Chapter Forty One

41


Parting instructions for a Piccardilly circus


‘Right then,’ I said at the door, overnight bag in hand, feeling strangely short of breath as I fumbled in trouser pockets for car keys. ‘If a really big, grey headed guy with a limp comes knocking on the door, you’re up to speed with what to say?’

‘Yes, Bailey,’ said Penny James stiffly, clearly not yet ready to be civil after our Tickle Toby tete-a-taint.

‘Good. And remember,’ I held up a finger attached to a hand now containing car keys, 'no horses in the house, no blooding ceremonies on the carpet and,' - I nodded at Kurt and Courtney, all but asleep by the lounge fire - 'they’re pets, not foxes.’

‘Ha ha,’ she said without humour.

I made to leave, stopped, turned. 'Oh, almost forgot. You might want to know where you're sleeping, or tossing and turning over questionable moralities as the case may be. Gabriel has allocated you the room next to ours up the main stairs behind you there. I can't vouch for the sheets, but your hounds might be able to tell if they've seen any action.' I made to leave again, stopped, turned. 'Shit, almost forgot. Dog meat's in the fridge, dry food's in the pantry, about half of each morning and night at seven sharp in portions no bigger than their heads, preferably smaller. In fact, if you base their portions on the head of a cocker spaniel, you won't go far wrong.'

'Not a fox's head then?' she asked populating her pretty pug face with what was clearly meant to be a cheeky grin.

I populated my own face with a sneer. 'Penny, what your tribe stick on sticks about your gardens is your business, just give them what's in the kitchen,' this, from the expression she now populated her pug face with, clearly an unpopular remark.

'Are you going now?' she said, one hand on my door, the other on her hip.

'Yes, I am,' I said proceeding to do just that.

'Because I could really use some privacy while I rummage through your personal things.'

I stopped ten paces out the door, turned and smiled sweetly back at her pug face now populated with mischievously unpopular intent. 'Well, I said. 'If I can save you some legwork, you'll find most of the scandal in the bottom drawer on Gabriel's side of the bed. Please look, but don't touch for obvious hygiene reasons. Must away.'

And with that, I left with a car key rattled wave over my shoulder, unaware and unconcerned by whatever daggers looks populated my wake. Penny James and any attempt at friendship for Gabriel's sake would keep. Gabriel and any attempt at marriage for my sake wouldn't.

Forty minutes later, I pulled in ten car spaces along from Gabriel’s Audi in the Hustwickgate Railway Station long stay car park. Less than an hour after that – Hustwickgate being on the main line south from both Edinburgh and Newcastle – I was on a GNER train to London.

During her brief, information-light phone call from her hotel room, Gabriel had imparted one reassuring fact – she loved me dearly. Not the sort of proclamation I would associate with a girl who had just slept with her elderly ex-boyfriend (not that I was jumping to conclusions). Due to my rigid embargo on juicy detail, any knowledge of Gabriel’s ex was scant. His name was Marcus Friend. He was in his mid-forties, a rather jaded, jaundiced and seemingly failed singer-songwriter who had latched onto the sixteen year old Gabriel in a London bar soon after she fled the family home. Clearly she was an innocent, impressionable and traumatised virgin who needed love and a home. Clearly he was a middle aged sexual predator. Gabriel was living with him by nightfall.

The ‘relationship’ lasted two years before Gabriel saw the light, realised Marcus Friend was going nowhere extremely slowly and ended it. After a brief period of reciprocal vitriol, they somehow concurred on the existence of some platonic bond and agreed to remain ‘buddies’. He had been emailing her ever since. Not lovelorn or newsy emails in the main – joke emails bulk forwarded to her amongst fifty or more recipients. Just the usual stuff circulating offices the world over. Joke emails Gabriel then found it necessary to forward on to me amongst another fifty or so recipients. While the bond between them was plainly technological and distant, I didn’t need daily reminders of a period in Gabriel’s life I wished to forget. The more I loved her, the harder it became to rationalise her past.’ Her stock standard response to my complaints – ‘Get over it! Who am I with now?’

Clearly though, if Marcus Friend had more than a passing involvement in the assault on Windy Dale Eggs, why was I on a train to London? Why wasn’t Marcus Friend on his way ‘downtown’ for a bit of slap and tickle interrogation and Gabriel on her way back to North Yorkshire? What possible value could there be in me coming all the way down here? Unless Gabriel was simply giving me the opportunity to hit Marcus Friend over the head with a chair before she called the authorities.

***

My train fare ran out of puff at Kings Cross Station. The frugal option would have been to go underground to Piccadilly Circus. But, right now, I was only interested in the fastest option. Which, as it turned out, would have been the underground. My London cabbie spent more time sitting in traffic jams with a pasty elbow out the window than actually driving anywhere. It had taken two-and-a-half hours to cover half the country. It took an hour to cover a few miles of London.

Gabriel’s accommodation of choice was the Shaftesbury Hotel, Shaftesbury Avenue, Piccadilly, a few hundred yards from the famous neon sign of Piccadilly Circus and right in the thick of the West End theatres, bars and clubs.

‘Okay,’ Gabriel said having seated me on the couch in her four poster bed suite and sat opposite me on the edge of the bed, face fearful and downturned. A jacket lay on the bed, either recently removed or about to be put on and she wore 'going out' attire and 'going out' make up, though I was yet to find out if she had, in fact, gone out. ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’

With no eyes to search, I searched the ceiling instead. ‘If I’m guessing correctly, there shouldn’t be any bad news.’

‘And what are you guessing?’

‘Same as I guessed, admittedly in jest, the day this fiasco started, Gabriel.’

‘That Marcus had something to do with it?’

‘Yes.’

She nodded at the floor and she'd clearly had a few.

I leaned in, tilted my head to catch her eye. ‘And does he?’

More nods at the floor, slow and forlorn. ‘He has everything to do with it.’

I knew it, but a bolt of adrenaline still shot up my breastplate. ‘Is that the good news or the bad news?’

‘That’s the good news.’

I sat back on the bed feeling ill. My eyes drove into hers and crashlanded in her knees. ‘What’s the bad news, Gabriel?’

She looked at me and I looked up at her aching face as the tears now leaked from the corners of bloodshot eyes and tracked south suggested that the bad news was going to be a little more than an excessive minibar bill.

'You're going to hate me,' she said with a succulent wet sniff and longing look skyward.

I crossed my legs, hung my head and rung my hands. 'Spill,' I said.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘I kind of…might have…asked Marcus to do it.’

Chapter Forty

40


London calling II: The midget phones back

Monday, January 16

I was beside myself all night. So violently did I thrash about, it would have taken a slow motion camera to confirm there was only one person in the bed. Up and about I was only slightly more in control of my limbs, forced as they were to lumber into a Gabriel-free kitchen, arms wanting to make green tea, legs wanting to carry it up the stairs, arms wanting to place the hot tea on a book for fear it burn the white paint on the bedside table, lips wanting to kiss her on the head and seek an approximation of my chances.

The phone rang in the hall at nine o’clock, precisely two hours after I had muttered at dogs and walls and windows and mirrors long enough to believe I was in no way equipped to take the call.

I got to it halfway through the first ring.

It was Gabriel.

She told me where she was. She told me to get on the next train to London and be there by tonight. She told me not to ask questions. She told me who was on her way to look after the dogs. She told me to be nice.

Chapter Thirty Nine

39


The writing on the wall

Dave Land’s largest John Deere tractor was parked in the forecourt of Hartley Castle House when we arrived home. Dave Land’s immense fist was banging on the front door. He heard the car, saw the car, turned and lurched across the yard to greet us brandishing a small rectangular piece of paper. Its size, shape and colour were unmistakably that of a cheque. Dave Land’s face was unmistakably that of an angry man.

My door was open before I could open it myself.

‘Mister Harland,’ he said looming large over my seated and seat-belted person. ‘I am not a violent man, I am a reasonable man. I trust you will be the same.’ He handed me the cheque. It was made out to me and was for eighteen thousand pounds. ‘I have calculated your rent up to the end of next week and refunded your advance rent accordingly. You have a week to clear the premises. I trust you will leave everything as you found it.’

God, news travels fast!

‘Dave,' I said fumbling at my seat belt while peering pleadingly up at him. 'This hasn’t got anything to do with you. It hasn’t even got anything to with me!’

He glowered down at me. Even then there was still a grin of sorts. The sort of grin I imagine Ted Bundy offered young girls asking for directions in the street. ‘Is that so?’ he said with palpable sarcasm.

‘Yes! Can I get out? This is—’

‘You stay where you are!’

Gabriel got out the other side and ran around to 'face' him. ‘Dave, we can explain. Bailey didn’t do any of it.’

‘Any of it?' he said frowning down at her. 'How many barns has this little vandal covered in graffiti?’

I thought it, Gabriel said it: 'Graffiti?'

***

‘I swear on my mother’s life. I didn’t do this.’

I’d been swearing on my mother’s life a lot lately. And there, standing next to one of two barns at the back of Dave Land’s house half a mile down the road from Hartley Castle House, I needed my mother like never before. Staring at the wall of that barn, I was confused, disorientated and angry. I was shaking and didn’t know what to do with my hands. Above all, I was scared.

Splashed across the wooden wall of Dave Land’s barn in great dollops of dripping red paint were the words: ‘U R DEAD MEAT U LAME BULL MURDERING CUNT!’

As you do in such situations, I went and hid in the castle for a while, knees pulled up to my chin, staring at walls and upwards at bits of ragged blue sky. Dave Land, after a heated two and fro had calmed down somewhat. I’d given him a brief précis of our trials with Gabriel’s family and Windy Dale Eggs, a story he had been keeping a quiet eye on in the papers. He hadn’t made the connection. He admitted he hadn’t committed Gabriel’s surname to memory.

Thankfully, my relating of this saga in exasperatedly plaintive terms gave him pause. I was either a good actor, liar and on the spot improviser of a bloody good story, or I was telling the truth. He gave me a week to provide proof I had not graffittied his barn wall with death threats. The chances of this happening were, of course, nil. I had no more idea who had defaced his barn than he did and he was now – after my pleading, placating speech – only ninety-nine percent sure it was me. I even suspected it was me. Why wouldn’t I? The graffiti had specifically referred to a very personal incident, an incident only he, Gabriel and I knew about. Gabriel, I should add, upon sighting the besmeared wall, had clutched her mouth, said ‘Oh my God, I’m going to be sick,’ and scurried off down the road.

Which I suppose was fair enough. It didn’t look good and, with all the evidence now available, even I was blaming me. And I knew I hadn’t done it.

Or did I? There’s an almost catatonic temporary insanity that befalls you in such circumstances. An all pervading sense of self doubt and mistrust of your own actions right down to questioning your own whereabouts for the last twenty four hours. Everyone and everything was ganging up on me and, right now, I was inclined to give myself the odd cuff as well, haul my own arm up my back and scream ‘Own up!’ My boundaries were blurred and so was my vision courtesy of the odd tear. Odd in the sense that I wasn’t normally a crier, mitigating in the sense that my world was now officially at war. The next phase in this mental process was self-destruction – the sudden, wallowing belief that the world really was against me and that my dream – whatever that dream was, it was hard to remember now – was never meant to be.

As if to reinforce this, I heard the Audi start up outside the castle walls and leave at great speed. Unlike the previous occasion Gabriel drove out of my life, I could muster neither the strength nor the angst to rush out and give her the finger. She was right to go. I knew how it looked.

Kurt appeared at my side moments later. This was good. It reminded me I wasn’t alone. After a bear hug that nearly broke his neck and would have added exponentially to my woes, I managed to raise myself off the damp grass – it was getting cold and I needed a jacket, beer and the iPod. If ever there was an occasion requiring a brooding soundtrack, this was it. Perhaps Prodigy, 'I’m a victim' on repeat.

Courtney was on her bed in the kitchen when I arrived inside, as usual more aware of the need for beauty sleep than family crisis. I knelt and kissed her on the head.

‘Hi ya, Courtney, love,’ I whispered. ‘Dad’s in a spot of bother.’

The coat I required was on the coat rack. The iPod was in the Court Room. The beer was in the fridge.

The note was on the table.

‘Dearest Monkey face,’ it said. ‘I hate to leave you like this, but if I told you where I was going you wouldn’t let me go. Trust me, we’ll be free of this by tomorrow! You’re innocent, monkey!’ There were four Xs and a heart.

There was a PS: ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

I called her today.

Her mobile rang six times and cut to message. I waited for the prompts. ‘Gabriel? I’m no rocket scientist, but I think I know where you’ve gone. I just want to put it on record that I’m stunned, but not entirely surprised. I did say so, didn’t I? Anyway, I just want you to know that I would have let you go. I trust you implicitly. Maybe now, you’ll trust me. Take care, little girl and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Keep your wrist locked and aim for a point a foot behind the face. Take care. I love you. Bye.’

I hung up, turned to the kitchen bench and watched Gabriel’s mobile. After a few seconds, it cheeped, signalling a new voice message. I was tempted to listen to my own message, check it for flaws, delete it and perhaps redo it until I had the sentiments just right. I didn’t. I just left it be, wondering why she hadn’t taken it with her. The rush of getting away before I emerged from the castle? The hassle of a fretful boyfriend calling every five minutes while she visited an ex? I was jumping to conclusions, of course, but if this jump wasn’t flagged green by all judges, I’d be having a long, hard look at the plasticine.

Chapter Thirty Eight

38


A right old Yorkshire pudding

Sunday, January 15

From a hundred yards across the Skipton-le-Beans village green on a Sunday morning in mid-winter, the Pig in Muck Inn looked its usual small, white, welcoming self, a few seasonally-redundant flower pots in the windows, a few black wooden shutters open, a few closed. You could imagine the wet feather in there mopping last night’s beer-soaked detritus off tables and vacuuming peanuts and cigarette ash off the smelly old carpets in readiness to do it all over again come lunchtime. Only, on this Sunday morning, the substance spilt all over the tables wasn’t beer – it was water, thousands of gallons of it. And even the most powerful industrial vacuum cleaner would be hard pressed to suck up this ash…

What we could see from the far end of the village green – but dared not approach – was a gutted carcass. Around midnight last night, an hour after the last drunken farmer had lurched off back to his wife, an incendiary device had been thrown through the window of the Pig in Muck Inn. The fire had raged unnoticed for ten minutes before a sleeping wet feather smelt smoke.

A mile down the road, Chicken Colditz HQ had faired rather better. Austin’s bedroom was a bit charred, but the fire had failed to take hold.

Ten miles away in Hustwickgate, Lloyds TSB had faired even better. But then the rock hurled through their window had been attached to nothing more inflammatory than a death threat.

And two miles down the hill from Lloyds TSB, the Hustwickgate RFC clubrooms had faired better still. They were, in fact, completely intact. The No 1 rugby field was, however, completely in tacks. Hundreds of them like little grey barbs in the frosty long grass, forcing the cancellation of all Sunday fixtures and forcing the Hustwickgate Seniors left wing – one Simon “Little Lomu” Hogg – into sad and sudden retirement.

Psychologically this set of calculated overnight raids hit the local community hard, occurring as it did just when they thought things were getting back to normal. It had been three-and-a-half tense, yet terrorism-free months since the malevolent mail drop.

It hit me pretty hard too. Particularly the raid on Chicken Colditz, occurring as it did while we had the entire clan conveniently stashed forty miles away. Coincidence? I no longer thought so (and neither did they). This was starting to feel personal and I was starting to feel strangely sick. I was, however, not yet ill.

But then the day was far from over.

Chapter Thirty Seven

37


Winter barbecue in the castle ruins

Saturday, January 14

It was meant to be a last minute decision. Check the sky early evening – prepare the dining room if it was iffy, prepare the barbecue if it wasn’t. As it was the day dawned so clear, still and dependable, I was titivating the Great Hall in the castle ruins by one. So much depended on this dinner. Sure, it would have been easier and less prone to sudden snow storms, frosts and hypothermia if we’d eaten inside. That would have been the easy thing to do; we had a perfectly nice dining room by anyone’s standards.

It would also have been the obvious thing to do. The safe thing. There would have been nothing new or different or stimulating about it. It would have been just another standard eight people eating and drinking around a standard wooden table in a standard artificially lit room, even if that artificial light was emitted by a fairly impressive chandelier.

It was just expected. Too expected.

Austin, Mariabella, Melissa, Attie and, to a much lesser extent, Simon expected to sit in a room, eat a meal prepared by a barely present Gabriel slaving in the kitchen while I sat like Lord Muck drinking wine and expounding my innocence like a defence lawyer.

That was what they expected. That was what would keep them safely locked away in their cocoons of indifference. The key to cracking them open (and it had taken some seriously smooth talking to convince Gabriel of this) was to do the unexpected. Surprise them. Titivate them. Make them laugh despite themselves. How better to do this than to lead them by torchlight towards flickering orange light spewing from your very own backyard castle?

***

Three sets of car headlights lit up the Hartley Castle House forecourt like a lamped rabbit at precisely 7pm, which was precisely when we’d asked them to arrive. My heart skipped a beat. Clearly these were people with no concept of fashionable lateness. It was a wakeup call. A timely reminder of the beast we were dealing with.

Compounding this scarily old fashioned punctuality, Gabriel and I had proceeded to be fashionably disorganised. The steaks were still a solid red blob on the kitchen bench because someone had forgotten to take them out of the freezer. The salad ingredients were still just a jam of plastic bags in the crisper draw yet to mix and mingle. And someone had left the wine and beer in the back of the Volvo…

Under normal Australian barbecue circumstances, this last oversight would have been a far worse disaster than the food. Fortunately for this particular barbecue, the outside temperature hadn’t risen above freezing all day so the wine and beer were colder than if they had been in the fridge.

As the assorted unsuspecting members of Family Hogg now gingerly dismounted their various vehicles onto a dimly lit ice rink of a forecourt and I stood at the door double-checking the torch, Gabriel suddenly appeared at my ear.

‘You’re not going to believe this,’ she said. ‘I forgot to tell them to bring warm clothes!’

I stiffened in a daytime telly way and took a sudden intense interest in the attire of Family Hogg as they now slid and slithered towards the front door in a shadowy mass of misty breath. There were warm clothes in abundance, which was a relief. Trouble was they were the sort of warm clothes you wore when exposure to the elements was fully encompassed within quick skips between cars and front doors. There were no head-to-toe coats, no beanies, no gloves; none of the things you might ask guests to wear to a barbecue in sub-zero temperatures

On the upside, they could all die of hypothermia. How many problems would that solve in an instant? How much easier would that make the will distribution? As it was, and despite my utter disdain, I could not wish death by winter barbecue on anyone and could only hope my four towering outdoor heaters did their job.

There were no welcomes at the door, no handshakes, and no hugs; just a standoff of sorts, ten feet separating them and me - the arrogant eyes of Attie Joubert next to the absent eyes of Melissa Joubert next to the conniving eyes of Mariabella Hogg next to the cadaverous eyes of Austin Hogg next to...well, next to poor old Simon Hogg and his ever plaintive eyes that seemed to say 'I'd shake your hand and maybe even give you a hug, but Dad would kill me.'

‘Thanks for coming,’ I said as respectfully as I could. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘A marn has tae eat,’ said Austin Hogg with an odd little glare up at wife and son either side of him. It would be the last thing he would say until precisely 10:31 pm.

‘Well, the first surprise I have for you tonight…’ I trained the torch onto the walls of Hartley Castle fifty yards to my left past the forecourt, the Volvo and the Audi also taking on a solid white sheen.’ We’ll be dining in there.’

Five sets of eyes followed the beam. There was a long pause as they stared at the crumbling, roofless mound of grey stones. I can only assume their expressions were a mixture of mortification and amusement as their heads had all but disappeared in a thick breath-induced fog. Finally someone spoke from within the miasma. I didn’t need to see the lips move or the eyes squint, the deep, snarling drawl was more than enough.

‘You have got to be bloody joking, son.’

***

As might be expected of a ruined castle untouched by other than weather, cannons and errant lorries for five hundred years, there was a dearth of power points. Light for the evening’s festivities was therefore provided by a dozen cheap and nasty bamboo flares stuck in the ground at intervals around the roofless room. The resultant flickering orange light was abysmal at best, the confused melee of shadows swarming about the Great Hall walls like a cave of startled bats. To these antipodean eyes starved of such Gothic delights, it had considerable Scooby Doo appeal. Gabriel thought it looked more like the set of Survivor Tribal Council than an expectant family reunion, adding that it was just as well we weren’t expecting any epileptics.

D size Batteries. There were eight of them in the Aiwa ghetto blaster bought especially for the occasion, with another sixteen batteries on twenty four hour standby. The ghetto blaster sat in the long freeze-dried grass at the eastern end of the Great Hall by the arch, the barbecue and the booze: all three where I could readily ply Family Hogg with food, alcohol and soothing classical tunes.

Strategically, the seating arrangements were crucial: I placed Austin Hogg at the head of the table facing the Great Arch and what would have been a spectacular view were it not mid-winter dark, the Great Arch just a great black hole. He was nevertheless in the grandest position. He was also furthest from me. Mariabella I positioned closest to the barbecue at the other end of the table. As official spokesperson for Chicken Colditz in every media release I had seen thus far, I assumed she would wish to maintain that role here, albeit with a skinful. Simon I tried to keep in something approximating a safe place, seating him right next to his father on the far side of the table. While his desire to discuss every Lions tour since 1980 in minute detail had been fine for seeing me through long nights at the Pig in Muck, rugby was off the agenda for tonight. Or at least until I had an emphatically unanimous retraction of my current terrorist status in the eyes of Family Hogg.

Oh, and Attie and Melissa Joubert were there too. I stuck them on the barbecue side of the table in the hope Attie’s neck would cramp from squinting sideways at me around his fat wife while I cooked their steaks. There were two empty places opposite them. One for Gabriel once she had defrosted the meat, prepared the salads and drunk enough vodka in the kitchen to hit the ground bombastic. One for me.

(On the subject of steaks – yes, I was still vegetarian; no, I wasn’t that bloody minded – or non-bloody minded – to inflict my diet on others.)

Everyone ‘settled’ in on wooden chairs I had personally de-iced with a stainless steel spatula and fitted with squabs warmed against radiators around the house. With warm bums below and hissing, roaring red hot furnaces above, they really had nothing to complain about. Yet they still did, packing in some genuine North Yorkshire country-style muttering and disgruntled bemusement while I knelt and put a little night music on the ghetto blaster – Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik no less, soaring Austrian strings giving the busy shadows something to dance to.

I turned to ensure everyone was safely out of their comfort zone. They were. Which had been the plan. Yet nothing was going quite as planned…

Normally – or as with normal, well adjusted, socially competent individuals – I could have expected some ribbing, a bit of gentle banter questioning my sanity, perhaps even complementing my lack of it, getting in the spirit of an outrageous event. There was none of that. Not even a tactless jibe. They hadn’t entered into the spirit at all. I should have known: Like a wasp had no concept of windows, Family Hogg had no concept of fun. I had spent a month in their joy-free care, a month they successfully made as cheerless as the life of one of their hens. Yet somehow I’d forgotten what bleak people they were, how completely and utterly chronically void.

Such was now the humourless and mildly menacing atmosphere inside the Great Hall, I felt like I’d just sat the Sopranos at the wrong table in their local Pizzeria, only without the yelling and summary executions. Just the brooding silences, familial glances, whispering and increasingly venomous glares as I martialled raw prawns onto a hotplate.

It didn’t help that I had completely lost the power of speech. I have no idea if Jamie Oliver ever froze while cooking in front of a studio audience, but up there with my raw prawns I was dying. My prospective family were engaged in a flagrant, seething shut out, insults being exchanged behind hands, the worst culprit, Attie Joubert, alternately whispering in his wife’s ear and craning around her for long lingering squints my way. I broke into a cold, lonely and unforgiving sweat I had no immediate facility to deal with it. It was a fucking nightmare. I couldn’t look at them. I couldn’t speak. Everything but my raw prawn-turning arm had frozen to the spot. All I could do was sweat, sniff and prod at prawns, doubly incapable of saying ‘This is ridiculous. Let’s go inside.’

They hadn’t expected this. Well, neither had I.

I prayed for Gabriel to save me with the premature delivery of a Greek salad or stack of brutally defrosted steaks. I prayed for rain so Mother Nature could make the decision for me. On the verge of very public panic, a voice finally rose above a whisper:

‘What’s going on here?’ Gabriel stood beneath the side door, plates and cutlery in hand casting stern eyes across her cosseted family and the barbecuing exile in the corner. To these immensely relieved eyes looking on from the far end of the Great Hall, she was five foot nothing of posh frocked super-hero, wide, fiery eyes flickering orange in the dancing torchlight.

‘You two have gone completely mad is what’s going on here, my girl,’ said Attie Joubert swivelling and going menacingly face to face with her from, it has to be said, a sitting position.

‘I wasn’t talking to you!’ Gabriel spat straight into his face, the visual equivalent of a foaming chihuahua biting at the heels of a bull mastiff. She stood on tip toes and glowered from unrepentant face to unrepentant face. ‘Why is no one talking to Bailey?’ Answer me! What is your fucking problem?’

‘This bloody barbecue’s the problem,’ Attie growled facing front and searching Hogg-tied faces for approval. They just stared blankly back.

‘Shut up, Attie!’ Gabriel yelled at his back. She homed in on her mother on the other side of the table. ‘Mum? You seem to be speaking for the family on everything these days. Have you got a problem with the barbecue?’

Mariabella smiled sadly at her daughter, lit a cigarette and titled her head apologetically. ‘I think we’ve all got a problem with the barbecue, Gabby,’

‘Good,' said Gabriel. 'Because you’re stuck with it. Either get a sense of humour or get takeaway on the way home.’

Attie Joubert leapt to his feet. ‘I don’t have to put up with this, I’m getting takeaway.’

‘Sit the fuck down, Attie!’ This was Gabriel.

Attie glowered over her. ‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that, young lady!’

‘Sit the fuck down, Attie!’ This was Mariabella.

Attie winced. Attie glowered. Attie sat.

‘Right,’ said Gabriel. ‘I don’t care what you do in ten minutes time. You can all fuck off home for all I care. But for the next ten minutes,’ – she focussed wide angry eyes on her mother – ‘I want to hear you tell Bailey what you told me yesterday.’

My heart, leaden and languishing, leapt like a bull frog in my chest. And I'm sure my expression was that of a confused, but expectant puppy when Mariabella's eyes briefly met mine as she fought for words.

'Bailey must know—’

‘I haven’t told him.’ Gabriel interjected. She plonked the plates and cutlery on the table, crossed her arms and regarded her mother with a fixed, threatening glare. ‘I thought it should come from you, mum.’

Mariabella Hogg stared helplessly at Gabriel, then turned to the sunken eyes of her small, scowling husband for a very long time. As did I. As did Gabriel. As did everyone else. And whatever tacit communication was taking place between them, Austin Hogg was giving nothing away. He merely glared back, barrel chest rising and falling with each deep whistling nasal inhalation. I felt like a gladiator waiting for the emperor’s thumb.
Then an image that will remain embedded at the forefront of my memory bank until eternity. The image of Austin Hogg, sour, groper-like mouth as tight and downturned as it had been all night, slowly closing those hateful eyes of his and giving his wife a small, slow nod.

I know I gasped. And I know as a smoker that Mariabella did something similar - perhaps not a gasp, but whatever the sudden intake of air, she coughed herself stupid for a good minute while we all waited and said nothing.

‘Well,’ she said finally, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose and finding a sudden need for wine, about threequarters of a glass of it, which she downed in one throw of her head. She placed her glass back on the table and pushed it at me and I scurried in obediently and filled it, then scurried back to my position. Everyone waited while Mariabella drank another half a glass and lit a cigarette. 'Well,' she said again placing the glass back on the table and talking to it with regular sniffs and dabs at her nose, ‘it appears…’

‘Spit it out!’ spat Gabriel.

‘It appears…' - she cleared her throat - 'that we may have misjudged you, Bailey.’

Suddenly all my baggage had wheels. I gasped and covered my mouth. The prawns were forgotten.

‘And the rest,’ said Gabriel nudging her reticent mother towards a full disclosure.

‘Yes, it seems…it would appear…’

‘Mum?’ Gabriel said enticing her mother on with a hand rolled at the wrist and I imagined Mariabella being this reticent to divulge appropriate information at an AA meeting. Then, in a reluctantly repentant rush, it came – the full delicious disclosure - delivered entirely to the wine glass she twirled in veined, skeletal fingers on the table while lulled back rather diva-like in her chair, ever-present cigarette in the air - but the full delicious disclosure nevertheless.

‘All the information we have been given would suggest you had nothing to do with it. The police have completely cleared you of any involvement. Let me put it this way – it seems highly unlikely it was you. Gabriel has acquainted us with the anguish you have obviously felt and it’s been an extremely difficult time for us all. Not just us as a family, but everyone in Skipton-le-Beans and anyone who deals with us, comes into our lives on a daily basis. They have felt as threatened as we have. Yet they have been brilliant. We’re not very friendly people, Bailey. We don’t seek friends. We don’t want friends. But through this we’ve made…well, several. That’s by the by. What has become clear through our conversations with Gabriel is that you are as thrown by all this as we are. Just as importantly, you clearly love our daughter. We don’t have to like you. We are highly suspicious of you for obvious reasons. But common sense tells us where your priorities lie and they are not with ruining your fiancé’s family.’

I’d had the toast sorted, my beer poised, Gabriel clasped to me from about ‘We don’t seek friends.’ But like the respectful, daughter loving non-terrorist I was, I waited until Mariabella Hogg – the worst mother-in-law any man could wish for, but right now like a pickled Holy Grail in a jar – had finished her speech. Which, it seemed, she had.

A long groan emanated from a squirming, head shaking form at the table. ‘I don’t bloody buy it!’ Male. Fifty. Born in Bloemfontein. Fled to England the moment ‘Whites only’ signs disappeared from beaches. ‘I don’t buy this ridiculous barbecue stunt. I don’t buy all this talk of innocence.’ He gestured at me. ‘The man has a history, for God’s sake!’

‘Yes,’ Gabriel said. ‘And you have a history for coming on to sixteen year old girls!’

‘You lying little toad!’

‘You lecherous old shit!’

‘Children, children!’ Mariabella held her hands up for peace. ‘Enough!’

‘That bloody daughter of yours needs a bullet!’ growled Attie.

‘Shut up, Attie!’ Mariabella yelled.

‘Shut up yourself, you drunken old witch!’

‘Attie!’ cried Melissa.

‘Stay out of it, fat cow!’

‘Don’t call me a fat cow!’

‘You are a fat cow!’

‘He’s right, Melissa,’ said Mariabella. ‘You are a fat cow.’

‘And you’re a hopeless old alcoholic!’ screamed Melissa in her first and only contribution to the night, though spot on.

‘At least I’m a thin one, my dear,’ said Mariabella lighting a fag.

‘You’re an abomination,’ Attie chimed in with some spectacularly gnashed teeth and lethal squinting.

‘Fuck you,’ muttered Mariabella with some .

‘Fuck both of you,’ muttered Melissa and with that they lapsed into a bristling, twitching silence.

‘Right!’ said Gabriel brightly. ‘Who needs a drink?’

***

The night wore on in every sense of the word, settling into an uneasy atmosphere of sufferance and shallow conversation punctuated by bickering, drinking and eating. The sombrero-topped heaters did their job magnificently; I did mine admirably – prawns (slightly burnt), steaks, sausages and fish all receiving rave reviews or, in the case of Austin and Attie, no reviews at all, which was as good a review as any – and Gabriel did her job with customary brilliance – salads, baked potatoes, sauces and apple pie desserts all of restaurant quality.

It also transpired that I had been cleared by a group just as important as Family Hogg – the London Terrorist Investigation Unit. Not only had they run me through every Interpol version of Google and come up empty, they’d had me under occasional surveillance for months. I found this rather creepy. I’d never noticed anyone watching me intently. There had been no black multi-aerial vans parked outside the house for days on end. No mystery servicemen checking for gas leaks we hadn’t reported. Such was the nature of surveillance these days, I suppose. The point was not to be seen.
The fact was I was no longer a suspect. This was good. Life could return to normal – at least for us anyway.

The euphoria of this realisation lasted about two hours.

In chronological order, this is how our castle barbecue turned to ruins:

At eight thirty and moments after gorging on seven prawns, two rump steaks, four sausages, two baked potatoes and salad, and having seen off nine Boddingtons and a Tetleys, Simon gave me a hug and told me he loved me, which earned him a frighteningly violent slap across the chin from his father. 

At eight thirty-two, Simon excused himself and drove home in tears.

At ten o’clock, Simon phoned Mariabella’s mobile to tell her Danby the dog was missing.

At ten thirty, Simon phoned Mariabella again to tell her Chicken Colditz HQ was on fire.

At ten-thirty-one, Austin Hogg spoke for the first time since ‘A marn has tae eat,’ in a terrifying, spitting and incoherent tirade with enthusiastic backing vocals from Attie Joubert, the gist of which seemed to be that this dinner was a plot to clear his farm for activist invasion, the disappearance of Danby the dog most pointedly implicating me given recent outspoken grievances.

At ten forty,  I was right back where I started.

Chapter Thirty Six

36


JAS 360: LEEDS

JAS 360: LEEDS was founded in 1987 by John King, Antony Keegan-Phipps and Sepalika Kobalavithanage, three former high fliers of the McCarthy Ellison Empire who defected when they had built sufficient reputations to start their own agency. Sensibly they opted against the tried and true big sounding corporate acronym: With the trio of surnames available – King, Keegan-Phipps and Kobalavithanage – their only source of business would have been the American Deep South circa 1950 and that was neither practical nor legal. Most importantly it wasn’t viable: they were based in Leeds. Another option was the triple barrelled King Keegan-Phipps Kobalavithanage title much loved by advertising agencies the world over. But with creative director, Sepalika Kobalavithanage’s presence on the scene, telephonists would have been in danger of swallowing their own tongues. Hence John, Antony and Sepalika resorted to a memorable, if toilet cleaner-like compilation of their initials. 360 was merely added as a vague, artsy nod to their holistic approach to advertising.

I had been something of a JAS 360: LEEDS groupie ever since they won Clio Grand Prix in just their second year of operation. I’d sat riveted to lengthy interviews with John, Antony and Sepalika as their empire grew and I’d fallen in love with Sepalika Kobalavithanage, an expat Sri Lankan of such mesmerising beauty, grace and power with the pithy headline I melted in every pure white upward spreading of her mouth. She reminded me of Gabriel. Or maybe Gabriel reminded me of her.

***

There must have been twenty four people in the JAS 360: LEEDS boardroom that morning. There must have been because I’d counted them. One of these was Fergus Blaine looking resplendently uncomfortable in his linens, sleeves creased to the wrist from a failed attempt to enter the meeting with them rolled up to his elbows. One of them was me, hair freshly cut off the shoulders, moustache and flavour saver trimmed, as many earrings and bangles and leather straps as I could fit on my lobes and wrists, just a hint of green tat poking from a bright orange Kraft Macaroni and Cheese ‘The Cheesiest!’ t-shirt, itself poking from a brown waistcoat.

One of them was John King, JAS 360 CEO, looking like Grizzly Adams at a biker wedding with his wild man hair and beard and his fat man black suit. One of them was Antony Keegan-Phipps, Executive Account Director, looking like a Wall Street banker with his slick black hair and slick black suit. One of them was Sepalika Kobalavithanage. Aaaah, Sepalika! Like a little pot of fine Ceylon tea.

There were media people and accounts people and research people. The rest were the competition. Sixteen of them, eight resident teams of JAS 360 writers and art directors, the youngest of which were just off the tit, the oldest of which were just old tits. They were an interesting cross-section of English sub-cultures from hat wearing Pet Shop Boys to shaven headed thugs off East Enders. There were eleven men and five women, all of whom looked like they’d got their attitude from Vinnie Jones. My contempt for them was palpable. They stood between me and JAS 360 glory. They’d already made it. I hadn’t.

So to the brief. Here is all you need to know from that exhaustive two hour meeting. John King aka Grizzly Adams: ‘I don’t need to tell you how important this pitch is to us. But I’ll tell you anyway. This pitch is fucking important. We have to win it! You have to win it! And you will win it or I’ll sack the lot of you! Within these walls are the finest fucking creatives in England. You’ve proved that. You’re why Asok came to us. You’re why they will come to stay.’

Sepalika Kobalavithanage: ‘…I’d also like to welcome Bailey Harland and Fergus Blaine, a freelance team who will also be working on the pitch. Welcome gentlemen. We look forward to your ideas.’ Sixteen sets of eyes burned holes through our foreheads.

Antony Keegan-Phipps: ‘Asok Marauder football boots.’ An audio-visual of an orbiting soccer boot appeared on a large screen that had just slunk silently from the ceiling. ‘Newly designed for English football star, Andrew Sandham. The lightest, yet most powerful Asok football boot ever. And that’s saying something.' He scanned the room saying nothing. ‘Two inner soles,' he continued. 'One firm to allow more powerful shooting, the other soft for more fleet-footedness. Flatter profile. Glove-like fit. Asok patented technology so even the backyard hack can swerve it like Sandham. A claim best not scrutinised too thoroughly as there is also the small matter of technique to consider, a technique it has taken Sandham himself umpteen years to master, but this is by the by. Our job, of course, is not to sell the reality, but the dream.’

Keegan-Phipps picked up a sample off the table. ‘This is the best football boot in the world,' he said brandishing it around the room. 'Soon to be the most famous football boot in the world. At a hundred and thirty pounds a pair, it would need to be. We.' - he pointed the toe of the boot at faces around the room just to be sure we understood what he meant by we - 'are to launch this boot. Well, we hope and expect to launch this boot. First we have to win the business. For those of you who wish to know, we are pitching against five agencies. I am not privy as to who those agencies are, so don’t ask. This is what we have been asked to do.

He placed the boot on the table and went walkabout. ‘Andrew Sandham now plays his football for FC Barcelona as anyone familiar with the game will know, or anyone merely familiar with Andrew Sandham.’ Titters around the table. ‘Now,’ he paused for effect, ‘on the twentieth of March, FC Barcelona play Chelsea in a European Cup eliminator at Stamford Bridge. Asok and the Marauder brand wish to leverage off this event in their launch of the Marauder brand utilising media in the ground, around the ground, leading to the ground and, of course, Match of the Day television time on BBC1. Unfortunately due to the high demand for television time, this space has already been pre-booked by Asok’s incumbent agency meaning we are stuck with sixty second spots.’ Cheers from around the table. ‘Yes, I thought you’d like that bit. Now, let’s get on with it.’

And, finally, get on with it, he did.

Basically, the brief was as simple and concise as a brief could be. Utilising sixty second television spots and outdoor media around the field, stadium and along the main thoroughfares leading to the stadium, we were required to express the following: You too can swerve it like Sandham if you buy these boots.’ I can assure you briefs don’t get any more concise and single minded than that. Nor any more exciting than that.

The deadline for concepts was a luxurious three weeks away. I breathed a sigh of relief: we could work it around our Creative Solutions commitments. For now, Charlie Chabot had a stay of execution.

Moreover, it was a massively exciting opportunity. And it signalled a rather sudden change in fortunes…

***

Gabriel had been back on speaking terms with Chicken Colditz for a week now – not in a popping in for coffee sort of way, just a not hanging up when she phoned sort of way. She had used these brief but precious forums to further state my (our) case. Then, surprise of all surprises…a call from Mariabella. They were ready to meet.

We suggested dinner at Hartley Castle House on Saturday night. They agreed.

It felt like we’d won Lotto, such was the elation, the utter euphoria of the breakthrough. The Cold War was over. Now we had three days to prepare. Which was plenty. All we had to do was ensure Saturday night was a success. A simple, uncomplicated success.

That’s all we had to do.

Chapter Thirty Five

35


Straight eye for the crooked guy

‘Bailey. I’m truly sorry. I can’t do this!’

‘You can and you will.’

‘I won’t. It’s just not me.’

‘All the more reason to do it, I’d have thought.’

Fergus Blaine stood before a full length mirror in Leon, one of York’s trendier menswear stores in a brown leaf printed linen shirt hanging loose over light brown linen trousers. His feet were wrapped in hip brown sneakers, the perfect cool casual complement.

‘Bailey. Can I just say that I have worked for some of the world’s most prestigious agencies in my clothes,’ – he began counting off fingers on gnarled hands – ‘won three Clios, five New York and four D&AD in my clothes, been to any number of successful interviews in my clothes. What does that say to you?’

‘It says it’s about time you washed your clothes.’

‘That’s very funny. I didn’t mean the clothes I’m wearing today.’

‘I know you didn’t. I’ve seen you in sorts of abominations. But I don’t care. You’re not going anywhere near JAS 360 with me in any of your clothes.’ I nodded at him. ‘You’re going in those clothes.’

And if I may say so myself, it was a vast improvement. Not that it was actually physically possible to make him look worse. And there was a very low ceiling to any improvement with those eyes and that wonky overbite. This wasn’t mutton dressed as lamb. This was Gollum dressed as Brad Pitt. If only we could do something about that pallid skin.

***

‘For fuck’s sake, Fergus! Stand still!’

‘It tickles!’

‘Well, let it tickle! I’m not paying this lady twenty quid to spray tan the walls! And, I’m telling you now, you’re not wearing those nice new clothes over those disgusting y-fronts.’

‘Bailey. This isn’t funny anymore! Nobody’s going to see my underwear!’

‘I just did! And it never was funny. I’ve been mentally scarred from this experience.’

‘You know, I could really grow to dislike you, Bailey Harland, I truly could.’

***

‘Hello. I was wondering if you could help my ahm acquaintance here. He’s looking for some Calvin Klien briefs.’ I cupped my hands, sized up my acquaintance. ‘About a small mens?’

‘Excuse me! I’m a medium, thank you!’

***

‘Tell me honestly, Fergus. How does it feel?’

As a sort of enforced Hells Angels-style initiation to the world of fashion, I’d made Fergus wear his new clobber back to Creative Solutions.

‘To be truthful, Bailey,' he said standing pasty, petulant and imperfect before me, a clothes horse one catwalk away from dog food at best. 'It feels very foreign. I’m not comfortable in these clothes. I can’t be myself in these clothes.’

I lounged on a sofa by the pool table in a dim and dowdy back room and smiled: ‘Surely that’s got to be a good thing.’

‘That’s very funny, Bailey,' he said sitting as far away as possible. ' I just don’t see what gives you the right to tell me what to wear.’

'Hmm,' I said placing a melodramatic finger to my lips. ‘The distinct possibility turning up at JAS 360 with a smelly tramp will jeopardise my chances?' This,' I said holding the same finger in the air and throwing him my most witheringly sincere gaze, 'is the biggest opportunity of my life! It’s all right for you; you’ve worked for top agencies. I haven’t. A creative hot shop in Leeds might not be such a big deal to you. It is to me!’

I wasn’t about to tell Fergus Blaine just how big a deal: that such a lucrative and conspicuously prestigious job would solve a lot of problems. One, the precarious state of my charade of wealth would receive a sizable and welcome boost. Two, such a job and its inherent pay packet would dilute the impact of the Chicken Colditz debacle and its ultimate resolution – it would still hurt, just not as much. Three, maybe, just maybe, I’d find the sixteen hundred spare pounds necessary to buy those Charalais.

Charlie Chabot appeared in the pool room door.

‘Sorry. Not interrupting, am I?’ He spotted Fergus. ‘Well, well! What’s the occasion?’

It was an awful moment. There we were – the conspiring mutineers and the captain walks in. I hated lying to Charlie Chabot, one of the sweetest upper class twits I was ever likely to meet. Certainly I hope the sweetest upper class twit I would ever betray.

‘Nothing, Charlie,' I said wringing my hands and finding a sudden need to inspect the walls for mildew. 'We just thought it was time to sharpen Fergus up a bit.’

‘Lovely,’ said Charlie with an amiable smile. Well, you’ve done a splendid job, I must say!'

He dithered about as long as it took to realise neither of us was available for comment. 'Sorry, ahm, won’t keep you,' he said hesitantly as eyes failed to meet his. 'Just thought I’d pass on the good news. Appears we may be more than a little inundated over the next month or six weeks. Rather a lot of work coming in, I suspect. All of which will be written up on our splendidly newfangled briefing template!’ He grinned, sucked a laugh through his teeth, the audio equivalent of a bicycle pump.

‘Briefing template, Charlie?’ I felt sick.

He threw his head through a great swoop of a nod. ‘Aaah yup!Copied it off the Internet. Quite something it is too. Unique selling propositions and demographics and lots of other things I’ve never heard of. Once I’ve got the vaguest clue what I’m doing, I’m sure it will be quite something. Must appear to be keeping up with the whiz kid creatives!’

And with another sucked laugh, he was gone, leaving us to search each other’s faces; Blaine no doubt finding mine pensive, guilt-ridden and a little sad; me finding his strangely, sniggeringly amused in the manner of a naughty schoolboy caught flushing lab rats down the toilet. Well, at least one of us was sparing a thought for Charlie Chabot, the – if all went well – soon to be abandoned Charlie Chabot. Just when he’d settled us in, got us up to speed, believed he had a good thing going, we’d be off.

We hoped so anyway.