“Hello, pumpkin, how are you? You look well.” He almost answered his own question.
A short, pretty, slim woman of about fifty appeared behind him with a blonde ponytail bobbing around on the top of her head. She hugged Steph, who appeared to be a little reluctant to reciprocate.
After releasing herself from her embrace Steph turned to Jon. “Jon, this is my dad and his girlfriend Janice; Dad, Janice, this is Jon.”
They all exchanged pleasantries before Janice shepherded them into the lounge at the front of the house where she began ordering her boyfriend around. “Roger, get Steph and Jon a drink, why don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. What’s your poison?” Roger asked Jon.
“Just a soft drink please, Mr Pryor,” replied Jon.
“Coke? And please call me Roger. Mr Pryor makes me feel very old.” He laughed as he got Jon his drink.
“That’s because you are very old, Daddy.” Steph picked the old, fat, black and white cat up off the sofa.
“And you are very cheeky.” He grinned at his daughter.
“Is Simon joining us still?” she asked bluntly as Janice reappeared.
“I told your dad to stay out of it and to tell Simon to bugger off.”
“I felt sorry for him. He told me that he still loved you and missed you and he never wanted things to end . . .” said Roger as if offering a defence.
“Is that what he said?” Steph shook her head disbelievingly. “I ended things because he had been seeing someone else and I didn’t believe she was the first, but I think she was the first one he got pregnant. That was all in the past and we had both moved on, or so I thought until last week it would seem. So, is he joining us?” asked Steph again.
“No,” said Janice bluntly. “I got your dad to call him and suggest it wasn’t really a good idea.”
“Good.” Steph sat next to Jon who smiled at her reassuringly.
Over lunch,Roger did his best attempt at tactfully extracting information from Jon, but it was obvious to everyone what he was doing. Jon was totally compliant and answered his questions and explained that he had bought shares duringhis time at university. He had left with a degree in business management and had obtained enough shares to have a controlling interest in a very small company. He had proceeded to break up the company, sold off parts of it for profit and still ran his original company, which was technically true, but that company was now a multi-million pound business with contacts in every field, which he omitted to add.
“Where did you two meet?” asked Janice.
“At Lindsay’s wedding, well, her hen night actually. Jon is a friend of Charlie’s,” she explained.
“Isn’t that a bit odd?” asked Roger as Janice glared at him. Taking her prompt to shut down this line of conversation he refilled everyone’s glasses.
Thirteen
Heading back towards Jon’s, he asked, “You and Charlie, you dated I assume?”
“Mmm. We met at work and we went out for a while and we had a laugh, but with hindsight it was never going anywhere really, not long term. Then one night we went out with friends, he met Lindsay, and they got on like a house on fire. The next day he told me how great she was and I suggested that maybe we should stay friends and that he should ask Linds out and he did,” she replied honestly.
“He told me that an ex had introduced him to Lindsay. But it wasn’t serious, you and him?”
“No, not really, not in a buy a house and get married way,” she assured him. “But we were close and remained friends and Charlie has always looked out for me and hated Simon.”
“To the point that he hit him according to Lauren.” It was the first time Jon had referenced the comment Lauren had made on speaker phone the day before.
“Yes. Last year for my birthday, Charlie and Lindsay arranged a bit of a surprise gathering and Simon picked an argument before we went out and then when Charlie and Lindsay came to meet up he refused to come with us. Charliegot really pissed off about it, but Simon still refused to go with us, so Charlie insisted we went without him. Anyway, he turned up at the club where we were and was very drunk and abusive to everyone and after he stood in the middle of the dance floor screaming abuse at me until I was standing there crying, Charlie put him on his arse and had him thrown out,” explained Steph. As something of an oversight she added, “However, it turns out he was already seeing the school secretary and went to shag her before my birthday bash.”
“What the fuck? He sounds like a great guy. Why did you put up with that?” Jon really was bemused that anyone would tolerate that treatment but especially Steph, someone as sweet, beautiful, funny and bright as her.
“He wasn’t always like that, but he was never a real-life Prince Charming and I put up with it because I didn’t realise how shitty things were. It was a gradual thing. And I did begin to wonder if that’s what I deserved. It actually wasn’t until after we split up that I realised how bad things had become.” As she reflected on things, Steph grasped that she was still only just seeing how bad things had gotten between her and Simon.
The car was now entering the underground car park of Jon’s flat. “Let’s go for a drink and the cinema or something. We can walk to the multiplex from here if you fancy it?”
“Yeah, okay, but I don’t do scary films.”
