The Girl at the Spa Ch. 01

So he moved into his re-mortgaged office and got on with it. Through a series of timely projects and hard work he was always able to make look effortless he was back in the money and paying his dues in respect of me.

I went and stayed with him during the school holidays across town much as Mum tried to prevent it by trying hard to get me into play schemes and sports camps, but I loved spending days back with his friends and staff learning about chiropractic and how the body worked, and being so well looked after.

Mum did try to explain the law to me, but there was so much interpretation involved and my pre-teen sensitivities objected to the fact that if you had more money than the other person you could bend the law how it suited you, and so much of it was about one person being crappy to another one.

The human body was much easier and it did what it did, not matter how much money you gave to your doctor. From my first biology lesson at school I knew that I wanted to mend people not help them hate each other.

Mum was now semi-retired, still on the bench as a District Judge and specialising in teaching the theatrical and adversarial aspects of advocacy and court room nastiness at several of the best educational establishments in London, and since she had remarried three times and I was way past my eighteenth birthday, any claim she might have had to his much regrown fortune was extremely small and based on the fact that I was still living with her. Dad did pay support for me and always had mind you, and as his income increased so did my child support. Once I got into Cambridge and opened my own bank account he had just funnelled money into it, and this holiday bonus was no different.

I emailed him back,

"Hey Dad!

Thanks so much for the holiday money, I'd quite forgotten about it! Yes, I'm supposed to be in France in a fortnight, but right now I'm just stopping myself from strangling one of my new step-sisters, so a few weeks of travelling around Europe sounds a brilliant idea right now. She's a real spoilt brat of a Daddy's girl and I just know that life it going to be terrible until I get back to Cambridge."

By accident I hit the send button; Dad was obviously online as his reply was instant.

"Come now, I'll have a car waiting for you at St Ives Railway station, ring me when you get to Plymouth."

I was about to reply that I might just when he sent another,

"I know I don't often say this, but bring sunscreen and swimming trunks!"

That was enough, I was on the first day of my month long summer holiday, and it was going to be MY summer holiday, not Mum's or her new husband's or his bratty spawn, MINE!

I packed my big rucksack I'd been carrying back and forth from Uni' for five years and threw in enough stuff for a week's holiday, and yes swimming shorts and a bottle of Factor 30. I stepped outside of my room and locked it with the key.

There was Fiona, wearing the tiniest bikini imaginable around her skinny pale body.

"Like what you see Richard?" she said trying to make out she was some kind of tease.

I looked her up and down. She had never looked 'healthy' since I'd known her, but with my clinical training I was actually concerned that something was awry with her eating habits. The bottom of her rib cage was clearly visible as was the jutting points of her pelvis.

"No, not really." I put my keys in my pocket, "listen, I'm off to stay with my Dad in Cornwall for a week, so you stay out of trouble ya crazy kids." I grinned and winked, "Ta ta!"

"LEAH!"

"WHAT... NOW?" Came the bad-tempered shout from down the hall.

"It's Richard," she said with an evil malicious smile, "he's staring at me in my bikini... what did you say?"

"I said I'm going to stay with my Dad for a while in Cornwall. See ya," I made to walk past them both.

"Hold on, hold on," said Leah spreading her not insubstantial frame across the passage way, "Going fucking where?"

"Cornwall," I said, "Little pointy bit way out west, last stop before America, you must have heard of it. If you hit the Atlantic you've gone too far. Excuse me," I said and made to walk past her again.

"Just you fucking hold on one fucking minute," said my now foul-mouthed step-sister, "Just who the fucking fuck said you could fucking go to fucking Cornwall?" She too had the 'no fucking way' Kardashian raised hand pretty much down.

"I did," I said, "I'm 23, key to the door, drive a car, vote, get married, everything!"

"Just who the fuck is going to look after us for the next two fucking weeks?" She pursed her lips, folded her arms and looked like a darker, wider, slightly less petulant copy of her skinny, blonde, virtually naked sister next to her.

"Look after?" I said in surprise, "You, as you NEVER stop reminding people you are twenty years of age and pardon me but didn't we spend two weeks trying to find a restaurant that was suitable for Fifi's eighteenth birthday not three weeks ago? That kinda makes her responsible for herself now, don'tcha think?"

Leah snorted and rolled her eyes,

"Yeah right," she said.

"Well Fifi, tonnes of support from your big sis look," Fiona rolled HER eyes this time, "She's your sister Leah, you I suppose?"

"Errrr, I'm fucking STUDYING ACTUALLY?"

"Take a week off," I said with a calmness calculated to annoy, "all work and no play, bad for the soul."

"Unlike SOME PEOPLE AROUND HERE," she warbled in a sing song voice, "I'm studying at a good university."

"A good university?" I gripped my chin with thumb and forefinger, "And there's me just studying at silly ol' Cambridge... with a Tripos pass... Wish I was as clever as you... down at..." I paused, again just enough to annoy, "Sorry, what was the red brick you go to again?"

"Fucking Oxbridge," hissed Leah rolling her eyes and trying to chuckle as much as the green eyed monster would allow, "Still locked in the Victorian era..."

"Yeah, a terrible old Victorian University that half of the civilised world wants to go to... and you couldn't get a place there could you." It was a statement not a question as Mum had told me she desperately wanted to study Classics at Trinity but had failed her Latin A level.

"Yes... yes, well that doesn't alter the fact that I need to spend every moment reading and writing notes, SOME OF US CAN'T GO SWANNING OFF when we feel like it." She hefted her weight onto her other leg in angry parenthesis.

"Of course you can Leah, you're only a second year with a three month summer break and a whole year before you need to put in your dissertation, whereas I have a month, four straight weeks before I have to be back at Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust, and you know what? I'm not spending a fucking second of my four weeks babysitting two fucking grown-ups," I smiled, "Anyway, you work too hard." I smiled and pushed past them both, dragging my rucksack between them.

"Owwwaaaah!" howled Fiona.

I was done playing,

"Get out of the fucking way then." I said under my breath with a long held snarl.

"You swore at me!" exclaimed Fiona.

"Yeah, just like Leah did, or is that a special girlie F-word that doesn't count." I started my descent of the stairs hoping to fuck I had everything I needed.

"And precisely WHO the fuck is going to fucking cook for us?" snarled Leah.

"I figured that two borderline geniuses like you could knock up the odd Lobster Thermidor or moules marinere between you?"

"We don't know how to cook!" They both exclaimed in disgust as if the mere concept was below them.

"Do what I did when I reached eighteen and grew up," I shouted, "fucking learn!" I trotted down the stairs with a grin on my face, "there's a load of microwave dinners in the freezer, you heard what my Mum said this morning."

"Errr... I'm a VEGAN actually!?" said Leah.

"And if you listened for more than the first two sentences this morning, you would have heard when she said the Vegan meals all have a 'V' written on the packaging - remember?"

Leah raised her arms and her bosom and turned her head away from the increasingly inconvenient truth.

"Yes well... well, I'm GLUTEN FREE!" barked Fiona.

"No you aren't!" I said, "you put a mountain of crap away at the wedding reception and your birthday party, and since you've lived here, good try Fifi."

"But... but..." The ugly sisters took it turns to try and interrupt me, but my mind was set.

"Ladies, I'm going to miss my train; there's an excellent chippy around the corner," I said, "and the Indian at the bottom of the road is quite splendid, don't have the rice dishes until after seven in the evening. It means they've used up all the rice they cooked for lunchtime, safer that way. Trust me," I smiled, "I'm nearly a doctor."

"FUCKING... FUCKING..." said Leah.

"Not much of a student are you?" I said looking up the stairs at her in disbelief, "Can't cook food, can't work a washing machine? Mind you I suppose with your level of genius you are up at the high table explaining 'She walks in Beauty' or The space alien reference in 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' to the senior fellows all evening while you're in halls." I took my Gor-tex jacket from its hook by the door, this was Port George I was going to after all, "Until later ladies." I said and shut the door behind me.

As I stepped down to the pavement I looked up to the open first floor window and heard, "FUCK... FUCKING... FUCK..." getting fainter and fainter as I headed for the underground station thence to Paddington and the West of England. The last thing I heard was "What fucking alien?!", some running feet and I figured that would keep her going until I got back.

I giggled as I walked down the stairs to the tube station. There wasn't an alien reference of course but I'd re-read Douglas Adams 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' a few weeks before and couldn't resist.

I had a quite passable brunch from the buffet, and was just getting to the end of the next chapter in my Audio book as the train reached Plymouth and I rang my Dad. He said that I was to look out for a black Land Rover Discovery when I finally got to St Ives.

After I'd finished chatting with Dad, I found I had an answerphone message from Mum,

"Richard Darling, Leah tells me that you've abandoned those poor girls in London, what's going on Darling honestly! Ring me back at once." the disappointment in her voice was calculated but I was long past being taken in by it, my Mum was lovely but a classic drama queen when necessary.

I sipped some more of tea and nodded off.

At Truro I was woken from my dreamless sleep by another phone call and it was Mum again.

"Richard, why didn't you ring me back?"

"Because I'm on the train!"

"You will turn round and go back home NOW!" she snapped like I was a ten year old.

"I'm in Truro," I said looking out of the window at the station sign.

"WHERE?"

"Truro Mum," I said.

"It's your damned father again isn't it?" She snarled, "KNEW he would get involved, KNEW he'd have to spoil things, KNEW that HE couldn't let me be happy..."

"Mum!" I snapped, "It's nothing to do with Dad and all to the do with those fucking girls I've inherited as step-sisters, and you and lover boy have dumped on me!" I shouted but stopped once I realised that the others in my half empty carriage were watching. "Mum, Dave is a nice bloke but YOU married him, his daughters and none of my concern and I am not spending two of my four weeks off baby-sitting a spoilt nasty rich bitch and her stuck up sister who, as she keeps reminding me, is only 23 months younger than me but SOOOOOO much more mature, grown up and responsible!" I took a breath, "I asked Dad if I could come and stay with him; me, not him." I calmed, "You have a great holiday Mum, the ugly sisters are both over eighteen and can take care of themselves."

I heard a giggle from Mum.

"But..." It was obvious that the phone was snatched from her hand.

"Hi mate," it was Dave, "look Richard, I was kinda hoping you would be keeping an eye on the girls for me." It was my turn for the parental and admonishing tone evidently.

"Why? Can't they look after themselves?" I said.

"Well, you see..." the line went quiet.

"Leah is almost twenty one as she hasn't stopped reminding me and we've just celebrated Fiona's eighteenth birthday."

"Richard," he oiled, "we all have to work to..."

"You don't need to have that conversation with ME Dave," I said, "Ring Fiona and ask her about how she's changing to meet me halfway, yes?" The phone at his end went silent yet again, "Because, other than graciously allowing me to keep the room I've lived in for eighteen years, so far the changing has all been in my direction. Once you've spoken to Fiona and told her to stop bitching at everything I have, say or do, and to not treat me like her personal servant, then tell Leah I'm not her chef then you can ring me and we can have this conversation again, can't we... mate..." I was bored and looked out as the platform of Truro Station outside, "You and Mum keep telling me that we are step-siblings, all I see is a me spending half of my precious holiday as a live-in cook and bottle washer for two girls that never seem to have lifted a finger other than to call room service... hang on," I said, "just going through a tunn..."

I disconnected the call, switched off my phone, sipped some of my tea and closed my eyes.

"St Ives mate," the guard gave me a shake and I came around.

"Oh thanks, very kind of you." I stood and grabbed my bag, stepping towards the door. In these days of less trains doing more work, you rarely have time to stretch and collect your thoughts or possessions as the bloody train pulls out again.

I stepped down to St Ives Station, and headed for the exit. The sun was shining brightly and it boded well. I stuffed my Gortex jacket through two loose straps on my rucksack and it stayed there for a month.

There, as promised, was a large black Discovery with blacked out windows and I walked across to it. I'd been collected in one of these before and Dad had a selection of them for his more camera shy clients. Or at least that was what people were supposed to think. No one in their right mind would ride the train to St Ives THEN sneak into a blacked out car; OK he did sometimes have clients collected from airports, or have staff drive to London but that was pretty much it, they were mostly for effect.

I walked across to his latest, it's registration number SPA AL1.

The electric passenger window wound down.

"You must be Ralph's son," said the sweetest accented feminine but deep, well-educated voice with a hint of West Country. I got closer to the car and looked in. The female driver had a visage to match her sweet voice. "I'm Alice," she purred, her dark brown eyes staring out from a beautiful face made up to perfection. She was wearing a cropped black vest, tailored to her fantastic figure and I could see smooth tanned skin and the suggestion of a cleavage under the strap of the seat belt, "chuck your bag in the back Richie," she said.

Only my Dad ever called me Richie, but I swore that this girl could call me Richie as often as she liked!

I did so.

I climbed into the front seat and looked across at the girl, spellbound. She was wearing a black dress slashed to her knee in the same material as her vest top. She was very curvaceous and watched me looking at her. She giggled and held out a hand,

"Hi Richie!" she said.

"Hi Alice," I said and we shook.

"Good journey?" She said as she pulled out of the car park and into the stream of traffic

"Yes," I said, "thanks to Great Western buffet lunch and a Stephen King Audio book." I waggled my phone.

"Oh I love Stephen King! Which one?" she turned that wonderful smile on me again.

"The Stand," I said.

"Fantastic! I love that story!" Again, that wonderful smile and I could only smile back, but thinking quickly I took the chance and turned my phone back on and pulled the earphones free and pressed play and the narrator spoke about the hero escaping and Mother Abigail playing her guitar. Alice tilted her head to one side to be closer to mine and I smelled her perfume. "I'd love to listen to that all the way through," she said, "how far have you got?"

"About a third of the way," I said with a hint of disappointment.

"Oh, well I'm sure I know enough of the story to catch up to where you are."

"Yes," I said, "Hang on..." I pressed the buttons on the expensive car stereo and suddenly Grover Gardner was blue-toothing his way across the 8 beautifully balanced speakers and it was like he was in the car with us.

"At twenty two minutes of nine by the clock over the sheriff's office doorway, the lights went off. Nick Andros had been reading a paperback he had taken from the rack in the drugstore..."

"Wow," said Alice, "I like that. I've only ever read it before, having someone read it to you is quite spooky!"

We listened some more and the Discovery ate the miles on the flat and on the hills in the way that Discovery's have with them.

By the time I saw the sign for Dad's Large Spa and Practice, Larry and Nadine were escaping Manhattan, and we had to turn it off and leave them to it.

"I'd like to listen to more of that," said Alice, "Is it on Disc or a download?"

"Audible," I said.

"Perhaps you might lend it to me," she turned a most ravishing smile on me, "Or perhaps you could bring it to my room and we could listen together?"

"I... err... I'm sure that could be arranged!" I stuttered.

"I'll look forward to it," she said with a smile.

In seconds, the electronic gates were swinging open and she was parking the Disco in one of the staff parking spaces at the front of The Spa next to another Black Disco and a large black Jaguar, and I got my bag from the back seat.

Alice opened the main door with a swipe card and showed me in; she walked into the reception clipping the car keys into a metal cabinet with lots of others in a small back office. She tapped a computer screen and it came to life. I had never met Alice before, and I guessed she was one of the numerous staff that Dad employed here.

Whatever was going on she was fucking gorgeous, and everything she did, including walking and talking, just seemed to drip sensuality. She finished with the computer and looked across at me, still bent at the waist, her perfect hourglass figure outlined by the tailored clothing and the daylight from the windows behind her.

"Come through to the garden," she said in her wonderful deep tones with just a hint of West Country to her voice, "Meghan and your Dad should be there."

"Where is everyone else?" I said looking around for the dozens of people that were normally walking around.

"Your Dad has sent everyone home for the month, on full pay I might add," she said with a grin, "he's lovely like that. Only he likes to have August to himself, always has done. He loves this place and always likes it to himself if and when he can." She grinned. "Watch out, sometimes both him and Meghan go all naturist and just stop wearing clothes. Meghan will warn you though, she's got a very nice body, mind you."

I looked around and it was almost as I remembered it, white marble floors, the sounds of running water, green plants and the occasional statue; the lack of people was strange - like coming to Shangri-La only to find that all the immortals had gone out for the day.

The fountain poured, the wind-chimes chimed and more than anything the sun shone. This was going to be a nice summer, something Port George had never been before in my memory.

I'd come to The Spa fairly often in my growing up and it had always been cold and/or raining, and I had met Meghan quite a few times, she was very nice, attractive and gentle in everything. I'd missed their wedding as Mum 'couldn't remember when it was' and couldn't manage to get me, just started at my secondary school, all the way to Cornwall 'on her own'.