In the dormitory on a winter's night the door opens, the lights come on, adults come in led by Geoffrey.
I do not know how many are in the party, because we are all mesmerised by Geoffrey's guest - think Raquel Welch in her prime.
We might have guessed that this was a prospective parent; we also knew that she was, objectively speaking, beautiful.
What confirms these judgements is Geoffrey's body language and demeanour, presumably the combined result of lust and pecuniary interest, neither ofwhich we would have understood at the time.
The lady was indeed a famous beauty, formerly the sort-of Grand Marshall of the League of Health and Beauty (very popular fitness programme for women before the war) and now the widow of a gallant aristocrat.
Happily her son soon arrived: he was popular and something of a leader, but he disconcerted us hugely when we found that he preferred to squat with his feet on the lavatory bowl where the rest of us would conventionally sit.
2 comments:
I (Edward (Wug) Lee-Elliott)remember this incident very well - Geoffrey's antenna was well and truly quivering. However, at that time he was still seen as the archetypal bachelor and his later marriage smacked a thousand gobs. I dropped in years later and met the happy couple. I remember looking down from the 15 dormitory on another very attractive mother who offered gaffa a cigarette (he hated them) and he accepted it and proceeded to smoke it in a very stylised way.
30 July 2009 17:42
Hello Wug and everybody - Rupert Butler again.
The lady has died alas, after a very good innings:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8234345/Prunella-Stack.html
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