style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Oh yes?’ said Charles sceptically. ‘Not that modern crap, I hope. If you ask me, it’s a bloody joke.’
‘Well, I’m not a modernist actually. Murals is what I do most, but I’m a big fan of neo-classicism and the rococo.’
Charles grunted a begrudging approval.
‘But this place is magnificent.’ Harry tried a change of tack. ‘Do tell me more about it.’ He thought he might be very rude any moment, and hoped this would change the rapidly developing impasse. It did: Charles launched into a detailed history of the place, his family and more anecdotes about the first owner, barely pausing for breath until fetching the port and lighting himself an enormous cigar.
‘Well done, Harry,’ said Julia, once Charles had announced he was ready for ‘Bedfordshire’. Stella, having cleared away most of the table things with the help of Harry and Julia, had disappeared long before.
‘She hardly said a word all night,’ whispered Harry.
‘I think she’s quite shy, but it’s not helped by Daddy playing the dominant male.’
Harry stretched and yawned, suddenly tired. His single room now appeared an even more attractive proposition; he didn’t feel up to satisfying Julia’s voracious sexual appetite into the early hours. He just wanted the night off so he could have a really good long night’s sleep. Charles had more than lived up to his expectations; he didn’t know how anyone could put up with such a cantankerous, misogynistic, bullying old bore. No wonder Julia had been so apprehensive. Still, what a house, and a fantastic place to be if only her father could be avoided. Having seen Julia to her room, he stumbled back down the weaving corridors towards his own at the abbey end. Had he not been so exhausted, he might have found the dark, aged walls quite spooky, but as it was, the moment his head hit the pillow, he fell fast asleep, his concerns about Julia temporarily put on hold.
He awoke as Julia slipped into bed beside him.
‘Julia, what are you doing here?’ he mumbled, still full of sleep.
‘I suddenly felt bad leaving you all on your own down here. Anyway, Daddy’s fast asleep now – I could hear him snoring.’
‘Why should he care anyway?’ said Harry, sitting up in bed.
‘We’re Catholic. I’m lapsed obviously, but he’s against sex before marriage. Or so he says. Although I can’t believe he hadn’t slept with Stella before they married.’
Harry always slept with the curtains at least half open as he liked waking in summer to see what the day was like outside. This night, an almost full moon shone through the lead-latticed windows, giving the whole room a luminous glow. Harry was just wondering whether he had the strength to perform when Julia peeled off her silk pyjamas and started kissing him hungrily. Her smooth body, with just a hint of goose-bumps, looked creamy pale in the moonlight, emphasizing every curve of her body. Thrusting her sex towards Harry’s face, she began to moan.
‘Lick me, Harry, suck my fanny!’ she exclaimed loudly.
‘Shh darling,’ said Harry in hushed tones, ‘I really don’t want to be shot by your father.’
‘Oh don’t worry about him – these walls are so thick he won’t be able to hear a thing,’ she breathed heavily into his ear. ‘Oh yes, please, Harry,’ she continued to moan.
Then she was straddling him, pumping up and down on his over-used penis, the four-poster rocking and banging against the wall with each rhythmic thrust.
‘Oh yes, yes, hurt me, harder, ow, ow, OWWW!’
The door swung back and crashed into the wall.
‘What the bloody hell – Julia?’
‘Daddy! What are you doing here?’ screeched Julia.
‘Thought you were being bloody raped!’ Charles stood in the doorway, his pyjamas and dressing gown loosely covering his bulky frame. And he was carrying a shotgun. Julia vainly clutched the sheet to her breasts, while Harry turned his head in abject horror, burying it in the pillow with a loud groan. Charles, lingering by the door, was clearly shocked.
‘Get back to bed now – and as for you, young man, we have rules in this house. Julia, you should know better. You both disgust me.’ He spat out the words, wild, angry eyes honed in on his naked daughter. ‘I want the pair of you out of here first thing.’
‘Daddy, please!’ wailed Julia, embarrassment, humiliation and anger evident in her beseeching.
‘You’re in no position to argue,’ barked Charles.
‘I can’t believe you’re doing this,’ hissed Julia, her rage winning through. ‘You fuck up all our lives and even now, when I’m nearly thirty, you’re still trying to ruin everything for me.’ She began crying, deep convulsions interrupting her words, and then, ineffectively clutching her pyjamas, she sprang from the bed and ran out of the room, her sobs echoing down the corridor.
Charles paused a moment, then calmly said, ‘I don’t ever want to see you here again.’
Harry, frozen with horror, heard the door slam, then started laughing manically. Julia and her fucking pillow talk was going to be the ruin of her. Christ! How embarrassing had that just been?
But at least with Julia banished he could now go back to sleep. Slowly, he sank back under the covers and closed his eyes. But after the shock of Charles’s interruption had worn off, he lay awake thinking he would never be able to marry Julia while Charles was alive, or at least not without eloping. Even then, Charles would probably track them down and shoot him with his shotgun. That was what people like Charles did to filthy curs like him.
He didn’t want this. He wanted everything to be uncomplicated, and to have a normal, happy, utterly contented relationship, with his ideal partner, he adoring her, and she adoring him; no hang-ups, no trauma. Just – perfect. He’d played his hand badly – dishonourably, even. Ben and Lucie had got it right: happily married and welcoming their beautiful baby into the world. So had his parents. Turning over, he tried to find a cool patch of pillow. He was so far behind them, such a long way from finding his dream.
While Harry’s Gloucestershire weekend was descending into surreal farce, Ben and Lucie were beginning to appreciate what an overwhelming amount of attention a baby required. Added to this was the steady stream of visitors and telephone calls that seemed to litter the day, and the fact that although Ben was officially on leave, he was still expected to put the work in on the Prospero deal from home. Lucie’s mother, Vanessa, usually with Terrence in tow, came round at least once a day; her sister Susie and her boyfriend Bill came up from Bristol on the Saturday, and a steady stream of friends – Flin and Tiffany included – also dropped by to see Ben and Lucie’s miracle.
Finally Ben’s brother Stephen phoned to say he was bringing Tessa, the two kids and their dad Tony up from Brighton to see the new baby on Sunday afternoon.
‘Fantastic, that’s all we need,’ said Ben once he
