38. It has to be Private

It has to be private

On New Year’s Eve 2007 the gang had al assembled at Jimmy and Monica’s for dinner, cooked (as Monica was the rst to admit) by the bril iant Jessica, without whom Monica would often tel you she could not do.

It was just as it had always been. e gang had foregathered as they had done so many times in the previous fteen years, and before that in embryonic form at university. For curries, for movies, for birthdays and for weddings, to celebrate each other’s professional elevation and the arrival of children. e cast had remained the same; only the quality of the food, the wine and the districts of London in which they met had changed.

Except this time something else had changed. e usual ten of them were not quite the usual ten, a development that had made those remaining rather uncomfortable. Particularly the women.

One of their number was no longer present. What was more, she had been replaced by a girl of twenty-two.

David and Laura were there as always. David was now a hugely successful architect, the twin prongs of his rst Rainbow even now half constructed, poking up into the skies of Europe. His wife Laura was a barrister and mum and founder member of Kid Conscious, a charity which lobbied against smacking. Laura believed passionately that there were no circumstances under which it was ever justi ed to smack a child. In fact she had started the charity after being forced to sack a nanny for doing just that.

Henry and Jane were there, of course. Slightly grumpy old Henry and bright, intense Jane. Henry had by now won his rst junior ministerial post and, having deftly leapt the loyalty divide between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, was very much a rising star of the new Prime Minister’s administration.

He had nal y given up on completing his novel.

‘e thing I’ve come to understand,’ he said, ‘is that Security Blanket is a lm, not a book at al , and I’m going to turn it into a screenplay. During the summer recess.’

Jane by this time had completed four novels and her big news was that she was about to be published.

‘And it’s not chick lit either,’ Jane assured everyone. ‘Not one of those books that are nothing but sex, shoes and shopping like you read, Monica. It’s a historical love story set in two periods, the present and the First World War.’

‘Sounds like chick lit to me,’ Rupert remarked, ‘and am I being dense or didn’t they have sex, wear shoes and go shopping in the Great War?’

Lizzie and Robson were al present and correct too. e oldest relationship in the gang and the only one in which both members were original Radishers.

Not that Lizzie had actual y shoved one, of course, on that famous graduation night; she had long since gone to bed. But she was stil an original Radisher.

And Rupert was there. Lord Rupert now, of course, posh at last, courtesy of a Labour government.

But no Amanda.

Amanda of Rupert and Amanda was not present.

Instead, in her place sat Beatrice. Very bright, very pretty and doing her very, very best to chatter her way through a near-impossible situation.

‘I can’t believe Rupert’s done this,’ Laura whispered to Monica as they went downstairs together, ostensibly to see how the soup was coming on. ‘It’s such a dreary cliché.’

‘I miss Amanda terribly,’ Monica admitted. ‘Not least because she occasional y put Rupert in his place. Of course I invited her for this evening rst but she’s decided to go to Scotland with the children, so I had to ask Rupert. But I’ve made it absolutely clear to Jimmy that Radish Club or no stupid Radish Club, Rupert comes second from now on, we’re sticking with Amanda. Rupert buggered off, not her.’

‘I know, and worse, he’s landed us with fucking Beatrice.’

‘We should try to be kind.’

‘Why? e little bitch has run off with a married father with two young children. She knew what she was doing.’

‘She’s twenty-two, Laura. Rupert knew what he was doing. is situation is entirely Rupert’s responsibility.’

‘It’s so stupid! Couldn’t Rupert have just carried on shagging around a bit?’

‘I know I’d rather Jimmy left me than did that.’

Laura gave Monica a quizzical look.

‘Do you real y think that, Mon? I’d say putting up with a couple of mid-life quickies is better than throwing everything away. And if he’d stuck to quickies then Amanda could have had a revenge shag and we wouldn’t have been left

with sodding Beatrice. One good thing though, Amanda wil kil him in the courts. He’l lose half at least.’

‘I suppose he’d rather have ten mil ion and sleep with a girl of twenty-two than twenty mil ion and sleep with one of forty. It’s so sad.’

At the dinner table Rupert, of course, was riding out the situation with his usual bluff con dence, acting as if nothing had happened. He was almost forcing poor Beatrice into the conversation as if she had instantly become one of the gang and was having the time of her life, when in fact it was clear she would far rather have spent the evening hiding in the loo.

Despite the uncomfortable new dynamic, the conversation progressed along pretty much the same lines as it always did, turning, as so often in the past, from property prices to education. From education it would almost certainly move on to holiday locations (ski lodges – rent or buy?) before nal y settling back on to property prices with the cheese. Property prices were the great and unifying subject, affecting them al with equal intensity despite the disparity in the values of their portfolios.

For the time being, however, the gang were stuck rmly on education. e conclusion was always the same. Private (or selective grammar) was the only option. It was a terrible, crying, awful shame, but the state system simply did not currently offer a viable alternative.

Only Rupert (and Amanda until recently) viewed this absolute certainty with complete approval. Rupert had nothing but contempt for even the principle of state education for any but the very poorest of the poor. He believed it was simply a fact of life that man was a sel sh animal who sought for himself the best in everything, and therefore it was unreasonable to expect him to modify that outlook on a subject as important as the future of his children.

‘And don’t give me that bol ocks about how the state should offer the best,’

he thundered. ‘How could it possibly? Is a council house as good as a mansion?

Wil welfare food stamps get you a table at the Ivy? No. Of course not. e state simply can’t offer the best. It never has done and it never wil . I can afford to send my kids to a school with three hundred acres of grounds, two computers a child, a ful y equipped theatre and three Latin teachers. Am I going to choose the local comprehensive instead? No, I’m fucking wel not.’

None of the others felt that the situation was quite as clear-cut as that.

Henry and Jane were the most anguished on the subject. As a Labour MP,

Henry was theoretical y a champion of state schools.

‘I don’t agree at al , Rupert, you Nazi bastard,’ Henry said. ‘ere’s a lot more to education than Latin and ful y equipped theatres. It’s also about being educated for life. For a world into which you must eventual y t. In the best of al worlds al children, rich and poor, would be educated in a superb comprehensive system. at’s what we’re working towards in government and that is what we’l achieve.’

‘But you’ve been in power for more than ten years and you don’t go for state education yourself,’ David pointed out.

Henry was trying to look comfortable and relaxed.

‘at is simply not so, David,’ he replied. ‘Jane and I use the state system and we’re very happy with it.’

‘Now come on, Henry,’ David said. ‘You know that’s bol ocks.’

‘It’s a state school,’ Henry insisted.

‘It’s a grant-maintained grammar which you have no right to be in because it is two whole state schools away from where you live! You pul ed strings and worked the system, Henry, and you should bloody wel admit it.’

Henry was clearly fuming. His and Jane’s decision to seek out one of the few selective state schools left in London had made him very vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy. Particularly after he had laughably claimed that it was a choice made only because of the excel ence of its choir.

‘We are not being hypocritical,’ Jane insisted, trying to come to Henry’s aid but in fact making things worse. ‘If the comprehensive system were as good as it ought to be, our kids would be in it like a shot.’

‘And it wil be,’ Henry chipped in quickly. ‘at’s our pledge in government and we wil make good on it.’

‘Bloody hel .’ Jimmy laughed. ‘Like David said, you’ve been in for ten years, how long do you need?’

‘ey’ve been so busy banning foxhunting and starting wars,’ Rupert sneered.

‘I support the principle of comprehensive education for al ,’ Henry repeated pompously, ‘and I am working to bring it about. e problem is that everybody’s pul ing out of it. More and more people can afford fees and we just don’t have enough middle-class parents using the system, which of course means more of them leave.’

‘Just like you and Jane,’ Rupert said.

‘I’ve told you, Rupert,’ Jane snapped, ‘St Bartholomew’s Grammar is a state school.’

‘It’s grant-maintained and selective, Jane. Live with it.’

Lizzie and Robson de nitely approved of state education and were anxious for it to be as top class as possible.

‘I’d rather my taxes went on books, not bombs, any day,’ Lizzie said.

She and Robbo doubted, however, that there would ever be circumstances in which they might put their own kids into a state school. ey conceded that some kids might thrive at a comprehensive, but sadly not theirs. Tabitha and Jonah were extremely sensitive and intel igent children. ey needed chal enges and they needed boundaries. ey needed stimulus. ese things could no longer be found at the local schools and probably never would be again. Lizzie felt terribly angry about this.

‘I’m sorry, Henry,’ she said, ‘but as far as I’m concerned the horrible irony of it al is that, after your endless meddling with traditional teaching methods, the Labour government have actual y made it impossible to go state.’

‘Oh, I suppose you think the curriculum should al be three Rs and the Battle of Britain?’ Jane put in.

‘I know I do,’ Robbo commented. ‘More Churchil and less bloody media studies, whatever they are.’

Jimmy agreed entirely with Lizzie and Robbo’s position. He and Monica certainly felt that it would not be fair to subject a bright boy like Toby to the roughhouse of a state primary. In fact they were already beginning to see signs of sensitivity, brightness and creativity in baby Cressida.

Besides Henry and Jane, David and Laura were the only members of the gang with any experience of the state system, having gone local with ve-year-old Til y. What’s more, they were enthusiastic about the varied multicultural experience she was receiving. Til y’s best friend, they explained with some pride, was the most charming little Sudanese girl and the previous week the whole school had celebrated Eid together.

‘It was fascinating,’ Laura explained. ‘I managed to get along for most of it and I must say I feel I know a little more about the Muslim world than I did.

Which has to be a good thing, surely?’

‘You see?’ Henry crowed. ‘at’s the multicultural, inclusive and diverse state system in action!’

David and Laura conceded that they would be taking Til y out when she was six, so that she could join her sister Saskia at St Hilda’s Girls. Saskia was loving it.

Rupert (and previously Amanda) thought that Lizzie and Robson were pathetic liberals even to worry about it and that David and Laura were insane socialists to touch a state school even for a year. ere was nothing, nothing good about the state system. It was simply a hugely expensive training programme for drug dealers and bene t cheats. Rupert (previously supported by Amanda) always claimed that anybody who could afford to go private and who even dreamed of putting their children through the state system was an abusive parent, sacri cing their innocent children at the altar of contemptible political posturing. ey felt there was an argument for the authorities prosecuting these parents for neglect, just like they did with parents who let their ve-year-olds eat their way to ten stone.

‘With the exception of crazy champagne Reds like you, Henry, who hog the few good state schools,’ Rupert said, ‘everybody goes private if they can. No, Henry! I can assure you, everybody. So why do successive governments insist on acting as if state education was what people actual y want? ey’d do far better spending the money on enabling poorer kids to go private.’

‘Which is what you’re doing, isn’t it, darling?’ Rupert’s girlfriend Beatrice chipped in proudly, seizing on a subject upon which she could comment.

‘Roop has set up a bursary which supports two bright children through private education.’

ere was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Everybody at the table knew about Rupert’s bursary, which had been Amanda’s initiative. It had been discussed many times at similar dinner parties, happier ones before Rupert had decided to drop a generation in his choice of partner. Beatrice’s innocent interjection had brought the Amanda-shaped elephant at the dinner table into sharp focus.

Rupert rode it out with his usual panache.

‘at’s right, darling. We’ve had over a thousand applications already,’ he said. ‘What do you think of that?

Eh? Even the bloody public don’t want to go public.’

‘Yes,’ Jane said pointedly, ‘Amanda must be very proud. She set it up, didn’t she?’

‘I pay for it, Jane,’ Rupert snapped. ‘I think you’l nd that that is what they cal the bottom line.’

At that point, with her usual impeccable, almost clairvoyant timing, Jodie put her head round the door.

‘I’m off out now, Monica, if that’s OK? Jimmy Barnes is playing at the Round House and I know the guy on the door.’

‘Goodness, Jodie,’ said Monica, ‘I thought you’d have gone hours ago.’

‘Toby was stil sniffly so he had a couple of extra stories. I’ve given him Calpol.’

‘Terri c. I’l look in on him in a bit.’

Jodie beamed a huge smile and left.

‘at girl is bril iant,’ Monica said as she always did. ‘I could not do without her.’

Later that evening, after al their guests had left, Monica and Jimmy nished off the last bottle while she stacked up the plates ready for the cleaner to put them in the dishwasher in the morning and Jimmy dumped the bottles in the recycling bin.

‘I hate recycling,’ he said. ‘It’s a week-long reminder of how much we drink.’

‘And apparently it doesn’t do any good anyway,’ Monica said. ‘I read in the Standard that they just shove al the bottles in land l s.’

‘Fantastic dinner, Mon,’ Jimmy said, ‘although a bit weird with the Beatrice thing.’

‘She’s al right, poor girl. I felt sorry for her real y. I suppose we shal get used to her in the end.’

‘If he keeps her.’

‘ings have to change at some point, don’t they?’ she said wistful y.

‘Nothing goes on for ever, does it?’

‘Except us.’

‘Ah, but we’re just lucky.’

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