The Eunuch's Ward (The String Quartet) Read online

  That summer before my 13th birthday I was put on the ‘Ask Me’ duty at the fair. It involved wearing a bright yellow tabard with ‘Ask Me’ printed in dark green on the back and front, and making myself as visible as possible around my designated area, on that occasion around junior labs, toilets and the arts suite, all on the ground floor of the school. Over the two hours of my tour of duty I was partnered by Rosebud Munro, another student from my own class. Rosebud was a pretty blonde with cheeks and lips that suited her name. Her parents Lucinda Dwyer and Michael Munro were occasionally billed as the new Olivier and Plowright, a line of publicity that earned them more respect than money and limited their appeal to those who actually knew who Olivier and Plowright were. Surprisingly, my mother said ‘wow’ and looked impressed, my father said nothing until he found out everything worth finding out. Which was very little. What money there was, it was in the hands of Mrs. Munro, Michael’s mother, and what fame there was mattered only to those with more sense than money. Leon Ganis had no interest in his thespian neighbours but didn’t object to my association with their daughter.

  Which was just the way I liked it.

  That Sunday the two of us had very little to do, there were no new parents or guest celebrities to take around, and everyone else knew the place better than they’d ever wanted. Still, it was with a sense of relief that after two hours of smiling encouragingly at anyone who’d strayed our way, we pulled off the tabards and handed them over to the next shift.

  That was when Lily Merchant cantered over.

  ‘Follow me, chickens. You’ll have the time of your life.’

  Rosie and I looked at each other. Following in Lily Merchant’s footsteps wasn’t exactly cool, but then neither were the most likely alternatives on offer, like pony rides or the game of rounders against a girls’ choir from Alton. So, we both shrugged and, with as big a show of indifference as we could muster, followed where she led.

  Little did we know just how life-defining that casual decision really was.

  No matter how expensive and posh the school, and no matter how large or small, new or dilapidated the actual building might be, every school has a bike shed and the same things are happening behind it world over. Ours was in a pretty good shape, as it goes. No idea what its original purpose might have been, a gardener’s cottage some said. That sounded likely because the taps and other fittings that had survived suggested domestic use. It would have also been appropriate because currently it was used by our two lady gardeners Liz and Lizzie, Lezzies for short, which they may or may not have been. Anyway, that was where Lily was heading, recruiting more followers in her stride.

  ‘C’mon, boys. All your birthdays and Christmases have rolled up at once.’

  We were a group of about eight or nine, boys and girls, when we entered the shed, and there were five or so more hanging about the entrance.

  ‘What are they all looking so shifty about?’ Rosie said what I was thinking. ‘What do they know that we don’t? Lily, hey, Lily...’

  Lily was too busy to answer. She paired off two boys and two girls, linked herself arm in arm with a lanky, sun-speckled son of the village bank manager and whistling ‘Here Comes the Bride’ fairly accurately, she led the little procession indoors.

  ‘Bloody hell, Nat, they’re playing weddings,’ Rosie laughed. ‘I don’t believe it. She’s organised a mass wedding. C’mon, let’s go somewhere else.’

  Later, I wished hundreds of times that I turned back and walked away as Rosie had suggested. It wasn’t as if I didn’t suspect what was afoot. I remember the butterflies in my stomach, the mixed feeling of nausea and fascination that kept me where I was.

  ‘Just a minute, Rosie. I suspect that Lily the Hypo may have surpassed herself this time.’

  Once inside, Lily let go of her partner, pulled the other two girls to the tatty remains of a corner settee and the three of them sunk down onto the grubby leather, screeching and flailing their legs in the air.

  ‘Over here, lover boy,’ Lily ordered her chosen mate, whipping off her pants at the same time. ‘Make me come and you can keep them as a trophy.’ She hung the trophy, made of thin white cotton, with fraying elastic around the waist and a trace of skid-marks along the gusset, on the handle of the lawnmower closest to the settee.

  There were a few titters and gasps in the midst of stunned silence.

  I said, ‘She’s blooming barking,’ and rammed my elbow into the stomach behind me. There was a satisfying yelp of pain, and the hand that was trying to travel up my leg dropped off. The banker’s boy was fiddling with his zip, trying to free the tail of his chequered shirt from its teeth. I could feel the steamy heat of suspense around me. That was the other moment when I should have left and dragged Rosie away with me. But, I didn’t. Like everyone I stood there and watched with bated breath.

  Lily wasn’t known for her patience.

  ‘Give it here,’ she lifted herself from her seductive recline and reached for the problem area.

  There was a sound of ripping and Lily ended up with something long and flabby in her hand. It looked nothing like the large swollen examples of grown-up sexual desire that sometimes sneaked their way to our computer screens when the school firewall was down, or I saw pictured in the magazines that my father’s bodyguards usually left around.

  ‘Looks like an overcooked cannelloni,’ Rosie said aloud, ‘only smaller.’

  I admired how cool she was.

  Her remark must have woken up the boys’ competitive spirit for two of them immediately jumped on the other two girls that had been waiting for attention with their knees apart. The others were fumbling with their trousers, panting and sweating, their eyes darting around as if looking for guidance. One of the seductresses on the sofa uttered a muffled scream, pushed the boy off her and ran past me, two others quickly took her place, bringing their quarry with them.

  ‘Whoa!’ Lily cried jubilantly, ‘we’ve got a take-off!’

  All around me, the boys held their pale little witchetty grubs in trembling fingers, kneading them gingerly, filling the room with a sticky-sweet smell that made me heave. The boy right next to me was crying and trying to shake something snot-like off his fingers.

  I had enough. Only, I couldn’t move. I mean, I literally couldn’t move, there were too many frenzied critters packed around me. I looked at Rosie. She was staring ahead with unseeing eyes as if something had struck her on the head and only the support of the bodies around her kept her upright.

  I stuck my fingers into my mouth and whistled. ‘Miss Payton approaching at two o’clock’, I shouted and whistled again.

  It had an immediate effect. I had enough room to grab Rosie by the arm and pull her out. Some vague memory told me that there was a wooden bench to the right of the shed, by the patch planted with sunflowers and red currants. In between the fleeing children, I dragged Rosie there to vomit in peace. I say peace but what I really mean is undisturbed. She was shaking all over, her lower jaw was rattling alarmingly. Having no idea what to do next I let her stomp around in circles, flailing her arms one minute, hugging herself another, shivering and muttering something incomprehensible. Eventually, I noticed the water tap on the side wall of the shed. It took a long time and quite a bit of strength to get Rosie close enough, but once I managed to collect cold water into my palms and pour it first over her neck, then over her face, she calmed down. She even bent down and stuck her head under the tap. A few minutes later, with her hair and the back of her top completely wet, she let me lead her to the bench. As Rosie sat down I was just about to sigh a sigh of relief when she screamed and jumped up on her feet again, shaking her hand.

  ‘He did it on me,’ she shouted. He did it on my skirt. He did it on me.’ Just like the boy in the shed a few minutes ago she was trying to shake a blob of slime off her hand.

  Which brings me back to my virginity tests. In those days, there was no way that I would have willingly taken part in any kind of sexual activity or even looked at a boy witho
ut shuddering. My father worried about nothing. Rosie and I swore never ever to have anything to do with the opposite gender.

  Never ever!

  Chapter 4

  Queen Matilda wasn’t offering A Levels, and I had to be sent elsewhere. If any of the top six-form colleges were to accept me, I had to do exceptionally well in my last year of junior school and get straight As at GCSE exams. I didn’t know why my father had chosen the Caroline String High School for Girls but I didn’t particularly mind. It was in London, in Belgravia, no distance at all from our penthouse along Chelsea Embankment. It would have been even better if both Rosie and I could board at the school, or if Rosie came to share the flat with me, but neither was an option. Rosie’s parents wanted her to join them at their own place near Barbican, and my father wouldn’t hear of boarding. Eleanor String, the great granddaughter of the founder, wasn’t anywhere strict enough by his standards.

  ‘Ugh!’ I kicked the leg of his desk with my toe and instantly regretted it. ‘Could you be a little less Armenian, please? When in Rome...’

  I stormed out as I often did in those days. I was fifteen and with little prospect of enjoying myself that summer. A week in Athens where my father had attended a conference and my mother and I appeared by his side at every photo opportunity because that was good for business was followed by a fortnight in a hotel Acapulco that turned out into a succession of never-ending cocktail parties. Back at Hartsfield again, only to find out that my father had volunteered my services to some youth project for all of August. That too was good for business, apparently.

  The project was taking place in a school in Alton, only about five miles from our house. It was run jointly by the Probation Service and the Department of Education to improve school attendance by problem youths. The boys, for there were no girls at all, ranged between eight and fourteen, almost as old as I was and centuries wiser. I was given a form to fill, listing my skills and talents in order of excellence. For instance, swimming 5 stars, archery 4 stars and so on. I gave myself five stars for absolutely nothing, I simply wasn’t a five star person, but I did admit to a few awards in archery and fencing. The project didn’t run to the equipment required for either sport, and the organisers didn’t think that teaching the already over-combative boys new fighting skills would meet their objectives. Nor did they particularly fancy sending me into the swimming pool with three dozen oversexed boys. The very thought of it certainly gave me the creeps. I had a momentary vision of the school’s indoor swimming pool, grease-marked all around the edges and full of witchetty grubs bobbing up and down the surface.

  ‘Are you all right, Miss Ganis?’ The council official looked concerned.

  I nodded. ‘It’s the heat. It’s quite stuffy in here.’

  He led me out of the concrete prefab with corrugated roof, the headquarters of the Staying Power project. ‘You seem to be a very well organised, sensible person, Miss Ganis,’ he continued when we stopped in the shade of some trees. ‘I may have just the job for you.’

  My organised, sensible brain was working overtime. The man, who didn’t have a name tag pinned to his top, seemed keen to find a suitable position for me. There was nothing about me to suggest that I was either organised or sensible. That left only one answer. My father had made an impressive donation and said something humble and charming, like My daughter only has her time and good will to donate. I hope you can use her in some small way. And the council official, made aware of the size of the donation, was doing his best to find something suitable for a brainless, useless thing like me. Or, he may have simply fancied my tits. I was a very well developed fifteen years old.

  I ended up as the Project Leader’s wingman. Wing woman just doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily, does it?

  ‘You must be Sonata Ganis,’ he smiled and shook my hand as if we were equals in age and position. ‘Can’t tell you how good it is to see you. My name is Mungo Steen.’

  I blinked. ‘Why does that remind me of a lexicon? Or an encyclopaedia?’

  He laughed, ‘It should. The original Mungo Steen, the publisher and scientist, was my several times great grand something or another. Not grandfather. Uncle, I think. Don’t hold it against me.’

  I grinned. ‘I think that I can safely promise never to hold anything against you.’

  He didn’t blush and that impressed me.

  He was of nice height and overall shape. I was sure that there was no six-pack under the blue striped shirt, and his biceps probably wouldn’t send anyone’s heart racing, but he wasn’t a flabby couch potato either.

  ‘Riding, sailing and tennis?’ I asked, forgetting how desperately revealing the question was.

  He had the grace not to laugh to my face. ‘When I get around to it. You’ve got gigabits running through your veins, I hope. We’d need to set up the timetable and database just as soon as... Can you operate that one?’ he pointed to a dusty desktop on one of the desks.

  I snorted. ‘I’ll bring my own laptop.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll do nothing of the kind. It wouldn’t be fair on the lads to put temptation their way. This machine isn’t as bad as it looks.’

  We were rubbing along just fine from the start. It took me all of ten days to realise that he was actually quite attractive. Not long after, I also had to admit that I was actually quite attracted to him. And it wasn’t just because he was the only one on offer. There were two rugby players, a footballer and a rock star among the twenty two strong volunteer force. All the four of them had started from more or less the same brink as the boys the Project was trying to help. Each volunteer could choose one or two slogans that would best describe them and send their own message to their young clientele. ‘There but for the grace of God,’ read the plaque on the rugby players’ locker. ‘Been there, done that, lost the T-shirt,’ was the rock star’s choice. On so it went on and on.

  ‘Does that work?’ I asked Mungo.

  He shrugged. ‘It does more for the volunteers than the trainees. Most of the trainees can’t read.’

  I took dozens of pictures of him on my phone, chose three that I thought were the best and sent them off to Rosie.

  ‘You’re in love!’ she shouted as soon as she appeared on the Skype screen. ‘Admit it! Admit it.’

  I admitted to liking him. A lot.

  ‘Does he absolutely adore you? He must do. He’d be a fool not to.’

  She was at the south of France with her parents and their theatrical friends, that’s why she talked like that.

  ‘Oh, gosh,’ I shuddered audibly. ‘You’ve only gone all la-di-da on me again. ‘Those luvvies that you...’

  ‘Never mind them,’ she interrupted. ‘This about you. Is he into you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Is he hot?’

  ‘Hot or what?’ Rosie’s nose was peeling. She was dubbing something onto the shiny tip that made it look even redder. ‘He’s gorgeous. Not gay, is he?’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘He’s almost twice my age. Well, twenty-seven. His father left him the publishing business...’

  ‘Hold it, hold it, child. You’re not marrying him. Not just yet. Maybe never. You just want a bit of fun, don’t you?’

  I nodded.

  Rosie and I never talked about that incident of over two years ago. On the face of it Rosie was affected much worse than me, but nothing was quite the same for either of us ever again. Neither of us had even as much as flirted with a boy and we both avoided sleepovers where boys were the main topic of conversations conducted in giddy whispers under the forgiving blanket of darkness.

  ‘Well, then,’ she shrugged in her worldly way.

  ‘What I’m trying to say,’ I knew very well what I wanted to say, I just couldn’t work out how to say it, ‘he’s not a boy. Grown men, well, they’re different. Their, you know, they look different, don’t they?’

  Rosie didn’t answer immediately.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ I prompted.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.’ She reac
hed outside the screen and brought back a handful of ripe red cherries. ‘I’m starting to think that the Lily Monster did us a favour...’

  ‘How do you make that one out?’

  ‘If it wasn’t for her, you and I would have probably done some dabbling of our own, and there’s no saying where that would have lead us. Nothing good, that’s for sure. I think that virginity is a rare and valuable commodity these days. It doesn’t matter that we kept ours... You have kept yours, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I confessed meekly. ‘I’m not sure whether I’ll ever lose it. Not tempted at all. Whenever I even think of it I see those horrible worms wriggling around me, and the smell...’

  ‘Me too,’ she interrupted. ‘I’m trying to say that you and I are not virtuous. We’re scared to death. That means that if it wasn’t for Lily and her pathetic friends, we probably wouldn’t have been able to resist temptation any more than any other teenage girl.’ She popped the shiny red fruit into her mouth. ‘And...’

  I laughed, ‘And one can only have one bite at the cherry.’

  After a bit more cajoling, Rosie admitted that her sex urge hadn’t kicked in yet either, but for some reason, she didn’t see it as a problem. Anything but.

  ‘Urges control people, don’t they?’ she asked imperiously.

  I nodded. What else could I do? The only powerful urge that I’d ever experienced was to kill my father, wake up my mother from whatever slumber she was in, and blow up our so called security centre at home with all the bodyguards and especially Bakir in it.

  ‘Well,’ she continued, ‘this way it’s us who’s in control,’ she concluded.

  ‘I suppose so.’