Chapter 2

Reg’s phone – or rather Frances’ to be exact – still sitting on the table where he left it, started ringing. Erika picked it up and answered, “Mrs. Robertson’s phone. Can I help you?”

She listened to the person calling, then said, “Mr Robertson is not available to speak to at present. I can put you through to Frances Robertson, who may be able to answer your query. Please hold on.” She covered the microphone and carried it through to the kitchen, where she knew Frances was sitting at the table with a coffee.

“Frances? A call for Reg. He’s indisposed, so I said you would deal with it.” Her face and eyes said ‘Please do!’ Frances took the phone and answered, “Frances Robertson. How can I help you?”

She listened, then said, “Really? And who are you, exactly?”

She got that answer – Fiona Prentiss – then declared, “Such a decision would require input from all of us, not just Reg. Give me your number, and a professor I can speak to as a reference, and we’ll get back to you ... Hmm ... got that ... uhuh ... that’s a number at the university? Yeah ... Oh, him. Fine. Thanks.”

She concluded the call and closed the phone.

She turned to Erika, who asked, “Was that what I thought it was?”

Frances nodded, her face serious. “A PhD student in sociology, wanting to do a study of us as a new group marriage. Claims we are the first example in the UK of a non-religious based genuine polygamous family that she knows of. She wants to discover what makes us tick, how we manage to stay together and how we interact. She claims she will simply call us ‘Group A’ and keep our identities hidden, for the purposes of her thesis. Not that we hide ourselves, anyway!”

Erika pursed her lips. “If Reg and the others are willing, we need to stipulate that she does not mention our facial characteristics, as that would pin us down as well. She mustn’t even give the general location of our home; just say ‘somewhere in England’, and leave it at that.”

Frances agreed. “I think you are right on all points, Erika. This might be worth discussing among us today, as it will take Reg’s mind off his father’s death.”

“I’ll get Prudence and Freda. We need a girl consensus before we bring in Reg. If anyone’s not happy, we don’t do it, right?”

“Right.” Frances was in tune with her.

Erika returned with Freda, and went to fetch Prudence. She met Prudence in the hallway near the stairs. Prudence was looking concerned. “I’ve just seen Reg in the bedroom, lying on his back and staring straight up at the ceiling, with no emotion except a tenseness to his entire body I could almost feel. I’ve never seen him like that before.”

“He has a problem to think about; nothing to do with us. We have another question to resolve, in the meantime. Kitchen, Prudence,” she instructed.

When they were all settled round the kitchen table, Frances related the phone call’s content. “I need to speak to her professor, to confirm her story, but on the face of it, the proposal is genuine research. The question we face is, do we want to be the guinea pigs in this research – anonymously, of course?”

Freda commented, “I don’t think we fit into any category that she might have in her planning brief. We are unique in so many ways, but if it amuses her to study us, then why not?”

Prudence queried, “How often will she need to visit us, to collect her data? I presume we do not approve of CCTV cameras around the house?”

“God, no!” Frances shuddered at the horrifying thought. “Our house is private, so I agree: no cameras. If she wants to hang around and observe us, I have no problem with that. She just has to fit in with whatever we are doing; be the fly on the wall.”

Erika had a thought. “What about when Carol and Holly are here? Is there going to be a problem?”

“Why should there be?” Prudence queried. “The twins are simply staff, beginning their work. Oh, do you mean, can she discuss the family with the twins? I think not, for the first while, so we can see how the twins interact with us, and with the researcher. There may be a clash of personalities, or something.”

“I see what you mean,” said Frances. “This is a point we can develop later; but ban interviewing the twins initially, I fully agree.”

Prudence came up with another questionable matter. “What if the researcher is disagreeable to us? Can we complain later, or do we only have the opportunity at the start?”

Frances told her, “Obviously we can only answer that question at the time, so leave it for now.”

“Yah-boo, spoilsport. I wanted to be able to complain about the researcher, just for the hell of it!”

At the ensuing burst of laughter, Reg unexpectedly appeared at the door of the kitchen.

“What’s going on, girls? Am I missing something, or is it a private discussion I should stay away from?”

Frances retorted, “Yes, Reg. This is a girls chat, so keep out of it.” She stopped and reconsider. “No, come to think of it, you might as well have a say. Sit down, Reg.”

He looked disturbed at being ordered around, but did as he was instructed. Once he was seated, she told him of the PhD student who wanted to study the family, and about how his girls felt about it.

“The consensus of us girls is that we should agree, but with provisos to protect us. Now we need to see what you think. Will you go along with us, or raise objections?”

“I am not too sure. If all of you are happy to be involved with it, I expect I should agree as well. Did you insist on a first read through of the thesis before submission?”

“Well, no.”

“Did you demand the right to insert corrections where you feel the facts are wrongly stated?”

“Well, no.”

“Did you demand to have copyright of any recordings taken of our discussions in the house?”

“Well, no.”

“Then I refuse my consent UNLESS these are incorporated in any agreement.”

The relief on their faces as he concluded was soon replaced by annoyance; that he had put them through this torture before finally agreeing.

“Okay, okay!” He admitted at the sight of his wives’ faces. “I am stopping at that. Make your deal with that student, along with these additional conditions. I am serious about them. I’ll stay out of the way while you dicker.”

Frances told him, “Darling, you can’t stay out of the way all the time. The researcher will have to visit us at intervals to interview us, presumably.”

“Oh, damn, yes. You are right. I have had too much on my mind today, to think things through. I should get some sleep, to help me recover.”

“Reg, love, you don’t get to sleep tonight until you have made love to me, and possibly to some of the others, depending on who needs you. I want to spend the night with you as well. I could do with the cuddling.”

“Very well, I am happy with that. Another thing: I have to phone my mother, to ask about my father’s death.”

“Of course, dear. You will do that tomorrow, if your mother is compos mentis enough. She still has flu, remember.”

“Oh, yes. There is that. I suppose we must allow her to recover. Okay, you can phone to your folk’s house in the morning, to see if my mum is up to answering questions.”

Frances looked at his face, concerned. “Are you over the flu yourself, Reg? You don’t sound your usual self.”

“I think I am. I am just a bit headachy. I’ll take a paracetamol, if we have a packet in the medicine cupboard.”

“We have. I made sure we have all the standard medications. Two tablets maximum for today. Note that; I don’t want you getting an overdose. You are usually so healthy that I haven’t had to dose you for anything yet.”

She rushed to find the packet, then handed him a tablet and a small sip of water to wash it down. After gulping it, Reg continued,

“Thanks, love. I know I should exercise, apart from making love to you girls. I always tried to keep myself fit, in the past. Being on your own makes that easy to do. It is different now!”

Frances grinned at his recognition of their new status as married people. “Well, perhaps we should all go out running in the local park on a regular basis. We all need to keep fit, instead of sitting studying all the time.”

“I know. Most of my spare time in my teenage years was spent reading, so keeping fit was an important corollary to that. The one HAD to be connected to the other, or I would have been a fat boy. Most of our family meals were junk food level – pies, fish and chips, bangers and mash; that sort of thing. Salads were not our thing at all. Vegetables in our house were the cheapest ones in the market – turnip, carrots, peas. It was only through reading that I learned about artichokes, and Jerusalem artichokes; asparagus, broccoli, radish, spinach, parsnips and celeriac. There were a lot of tastes and textures that I only met after starting university. The refectory menus taught me a lot, while not intended to do so.”

“Did you not do athletics at school?”, asked Frances/ Reg grunted a few words before replying with his school tale. “This is interesting. I find I can open up to you or the other girls, Frances; I couldn’t before. You girls are part of me, now, so there is no point in not talking about my earlier life. It is your life as well, since we are married; something else to share; I like sharing, now that I can.”

She leaned forward to kiss him. “Lovely thought. Go on, Reg. Tell me about school.”

He expounded, “School to me was always a learning opportunity, not a place to make friends, for I was not brought up with the idea of being friends with other people. My parents viewed the idea of school friends as another unwanted intrusion in their life. I viewed sports in much the same way: it was a question of what the exercise could do for me, rather than being involved with other pupils. It was just essential exercise that my body enjoyed. Primary school did nothing much in that line, apart from basic standing exercises with the most energetic being ‘running on the spot’, probably because it was easy on the teachers to arrange exercise in that way.

Secondary school was focussed on team sports, which were not my bag. Instead, I could either do running, or learn the javelin, discus, or high jump. I preferred the running, as I could do some of it by myself on the streets, particularly on the long summer evenings. I was never asked to join a relay team, probably because I was noted as not a team player, unable to see things from a team point of view. I do now, of course: we are a team, now that we are married. I see the benefits for our team.

It was not like that in school. Being a solo runner suited me, for it fed in to reinforce my sense of being on my own. I was comfortable with being a loner, as it fitted with my family status as a single and unwanted child.”

“You poor boy!” exclaimed Frances.

Reg held up a hand to stop her. “Frances, remember, I did not feel things that way. I had nothing to compare it with, so I simply accepted that this was how life was lived. The idea of something different was not in my outlook. Society was something that appeared in books, but not in my home life. Many things I read about in books were to me another world. Books told me things that people around me didn’t seem to know; and possibly didn’t want to know. At times, it was incorrect facts I was offered in school textbooks. It took me a while to twig that not everything in books was accurate, and that I should explore the subject further.

I was told that the first submarine was built in America by David Bushnell in 1775. It was called The Turtle and was a one-man vessel. I found through my more extensive reading that while it might be the first military submarine, it wasn’t the first navigable submarine. That was built by the Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel, in London in 1620. He demonstrated it on and under the river Thames, and his newest version could carry sixteen people. He was supposed to have used a chemical process to make oxygen for the occupants to breathe, based on Michael Sendivogius’s discovery of oxygen (170 years before Joseph Priestley, who is officially credited with that discovery).

You would have thought that the Royal Navy would have seen this as a great idea to improve its capability, but no. Drebbel was an alchemist as well as an inventor, so this invention was seen as suspect: ‘tainted by the devil’, as some detractors put it, and the Royal Navy let it drop. Being first with a practical idea does not always make it a success, and being a chemist in an age of alchemy let one fall foul of mystic beliefs. It took Robert Boyle in 1661 to lay out the modern science of chemistry.”

Frances had listened to this with her mouth open. Finally she asked a question.

“Reg? Who was Michael Sendivogius? I have never heard of him.”

“Not surprising, since he was an alchemist at the Polish court around 1600. He was the first to state that air contains a life-giving substance (which was later named oxygen). He produced the same gas by heating saltpetre; clever man. Today he would be called a chemist, but back then he was officially an alchemist.”

Frances said, “I thought alchemists were evil men, searching for ways to turn base metal into gold, or seeking favour at court, like John Dee.”

Reg gave a brief laugh, and responded, “Some of them may have been as you say, but most were what you might call proto-chemists; chemists before there was any such title. Dee had a foot in both camps; how he reconciled them I don’t know. He was more alchemist than chemist, I am sure, using his tricks primarily to further his position at court.

Many alchemists were rigorously dedicated to their art and were, sort of, early scientists. You know how the science faculty is that of ‘Natural Philosophy”? The original basis for science was the philosophy of nature: that if you understand nature, you will understand how the world works. The principle still exists today, justifiably so.”

Frances queried, “Did we not get this at the start of our course, Reg?”

“I doubt it, my darling. It is taken that you already know this. There is an assumption by universities that you have already reached a certain standard in secondary school, through passing the requisite exams. Unfortunately, not every school covers everything you should know. Many schools concentrate primarily on passing the exams, so that information not essential for these exams can get bypassed. The formal education system measures your overall progress by the ability to pass exams, rather than your general ability to study and learn things. If you get flustered by the conditions in an exam room, that can affect how well you score in the exams.

Even worse, if you suffer from dyslexia, even if only a little, your results will be reduced on account of that. Examiners are not usually able to take into account genetic disabilities such as dyslexia. My grandfather was a nice guy, and he told me he had dyslexia, but it wasn’t recognised at school, and the teachers assumed he was retarded.”

“My God!” exclaimed Frances. “That was unfair.”

“Unfortunate rather than unfair, Frances. Failure to recognise a mental ailment is not grounds for complaint against the teachers. He was innately clever, but school did not let him get the certificate passes he needed for further education. The careers adviser recommended becoming a chef, as being suited to his lack of academic certificates, so he tried that. He obtained a regular job, got tuition and qualified as a chef. He found that easy, except for reading the textbooks and some recipes.”

“So he settled for that, did he?”

“Did he hell! Not for long at all. He hated the hours of work, mostly the evenings and weekends, when his pals were out socialising. His father worked in local government, in a nine to five job, so he asked his Dad about a job in local government. They looked at vacancies, but without good certificate results, choices were limited. He applied for a storeman’s job in the council Supplies Department. He did well at that, and was noticed as a reliable hard worker, so when a vacancy arose in the office of the department, they encouraged him to apply, and he got it. That meant he had to use a computer, so he went to a night class to learn about computers.”

Frances was impressed. “Good for him. That was a step up, and all based on proving himself.”

Reg smiled happily. “It didn’t stop there, Frances. The department head suggested he study for a qualification as a Purchasing Officer. Full-time study was not an option for him, for financial reasons, but he could study part-time, with day release from his work authorised by a sympathetic boss. It took him eight years of hard studying, but he completed the course and passed the final exams. That made him a qualified Purchasing Officer, with a decent salary at last. He enjoyed his work, and his family were happy, as he was by now married with two children.”

“Wow! That was a real achievement for a guy with dyslexia.”

“It was. His wife was very proud of him, and particularly so were his parents who knew how much effort he had put in.”

They were interrupted by Frances’ phone ringing again. It was the PhD student, asking if there was any result from her family consultations.

“Sorry to be pushing you, Mrs Robertson, but I have to put in my thesis proposal shortly, so I need to do some initial work on it, to get it bashed into shape. Have you reached a decision?”

Frances explained that while in principle they were willing, there were a few extra conditions that would be needed before they could accept being the guinea pigs for her research. She explained the terms that Reg had asked for, without saying who wanted them.

The student thought about them for all of two minutes before saying, “That is not unreasonable, Mrs Robertson. I can go along with these conditions.”

“Okay then. You can prepare your thesis proposal. We’ll give you what assistance we can with it, if you want our input.”

“Thanks. Can I come and visit for a short time?”

“How about lunchtime at the university?”

“I’d prefer to meet you in your natural habitat – that is, at home, where there will be no distractions. I need to ask some basic questions, including some very delicate ones, which may require some privacy.”

“Very well, but it must be by appointment. We have a security system at the building, so we have to let you in. Have your ID card ready to show to the door camera, please.”