Chapter 11: December 1989 Don't quote me!

The run up to Christmas was always a bad time of the year for Pippa. Her birthday was on December the 15th, (and she was at an age where she dreaded that extra year being added) and the 16th of December was the anniversary of her finding her husband in bed with their daughter and his mistress; she had spent the next two Christmases after that trauma in those less than festive venues of Pentonville and Holloway prisons. So it was probably a bad decision for her to accept an invitation to a reunion which was being held on the 15th December (her 38th birthday), for those students who had entered Cambridge University in the same year as her.

The function had been arranged by Professor Seymour Nicholls(who was now vice(!) chancellor at the University of Guildford), in one of the conference rooms at a local hotel near Aldershot; and this fact, and the prospect of meeting up with old friends, was the reason she had accepted. I was none too keen to go to the do; except for the Prof, and a couple of others, I didn't have much time for the academic brigade (the feeling was mutual). Pippa and I had been to several functions with that sort and they used to wind Pippa up by their sneering remarks about trained killers, bits of rough, toy boys and other expressions designed to let her know what they thought of her taking up with the likes of me. Anyway she had decided she would go to this reunion and we drove over to the country hotel where the function was being held

Pippa abandoned me as soon as we got into the room. She had been in a strange mood for the last week or so, and I thought it was probably due to problems at work. It was an uphill job trying to get funds for the charity and Pippa took it as a personal failure if the set targets were not reached. I saw her chatting to Hugo Masters and Carole Peters, two of her closest friends from university, and I wandered over. Although Carole could be a bit of a bitch I generally got on OK with her; while I knew that Hugo was in love with Pippa! She didn't know it, but Hugo knew I knew; however I couldn't fault him in his taste of women and we got on as well as could be expected in the circumstances.

Hugo and Pippa had been away recently on some seminar dealing with Third World debt (he worked for the same charity as her but in the London office). Carole worked for a global pharmaceutical company, and when I joined them they were discussing a scheme for Carole's company to fund the charity. They ignored me, as they were too involved in what they were discussing, so I ambled away.

Another group were banging on about some theory of genetics, which I couldn't make head or tail of. Even the Professor didn't spend much time talking with me,

"I must circulate, my dear boy. Keep my doxy entertained, there's a good fellow, you speak the same language!" and off he went circulating, the snobby old sod.

His latest doxy, a striking red head, had all the attributes that the Prof looked for in his 'doxies'; firm out thrust tits, long legs, short skirts, and wide, fuckable mouths.

Her name was Tanya, and her accent was unalloyed south of the river, from New Cross- the poor cow! She looked as bored as I felt, so naturally we stayed together, talking and drinking; I'm not really a drinking man, oh I like a pint, or three, when out with the boys, but I can't hold strong alcohol so tend to drink beer. Of course at this junket there was nothing as so plebeian as draught bitter; they had bottles of ice cold Mexican lager, which is an affront to an Englishman brought up on warm flat ale.

I didn't want spirits or wines, or sticky liquors, so Tanya and me got stuck into the fruit punch, which went down like mother's milk, so mellow and tasty it was.

What with the drinking and the chatting and being left to our own devices by our 'partners' it wasn't long before we had slipped out of the main room to get 'better acquainted'. We soon had our tongues down each others throat and hands in each others underwear. We were really enjoying ourselves and had moved into a small side room. I had her up against the wall, and was about to move into knee trembler mode, when Tanya suddenly went a sickly shade of green; she pulled her mouth away from my invasive tongue, turned her head and projectile vomited half of the buffet she had consumed, all over the carpet. That put a bit of a damper on any more sexual adventures with her for the evening.

I went in search of a bucket and mop and came across a couple of cleaners. Don't know what country they were from but they spoke a version of Spanish, so I gave them the glad tidings that their expertise was required, and left them, and Tanya, to it. I was feeling a bit light headed, and realised then that punch is called punch because it packs a punch, and that I was pissed as a hand cart! I am not a belligerent drunk, well not often; normally when drunk I find myself a corner and fall asleep; sometimes I giggle and act like a prat, but I'm not usually aggressive.

There was a little kitchen type room off the main function room, and I went in to get a drink of water and bathe my face, and also to keep out of the way. Pippa hadn't seen me drunk before, and this wasn't the time or place to reveal another one of my less than stellar attributes. There was young, rather intense looking, girl in the kitchen, getting some glasses from a cupboard. I don't know who she was with; she was far too young to be one of the reunion students. I said hello and she smiled a greeting.

She was quite sexy in a prim and proper way, and I started to chat her up; how things might have turned out I never found out for just a few minutes into my chat up routine into the room sauntered Peregrine Pride, the most obnoxious member of that university crowd.

Of all the academics gathered at that reunion he was the one I disliked the most, with an intensity bordering on hatred. We had met at several gatherings and had formed an instant and mutual loathing. I was everything he despised; an uneducated, working class, military man with bad grammar and a worse accent. He was everything I detested; an arrogant, supercilious, middle class snob, with radical, almost anarchist leanings.

He had a face that just cried out to be punched; thin lips that were twisted in a permanent sneer; washed out pale eyes that shot looks of contempt at everyone he thought lesser than himself, which meant practically anyone he met; his voice raised my hackles by the over-emphasis of his vowels, he made Brian Sewell sound like a barrow boy. Peregrine Pride( his name tells you all you need to know about the gobshite!) brought out the worst in me, maybe it was the same for him as I couldn't believe he acted or spoke to everyone in the same manner as he did me. He would have had needed a season ticket to the Accident and Emergency department at the local hospital if he did!