MISFORTUNE IN THE 1980s
9159 Miles's Seduction 2
Although we had problems with Sarah they were multiplied many times for Miles. As I've explained elsewhere, he was very strong-willed and in effect refused to do his schoolwork.
Coming up to his O levels, we were very worried that he would do badly and wouldn't justify going on to the sixth form. Accordingly, we hired a tutor for him, to push him through the main O levels. This woman, Julie, had been a teacher and we thought she was of good character – that was certainly what our neighbours said – and she was later to become a Conservative party candidate in the local elections. She was also married.
After a while Miles used to spend far more time with her, and her husband, than with us. He used to go around to watch the videos that they had. The crunch came when he went off to Spain with his friend. We received a rather frantic phone call saying that he had to come back because he couldn't be away from someone. This was all very mysterious, but Julie volunteered to go down and pick him up from the airport. Within a matter of weeks Miles decided, by his behaviour as much as by his words, he wanted to leave home -- and I gave him an ultimatum. He chose to go.
My wife was reassured when he went to Julie's. She was thankful that he had someone who could in effect mother him and look after him; since Pat was convinced that we failed in our own duty.
What we didn't know, and wasn’t confirmed until much later though I had my suspicions at the time, was that Julie had seduced Miles some months before. In particular, while we were in New York and Sarah was supposed to be looking after Miles, Julie took him for a week to the Holiday Inn in Swiss Cottage. There they spent the week in bed, again watching videos -- which I suspect was more important to Miles than almost anything else at his young age. On the other hand, for a boy of that age nothing can be more important than having sex. I should point out that at this point Miles was just 15 years old, and Julie was committing a criminal act. I wanted to have her arrested but Pat didn't believe she was doing anything wrong. In any case, setting the police on her would have only made Miles more determined to live with her.
Whatever the reason, Miles was firmly bedded in at Julie’s. Even when Julie's husband left her, Pat still would not believe that Julie was having a sexual relationship with Miles -- and we had many rows as I tried to open her eyes to the facts.
Miles then, to our relief, went to the local technical college to do his A levels. On the other hand, with the financial worries setting in for him and Julie, he did poorly; getting miserable A levels - way below what was needed for university.
Accordingly, seeing himself as the man of the house, he got the job in Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). He was very good at the job and quickly rose to be manager of the branch -- and was well respected by more senior management at KFC.
During this period we only saw him once, when he came down to see Pat in hospital and – typically - to collect our old mini which we had given to him!
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