Primogeniture (The Firstborn)

16: Taken

It was four weeks since Felix had returned from Paris. Back at Birmingham the negotiations in regard to his teaching and research commitments had not been as easy or as smooth as he had expected and it seemed that his contract would require him to go on teaching for two days a week at least until the Easter recess. He was eager to extricate himself and move on as his current commitments meant travelling back and forth between Birmingham and London in order to fulfil his contractual obligations.

This was an additional complication in his life that he didn’t really need right now. Balancing time for Sarah and Rebecca, his growing responsibilities with Primogeniture and continuing his Birmingham lectures meant little time for himself, or more importantly, time spent with Ellen. Also Cecelia had been demanding of his time, calling around unexpectedly and asking him to have the girls with little or no notice.

He had made the decision to leave his Birmingham rooms and live in his new flat at Regent’s Park, travelling back to Birmingham on his Lecture days. Of course, the work preparing his lectures and dealing with student issues by email meant that his time spent working with Primogeniture so far had been minimal.

Andrew had called him twice and had been very understanding telling him to take his time and get his life in order before anything much was expected of him. However, his generous salary had been paid immediately and in full, leaving Felix wealthier than he had ever dreamed. Also the rent on his flat plus all utility costs was covered by Primogeniture.

It was on a freezing Thursday afternoon in late February. Felix was driving back from Birmingham having just delivered a lecture entitled ‘The social implications of increased longevity.’

This was becoming an increasing focus for Felix and an aspect he insisted his students should fully consider. It was, however, necessary to make this a mainly scientific overview with the philosophic and moral issues underlying the main thrust of his teaching.

Even so it had caused quite a stir among the University establishment who were beginning to think that perhaps it would be a good thing to terminate Felix sooner rather than later. Although this was not part of Felix’s reasoning, he was adamant that if he was committed to lecturing, then he was going to deliver the style of lecture that he wished to deliver and damn the consequences.

On this particular Thursday afternoon he had been somewhat shaken after an unpleasant encounter in the University car park just before setting off on his journey back to London.

Seconds after pressing the key fob to unlock the car, he heard a familiar voice from a few yards away.

“Hi Felix, you’re haven’t been returning my calls.”

“Alison, what on earth are you doing here?”

“To speak to you of course. There’s no other way I can get to speak to you these days.”

“Have you ever thought that there might be a reason for that?”

“Look, I know you are well in bed with Uncle Andrew and his cronies but there are things you need to know. Things we’ve found out.”

“Who are we? No on second thoughts I don’t want to know. I’m just not interested in conspiracy theories any more. These people are willing to invest in me and that’s the end of it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have places to go.” Felix got briskly into his car and without looking back at Alison moved off. Glancing back in the mirror however, he clearly saw Alison under the lamplight, with what he thought might be a glimmer of a smile on her face.

What a very strange and mysterious person she was, Felix thought, as he drove off into the night.

The traffic was moving forward slowly in fits and starts, the glistening white frost and black ice making the going difficult and interminably slow. Most of the snow had melted from the heavy falls of a few weeks prior, but the slushy puddles of filthy half melted and re-frozen snow remained and the air was filled sporadically with half snow, half sleet that eddied around the long line of creeping traffic.