Chapter 11. Girlfriend
© Bad Hobbit 2024
I got off the train, pulled my bag behind me - and was suddenly hit by a low-flying object; Phoebe. She threw her arms, and then her long, skinny legs around me and kissed me hungrily. Once I'd recovered from my shock, I hugged and kissed back. For two people who'd previously spent not much more than twenty-four hours together, just a few weeks earlier - albeit having fucked several times in that period - we were acting as if we were long-separated, established lovers.
"Phoebe, darling, put the boy down. You don't know where he's been."
I looked over Phoebe's shoulder to see a smiling, well-groomed and expensively-dressed man in his mid-forties, watching us.
Phoebe reluctantly released me and turned to introduce her father.
"Delighted to meet you, sir," I said, extending my hand.
"Roger, please. And you must be Richard. You've obviously made quite an impression on my daughter."
Phoebe was grinning broadly. I admired her again, from close quarters. She'd tied her rather unruly hair in plaits, which made her look younger. As I'd said before, she wasn't conventionally pretty. Her eyes were quite large but wide-spaced. Her lips were plump and full, but her mouth was wider than average. Her nose was retroussé - perhaps a little too turned-up to be 'cute'. And all of this in a heart-shaped face, topped off with an enormous pair of glasses that accentuated her quirkiness and somehow made her more interesting. If you did a straight comparison, Jill was much more beautiful, and yet...
On the drive back to their house in Roger's new 7-Series BMW, Phoebe barely stopped talking.
"It's fantastic that we've got our results and we're both
going to Oxford
! And this weekend, I can show you around the area. We're going to visit Warwick Castle - they've just reopened it and I'm told it's excellent. And Daddy's got us tickets for Much Ado About Nothing at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford for tomorrow night. We can go for walks; there's loads of stuff around here. We could go to Kenilworth, or the Baginton Oak, or Charlecote, or..."
Roger sat there smiling. "Phoebe feels that she has to introduce you to all the attractions of the Midlands in one weekend. I hope you've brought at least six changes of clothing."
And yes, I'd brought several outfits. Phoebe had implied they dressed up a bit for dinner and to go out, so I'd packed a few smarter things, as well as my walking boots for the country hikes she'd suggested we'd be going on. When we arrived at their impressive house - huge grounds, multiple downstairs rooms and - Phoebe informed me - no fewer than seven bedrooms - Roger insisted on taking my bag upstairs while Phoebe introduced me to her mother.
Alison had clearly been something of a trophy wife in her day and was still a very attractive woman. Like her daughter, she had dark brown hair, big eyes, a turned-up nose and quite full lips, but they were arranged in a way that was more conventionally beautiful. It was as though her daughter had inherited her features but had them slightly rearranged so as not to compete directly with her mother's looks.
"Phoebe has been so excited that you're visiting us. It seems that you two hit it off at Oxford, and it's great that you've both had your places confirmed. We'd love to know more about you. Take a seat and relax. Can I get you a drink? Gin and tonic? Beer? Tea?"
Roger returned and we sat and chatted. If I'd expected a stuck-up couple, full of airs and graces, I was soon disabused of such prejudices. Roger had been a Tory MP, a junior Minister, even. He was a wealthy and very successful property developer - the sort of person that my broadly left-leaning sensibilities would hardly have found appealing. Alison's background was as the daughter of a minor aristocrat and she'd apparently worked as a model a few years earlier. But she was no airhead and he was no monster. We talked affably for around an hour, including about my own humble background, with Phoebe interjecting from time to time.
"Oh, it must've been fun to go to a mixed Grammar school. Mine was an all-girls boarding school for most of my time, and I loved it and got to do so many amazing things, but I hardly met any boys when I was growing up. My friends at school were fun, but they were all girls."
"That's true, sweetie, but you got an excellent education, you learned to ski and ride a horse, you play the piano and you're a very talented ballerina. I doubt that Richard had those opportunities," Alison said, looking at me, quizzically, as if expecting some support.
"Yes. I never had the chance to be a ballerina," I quipped, getting a few chuckles. "And I never really enjoyed team sports, which seemed to be one of the main things at my school, but I was encouraged with my swimming, and I've competed at County level. I can play the guitar a bit, and I've had a couple of overseas trips with the school, most recently to Rome, but I haven't learned to ski."
"I'll teach you. There's a dry run at Milton Keynes, which isn't far, and maybe we can get to the slopes in the winter."
I laughed. "Maybe. But it's hard to spend a week in Val-d'Isère on what's left of a student grant, let alone a student loan that'll replace it after next year."
"Oh, I'm sure Daddy would pay for us both to go," Phoebe replied brightly.
I laughed again. "Sorry, Roger, but is Phoebe in the regular habit of asking you to fund holidays for people you've barely met? I appreciate the sentiment, but you people hardly know me."
Roger smiled back. "I can see that my daughter is rather smitten with you. But thank you, Richard. No, I'm not in the habit of giving handouts to people I don't know; that's one of the reasons I'm a wealthy man. And I'm glad to see you're a pragmatist too. I think we'll get along well."
And we did. Over dinner, at my instigation, Roger talked about his business career.
"It would be glib and untrue to say I'm a self-made man. My father was a businessman, but not a very good one. His business - a factory - started to go under, back in the 1960s. His customers were major British manufacturers, and they failed to invest, got stuck in their ways and then started feeling the pinch from cheap imports. They cut back, cancelling contracts that my father's business relied on. He became increasingly depressed, and the stress made him ill. He died of a heart attack when I was nineteen. I was at college - nothing as prestigious as Oxford, I'm afraid - but I had to give it up and go back to sort out the mess he'd left behind. Although I didn't have a full education, I found I had a good brain for running things, and I managed to get the business sufficiently on its feet to sell it; not for that much, but enough to allow me to start on my own. I saw property as the next big opportunity, and I was right. I met Alison at an exhibition, we married a year later and then, a few years after that, along came Phoebe."
"But you were an MP. And a Minister."
"
Junior
Minister. That's principally a dogsbody; someone you can sack when the higher-up crowd fu... - er, make a mess of things and need a scapegoat. Yes, a friend at the Rotary Club said I'd be an ideal candidate as an MP. I couldn't stand what Callaghan and his mob were doing to British business - and what British business was allowing to happen to it through laziness and complacency. Germany, Japan, Korea - they were all investing, training, educating, modernising, and we - we were just pretending that, because we were British, we were special and things would be fine for us. The trade unions were doing some really stupid things, and they had control of the Labour Party. Somebody needed to cut them down to size, but also put a boot up the arse - pardon my French - of the complacent management. I felt Thatcher was the person to do it. And she did - for a while. But at the first sign that Margaret's dogma was being seen to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, some heads had to roll. Mine was one of them. The press concocted some story of a sex scandal, and it stuck. God knows there were enough of them back then, but I continue to plead not guilty and my wife - as the cliché goes - stood by me and still does."
Alison reached out and squeezed Roger's hand.
"Frankly, I'd be a fool to stray far from this lady, and she knows it. I got seriously disillusioned. I felt I'd been treated shabbily by my Party. I liked helping my constituents with their problems but hated the sordid backroom deals and backstabbing. And anyway, I found running my business more satisfying. I'd left it in the hands of a trusted employee, and he'd done a good job while I was in Parliament, but I felt I could have done better, so I resigned my seat at the next election. But if you think my experience of the Conservative Party has turned me towards my daughter's politics, then you'd be wrong. I loathed Michael Foot with a vengeance, and I don't think Kinnock will ever make a real leader. If Britain is to retain any sort of influence in the world, let alone prosperity, then we need to invest in business and compete in new markets. Margaret's become so abrasive and has so many enemies that I don't see her holding on for very long. Heseltine might step up, and I think Major's a decent man and could do a good job, but I find it hard to see how things will progress with the current polarisation. So what do you think?"
What I thought was that I'd arrived, expecting to dislike Phoebe's parents for their wealth, privilege and politics, and found myself warming to them greatly. I was amused that they didn't have the same affected accent as their daughter. They talked like normal people, so clearly Phoebe had picked up her 'Chelsea' twang at school. And I'd originally imagined them to have servants and a chauffeur, but Alison had cooked us a delicious dinner of bouillabaisse - a French seafood stew - and made a tiramisu for dessert. The sophistication of the meal - remember, this was 1989 - impressed me, but it was the fact that, as Phoebe had said, 'we do our own work'. Not only was Alison a very attractive, and very sophisticated, forty-something woman, but she could clearly cook.
Her daughter, on the other hand, was an incorrigible flirt. We were sitting side-by-side, opposite her parents at the elegant dining table. And she was eating the stew with a soup spoon, while her left hand was sliding up and down my thigh. And just as I thought she couldn't tease any more, that hand fastened on my crotch, and rubbed gently.
I tried to pretend that nothing was happening but, finally, I had to reach down and gently move her hand away. She turned and gave me a look that seemed to say 'More of that later'. I hoped that her parents hadn't noticed.
After the excellent dinner, Roger offered me a brandy or one of his selection of single malts. I was tempted, but Phoebe's hand returned to my crotch. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter past ten.
"Thanks for the offer, Roger, and many thanks, Alison, for the lovely meal, but if you don't mind, I think I'd like to turn in. It was a busy day in the shop and I'm feeling pretty tired."
"That's fine, Richard. We'll start quite early tomorrow. Breakfast's about eight."
