Autumn – beginning of the fall
Friday, September 16
A green mud-caked Range Rover and a blue mud-caked Toyota utility bounced bumper to bumper down a pocked and puddled gravel driveway in the smallest convoy allowable. Gabriel and I waited at the end of this driveway in the doorway of Hartley Castle House. We were arm in arm like the Waltons but without the grinning and waving. There was a good reason for this: the Range Rover and Toyota utility were stuffed to the ceilings with Family Hogg and Gabriel was not ostensibly a resident of Hartley Castle House while she retained the name Hogg. She had merely popped down from her flat in Durham to join Family Hogg on their tour of my (and her, once the ink had dried on the registry) new abode. The trick was for our relationship to come across as loving without appearing to be ‘live in’, a fine balancing act of feelings and familiarity.
‘We’ had been in the house the grand total of two days, the immediacy of our acceptance and signing rather undone by unfinished interior refurbishment which dragged our stay at Chicken Colditz out to an interminable four weeks. We’d only just escaped, yet they’d found us already.
‘Welcome, welcome,’ I said as what surprisingly turned out to be one hundred per cent of Family Hogg, including Attie Joubert and the Devil Monkey Baby, disgorged themselves from the two vehicles into a thin mud and gravel soup and sloshed their way to the door.
All of them that is except, of course, Austin Hogg. He, as usual, brought up the rear by a calculated and considerable margin, moving slowly about beyond the Range Rover, surveying the ruins and the house façade and the grounds like some real estate guru off Location Location, his tight and too short overalls, barrel frame and short arms clasped tightly behind his back rendering him more like some bald twat off Benny Hill.
By the time he got to the door, everyone else had removed their shoes and boots and disappeared inside led by Hartley Castle House’s effervescent volunteer Tour Guide of the Month, Gabriel Hogg. I had made the mistake of waiting outside.
‘Shall I take off m’boots?’ said Austin Hogg.
Now, at the risk of exposing myself as overly sensitive to provocative behaviour, I found this remark to be some sort of challenge. A challenge that took two possible forms: At its most primeval level, Austin Hogg was challenging me to let him into the house in his muddy boots despite the Japanese restaurant-sized display of footwear outside the front door. At the level I sincerely hoped he was operating on, his challenge was nothing to do with footwear, everything to do with keeping footwear on. Even more to do with not going inside at all. Not yet.
‘I could show you round the grounds first if you’d prefer,’ I said, smile twitching.
There was a pregnant pause as the old bastard had feigned intentions to untie his bootlaces, his dip from the perpendicular hard to reverse carrying as he was a full term beer keg.
‘Aye,’ he said to my feet.
Conversation was stilted at best as we strolled the grounds beneath a seamless grey sky and I found myself doing most of the initial lip work, enthusing over the job in Leeds (now only three sleeps away), enthusing over the house and the castle and about what a great place it was to start a family while Papa Hogg walked and listened and glared and listened some more. I knew he hadn’t initiated this stroll just to listen. He had something to say. Midway through the walled formal garden at the rear of the house, he said it. It was appropriately odd.
‘Old John Mealy Face o’Topcliffe, Mister Harland,’ he said.
‘You can call me Bailey.’
‘T’safeguard flour frim theft, Old John Mealy pressed face in’t flour t’top of t’bin then at end of day put face back in’t impression to see if it ‘ad changed. Ye might want te think abut that for t’minute.’
I thought about it as we walked silently on.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Thought about it. Don’t get it.’ I didn’t even understand it.
‘I’ve made impression of this ‘ouse, Mister Harland,’ he said more slowly for my benefit in something bordering on English, ‘and ooh resides within. I trust t’impression not t’change.’
I stopped. ‘This is about Gabriel, right?’
He said nothing, just walked on and I followed.
‘It’s not an issue, I promise. She’s got a flat in Durham and she’ll be living there until the wedding.’
‘Aye.’ He stopped and I almost stood on him. He looked up at me through hateful slits for eyes . ‘Jus remember, lad, an remember well. Daftness never built owt worth leaving oop.’
And with that, he marched off in a slow crooked gait, leaving me seething in the formal garden.
So ended an all together unsatisfying man-to-man with Austin Hogg. The only man-to-man we would have before his death. Still, it could have been worse. He could have keeled over right there and then in my garden. In fact, compared to what happened twenty minutes later, it was nothing.
***
The entire clan was inspecting the ensuite toilet when the call came. If there was any consolation, my mobile phone was downstairs in the kitchen, which meant I took the call alone. I ran down to answer it, pressing the green button on the seventh ring of eight before it cut to answer phone. I’d recognised the number immediately, it being that most prized of possessions for a Kiwi adman: the personal mobile phone number of an English creative director.
I cleared my throat, stuck the phone to my ear. ‘Bailey Harland?’ I said as confidently, creatively and professionally as my thumping heart would allow.
‘Bailey?’ said an enthusiastic voice.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Chris Tarrant from Who wants to be a millionaire.’
It sounded like him too having seen every available episode of the English Who wants to be a millionaire during our two week stay at Chicken Colditz – Simon was a huge fan. Interestingly I never saw him get a question wrong.
‘Who?’ I said.
‘Only joking. It’s Chris Talbot from McCarthy Ellison. How are you Bailey?’
‘Good thanks, Chris.’
‘Settling in?’
“Getting there. We’ve got a house already which is good.’
‘Good. Enjoying the weather?’
I tried to laugh but it came out more of a shudder. ‘Oh, it’s all right. I’d pretty much prepared myself for it before I left.’
‘Good for you. Listen, Bailey, bit of a cock up at our end, I’m going to have to take a raincheck on the position I offered you for the moment.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Yeah, I know. Thought you wouldn’t be too impressed. We’re not either, believe you me. You might’ve read about it if you’ve been following our travails of late.’ I opened my mouth to say no. ‘The sort of pitch you expect to win to be honest. Incumbent account, doing the business just fine, should stay put. Doesn’t. Part of the game, but there you go. Lot’s of layoffs Bailey is what I’m saying. And, even though we’d done the deal and you’d have been starting when?’
‘Monday.’
‘Really? God, was it that soon? Well, you’ll understand I can’t have a fresh face coming in the front door while a bunch of old faces are filing out the back. It’s not the way we’d planned it, Bailey, but there you go and I’ll be happy to reconsider you next time we’re looking for a midweight writer.’
I sat heavily on the bed. My throat was suddenly tight and the mobile phone was shaking violently in my ear. ‘But you’ve already considered me. You’ve already given me a job.’
‘Yes. I have. And I’m now reneging on that job which hopefully doesn’t put you at too much of an inconvenience.’
‘Of course not, Chris. I only came from Australia! I only sold up everything I had based on what you told me!’
‘It pains me greatly to make this call.’
‘No it doesn’t! You started with an impression of Chris Tarrant!’
‘I was simply trying to lighten the mood. This wasn’t an easy call to make.’
‘There was nothing wrong with the fucking mood until you called Chris. And yes, it was an easy call to make! Because it was a call! A decent man would have done it to my face!
‘And what good would that have done, my friend?’
‘It wouldn’t have done anything except give you the chance to see me cry. And based on what I now know of you, that was a missed opportunity.’
‘Bai—’
I cut the call and stood bent and shaking by the island chopping block. Talk about burning bridges.
Then, the best thing that could have happened at that point did happen: Gabriel’s anxious voice floated down the hall. ‘Barely?’
Had I not been physically and mentally incapacitated; had I not been utterly helpless and panicked; had I had the faculties to think…I would surely have either hid or lied. But there, paralysed, the moment still like a funnel web spider on my neck, that little voice was like serum to my besieged soul.
‘In here!’
Gabriel ran through the kitchen door, took one look at me. ‘Monkey? Are you all right?’
I hung my head. ‘Close the door.’
