Chapter 15

The train pulled out of a drizzly Leeds Station at five past ten on the morning of the second Thursday in July. We’d decided that we’d leave for Munich a couple of days early, and just spend a few days as tourists before Cal had to start her summer school and I had to fly to America. The good news was that I started my tour in New York, and therefor the flight would only be half as long as if I were flying to the West coast.

By twelve fifteen the train was pulling into King’s Cross. We only had a small bag each, since our main luggage had been couriered to Munich to await our arrival at the Best Western Atrium hotel.

The next stage of our journey was the most stressful, the trip by Underground from Kings Cross to Waterloo. Fancy that, what other country could come up with the idea of digging a railway tunnel under the sea to its nearest neighbour, then terminate the trains at a station named after its most famous victory over that neighbour.

At Waterloo, we queued up to go through passport control and down onto the Eurostar platforms, where our train to Paris was waiting. We clambered aboard and found our seats in the Business Premier class carriage about ten minutes before the doors closed and we set off on the three and a quarter hour journey to France.

We were travelling Business premier class, which got us some strange looks from the other passengers in our carriage. You know the ‘what the hell are two teenagers doing in our carriage?’ type of looks. We ignored them, just smiling sweetly whenever we saw someone looking at us.

As the Kent countryside passed by, not as fast as it would when the new high-speed line was opened, but still fairly quickly and just as we were entering the tunnel, a waiter came round to ask what we wanted to eat. There was a choice of three hot dishes and two cold ones. Cal chose a chicken Caesar salad and I had lasagne, all of which had been designed by Raymond Blanc, a famous Anglo-French chef.

The food arrived at our table just as the train emerged from the tunnel into the French sunshine.

The food was decent, probably not what you’d get at Blanc’s own restaurant in Oxfordshire, but at least it was edible.

Now we were in France, the train could speed up to its full capability, three hundred kilometres an hour.

We sat and looked at the French countryside flashing past us, pointing out things that interested us, until two and a half hours after we set off, we pulled into Gare du Nord, and disembarked.

The transfer to the next train was simple, leave the Gare du Nord, walk a short way along the street, enter the Gare de L’Est. There we had an hour wait for the next train to Stuttgart, which we spent in a pleasant station bistro, drinking very good coffee.

“It’s going to be difficult staying in touch when we’re so far apart,” Cal said to me between sips.

“Probably worse than last time, since I’ll be all over something like five or six time zones, depending on where I’ll be on each day,” I agreed, “but I want you to promise me that you will ring me every day at ten thirty your time, before you go to bed, and any other time, if you feel the need.”

After a very short change of trains in Stuttgart, we finally arrived in Munich at just after ten pm. It had been a longer journey than flying would have been, but nowhere near as stressful, and we’d been first class all the way.

From the hauptbahnhof, we got a taxi to the hotel.

Where we ran into a problem.

“Yes, sir we have your booking for four nights,” the receptionist said.

“Then what is the problem?” I asked.

“We require a credit card to guarantee the extras,” she said.

“We’re sixteen,” I replied, “we don’t have a credit card, just debit cards.”

“I’m sorry sir, but company policy,” she began.

“Then can we have the duty manager out here, please?” I asked.

“I couldn’t disturb her for something this trivial,” she replied.

“Dann kann man sie vielleicht stören, wenn ich alle meine Kleidung entferne?” Cal answered, as she pulled her pullover off, over her head and dropped it on the floor, then started to unbutton her blouse. <<Then perhaps you can disturb her if I remove all my clothes.>>She had her blouse unfastened, revealing that she wasn’t wearing a bra, before the receptionist, a panicked look on her face picked up the phone and spoke in rapid German.

I put a hand on Cal’s arm to stop her going any further, and less than a minute later another woman walked out of an office at the back of the reception area.

“Was gibts hier?” she asked. <<What’s going on?>>

“Your receptionist is refusing to honour our booking,” I replied, in English, “despite it having been paid in advance.”

“Was meinst das?” she asked the receptionist. <<What’s the meaning of this?>> The receptionist replied in rapid Bavarian dialect and the manager walked behind the counter. She briefly consulted the computer screen, pointed at something on screen, spoke a few words to the receptionist and came back round into the foyer with us.

“My apologies for this misunderstanding, Mr Barker,” she said, “the receptionist is new and didn’t know to check arrangements for payment for extras. There should be no further problems, but as a goodwill gesture, I have credited your account with one night’s stay.”

“Thank you,” I said, having decided to be gracious about it.

“And I’d be pleased if you and your wife would be the hotel’s guests at dinner tonight in the restaurant.”

“Thank you,” I replied, “that will save us the trouble of finding somewhere.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, “and may I say I greatly enjoyed your performance in Star Academy?” she concluded.

“Thank you,” I replied, and we finally registered and headed to our room.

In the lift Cal pulled me to her and kissed me, hard.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“Do I need a reason?” she replied.

“No, but it was just so sudden,” I explained.

“She called me your wife and you didn’t correct her,” she said.

“Well, aren’t you?” I asked, “at least for the next few days.”

“Well, I intend to act that way, yes,” she agreed.

“And what, in your opinion, constitutes acting that way?” I asked.

“Get me to the room and I’ll show you,” she replied.

As soon as the room door closed behind us, clothes started coming off, leaving a trail between the door and the bed.

Over the next hour I rediscovered three facts about my girlfriend. The first was that with very little stimulation she gets very, very wet. The second is that on penetration she is very, very tight. The third was that as she orgasms she gets very, very loud. This third fact must, I’m sure, have become apparent to every other resident of floor four in the hotel, together with a good number of those on floors three and five.

As we lay cuddled afterwards, I asked her what she wanted to do the next day.

“More of that?” she suggested.

“You my darling have a dirty mind,” I told her.

“I didn’t have before I met you,” she replied.

“We were five.

“QED,” she said, with an air of finality.

I got serious.

“Cal,” I said, “how do you see the future?”

“Our future you mean?” she asked.

“Yes, where do you see us when we’re thirty?”

“Mr. and Mrs. David Barker?” she queried.

“If that’s how you see it,” I replied.

“Okay, me, you, a dog, maybe a cat, two kids, a boy and a girl, third one either on the way or just over the horizon. You off to work every morning, me doing freelance work, but mainly just being Mrs. Barker. Taking the kids to school, housework, having dinner ready for my man when he gets home,” she said, “doing what any other couple does.”

“You’ve changed since LA,” I said softly.

“I needed to didn’t I?” she asked, then silenced me with a finger when I started to reply, “No, David, I needed to. I was well on the way to destroying not only us, but myself. I was confusing a girlish fantasy with real life. And I decided that if I had to choose between a career in music and a life with you, then music wasn’t that important.”

I pulled her closer in to me.

“Than why are we here?” I asked.

“David,” she replied, “I still want a career in music, it’s just now, I want to fit the career around you, not you around the career.”

“No,” I said, softly.

“What?”

“No,” you can’t fit your career around me. By all means fit it around us, but not around me.”

She hugged me for that remark, then proceeded to kiss me.

“And now, future Mrs. Barker, it’s late, time for bed.”

“We’re in bed, future husband.”

“So we are. Time for sleep then,” I replied.

“One more first?” she asked.

“You’ll be the death of me,” I protested, but, as usual she got her way.

We spent a very pleasant weekend in Munich, I even let her, on the Saturday night, drag me to the opera. Thanks to the concierge service that came with the corporate Amex card that Dad had provided me with, I managed to get good seats at the Hof und Nationaltheater, for the Bayerische Staatsoper production of Parsifal, starring Placido Domingo, and even I’d heard of him.

The rest of the weekend was walking in one of the many parks and visiting museums. And enjoying some very good Bavarian food. Best of all, because we were sixteen, we were allowed to drink beer, although the first time we tried it, Cal went a little overboard and I had to carry her into the room and put her to bed. On Sunday morning she woke up with the mother of all headaches.

I made her drink water, lots of water, which she hated, but by ten am, she was feeling sufficiently batter that we could take a walk round the Englischer Garten, one of the most beautiful parks in town. We stopped for lunch in a café by the park, where we ate Schnitzel mit Knodeln. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a thin pork slice, coated in breadcrumbs and served with small dumplings, served with Sauerkraut and Bratkartofeln, that’s spiced pickled cabbaged and lightly fried potatoes. It has nothing whatsoever to do with any of the songs from The Sound of Music. And, on Monday, after breakfast, we packed our bags, checked out of the hotel, although I left my luggage in their secure storage room until it was time for me to leave for the airport and my five thirty flight to New York.