A Royal Mess (15 page)

I heard the window opening above me again. ‘God bless you,’ the face from earlier reappeared. ‘You sure you’re not cold out there.’

I looked up, no longer capable of smiling, winningly or otherwise. ‘Bloody freezing,’ I admitted.

‘Are you sure I won’t do? As an interim measure, perhaps? At least it’s warm in here, if you don’t mind a bit of a mess.’

I was so relieved I almost let go my grip on the wisteria. Thank you,’ I gushed as his hand reached down and my stranger pulled me up and helped me climb into his room.

THIRTEEN
You’ve Got to Know When to Neck It and Know When to Leg It

‘My name’s Malcolm, by the way. Feel free to use the bathroom to dry yourself off.’ He was wearing boxer shorts with a rugby shirt over the top. With his thatch of red hair and green eyes, he reminded me of Star. He was definitely the best thing to happen to me in the last half hour, I decided.

‘Thanks. I’m Calypso,’ I said as my eyes travelled around the vast room. I knew that Eades boys all got their own rooms, but I had never been in one before. It was the size of most people’s living rooms. He had a plasma screen television, DVD, laptop and of course the mess he had warned me of. Actually most of the mess seemed to consist of thousands of DVDs strewn all over the floor – and I mean
all
over the floor. Every square inch was covered in DVDs, including the square inches I was currently dripping on.

‘Actually, I’ll grab you a towel. I think we’d better contain you,’ Malcolm said, treading his way carefully to the bathroom so as to avoid stepping on the DVDs. From the bathroom he chucked me a big black fluffy towel. I began to dab at my sodden clothing and hair in a hopeless attempt to dry myself off.

‘Tell you what, Calypso,’ Malcolm said, ‘Chuck the towel down over the DVDs and once you get to the bathroom you can climb out of those wet clothes and put on my robe. It’s virtually clean. If you like, you can spread your clothes over my radiators while we find your mystery man.’

‘Thank you, that’s really kind,’ I said as I made my way towards the bathroom. I was feeling slightly uncomfortable about taking my clothes off in a boy’s bathroom and changing into his robe, even if it was virtually clean. I mean, I didn’t even know Malcolm. What if he were some sort of crazed rapist, or worse? As I opened the bathroom door I turned back, but he was crouched back on the floor with his back to me, totally absorbed in some sort of laborious DVD filing process. It was as if he’d forgotten all about my existence in his room.

The bathroom wasn’t as luxurious as our bathroom back at Saint Augustine’s. The tiling was a bit chipped and the mirror was so old it was all speckled. But it was such a relief to pull off my wet clothes that I decided I was mad to be so paranoid. Malcolm’s robe was a green-and-maroon-striped Ralph Lauren affair
and best of all, it was deliciously clean, fluffy and two sizes too big for me.

I gathered up my sodden clothes and walked back into the room as if everything were perfectly natural and normal.

‘Drink?’ Malcolm offered without looking up as I began to lay my clothes on his piping hot radiators.

‘Yaah, a drink would be super,’ I drawled, cringing at my ridiculous blurt. Super? Was I turning into my mother?

‘Help yourself. The fridge is over there,’ Malcolm told me as he gestured to the other side of the room. ‘If everything doesn’t fit on that radiator, there’s another along the bed.

‘Thanks,’ I replied, cringing with embarrassment as I spread my wet Snoopy bra and knickers over the radiator behind his bed. I looked over at Malcolm, but as he wasn’t showing anything more than a courteous disinterest in me, I figured it would be okay. I mean, they’d probably be dry in ten minutes and then I could get dressed and find Freds.

I placed my mobile and mace on the fridge.

‘Sorry, excuse the poor selection. I’m not much of a drinker, I’m afraid,’ Malcolm explained without looking up from his chore.

I opened the glass fridge door and suddenly it was like being back in Honey’s limo again. It was full of miniature bottles of Veuve Clicquot. ‘I could probably get one of the other guys to dig you up some vodka if you’d prefer?’ he
suggested, no doubt imagining that I was disappointed by his unvaried selection.

I didn’t want to sound babyish and admit I actually thought he was offering me a Horlicks or something nice and sweet like that, so I said it was fine and took a bottle out.

‘Should I, erm, open one for you?’ I asked, uncertain of the etiquette rules of Eades boys and their fridges.

‘Cheers,’ he said, smiling at me as he ran his fingers through his hair in what looked like frustration. ‘I shouldn’t, but this is going to be a long night.’

I uncorked the two small bottles pretty skilfully, proving that even time spent in the company of someone as poisonous as Honey has its uses.

Malcolm placed his champagne beside him on the floor. He seemed too absorbed in his DVDs to care where I sat, so I perched on the edge of his bed. I still felt madly awkward, so I decided to spread out and look a bit more chilled as I took a gulp of the champagne. Instantly all the bubbles charged up my nose and I started choking and coughing.

‘Unlike beer, it’s better not to neck your champagne like that,’ Malcolm suggested, suppressing a laugh. ‘It’s easier if you use the straw that’s glued to the side,’ he explained, pointing out the straw.

‘Oh yaah, no, of course I know that. It’s just, well, I prefer to knock it back, really,’ I blurted in a blatantly ridiculous attempt at sounding sophisticated. And once I
started I couldn’t stop. ‘Hic, hic, hic,’ was my next sophisticated blurt. My plan to look all chilled and worldly was sinking fast.

‘So who is it exactly that you are looking for?’ Malcolm asked in the tone that suggested he was keen to be rid of the strange, wet girl hiccuping in his room.

‘Hic, hic, hic,’
I replied.

‘Do you need something for your hiccups? A paper bag? A fright perhaps?’ he asked, looking around his room for a solution.

He didn’t have to look far, though. Before I could
hic
another word out, Portia’s older brother, Tarquin, stormed into the room.

‘Have you found that bloody DVD yet, McHamish?’ Tarquin demanded crossly before he noticed me, stretched out across Malcolm’s bed in a robe. He only gave me a cursory glance, but I clutched the robe to my neck as I imagined what he might be thinking.

‘Still looking, man; the search goes on. I will be triumphant, though! I will be triumphant,’ Malcolm declared, punching the air with his mini-bottle of Veuve.

By this point Tarquin had not only spotted me
hic, hic, hicing
away on Malcolm’ bed, but he’d also taken in my matching Snoopy bra and knickers (thank goodness I’d taken the precaution of wearing matching underwear, otherwise it could have been
really
embarrassing) flung over the radiator.

‘Briggs, meet Calypso, she who would lure men from their whatsits.’

‘Goals. Listen, I know you,’ Tarquin said, pointing to me as if he wished he didn’t. ‘You’re that friend of Portia’s. Freddie’s girlfriend.’

‘Hic,
yes,
hic,
yes. Nice to,
hic,
see,
hic,
you again,
hic.’
I replied giving him a little wave.

‘She’s been necking her champagne,’ Malcolm explained, gesturing to me with his champagne. That’s how she prefers to drink it apparently. I told her to use a straw, but girls, what can you do?’ He shrugged.

I pulled Malcolm’s robe even more tightly around me, suddenly acutely aware of how naked I was underneath.

The next minute, Billy burst in on my humiliation. ‘Right McHamish, where’s the bloody–.’ He stopped short as he spotted me. He looked confused. ‘Calypso? What’s going on?’

‘Hic,
well, you,
hic,
I was …’

‘Ah Pyke, my good man. Yes, your DVD is on the fridge.’

But Billy didn’t seem to be interested in the whereabouts of his DVD. ‘What are you doing
here?
In Malcolm’s room?’ he asked me irritably.

‘Ah, the fair Calypso. Everyone seems to know this young wench. Found her hanging off my windowsill, wet as a drowning rat. Said she could dry herself off before she continued her search for, what was his name again?’

‘Freds!’ I squeaked – yes, squeaked, like one of those soft
toys babies have. Because I wasn’t answering Malcolm’s question at all. Freds had just walked in and he did not look pleased to see me. Not a bit. If looks could burn, my matching Snoopy bra and knickers would have burst into flame, because his eyes were boring into them. I jumped up off the bed, desperate to explain the situation but all that came out was
‘Hic’
.

Malcolm must have been the only one unaware of the dynamics of the drama being played out in his room. ‘Now Freds, I’ve got your DVD, I think I put it –’, Malcolm began, but Freds turned around and walked straight back out again, muttering something about how he couldn’t believe this.

Well bugger that, the fighter in me said! I hadn’t fought off attack dogs, wriggled through razor-wire fences, run through the rain and climbed wisteria bushes for nothing. No, I, Calypso Kelly, sabre champion of the Sheffield Open, was not giving up. I stuffed the mace and phone in one of the pockets of the robe, grabbed my Snoopy set and clothes and legged it after him.

That was when I ran into the Eades house matron, spilling my champagne all over her and me and, well, that was when things got really nasty.

Malcolm, Billy and Tarquin, who had also given chase, slammed into the matron and me.

‘Aaah, good. I see you’ve met our matron, Kate. Kate, this is Calypso, she who distracts men from their –’

Kate just stared at him. Thank you, Mr McHamish, you can go back to your room.’

Billy and Tarquin followed him and that was that. I was alone with Kate, who in her twinset and pearls looked terrifyingly formidable.

FOURTEEN
Matron’s Remedy for Hiccups

‘There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this,’ I told Kate, trying to sound as authoritative as Honey and as aloof as Portia. But in addition to my lack of attire, I was also buckling under the additional hurt of Fred’s storming off. Talk about taking the wind out of a girl’s sails.

The matron gripped me by the robe and, well, robes being what they are, I didn’t even try to argue or struggle, because, well, having a near-naked girl on her hands is at least a little better than an actual naked girl. Also, I still had the hiccups.

Malcolm’s head popped out of his door, ‘Any chance you can bring the robe back on your next visit, Calypso?’ he asked.

Kate turned around to face him, and a horrible sense of doom came over me – not that I wasn’t already feeling doom-ish enough about the evening’s events, but I didn’t
want to land Malcolm in any sort of trouble when he’d been so hospitable.

‘Where does this girl come from, Mr McHamish?’ Kate enquired nicely, in the sort of voice one might ask the time.

‘Good question, Kate. I have no idea of her origins. I did think I detected a slight transatlantic accent when I first came across her. She was hanging, wet as a stray cat, on the wisteria outside my window, looking for some chap. I invited her in to dry off before she continued her search.’