Maxwell’s Reunion Read Free Page B

me from seeing Gemma Hipcrest at …’ He checked his watch. ‘… four-eighteen with a fag cradled in her less than reputable fingers.’
    ‘Max, you’re a bastard.’
    ‘True,’ the Head of Sixth Form said, ‘but a just one, I think you’ll find. Rather like Archbishop Temple of nobody’s blessed memory but mine. You see, in your capacity, you can arrest the little buggers. All I can do is make their lives hell on a daily basis for the seven years I have them in my clutches from eleven to eighteen. It’s just not the same. And the Headmaster’s Writ, for what it’s worth, covers behaviour to and from school. From the time the little bastards leave their front doors, we teachers are, God help us, in loco parentis.’ He leaned across to her. ‘Oh, you of little Latin,’ he chided softly. ‘It means “as mad as a parent”,’ and he winced as she hit him.
    They purred north, looking for the Winchester bypass as the rush-hour traffic started to build.
    ‘Well, let’s see.’ Maxwell slid down in his seat, tilting the shapeless tweed hat over his eyes and folding his arms. ‘Of the old gang, the Magnificent Seven, there’s Cret Bingham. Always wanted to be a High Court judge. You can imagine the shock I had when there was a Lord Chief Justice of that name a little while ago – no relation, though, as it turned out. I bet Cret was well pissed off – that’s a phrase I learned from Gemma Hipcrest, by the way, along with “gagging for it” and “I’d rather eat Mr Holton’s shit”.’
    ‘Cret?’ Jacquie asked, diverting her concentration away from the interchange for long enough to read the Great Man’s face.
    ‘Don’t ask.’ Maxwell sighed. ‘They were different days. There was a chap in the Remove who was a Sikh or something. We all called him Woggie. He didn’t seem to mind.’
    ‘God, Max, we’d be looking at a roasting from the CRE today.’
    ‘Ah, dear girl, but I’m talking about the good old days, the swinging sixties. Enoch “Rivers of Blood” Powell and the Racists were top of the pops. You weren’t even a twinkle in your dear ol’ pappy’s eye. One could call a spade a spade. Good sound, though, your mum and dad.’
    ‘Hmm?’ She fell for it every time.
    ‘The Carpenters. Easy listening.’
    She cuffed him round the ear with her gear-changing hand.
    ‘Then there was Quent – George Quentin. He made something of a fortune running the tuck shop. Not to mention Captain of Rugger, Captain of Cricket, Victor Ludorum. No …’ He leaned across again infuriatingly. ‘He wasn’t another chum. It means …’
    ‘I know what it means!’ she shrieked, pushing him away.
    ‘Quent swore he’d be a millionaire by the time he was twenty-three.’
    ‘Was he?’
    ‘Don’t know.’ Maxwell shrugged. ‘Come to think of it, I did see him interviewed on the telly a few years back. Dimbleby or Paxman, they’re all the same, talking money to the City whizz kids. He was one of them. Grey suit, glass of water, that sort of thing.’
    ‘So he made it, then?’
    ‘All power to his elbow. Then there was Stenhouse, the organizer of this little bashette.’
    ‘Shit, I’ve missed the turn,’ Jacquie muttered. ‘Never mind, I’ll take the next left.’
    ‘Andrew Muir, aka Stenhouse. Expected to run Fleet Street, press baron par excellence, you know the type; Rupert Murdoch by way of Lord Beaverbrook.’
    ‘How did he do?’
    ‘He does a few pieces for the Mail from time to time – makes Simon Heffer look like a pinko liberal. Funny thing was, he couldn’t string two words together at school. Christ knows how he won those prizes – bit like the Booker really. I ran the magazine.’
    ‘Max, I thought you ran the school.’
    Maxwell eased himself upright with the deadly uncoiling motion of a rattler. He lifted his hat brim and narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Yes, you’ll probably need that,’ he said.
    ‘Need what?’ she asked, wide-eyed.
    ‘That razor wit. The Magnificent