I came across Oopa a second time as I was lugging my trunk up the damp, narrow, winding, dimly-lit stone stairwell of the main building. The main building is the oldest building at Saint Augustine’s, apart from the chapel and the convent of course. I’m not big on manservants myself but I felt sorry for Oopa as I heard one of the vertebrae in my own spine cracking as I struggled under the strain of the steamer trunk on my back. I was also carrying my wheelie hand luggage and sabre kits aren’t exactly light.
The main building is so ancient, there is always a renovation programme in progress which means the place is always covered in scaffolding. This provides a handy escape route at night, according to the Upper Sixth girls who’d been housed here the year before, but it also makes it very dark and dingy. The only guiding light in this narrow winding stone stairwell is filtered through a stained glass window depicting our Lady of Perpetual Succour.
Oopa looked like he needed some succour. He was buckling under the weight of Honey’s heavy trunks and bags, and my American sense of fraternity couldn’t help exerting itself, even though the English call it wading in where I’m not wanted.
I was worried he was going to have a seizure and collapse – because seriously, he was gasping for breath and swaying about dangerously.
Honey was skipping ahead of him, totally oblivious to his struggle and chatting away loudly on her mobile about how she was sharing with a freak that term and how she was so going to have Mummy’s PA speak to Lord Aginet about speaking to his lawyers. ‘Honestly darling, it’s outrageous that I should have to share with an American Freak. You should hear what she does to her vowels. My ears ache every time she opens her mouth. It’s beyond plebbie even. It’s disgusting.’
‘Erm, excuse me, but do you need a hand?’ I asked Oopa, about to reach out the hand holding my sabre kit to help support the enormous LVT trunk on his back. It was a really cool old steamer that Honey’s grandmother had owned — you know the ones that open up with drawers and hanging space? Cool as they are, they must be really heavy.
Oopa was not impressed by my offer to help. At first I thought he must still be bearing a grudge about my bumping into him earlier because he went totally bonkers and started yelling at me. All the other guardians, parents, valets and girls stopped and stared at me too, like I’d just set fire to someone or something.
I realised in that moment how blatantly stupid I’d been to offer assistance to anyone associated with Honey. My French teacher has always told me that I do a great line in faux pas.
I didn’t have a clue what he was babbling about because he was shouting at me in his native tongue which I think might have been something Asian, but I couldn’t be sure. He was definitely quite cross with me, though.
Honey turned and looked me up and down in that clever nasty way she has. ‘Honestly, you Americans are sooo insensitive. How dare you question Oopa’s ability to carry multiple heavy objects up a dimly lit stone staircase!’
Well, she didn’t actually say that, but her dismal look said it all, and what’s more the mood of the crowd seemed to be with her.
Predictably, halfway up the stairs, Oopa did eventually tumble down, but this time I wasn’t insensitive enough to look, let alone comment or help. I decided just to carry on towards my room while Honey yelled at Oopa to stop embarrassing her or she’d report him to immigration.
Finally I arrived at my prettily decorated room to find Portia lounged cat-like on one of the three beds, reading Tatler. She’d already smothered her pin board with magazine pages and photographs. I noticed a really fit boy in the magazine pages had his arm around her in a society photograph. On her bedside table there was a photograph of her family. There was also one of the school’s ancient oil paintings above her bed. It was of Saint Ursula, the patron saint of virgins. Above another bed was an oil painting of Saint Augustine, the patron saint of our school.
My focus was on the best bed though, the one against the window overlooking the chapel with a view across to Puller’s Wood where the leaves were already beginning to turn various shades of orange and gold. There was no painting above it, but there was a radiator running along the side.
I watched Portia’s very English valet as he quietly, yet purposefully, unpacked his mistress’s trunk. All I could think was, how very odd that Portia hadn’t grabbed the best bed, the one by the window with the radiator.
‘Hi, Portia, do you mind if I take this bed?’ I asked cautiously. Every girl at Saint Augustine’s dreams of having the bed against the radiator in the winter term and it was beyond me why anyone would pass it up.
For a second, a paranoid thought that a practical joke was being played on me flashed through my mind, but then Portia looked up from her copy of Tatler and smiled what seemed to be an actual genuine smile. ‘Oh, hi, Calypso. Take whatever bed you want, darling, I don’t give a toss frankly. As far as I’m concerned dorm rooms are all an endurance test any way you look at it.’
How cool is that? I was thinking as I dumped my trunk beside it and tossed my fencing kit on top of the coveted bed. I was still rubbing my arm to try and get my circulation going when things got even better! Lady Portia tossed her Tatler on the floor, climbed off her bed, walked over to me and embraced me, saying, ‘Darling, I’m so pleased we’re sharing, especially with the British National Fencing Trials coming up this term! I was worried I’d have no one to stress out with!’
‘I know, me too. It’s erm, nice isn’t it,’ I agreed. Why do I say these things? Nice?
‘But anyway,’ she continued, ‘how was your summer break? I want hear all about it. Did Star and Georgina really go out to LA? Has Freddie been texting you? I’m sooo jealous.’
Portia, the quintessential Saint Augustine It Girl was jealous of me? I mean, I know pulling an HRH might be the height of cool to some, but for the girls of Saint Augustine’s the world of royals was their natural pulling ground. ‘Yaah, totally cool,’ I replied, automatically falling into the use of ‘yaah’ rather than my Californian ‘yeah’ which I knew from experience would result in a piss-take of my American-ness.
I was just about to tell her about my fantastic summer and how Star and Georgina and I had spent the whole time shopping and how Freddie and Billy had both been texting me, but then Honey strode in with Oopa limping behind her.