Drinks 'n Dares

Is This A Bad Time?

Chapter Nineteen – Is This A Bad Time?

Jon's POV

Wednesday afternoon saw me, Harvey and Harvey's very British father, Algie, seated in Harvey's lounge discussing what the Greek goddess Aphrodite really looked like. I wasn't sure how the conversation had started. After Algie had popped in to visit his son we'd been having a perfectly normal debate over which of the Pink Panther movies were better; the 1963 version with Peter Sellers and David Niven, or the awful remake from 2006. Needless to say we were all in favour of the classic edition. As for the question of Aphrodite's true form…well, it might have had something to do with the fact that Algie was a Classics professor at Victoria University in the capitol, Wellington. He'd been working there for years, ever since he and his now ex-wife Pearl Simmons had moved to the land of the long white cloud when Harvey was just a boy. After they'd divorced Mrs Simmons had moved back to England but Harvey had chosen to stay on with his dad in Wellington. It was funny really, Algie was exactly the very British kind of man who you would expect to see with a bathrobe, slippers and pipe, and Mrs Simmons was the kind of lady who wore fuzzy pink suits, kept Bichon Frises and listened to the Queen's speech every Christmas. On paper, they seemed the perfect very British couple but in practice…well, not so much. Hence the ugly divorce.

When the time had come for Harvey to choose a University he'd opted to attend one of Nelson's better Universities (where we had met) instead of attending his father's workplace, Victoria. Not that there was anything wrong with Victoria, but if he had gone there Algie would have never stopped nagging him to take Classics. And according to what I'd heard Harvey had gotten enough of that in his childhood to last him a lifetime. This didn't mean that Algie was a strict or intrusive parent though. Far from it. He let Harvey do just as he pleased and popped in occasionally to see how he was getting on. He even allowed Harvey to call him by his first name, Algie, and even 'dude.' Harvey had inherited Algie's love of the Beach Boys, but unlike his father had taken dramatically to using their Californian slang. Partially, I thought, to irritate his mother, Pearl Simmons. The lady was so tight-lipped and proper that I had the feeling that Harvey was still trying to irritate her now, even with an ocean separating them. Mrs Simmons was in fact so proper that even after her and Algie's divorce she had elected not to go back to using her maiden name. Instead she continued on being respectable Mrs Simmons. Apparently, when pressed she told people that she was a widower. Algie found this hilarious.

"She's a red headed dudette, no doubt." Harvey said. He was lounging across an armchair. "Tan and really curvy with big brown eyes."

Algie seemed to internally debate whether or not he should be offended at Harvey's reference of a Greek goddess as a 'dudette.' Apparently he decided not to. I could see why. After all I'd known Harvey a long time, long enough to know that chiding him had no effect. And Algie had known him a lot longer.

"I suppose," I said drily. "You think she's six feet tall and wears nothing but a loincloth too."

"Dude." He wrinkled his nose and gestured to Algie. "No crudity in front of the old man."

"Sorry. Of course. She'd be wearing a toga."

"Chiton." They both corrected. Harvey winced at his automatic reaction but his father continued on. "Togas were worn exclusively in Rome whereas the chiton was the Greek form of dress. As Aphrodite was a Greek goddess if she was depicted to be wearing anything, which as the goddess of love she often wasn't, it would have been a chiton. And if she was being depicted as Venus, the Roman version of Aphrodite she would have been wearing a stola. But of course that would depend on the time period. Before the second century BC women would have been allowed to wear togas, the same as men. Afterwards however if a woman in Rome was not wearing a stola that would indicate she was a prostitute. I actually think that if-" Harvey coughed pointedly. Algie flushed. "Oh, I am sorry. Sometimes I get a little carried away…Classical history is so fascinating."