Pedigree Crush with a Twist of Passion Chapter eleven.

Chapter Eleven

He looked at her steadily and deliberately changed the subject. ‘Should we go out for a drink tonight?’
She wasn’t letting him off the hook this time. ‘Phil, why do you always look so uncomfortable when I ask about your family?’
‘I don’t.’ His eyes shifted to the left, unable to meet her inquisitive gaze.
‘Yes you bloody well do.’
‘Julie, please don’t swear; it makes you sound common.’ He could look at her now. He wasn’t the one in the dock anymore. He’d done a clever sleight-of-hand illusion and suddenly she was standing there, with her right hand on the metaphorical bible, under the steel grey eyes of the prosecution.
Julie Sandra Spencer, it is alleged that on the sixteenth of May, nineteen ninety one, you did utter a profanity, that proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you are the common, sewer mouthed, trollop that he always suspected that you would prove yourself to be. How do you plead?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, while instantly hating herself for rolling over and showing her belly. This was her house, dammit, and she could say what she fucking well pleased. What she did say was nothing. She lowered her eyes to her plate and continued to eat in silence. Phil didn’t like a lot of chatter when he was eating. She forgot that sometimes.
Her father broke wind loudly from the sitting room. Her mother whined a half-hearted protest. Phil didn’t comment.
He looked at his food, forked through the cheese and coleslaw on his baked potato. She wasn’t sure whether the look of sheer disgust on his face was for her father’s flatulence, the food or for the woman so beneath him that he’d taken as a girlfriend.
Her plate was almost empty when he spoke again. ‘Are you going to eat all of that? You’ve put on weight since I met you.’ It was a simple statement with no inflection or tone but the rebuttal stung like a slap. Putting her cutlery down and remembering as an afterthought to place them neatly side by side, she took their plates to the sink. She was scraping leftovers into the bin and running water to wash up. He didn’t like the plates left after a meal, better to wash them immediately, he always said, and then it’s done with. She almost didn’t hear what he said next.
‘Perhaps it is time you met my people,’ he mused. Just that, no more. He was watching the news on the portable television in the tiny dining room. Wiping her hands on a hand-drying towel, not a tea towel—never a tea towel. She opened her mouth to say something but he put his hand up for silence, palm facing her, a barrier, a brick wall, a command. My people? Pompous bastard, she thought, who does he think he is? Jesus?
‘You know what,’ she said, seething. ‘Why don’t you, get up off your sanctimonious arse, and do the washing up yourself.’ She flung the towel at him and flounced upstairs for a bath, but she did remember not to slouch in her temper, he hated a sloppy posture.
‘We’ll go to Mother’s on Saturday,’ he shouted up after her. ‘Find something suitable.’ Find something suitable for what? To wear? To give as a gift? Or to murder my boyfriend with? What did one wear for a first meeting with a bloke’s parents anyway?
Philip was impatient; he wanted to get away before the tourists blocked the road. Julie insisted they stop off at a florist to buy his mother a large bunch of chrysanthemums, a fitting flower to give on a first time meeting with the parents. Violet and Donald lived at the hotel, though Violet had delegated most of the day-to-day running of the place over to Simon Peter when she made him the hotel manager. Violet spent her days playing bridge and chatting over coffee with the affluent guests. She and Donald had a suite of rooms overlooking the lake and life was cosy and comfortable.
The first thing Julie noticed as they were invited in to her private domain were the vases of fresh flowers dotted all over the place. It seemed the lady of the house had a passion for delicate orchids and elegant lilies. The flowers that Julie had brought looked bulky and bulbous; they didn’t fit in with the general ambience at all. The woman, who felt large and ugly, had brought large and ugly flowers that looked like cabbages in comparison to the orchids.
‘Hello Mr and Mrs Woods, nice to meet you,’ said Julie. She tried for a warm smile but it died on her lips under the scrutiny of the other woman. She gave Violet the flowers. The older woman thanked her stiffly and her face cracked momentarily in a forced smile, but Julie felt no warmth from the cool gaze.
‘So, you’re our Philip’s bit of stuff then, eh?’ Donald said.
He had changed during the time he’d been married to Violet. It had been a slow and subtle changing, but he bore little resemblance to the mild man who had plodded along and was happy with his lot. His wife’s views and opinions had rubbed off on him. After years of sharing a life, if not his bed, with her, some of her manner and attitude must have leaked onto his crisp, starched shirts and contaminated him. Donald had contracted Violet and was a far more outspoken man.
He didn’t bother to mask his top to bottom scan of her. It wasn’t the leery body scan of a middle-aged letch, it was a sizing up of his son’s girlfriend to see if she was worthy of a welcome into the Woods social circle. He shook hands with her noncommittally. ‘Hardly a slip of a lass, are you? Like your grub, do you? Well, it could have been worse. You could have been a darkie. Don’t like those wogs, I don’t. Ought to send them all back to where they came from.’
Julie sat stiffly, perching on the edge of the sofa, while Violet went to make tea. Julie hated tea. Phil knew she hated tea but he didn’t say anything to his mother and Julie felt that it would be rude to ask for coffee instead. Phil and his dad, sitting on opposite armchairs, made small talk. Julie was ignored as Donald told Phil about some work he wanted a hand with in the hotel grounds. They discussed when it would be done, what tools they’d need and how long it would take. Julie felt invisible.
When Violet returned with a tray, Julie rose to help her but was ignored, she awkwardly sat back down. The tea set was Royal Doulton, fine china with a small handled cup that rattled on her saucer. As she handed Julie a cup she said, ‘We don’t have smoking in here. If you’d like to smoke I can show you to the terrace.’ The words were hard and clipped, disapproval slipping out on the back of every syllable.
Julie laughed, it was a nervous reaction. ‘Oh that’s all right, thank you Mrs Woods, I don’t smoke.’
‘You don’t smoke? Oh, I thought you would.’ In those last five words, Violet summed up everything she thought about the girl in front of her. The insult was barbed and deliberate.
Tea was served and, as if on cue, they began to pepper her with questions about her background. She told them openly and honestly about her home, a modest council house on a Barrow estate where she lived with her parents and two sisters. She had never been ashamed of her roots and was proud of the way her family had helped one another through some difficult times. Her mother was a dinner lady at the local primary school and her father had taken voluntary redundancy from the shipyard five years before when he knew his back was getting bad. He hadn’t been able to work since and probably liked to drink a little more than was good for him. They were good parents and Julie was happy.
Donald asked her about her work, though she felt sure that Phil would have already been well-grilled on that, and pretty much every other subject. She told them about her job as an assembler of electrical components at Oxleys in Barrow.
‘Factory work? Really?’ said Violet glancing at her son as though he’d suffered a serious loss of his faculties. ‘Never mind, dear. Perhaps something better will come along one day. Didn’t you do well at school?’
Julie had been a good guest. She was well mannered and polite. But she was getting just a little bit fed up of having one thinly disguised put down after another flung at her while her boyfriend sat by and didn’t say a word in her defence.
‘No, Mrs Woods, I didn’t do very well at school. I messed around when I should have been learning and I wasted every academic opportunity I was given.’ She could see Phil cringing. He was flashing eye signals at her to shut up. This wasn’t what she was supposed to say, at all. ‘I might one day,’ she went on, ‘regret the time I wasted. I might feel stupid for not having any qualifications, but at the moment I’ve got a job that I enjoy. I work a full week and earn my living honestly and respectably. I’ve got some fantastic mates and I’m happy. Phil and I haven’t talked about any future plans, so for now things are great and I don’t see any reason to change.’
‘Philip. His name’s Philip. We don’t hold with name shortening here. And I think it’s far too early to be thinking about plans for the future, dear. You’re only—what? Nineteen, wasn’t it? You haven’t even begun to live yet, child. I’d like to think Philip would marry one day, but there’s plenty of time yet. And I’m sure that one day you will meet a boy of your own age and want to settle down, too.’ Julie thought she detected the merest hint of panic in her adversary’s eyes at the thought that this cuckoo in the nest might have designs on her son. She disguised a smile and was about to wind the woman up maybe just a little bit when Phil finally spoke in her defence.
‘Don’t underestimate Jules, Mother.’ Julie could have kissed Phil, right there in the drawing room. ‘She’s very bright. She can play the piano and guitar and she has a lovely singing voice. She’s a wonderful artist, too, and can draw just about anything she puts her mind to. You’ll have to show Mother some of your portraits, love. She made that dress she’s wearing today.’
Violet sniffed. ‘Yes, I can see that. You should have lined it dear, it would have been quite a nice little dress if you’d lined it.’
Julie was impressed at first that Phil had spoken out in her defence. It was lovely to hear him put into words the things that he admired about her. But as he went on his voice took on a wheedling, almost beseeching quality and she realised that it wasn’t her that he was defending at all but himself and the choice he’d made in a girlfriend.
‘The others have all had wives and girlfriends. Why shouldn’t I have one, too? They’re always picking on me and telling me that it’s time I got married. I’m sick of it.’ he muttered sulkily. Julie was shocked. The opinionated and insensitive man had turned into a five-year-old child, desperate for his Mother’s approval.
‘Really, Philip,’ his mother spoke to him sharply. ‘You do get the silliest notions. Of course we’re not saying you can’t have a friend. You’re twenty-six years old; it’s not up to us what you do. I’m sure Julie is a nice girl, in her own environment, we just feel that she’s a little young for a man of your age.’
‘We have a reputation,’ Donald cut in. ‘A certain social standing that has to be upheld. You running round with a slip of a girl, well it…it doesn’t look right, that’s all. No offence, lass,’ he finished, glancing at Julie.
‘None taken,’ said Julie, nonetheless offended.
They didn’t stay long after that. The atmosphere was tense and Julie kept throwing furious looks at Phil. He made the excuse that they were calling in on friends on the way home and that time was getting on.
‘Thank you for your hospitality, Mr and Mrs Woods. It’s been nice meeting you,’ she lied.
She shook hands stiffly with them both.
‘Goodbye, lass, I hope your dad finds work soon.’ Donald was relieved that she was going, but his wishes sounded sincere.
‘Goodbye, Julia, dear. Do come again,’ said Violet sweetly, gushing insincerity from every pore. She had drawn out the ‘ah’ on Julia.
‘It’s Julie, Mrs Woods. Just plain Julie.’
‘Quite, dear,’ said Violet.