Chapter 34

I chuckled at her words and held her to me, enjoying the feel of my love’s fine firm breasts against me, and ran my hands over her delightful rear end. She now said reprovingly, “Just wait ‘til the others get home, Bob. They will be delighted at the invite. Do you mind if we get them all new dresses for the wedding?”

“Why not? It is only money. I am sure we have more in the bank at present than what’s needed for the contract for the extension and the architect’s fees on top. Oh, hadn’t we better think about furniture for the new rooms?”

“What? Beds and so on?”

“Yes, but a large dining table and set of chairs for the new dining room and baby stuff for the nursery or in the new mothers’ bedrooms. There might be more needed, such as nursing chairs for each mother. I can’t think of what else but there is bound to be more.”

As I was speaking, a light bulb went off in my head, and I came out with a new idea.
“Darling, listen: I saw an advert in the Telegraph about an auction of furnishings to be held at a large house at Ashton, occasioned by the death of the elderly lady owner, disposal at the instruction of her children. I expect that the children are grown up and living far from here, so collecting stuff from the house is a chore, thus they prefer selling the contents and getting the cash.

That may very well mean good quality furniture going cheap; certainly for a lot less than buying new. If the condition is of the right standard, we could well get a good bargain, and at the same time get a reputation for being thrifty and not splashing money around.”

“But Bob, we are not short of money. You, me, the whole family could live on the income from your assets and none of us would have to work to stay solvent.”

“Quite so, but first of all having a job gives you social interactions that are good for your mental health, and secondly a thrifty reputation should stop us being asked to help all and sundry financially. I had to imply to the minister that cash was short, just to prevent him asking for a large donation to the church’s fabric fund. Now, I have no problems with donations to our church, but it must be our conscious decision, and not from pressure to donate. When you get a reputation for being wealthy, charities beat a path to your door in hopes of getting something for their organisation.
Come to think, possibly we shouldn’t spend a load of money at that auction in full view of everyone. We could possibly make an arrangement with a dealer who goes to such auctions and ask him to bid on our behalf, with a list of our requirements and try to get them at the best price he can. Could we offer him a cut of five per cent of the total spend as his fee?”

Sandy took on a pensive look before telling me, “That might encourage him to overspend at the auction, to boost his fee. We could stipulate that each successful bid must be just slightly over his nearest competitor at the auction, and also warn him against doing a deal with his competitors to push the price up. Tell him that you might have a representative there to watch out for underhand dealings like that.”

“Hey, that’s clever of you, Sandy!” I blurted out my praise. “So how do we go about this?”

“Let me speak to a couple of the best known and most trusted dealers, and I can ask them both what prices they expect each item in the sale to go for. Then I ask each of them what fee they would expect to bid for all the ones that interest us, including delivery to our furniture storage firm until we are ready to move back to our extended house. I will insist that they try to get the items for the estimated price, or preferably below estimate. The dealer that impresses me most and offers the best deal is the one we will work with.”

“Neat. You are a genius, my love. And pretty with it.”

“I am not just a pretty face, my darling,” she riposted.

“I know. You are a pretty thing all over; lips, breasts, buttocks, and a great mind, everything that makes up you. You are wonderful everywhere!”

She blushed, and brushed it off saying, “You are just saying that to keep me happy, husband.”

“No, I am saying that because I love you deeply, woman; more than any other woman in my life. You will always be my number one love, Sandy. I knew that the day we bumped into each other. My heart said, ‘This is the one for you, the woman you will grow old with and love forever.’ My heart still says that, despite the other girls in our life.”

Sandy pulled me tight to her and said, “Thank you, my love. I will do my best to fulfill your heart’s promise, but you must also aim for the same promise with Georgie and the others. They deserve the same commitment and love. I want us to be happy in our old age with the girls still with us, our children and grandchildren doing well in their careers. Can we try for that happiness, Bob dear?”

“You have my word on that, Sandy. I will do my damnedest to achieve that end.”

“On that same topic, Carol is doing her best to gain entry to our family, so I think she deserves to be formalised as a wife, if you are happy with her progress.”

I agreed, “Yes, she is coming along beautifully, and I don’t just mean with the sex. She is socialising with as many people as she can, and will even talk with other men provided one of us is nearby as moral support. She comes over as shy, but that is her way of coping with men. She is certainly no longer shy with us and takes on her share of the household chores as far as I can see. Is that what you see?”

“Yes, she is even suggesting meals to attempt, as well as keeping our hair in control. She finally got all of us girls to use the salon where she works. She must have said some harsh words about any failure to satisfy us as clients, as we are being treated like royalty.”

“I wish I could say the same at my barber’s shop. I seem to be treated as just a head of hair to be dealt with.”

“Why don’t I ask Carol if her ladies’ salon could cope with the occasional man needing his hair cut and styled?”

“Won’t that go down badly with the women clients? Reduce the upper-class ambiance that they go for?”

Sandy thought about that for a moment then brightened.

“Not if the salon said that the lady customers had to approve the suggested man before he became a client. That would mean that the salon would put their lady clients in charge of this aspect, and also give them a reputation for only taking on male customers worthy of selection. Imagine men bragging that they were regarded as classy enough to be acceptable at that salon! The salon’s prices for men would perforce be at least double what they would pay at a men’s hairdresser, so the clientele would be even more select, and indeed profitable for the salon.”

Sandy giggled. “I would guess that the men who get their hair done there would have their bills mainly paid by for their wives, mothers or partners, just for the kudos arising socially.”

“You could be right at that,” I agreed. “Snobbery knows no bounds, even today.”

A day or two later I was informed that Janet’s employers had no policy of married women leaving, as some of their own family worked there even after marriage. The other good news was that the hairdressing salon had grabbed Carol’s suggestion with both hands and were already partitioning a section to be devoted to, at most, two men at a time. The ladies area would not be visible to the men, and vice versa. A board was going up to list the names of the proposed males, so that the ladies could say yea or nay to the suggestions.

Carol was also given a welcome bonus as the salon’s thank-you for her idea. She tried to offer the amount to Sandy for the family, but was told that it was her own personal earnings, so she should keep it and spend it as she liked.

I was called into Mr Thomson’s private office one morning. He asked me to make sure the door was firmly closed before asking me, “Can you still use your time machine while you are between houses, Robert?”

“If necessary, sir, but it would have to be important. Why?”

“I was thinking of Georgie, and how badly she was treated by that fellow. Is there any way we can go back in time and persuade him to act decently?”

I almost came out and angrily tell him, “You are talking about my wife and the mother of my child!” but I refrained and more mildly replied, “Why should we do that, sir?”

“Why, to give her a better life than she has had!”

“Sir, one important fact about time travel is that while you can change some events, you can never change the character of people! A cheater is always going to be a cheater. You can stop one event but he will simply do the same thing later, making Georgie’s life as miserable as it was, only she might have been saddled afterwards with a fatherless baby.”

“Oh. So we can’t help her?”

“Sir, she has already been helped. She has found a purpose in life and is enjoying what she is doing.”

“What purpose?”

“Helping others to enjoy life. She is making sure that Sandy and I have a happy marriage with her helpful advice; assisting us with all aspects of our house and the extension; and helping two more girls deal with man trouble. She is happy now, and I would not like to disturb that equilibrium. There is no need to disrupt that at all. Do you think it would benefit Julia now, if you were able to go back in time and save the life of Georgie’s mother? Sometimes it is better to leave the past in the past and make the best of today. Sorry if I sound like an old man, sir, but truisms are always true, no matter who speaks them.”

“Julie ... aah, I see what you mean. I would not want to make life bad for Julie; or for Julie and me. You have a good head on your shoulders, Robert. Sandy is a lucky woman, and Julie ... I have observed enough whispers carefully being kept from me that I suspect Julie may have started on her first child.”

I smiled as I said mildly, “All on her own, sir? Without help?”

Amazingly for a man his age, he blushed and said, “It seems I am not infertile despite my advanced years, if my guess is right.”

“In that case, it is just as well your wedding is coming up shortly. Getting pregnant outside marriage is still frowned on today, I am told.”

“Our baby will be born after our marriage, Robert,” He assured me.

“Yes, sir. Can I congratulate you?”

“You may. I feel somewhat younger that I did a few months ago. You will have this experience later, I hope, Robert.”

“Yes, sir. I am sure of it. Fatherhood is a joy, at least until the children become adults, then it is up to them what happens to them in their future, right?”

“Right. Georgie has learned that unfortunate fact. I could do nothing for her, sad to say.”

“It may be that you still can, even now, if she comes to you for a kind word. A kind word is invaluable at any age. Sandy’s kind word to me was ‘yes’, I remember vividly.”

He chuckled, “Quite so! Julie lifted my spirits when she said ‘yes’ to my important question. Now, off with you, my boy; back to your duties, and thank you for your youthful words of wisdom.”

“Anything to help, sir. Making a woman happy is one of my aims in life. You seem to be doing that with Julie.”

At that, I hurried out before he could interrogate me further. Hopefully, I had prepared some ground for a seed of kindness from him when Georgie revealed her news, and at the same time diverted his attention away from time travel.

A week later Sandy got a call from the storage firm, informing her that a load of furnishings had arrived at their warehouse, and was that all right? She assured them it was what she expected, but to keep that delivery separate from the rest of our stuff, for identification. She then phoned the dealer, who confirmed that everything had gone well at the auction, and most items had gone for below estimate, due to a limited interest in used furnishings in this general locality.
He was compiling the list of purchases and each price paid, including auctioneer’s fee, and finally the charge for delivery to the warehouse. The bill would come to her shortly. She told him the address to send it to, and that she would come in to pay him in cash within a week, if all was satisfactory. He was a happy dealer at that news.

Sandy got us all to make a visit to the storage warehouse to inspect the purchases, and I was very pleased at the quality of the furniture, and the range of it, including the multiple chairs and tables, including a massive oak dining table that could seat a dozen if required. There were beds, bedside tables, several dressing tables, and half a dozen chests of drawers. That house had obviously had held many bedrooms. Curiously, there was also a small range of hanging art works that the dealer had bought for us, and I looked forward to checking their provenance. There were colourful vases of varying sizes and two entire sets of crockery in chests that apparently were sold with only a display of a few items to make the auction simpler, so they cost remarkably little despite both being Japanese eggshell china of considerable antiquity.

The bill, when it came, was much less than I had anticipated having to pay to furnish the extension and the new dining room, so Sandy got the cash from the bank and took it to our dealer to clear our account. He offered to show us more items in his own warehouse that might interest us if we wanted to add to what we had obtained. Sandy indicated an interest, but it would have to wait until we were finally in the new extension and could assess any actual deficiencies in furnishings.

We were of course still at our rental house by the time the Thompson wedding came around, and all the girls had new dresses for the wedding ‘do’, which curiously enough were identical in design except for colour, and they all had identical floral corsages on their dresses. I saw Sandy’s hand in this, making a point that they were all together as a group, with her in control of the family. I was ordered to wear the same suit I had worn at our own wedding, again making the point that I did not need another suit as I was a man and so didn’t need to be arrayed in new togs. We were Sandy’s group, was the visible message if you cared to look at it correctly.

To enhance the point further, we sat as a family unit in one pew at the wedding, on the bridegroom’s side of the church. Julia had a surprising number of relatives on her side, mostly female, so perhaps many were female friends rather than relatives. It all helped to fill out the congregation and the minister was cheered to see so many present for the sacrament. Once a person has been inside a church that familiarity with the building would make them less reticent about coming inside the church in future for a service of any kind.

The ceremony went smoothly with all the essential words spoken clearly and loudly enough to emphasise their commitment to each other. I was pleased to note that positivity, and saw that Sandy and Georgie were similarly of that opinion. Janet and Carol just smiled sweetly throughout the ceremony, as they did not personally know either participant.

When we moved to the hotel for the reception, Julia had arranged that as the closest relatives of the bridegroom, Sandy and Georgie would be first in the line to congratulate the newly-wedded couple.

As we came towards them, Sandy grabbed my arm and pushed me to the head of our little group. Julie and Sandy must have arranged this, for Julie stood beside her new husband and whispered the names of each individual to him as he stood with outstretched hand.

I got there and Julia said to him, “Mr Robert McIntyre”, then “Mrs Alexandra McIntyre” then “Mrs Georgina McIntyre” followed by “Mrs Janet McIntyre” and then “Mrs Carol McIntyre”.

Daddy Thompson’s eyes went blank as he tried to make sense of what Julia was saying to him, and he shook hands with each of us without any comprehension showing on his face. Perhaps he assumed that Janet and Carol were my sisters-in-law.