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“Register him now!” I exclaimed over breakfast.
As Saturday progressed, we kept batting back and forth issues regarding Joshua’s schooling. I had conceded before he was even born that private education was a requirement due to the security aspect. Many of the most expensive independent schools catered for the children of the rich and famous.
The world of private schools was an anathema to me. Like many state-educated children, I’d sneered at the wealthy kids who went to the posh schools. I’d subsequently re-evaluated my opinion. Jason and his siblings had been privately educated, which must have been expensive for his parents, and they weren’t snobs. In fact, I’d found them to be grounded in everyday life with the exception of Jason, whose wealth kept him distant from many normal activities.
Over lunch, I accepted an urban school was sensible though unfortunate from my perspective. I wished Joshua could enjoy the country air, but it wasn’t practical. The next topic of conversation emerged in the evening with us ensconced in the sitting room after Jason had come down from putting Joshua to bed. A bright summer evening and Blythewood House bathed in pleasant sunlight. I felt cosy and assumed Jason would be in a good mood, too.
Sat alongside him, at his request, I updated him on my research. “I’ve been surfing the internet and there are a number of private schools near to our house in London. I discounted the boy-only ones—”
“Why?” he countered.
“Because I don’t want him going
to a single-sex school,” I asserted. When it came to Joshua, Jason and I were equals, and decisions had to be agreed together.
“What’s wrong with going to a single-sex school?” The terse edge to his tone remained, acting as a warning signal. I’d been resting a hand on his thigh, and I removed it, clasping my hands together. I was determined to hold my ground.
“He’ll spend his evenings chasing girls,” I parried.
“Going co-ed didn’t stop the boys chasing after you.” He crossed his legs, as if in response to my withdrawal.
I wrung my fingers into a tight knot and suppressed a scowl. “No. But I learnt how to handle them. I knew they were sex-obsessed adolescents and, contrary to what my mum may have believed, I held off sex for a bloody long time given their predatory nature.”
“All the more reason to keep him apart from the fairer sex, don’t you think?”
“What, and have him sneak off to find them after school? It will be a compulsion.”
“Will it? I didn’t follow the girls around. I wasn’t one of your lurkers.”
“So it was only me? Nothing to do with the boys. I’m responsible for their behaviour?” I huffed at the implication I led the boys on. “You were a saint then? Can’t believe that. You got your sexual appetite from somewhere. Being starved of female company for all your school years couldn’t have been healthy.”
“Make up your bloody mind. You want kids to be aware of their sexuality and respect each other, but you’ve just accused your schoolmates of stalking you all the time and you obviously think I didn’t respect girls in my youth. You went to the co-ed school, not me.”
We glared at each other, at an impasse. I took a deep breath—time to find a compromise.
“Look, I think the message about equality in schools is important, and it’s not about sex, really. It is about respect and mutual understanding. I want him to appreciate women, girls, and the best start is to be with them. Study, play, and talk with them and not hang about in the evenings hoping for a kiss. Anyway prepubescent girls and boys don’t always want to play together. We’re probably arguing about something that is a long way down the line.”
Jason, to give him credit, listened to my last argument and nodded in agreement.
“Okay. Let’s choose his first school based on educational criteria. The best facilities, teachers, and suitable location. We will base the choice on these criteria and these only. Whether the school is single or mixed sex, we both abide by the choice. All right?” He squeezed one of my thighs.
I rocked my head from side to side and agreed, if only because I hated arguing and had a headache. He went to fetch a bottle of wine, which I suspected was his way of implying he needed to unwind from our unusually heated debate.
Staring at my half-empty wine glass, I accepted his request to sit by his feet. Being subservient to him calmed me, and we returned to the natural boundaries of our relationship. I was Jason’s submissive wife and in my place.
He’d hinted at his sexual awakening, and its obscurity maintained his enigmatic nature. His loss of virginity he had never been brought up in conversation and, for some reason, I had never broached the topic, assuming it had happened at university given his lack of contact with girls during his school days.
However, after our debate about our son’s schooling, I wanted to know the answer. “How did you lose your virginity, Jason?”
“I’ve never told you, have I?” He pursed his lips and swallowed the dregs of his wine, tipping the glass back. “The answer may surprise you. Given your opinion I must have been, what was the word, starved of female company at school. I was sixteen.”
His answer did surprise me. Who had the lucky girl been? “Did your parents know?”
“Of course not. For the very reasons you’ve been spouting on about. They assumed being in a single-sex school kept me isolated from girls and not thinking about them. Thinking about them! We boys were crazy about girls. I hung out by the school gates, watching the local girls with their short skirts swing by.”
“So, my point is valid. Why separate girls from boys if they take the opportunities at other times?”
“Not quite that simple. The gates were locked, and the walls were high, a bloody fortress. I had heaps of homework, and Mum had me in every after-school club, occupied and sequestered.”
