This is set in 1980s England, so there was no internet or mobile phones, and it was easier to get away with things. Also, the moral climate was both different and changing back then.
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James knew he was in trouble one Thursday night in July 1980 when he got back to the Drones Club after a meal out with two chums to find a message from his mother saying, "James. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the Family. Daphne." Mother had asked four years ago that he call her Daphne in public. While she was still an attractive woman and could pass for early-forties in friendly lighting, having a son in his mid-thirties did make disbelief hard to suspend.
He had hoped (but with little expectation) that he would be kept out of the latest family drama. Mother had been, for decades, the one member of the family everyone else trusted not to be shocked and to give practical advice while being (seemingly) a respectable woman. Ever since that summer six years ago when he had helped restore his grandfather's interest in life and ensure his Uncle Bernard's second marriage became a success, he had become Mother's Little Helper.
Still, he had thought that talking Cousin George out of breaking off his engagement because his fiancée was not a virgin was right up her street. He had helped her refine her arguments and not be quite so blunt about how, when she was growing up, most marriages happened because a sprog was on the way, but that was all. What had gone wrong?
The next morning, he called her. His heart sank when he heard her put on her huskiest voice. She sounded like Joan Greenwood as Sibella in Kind Hearts and Coronets and was about to talk him into something which he was going to regret.
"The good news is that your cousin George is going to marry Penelope."
"Well done, Daphne. I sense bad news lurking."
"I don't think he ever intended to break it off. He just needed me to tell him that it wasn't a problem. It is something else about the revelation which is really worrying him, and he didn't tell me until he gave me a lift back to the station."
James made an educated guess, "Don't tell me he's a virgin."
"Well done, Darling. I wasn't expecting that. After all, he is a good-looking man, aged 21, and even though he attended an all-boys Grammar school, he has been working in the business for three years and has made plenty of foreign trips. Maybe I'd underestimated his father's influence on him." Norman was a sincere believer in God, although he was a hate-the-sin, love-the-sinner type. Well, he'd been working for Grandfather since 1946.
"Can't he just tell Penelope to be understanding?"
"My sister Arabella told George to tell Penelope he was worried about hurting her on their wedding night and that she should feel free to say if he did. Penelope got the wrong end of the stick and told him she didn't mind he'd had some experience. She was silly enough to tell him he didn't have to be gentle with her when they were married and to partially explain why."
His heart sank. He knew what was coming. "So, you want me to talk to him about the practicalities from a male point of view."
"I volunteered that you would go up and see him tomorrow. He suggested meeting you at the Grand for lunch. Perhaps you can stay the night."
"Why so soon?"
"He's worried that Penelope will find him lacking as a lover in comparison with her ex. She was engaged to the previous man for six months before she found out he was already married. Also, your Uncle Norman, who doesn't know about Penelope's past, took it upon himself to talk to George about the facts of life and told him not to worry if it goes wrong the first time."
"Daphne, I could do without images of Aunt Arabella and Uncle Norman dancing the horizontal tango."
"It was more of a ten-second waltz than the minute waltz."
"Mother!!!" She definitely was her father's child.
"Certainly, no deviation, but it took time for a repetition. Not so much a hesitation as a full stop, though."
"Fine, I'll ring him and travel up tomorrow morning."
"Thank you, my darling boy. I nearly volunteered some suggestions for myself, but you are known to be a bachelor with plenty of female friends, so you can pass on my tips as your own. I did tell him that you would bring some educational books down with you, my dearest."
James knew that, while his parents' marriage had been a happy one, his father preferred men and had allowed Daphne carte blanche after she had given him the heir and the spare, provided she was discreet. She had certainly been a merry widow.
"Anything else I should know about?"
"While there are limits to what your cousin told me, reading between the lines, it would be good if you could find some willing young lady for him to practice on. Not a whore, but an enthusiastic amateur."
"Daphne, you are joking." The trouble was she probably wasn't.
"It would be for the best, especially if you were there to give constructive criticism. I think he is anxious about following in his father's footsteps. I was wondering whether any of your ex's would be on for the job."
"No. Well, not at a day's notice, and I'm not asking any of them if they want to pick my cousin's cherry. Those who might go for it are unlikely to be discreet about it."
"You remember the Cherrypicker?"
The Cherrypicker was a young widow who lived in one of the towns his father had been stationed in when he was a colonel. She liked to break young officers in back in the day. Indeed, quite a few young officers pretended to be more innocent than they were, according to his father. He was never entirely certain whether his father was encouraging him to try her out or warning him.
"Both you and Father insisted on telling me all about her. Anyway, she would be too old for him now."
"I suppose you're right, dear. Still, it's not as though you haven't shared a young lady with a relative before."
"That was very different." That had been when he and Mother had been trying to revive Grandfather's interest in life. He had helped grandfather enjoy Samantha, a 19-year-old student doing a holiday job in Southpool. Grandfather Arnold had perked up enormously and was still looking healthier now than in 1970 and was also still in touch with Samantha. He knew Samantha had visited earlier this year so Grandfather could say that he had had sex with a willing woman in eight different decades.
"I did think about asking Samantha, but she would insist on telling Arnold, and he would want to join in. Seriously, dear, there are more women than the Cherrypicker for whom taking their partner's virginity is as much a turn-on as it is for men. There was one baby-faced subaltern in the regiment who managed to lose his virginity five times. He told me that the only line which worked better was telling a woman that he was worried that he might be gay, but she was making him hope that he wasn't."
To avoid any more anecdotes, he agreed to think about it but made no promises.
He telephoned his cousin George and fixed up the meeting. George would be at the Grand by 12.30. George would tell his parents he was meeting to discuss family business matters with James. James had allowed himself to be sucked into the London side of the family business five years ago, so it was plausible.
James rang up and booked himself a suite at the Grand for a night. He then went to Foyles at lunchtime and bought the Kama Sutra and the Joy of Sex for George and Penelope to read.
He then got his copy of the train timetable and made his plans. Past experience had told him that giving plenty of leeway for things going wrong on weekends with British Rail was best. He would have to change at New Street.
The next day, the train from Euston to Birmingham was doing well until it got past Birmingham International, when it ground to a halt for twenty minutes. This gave him time to both worry about making his connection and also to try and work out how to do the man-to-man talk with his cousin. The trouble was that Mother was right that probably what would help George most was a few hours with a woman to get his first time over with. There was a danger that giving George the benefit of his experience without the practical demonstration would increase the man's nerves.
Finally, the train was moving again, and he saw that there was just a chance he could make his connection. There was no time to get something to read at WH Smith's, but it was only timetabled to be a 75-minute journey on the next train.
He dashed up and down the escalators at New Street and made his connection with seconds to spare. The train was pretty empty, but a young woman in a red jacket was sitting by herself in one group of four chairs.
She smiled at him and said, "I saw you running. You only just made it."
"Bloody British Rail, pardon my French, as my uncle Bernard would say. My train into New Street was late, and it was an hour until the next one, assuming that was on time."
"Wouldn't want to wait that long at New Street myself."
He put his overnight bag in the luggage rack, got out his book and then looked at her. He decided that she was up for being talked to as her white blouse had one more button undone than was strictly decent. He sat opposite her, introduced himself, and she said she was called Florence. It was hard to place her age -- she was probably in her mid-twenties. She was quite tall and had long blonde hair.
They chatted away. She told him that she was pissed off with her boyfriend. They had been meant to be going away for a weekend break, and he had cancelled at the last minute this morning. This wasn't the first time he'd let her down, and this had been meant to be making up for the last time.
"So you're going by yourself anyway."
"I'd already bought the train ticket. I've heard there's a good art gallery and museum, and I'll go around those this morning. This afternoon, I'll see if I can find someone to keep a young lady company. I wouldn't mind cheating on him at least once before dumping him on Monday."
"I doubt an attractive young lady like you will be lonely for long. Your problem may be choosing which man to go with."
"That's good of you to say. Perhaps I'll hand out raffle tickets."
She looked at his book and said she'd read it. They then discussed it, and he would have been very stupid indeed not to realise that she was flirting with him. He enjoyed the game, and then she produced her book for re-reading, "Fear of Flying" by Erica Jong.
"One of my friends works for the publishers. I've read it."
"What did you think of it?"
"As a single man, I must admit that I'm all in favour of women wanting a zipless fuck with me. I certainly believe women should be allowed to enjoy sex without being condemned for it."
"I hear a but lurking."
"Too many of my male friends used the sexual revolution to make women feel guilty for not sleeping with them. This provided them with more ammunition. It's a thin line between seduction and coercion."
