ‘Clearly not, and even more interestingly, that one-off contributions from developers will be put towards new and temporary classrooms to accommodate extra pupils.

‘Tut, tut, Ashton, Cindy and Russell, have you enlisted the health department to doctor your figures?

He paused again to allow a roar of approval from Larks supporters.

‘It seems that S and C and the county council use figures selectively – just as they rigged the Review of Secondary Schools and, when challenged, blamed the falsely poor figures for Larkminster Comprehensive on typing errors. But did anyone have the decency to admit this publicly?’

‘No,’ roared at least half the hall.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ spluttered Cindy.

‘As a Larkminster county councillor, you don’t seem to know what
anyone’s
talking about,’ cracked back Hengist to more cheers. His dark eyes had recaptured all their old sparkle. ‘It’s absolutely typical of a Lab/Lib Dim council to have no idea what other departments are up to, or to pretend they don’t to achieve their ends. This is a corrupt hung council which ought to be hung out to dry because the only thing that matters to them is selling off Larks’s ten acres of prime land and putting millions of pounds into their own and S and C Services’ pockets.’

‘Save our school!’ Stamp, stamp, stamp went a thunder of feet on the parquet as Emlyn grinned across at a flabbergasted Janna.

‘Can you tell us’ – Rupert had taken up the baton, his light, clipped, contemptuous drawl carrying just as easily round the hall – ‘why Randal Stancombe is putting up a large building for Rod Hyde to accommodate extra pupils? This building was commissioned in autumn 2002, at exactly the same time as the Review of Secondary Schools, with rigged figures, was sent out and a report, targeting Larks as the proposed choice for closure, leaked to the
Gazette
.’

‘I must protest,’ spluttered Rod Hyde.

‘Feel free,’ said Rupert sarcastically, ‘but first, tell us why Larks, particularly after such a good Ofsted report, was chosen to be closed down.’

‘Because it’s the pits,’ yelled Brute Stevens.

As Emlyn grabbed Johnnie Fowler’s collar, Cindy saw a chance to dive in:

‘As I keep saying, because the people of Larkshire preferred to send their children to other local schools or, failing that, go private or out of county, rather than Larks.’

‘Rubbish,’ snapped Rupert. ‘Plenty of schools in Larkshire have empty desks. The difference is that Larks is sitting on twenty-two million pounds’ worth of prime land, with Gap and Borders and Waitrose nearby. S and C have had a catastrophic year; shares in all their other companies have fallen. Selling off Larks would put them nicely in the black.’

Randal Stancombe was by now looking even less amused than Queen Victoria’s portrait, which hung on the wall at the end of his row.

‘How dare you make these slandewous accusations,’ squawked Ashton.

‘Because they’re true. You’ve targeted not the most failing school but the one that would bring in the most money. Janna Curtis has been dealt a marked card,’ said Rupert chillingly. ‘Her only crime was to succeed too well against all the odds, so her character and her school had to be repeatedly blackened by reports in your papers, Col, demoralizing pupils and staff and, in particular, changing the minds of parents intending to send their children there.’

‘Oh, well done, Rupert. Col the toad will soon explode,’ giggled Dora. ‘I am a poet and I do not know it.’

‘This is disgraceful,’ thundered Russell.

‘Disgraceful for Janna and Larks,’ shouted the Brigadier.

Janna’s face was in her hands, she couldn’t believe such incredible support.

Feral gazed at Bianca.

‘What are they going on about?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘This is totally out of order.’ Col Peters crashed down his hammer. ‘I hope Hengist Brett-Taylor can substantiate these accusations.’

‘Only too easily.’ Most of the platform, despite the heat, lost colour as, out of his inside pocket, Hengist produced a sheet of paper covered in writing and waved it at the audience. ‘This is a list of people likely to profit from the sale of Larks. The wages of Cindy, for example, will be considerably enhanced.’

‘How dare you?’ squawked Cindy Payne.

‘Shall I read it out?’

‘Mr Fussy doesn’t look too happy either,’ whispered Amber.

‘Perhaps little Gandhi needs changing,’ whispered back Dora.

‘Save our school!’ Stamp, stamp, stamp, thundered Larks supporters.

‘Well?’ taunted Hengist.

The big hand of the hall clock was pointing directly upwards: nine o’clock. Saved by the hour and just managing to contain his fury, Col Peters gathered up his papers.

‘I’m afraid we’ve run out of time,’ he said.

‘Cop out, cop out, read the list, read the list,’ roared the hall.

‘I have a paper to get to bed with a report of this meeting,’ Col said firmly, ‘and we mustn’t keep Sally and Hengist or Mr and Mrs Campbell-Black from their dinner party.’

‘Read out the list,’ shouted the
Western Daily Press
.

Hengist laughed and shook his head.

‘Not yet. Unlike the editor of the
Gazette
, I feel it more honourable to substantiate rumours before spreading them.’

‘Where are you off to?’ asked the
Stroud News
as Sally and Taggie hurried towards the exit.

‘Highgrove,’ piped up Bianca proudly. ‘Have a lovely time, Mummy.’ Turning to Feral, she handed him three pieces of paper. ‘Here’s my number, put it in both pockets and in the pocket of your jacket, then there’s no excuse.’

Danijela meanwhile had risen trembling to her feet.

‘Before we go, I am an asylum-seeker from Bosnia, we love going to Miss Curtis’s school, it is our home and best of England.’

Janna’s eyes filled with tears.

‘Exactly,’ called out Jupiter who, having let Rupert and Hengist do his dirty work, totally distancing himself all evening, now moved in for the kill. ‘If Larks closes, all its children will have to find new schools, the teachers, cleaners and support staff new jobs. What will happen to the Shakespeare Estate without their school? Larkshire’s other schools and several greedy individuals will profit. That’s how private business works: targets must be met, so you sell off your best asset.’ The whole room had gone silent. ‘And so a whole community will be destroyed.’

There was a long pause.

‘Save our school,’ croaked Rocky.

‘Janna Curtis has been dealt a marked card,’ murmured Dora to the
Independent
.

‘Let’s have a quick show of hands,’ said Cindy hastily.

‘Those in favour of closure?’ called out Col Peters, glancing round the hall as a lot of Rolexes and braceleted hands were held up and a County Hall minion did some cursory counting. ‘And those in favour of retaining Larks?’ Then as a forest of hands sprung up: ‘I think that gives closure a clear majority. I will convey the feeling of the hall to the appropriate authorities,’ he added and fled the hall to deafening boos.

The place was in uproar. Hengist fighting his way towards the door met Emlyn coming back in.

‘Any news?’

‘Definitely not Oriana,’ said Emlyn, ‘it was a British soldier in a car crash, poor sod.’

‘Thank Christ.’ Throwing back his head, Hengist took in a great breath of relief. ‘And for you too. But, oh God, the poor man and his family. I must go and reassure Sally. See you in the morning. Thanks for everything.’

Running through the deluge, Janna caught up with Hengist on the edge of the car park.

‘Thank you all ever so much,’ she stammered, ‘you were wonderful. I must have made you so late for dinner. Where did you get all that amazing info?’ Then, when Hengist laughed: ‘At least let me see that list of names.’

‘You can have it.’ He handed her the piece of paper. ‘It’s Dora Belvedon’s essay on why fox hunting shouldn’t be abolished. She got an A star.’

‘There were no names?’

‘Not before I began counting the people who turned green this evening. Rather a good bluff, don’t you think? I must go, darling. Just coming,’ he called to the others, waiting in Rupert’s revving up BMW.