What had elicited this comment was telling him my first impressions of Harrogate. I was homing on the booked guest house on the Ripon Road, passed it, found myself in town, so turned left, left, left again in an attempt to get back to it. I stopped to get my bearings and saw a woman walking up past my car, so I opened the nearside window, and called out to her. She pointed up the road I was on, assured me I was gong the right direction but that she wasn’t sure if I should turn right or left at the top. I thanked her and was about to move off when a young man approached the car. He was about five foot eleven, white, clean around 20, casually dressed and quite pleasant looking. I thought perhaps he’d over heard and was going to offer additional advice. He leant right into the passenger window, and said,
“Do you fancy a bit of sex for fifty quid?”Now, the last time I had a similar proposition was some decades ago outside my girls convent school, in a much less salubrious area, and the offer was then for three quid. So I’m debating
- The surprise of the offer,
- The going rate,
- Inflation
- Who I am and my age
- Who is paying whom
- And why..
“What!” and then “Are you talking about?”
I already have the car in gear and move away. Some other young men of similar height and age walk up as if to join him. But they don’t look as if they knew what he was saying, or as if they’d been daring each other to do silly things. It’s only later that I think perhaps it was a ruse to get his head in my car and nick my handbag, but I never keep that on the passenger seat. Perhaps he needs money for drugs, but he looked too fit and healthy to be doing drugs.
When I recount the incident to my business colleagues later they remark that perhaps he was seeking a Mrs Robinson, or perhaps I should’ve asked him for a hundred quid.
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