The Seehofer Chronicles Vol. 01

The kitchen was large and expensively equipped. Sybil loved the Aga range and abundance of copper pans. As a child, she never questioned the comparative opulence of Granny Rebecca's cottage or the lack of a granddad. Only as she grew older, well in the last year or so as she prepared to attend uni, had she questioned her grandmother's wealth, or more precisely, its source.

Her mother had failed to rejoin her enquiries, feigning disinterest, but the lack of answers had only stimulated her curiosity. Was there a rich ancestor with a sordid past, who had passed his money down the family line? In addition, perhaps more aptly in light of her future uni expenses, would any of the money come her way?

Sybil rebuked herself for such self-centred thoughts. She placed the kettle atop the Aga hot plate. She was not selfish by nature and consoled herself that the desire for wealth and security was hardly uncommon. She had always enjoyed a close relationship with her grandmother, despite her mother's blatant irritation at the knowledge.

"It's much quicker to use the electric kettle, Sybil," chided Rebecca when she joined her granddaughter and washed her bleeding finger under the cold tap. She absently swiped away a fly, prompting Sybil to wonder why her gran never used the fly screen across the stable door.

"I know, but this is much classier!" enthused Sybil. Rebecca smiled inwardly noticing her daughter's snobbish influence on her granddaughter. Perhaps that was inevitable after Rebecca had spoilt and worshiped her only daughter.

"Why don't you and mummy speak anymore?" Sybil's question was as blunt as it was unexpected. Rebecca appeared to ignore the question and walked through to the lounge, bathed in sunlight and perceptibly warmer than the kitchen. She donned her glasses, stared long into the mirror, and appraised her image, reflecting that the brash sunlight cruelly exploited her ageing face. At sixty-seven, she supposed she could have looked a lot worse.

Rebecca wore her hair shorter than she had for much of her youth and had it carefully coloured, masking the grey hairs that had once been honey blonde. She liked to think that she still possessed the pretty small features that men had once found so alluring. She ignored the tight flesh that was ever losing its elasticity and adjusted her silk scarf that hid her slender yet contemptuous, in her opinion, neck. She despised her scrawny neck, for it was the one visible facet of her body that truly betrayed her age, an apparent curse of the blonde.

Her eyes moistened when she studied the face of the once youthful Rebecca Seehofer and cursed her mortality. Death did not frighten her but she resented the denigrating effects of time. It was at such moments that she reached for the packet of cigarettes and frustratedly applied the lighter to the stick and inhaled deeply. God, how she missed openly smoking. She had been told by the doctor that even the occasional cigarette was damaging. Fuck the doctor. Growing old was bad enough without some sanctimonious twenty-something lecturing her. Anyway, it was too late for second chances. He was rather good looking though and she could no doubt teach him a thing or two about things of which he had never dreamt. Or perhaps he had...?

"Gran, you okay?" Sybil knew that her grandmother was not, the cigarette an indicator of her troubled mind.

"You know, Sybil, I was quite pretty once," stated Rebecca modestly.

"You still are beautiful, Gran," replied Sybil genuinely.

"Do you know there is an oxymoron somewhere in that statement? 'Beautiful' and 'Gran' don't go together."

"But you are, Gran."

"Sybil, I was never beautiful. Pretty, yes, but not beautiful. Mrs Weaver said it was part of my charm, for beauty is a weapon for intimidation, not seduction." Sybil was taken aback by Rebecca's forthright words spoken so openly and Sybil latched limpet-like onto her grandmother's frankness.

"Who is Mrs Weaver?" asked Sybil, leaning typically in her laid back manner against the doorframe.

"She was my boss," informed Rebecca as she inhaled, delighting in the aromatic fragrance of her cigarette. Sybil was about to comment on the cigarette's injurious properties but checked her words, considering they might deter Rebecca from candid conversation.

"I didn't know you ever worked," stated Sybil. Only the teenage, high rising intonation of her voice, which still irked Rebecca's sensibilities, implied a question. Rebecca cast a scornful look.

"Of course I bloody worked, where do you think the money came from?"

"What did you do?" asked a genuinely intrigued Sybil.

"Have you been talking to your mother about me?" counter-questioned Rebecca.

"No!" answered the youngster honestly, "she rarely mentions you."

Rebecca scoffed derisively. "Yes, I can imagine, never objected to the pony or the pretty dresses though did she?"

"She calls you 'the prozzi' when she's pissed, which is becoming more often...," Sybil almost whispered, alleviating the accusatory nature of the confession. Rebecca emitted a rare warm laugh, which startled Sybil with its abruptness.

"I'm afraid it's something she picked up from me," conceded Rebecca.

"What...? Prostitution?" exclaimed Sybil, her face betraying her distaste.

Rebecca's laughter subsided. "No, the fondness for a drink. That's why my liver is pickled. If you really want to know, I was a civil servant."

"Really? What did you do?" asked Sybil. Rebecca strolled over to her seat by the window and rubbed her arthritic hip as she walked.

"You're going to study journalism, aren't you," stated Rebecca. She sat down heavily in the comfortably worn seat. "If you are really interested," she continued, "bring a recorder and pad the next time you visit and I'll tell you all. There might even be a book in it for you." Sybil was intrigued by her grandmother's rueful, distant smile.

"Are you sure, Gran?" asked Sybil. Rebecca's face softened and the years seem to slip from her features as she smiled.

"You know, I would love you to stay for the weekend. There is something I recognise in you that I never saw in your mother."

"And what's that, Gran?" asked an intrigued Sybil.

"An enquiring mind and a sense of adventure. Oh, and intelligence. You got that from your grandmother." Sybil smiled appreciatively at the comment. She was actually looking forward to spending a weekend at Mount Pleasant.

CHAPTER 2 -- SYBIL TAKES NOTE.

Friday, 13^th July 2012.

Mount Pleasant Cottage.

Sybil arranged her digital recorder on the dining room table at Mount Pleasant cottage and repositioned her notepad and pens. For some inexplicable reason she felt nervous and experienced an onerous sense of responsibility concerning what was potentially her grandmother's memoirs.

Accordingly, she had dressed in a manner that she deemed appropriate. She wore her navy blue suit and white blouse that she had purchased for her uni interview. It was an oppressively hot evening in early July, even the thick walls of the cottage had failed to subdue the stifling heat of the day. She desperately wanted to remove her jacket but did not want to spoil the illusionary representation of the budding young reporter.

Sybil had arrived at Mount Pleasant in the early afternoon. Now at six thirty, the pleasantries were complete and Rebecca had gone upstairs to change prior to what was increasingly becoming a formal interview. Sybil was reminded of the Frost/Nixon 1977 interviews they had studied at school and recalled scenes from the film. All that was missing were the TV cameras.

Rebecca made her big entrance and walked slowly into the room clutching a tumbler full of whisky and a bottle. She had changed into her kimono-style silk dressing gown, which Sybil grudgingly conceded was possibly the coolest garment that her grandmother could have chosen, save for being in the buff. Sybil struggled to find the words to express her grandmother's expression. She looked unusually calm; the often-fierce, accusatory frown was absent, imbuing her face with a youthful vibrancy that belied her years. The word came to her- Branny Becca looked serene.

"All set?" asked Rebecca whilst positioning herself gracefully on the chair opposite Sybil. The youngster nodded earnestly and moved her hand to the recorder to press the record button. She was thwarted by Rebecca's cool hand resting gently on her own.

"A question, Sybil darling," said Rebecca, intently studying Sybil's grave expression. Sybil was chewing her pouting bottom lip and Rebecca smiled approvingly at the familiar family trait. "Are you a virgin?" Sybil flinched at the question and sat upright in the straight back chair, breaking eye contact with the older woman.

"What sort of question is that?" asked Sybil indignantly. Her neck flushed red and the blush rose to encompass her high boned cheeks. For the first time Rebecca noticed her granddaughter had applied make-up and could not help but recall the times when Sybil had visited as a child and played with her make-up. The finished product resembling Coco the clown rather than Coco Chanel. Yet Rebecca grudgingly admitted that her granddaughter now wore the cosmetics well and appeared the young woman she endeavoured to be as opposed to some girl play-acting.

"I'm sorry, I take it you're not, and you're too intelligent and inquisitive to be chaste. It's okay, I won't tell your mother, not that she'll listen to me, anyway"

"I've a boyfriend. Philip," said Sybil quickly, the name of the boy offered as a late addendum to increase the credibility of her assertion. Rebecca nodded sagaciously.

"So you are aware of the opposite sex?" continued Rebecca's line of questioning.

"Of course I am! I'm almost twenty!" Sybil was aware of the rise in pitch of her voice as she answered yet was more concerned with where this line of questioning was heading.

"It's okay, darling. If I thought you weren't ready for this, you wouldn't be here." Rebecca took a large swig of the smooth single malt before speaking. "Shall we begin?"

CHAPTER 3 - THE CHRISTMAS PARTY.

Friday, 13^th December 1968.

The Department for Cultural, Artistic, and Technological Studies.

Becca was, in the words of her friend Sally, "pissed right up." Similarly, she was "pissed right off." She desperately wanted to fuck Daniel Caruthers. The drunker she became, the more intent she became on seducing the man, to the extent that her desire ceased to be sexual but simply one of attaining the unobtainable.

She knew Daniel to be the solid family man, expensive trophy wife, and two kids upon whom he doted. However, that made his seduction even more exquisite. They had sat through countless debriefs when she recounted her exploits with her marks, to which her assignations were mordantly referred, on occasions now too numerous to recall. When sober, she knew the tally very well. They totalled sixteen. All she wanted now was for the luscious Daniel to debrief her, literally.

This was not the official Christmas party, which would be the annual dinner/dance, where they dressed in their finery, enjoying a three-course meal and politely dancing the waltz and foxtrot with cultured stoicism. No, this was the Christmas Friday afternoon party for departmental staff at the department for Cultural, Artistic, and Technological Studies, an opportunity for the staff to party. The notion of 'team building' had yet to be considered a mainstream concept in most work places in 1968. However, the ministry appreciated the reciprocated benefits gleaned from an enthusiastic workforce, grateful for the free work time piss-up.

Simon Parker, the geek from accounts, had brought along his Dansette record player, along with his collection of singles and requisitioned a canteen table to set up his impromptu studio in front of the closed shutters of the canteen-serving hatch. A set of speakers had been jury rigged to the record player, producing a distorted though agreeably loud output of sound. He delighted in performing his impromptu DJ role, passionately enunciating each track of his improvised play-list. He may have been very good, but without a microphone, his avid ramblings were lost on his captive audience. By mid afternoon, he drunkenly swooned to each record as if he was aboard a pirate radio ship in a winter North Sea storm.

Cigarette smoke cast a grey fog across the room. Becca's eyes had achieved a vodka-induced independence; they flitted randomly around the room, unable to remain fixed upon any single point without inducing a wave of motion sickness. Becca's practised drunken brain told her to keep up the visual meanderings and persevere with her almost stationary, heavy-footed dancing. She transferred her weight from plastic boot to plastic boot whilst sensually gyrating her hips inappropriately to the soon to be number one hit "ObLaDi, ObLaDa" by Marmalade.

The staff, to the casual eye, mingled randomly like an example of Brownian motion, yet habitually kept to their own caste. Becca never ceased to be amazed by the abstract memories from school and university that invaded her intelligent though alcohol befuddled mind- 'Brownian Motion', for fuck sake!

The lowest of the low were the girls from the typing pool. They swarmed with predatory intent across the ad hoc dance floor in search of men, the latter alarmingly outnumbered. Mrs Delaney, head of the typing pool, stood alone at the side of the room by the artificial silver Christmas tree keeping a motherly eye on her girls.

The normally staid work wear code had been relaxed for the day and the typists all chose to wear miniskirts. Never had the Ministry canteen seen such a wanton display of nylon clad calf and thigh, not altogether as exciting as the image may suggest, for few of the girls possessed the necessary assets to pull off the look with any style. As secretaries, Becca and Sally were considered a higher caste than the girls from the typing pool and kept an icy, clearly perceptible distance from the "untouchables."

The staff from accounts gathered together for mutual protection, corralled by the notice board. There, Becca finally spotted her quarry, Daniel Caruthers, standing next to the beautiful Mary Weaver. Mary accompanied her boss, Major Tom Dewsbury, the personnel manager. Major Tom, as he was affectionately referred to by all, had spent two days in the freezing water of the English Channel awaiting evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940. Thereafter, he had suffered from an embarrassing stammer, which everyone chose, by good grace and sympathy, to ignore. There were as yet no female heads of department; however, everyone knew to a man who ran the Personnel Department. That someone was Mary Weaver.

Becca jiggled across to the table that had been setup as a bar, hoping to catch the eye of Daniel. She wore a new powder blue shift dress with white nylons and calf length glossy black plastic boots. With her long blonde hair expensively styled to add volume and fashioned to curl around her face and cheeks, she thought she looked like Nancy Sinatra.

Any hope of Daniel spotting her was ruined when the boys from accounts suddenly joined in with the chorus of Scaffold's "Lilly the Pink", inviting drunken smiles all-round. Becca glanced hopefully in the direction of Daniel as she clumsily offered her glass to Smith from Estimating for a refill of vodka and orange. The barman pronounced his name "Smithe", rhyming with hive, and what he actually 'estimated' was anyone's guess. Mary Weaver lightly touched Daniel's arm, the touch was brief but for Becca the contact was blatantly explicit, she may as well have pulled down his trousers and grabbed his cock.

Becca ignored the attentions of Smithe as in hive when he attempted to return her filled glass. She had only eyes for Daniel and Mrs Weaver. She watched intently, oblivious to the sounds of the discordant accompaniment to Cliff Richard as he belted out "Congratulations", seemingly at the request of the typing pool to celebrate a certain Jackie's belated birthday.

Mary Weaver took advantage of the singing to slip unnoticed out through the door into the canteen kitchen, followed by a clearly less poised Daniel, who cast a furtive glance over his shoulder whilst opening the door. Becca waited for an agonised minute. Her rational mind told her to ignore their disappearance and return to Sally, but her drunken, libidinous self told her to follow the object of her desires.

"Do you want this or not?" asked Smith impatiently. Becca blew Smith and exaggerated kiss that induced a tingling of delight in his scrotum and a flight of fancy in his mind. Perhaps she'd be up for a snog and a fumble later, he dreamed without conviction. Everyone knew Becca Seehofer was off limits, no one knew quite why.

She snatched the glass from his hand and downed the drink in one. The generous quadruple measure of vodka with a splash of orange seared her throat as she swallowed. Becca waited impatiently for Smith to turn his besotted attention to another thirsty partygoer before surreptitiously making her way for the kitchen door. The music instantly became muffled after she carefully closed the heavy fire door behind her. It was as if someone had placed their hands over her ears and she was conscious of the tinnitus-like ringing, induced by alcohol and imperfectly amplified music.

She waited and focused her mind on her faculties for aural perception and discerned a whispering and what sounded like gasps coming from the storeroom to her left at the far end of the kitchen. The storeroom door stood agape, the occupiers failing to close it in their apparent haste. Becca crawled with ungainly stealth around the kitchen to her right, crouching to take cover behind the stainless steel workbenches. The kitchen still reeked of boiled cabbage, despite not having been used that day. It was as if the malodorous vegetable had permeated deep within the white walls of the kitchen.

Becca worked her way around the worktops until she drew level with the open door of the storeroom. Here, her wavering head was afforded a clear view along the narrow length of the white tiled room. Down the right hand wall ran wide shelves stocked with provisions. For some reason, she was aware of two large white sacks of milled flour at the far end of the store. Perhaps the bags drew her attention for they offered a fitting backdrop to emphasise the gorgeous, shapely calves of Mary Weaver, encased in black nylon and supported by her black patent leather two-inch heels.

Mary leant against the right hand shelves, unconsciously submitting for Becca's perusal her left profile and was engaged in a passionate clinch with Daniel Caruthers. Becca's stomach flipped as she drank in the image presented before her, far more intoxicating than the quadruple vodka she had just consumed.

The occupants of the store seemed to be engaged in a passionate frisson, they were kissing, they were devouring each other. Mary's brown cashmere sweater had been rolled up and bunched untidily (so un-Mary-like) beneath her chin exposing her pristine white Playtex 18 hour bra. Becca recognised underwear as an ornithologist recognised tits. Daniel's hands groped at Mary's breasts through the material of the undergarment, squeezing until Mary's stifled groans curbed his eagerness before lust reasserted itself and surmounted his self-restraint.

Becca watched with increasing enthralment, goaded by Daniel's passion so wantonly exhibited. He was attempting to unfasten Mary's bra. However, frustrated by his inability to do so, he wrenched the garment up over her opulent boobs to join the redundant sweater. Mary's sumptuous breasts spilt free and momentarily swayed; Becca was granted the full profile of the heavy left tit as it bounced before being gathered up in Daniel's right palm.