Goosey Goosey Gander

by Frank Edwards

  “Wildfowling is an inalienable right of all God-fearing Englishmen” had been his response. Antonia was too polite to point out that his father had been anything but an Englishman, by birth. By paper he had changed that image and become a paragon of the Thornley set. She was politician enough to remember that. No room for prejudice. Yet, increasingly politically, it was all right to be prejudiced about people who killed things for sport. In this country. In this County. Why else the anti-hunting Bill, whatever the local sentiment? Yet she was going to hold her fire until things, plans, became clearer. Not all fences are uncomfortable to sit on. For a sensible period of time. There were things in common between the present and the previous councillors for the Riverside Ward.

  Things in common or not, Mrs White had been ready enough to take her leave of DeLacey. She assured him that she would let him know ‘all that there was to know – officially’, at which he had smiled the smile of one who knows the game well, and left. As her car reached Goose Lane – such a suitable name for the not-much-more-than track which led down from the main village to Alan’s newly-acquired land, she spotted the owner walking up it.

  “Can I give you a lift?”

  “Going up to see my brother.”

  “Hop in. Been counting your chickens?”

  Alan Tewkes’ enthusiasm was boundless, as was his energy. Both were in full display in his inherited venture. To, on what was now his land, came migrating birds. He began to tell her of his plans to increase the numbers of resident ones. Antonia drove as slowly as made sense to allow him time to expand. Who knows what news she might pick up.

  “You need residents, as a basic attraction all year long as much as anything. And to attract more migrators.”

  “Decoy ducks?”

  Alan shuddered at that term, but let it pass. He could see what she meant. He had pressed on.

  “We’ve got two breeding pairs of Goldeneye already”, he had eagerly explained. “At least, that is, we are sure the one pair bred last year and we’ve every hope that the two will this. I’ve got to keep a regular eye on them, though. Until we can afford it, there just isn’t enough predator-proof fencing. It’s a hell of a worry. At times.”

  “I’m sure it must be. Must be,” the councillor had murmured soothingly. “It sounds like a big project you’ve undertaken, from all I’m told.”

  “My life’s dream.”

  “Yet your brother shoots them”, she couldn’t help putting in, thinking of that morning exchange.

  “That’s one of the things I’m going to see him about now.”

  “A bit formal, isn’t it? By appointment at the big house!” She had tried to make her tone light and avoid any indication of probing.

  Alan had laughed at the reference.

  “Since I moved out to the gatehouse, it is in a way. The big house, rather than my old home. Jeremy’s all right. I don’t like everything he does, but the house is now his and he has assumed that with it go the upper reaches shooting rights. In conjunction with Thornley, that is, although it is some time now since the old boy did any shooting himself.”

  Goldeneye (Goldeneye, WWT Llanelli)

  Councillor White sensed a touch of scepticism in the young man’s tone that she would have liked to explore, especially following her recent summons, but Alan was in full flood.

  “Marcia’s not so keen on my calling, though. Sees me as the impoverished younger son. She, rather they, have got the house and the money, and thus, in her wifely eyes, they have the position. My problem is not them. They’re welcome to it all. My father left me all I ever wanted, although some funds extra to my little stipend, as I call it, would come in nicely. But no! My problem, the problem, is that birds coming in and going out can and will cross those upper reaches. I’m damned if I’m having Jeremy or anyone else shooting them. The idea’s preposterous! Unthinkable.”

  Chapter Two

  he setting could have been lifted direct from a Jane Austen novel. Or, to be more exact, a television producer’s idea of what it was that authoress was describing. Jeremy, the new master of what had once been a Ducal home, not on this occasion accompanied by his good lady wife Marcia, had decided to receive his younger brother while standing with his back to the fireplace. He should have had coat-tails to flap in the conventional manner, but his shooting jacket gave him flaps enough, and the confidence to put the kid into the way of things. For such a task was his. Of that Jeremy was certain. What had his father been thinking of? Splitting things up like that! He had the house, Wickton, and the money, or most of it. So he should! The two should go together. Damned expensive game, keeping up old places. Not that he could think of moving out. Marcia, already a ‘Lady’ by acquisition if not, yet, by act of primeministerial grace, had arrived. And there she was determined to stay. Still, all that land going to Alan! No good for either stock animals or crops, for sure, but owned space. There was something very satisfying, Jeremy felt as he awaited his sibling, in gazing out across broad acres one owned, waterlogged though they might be.

  At over six foot, lean and with the air of authority which a short service commission in a ‘proper’ cavalry regiment endows – whether one is then got rid of nicely or purposefully – Jeremy knew that he filled the picture of a man who had standing in the community. Just by being in the community. Once he had come into his inheritance he had hurriedly and happily left his life as a not-over-successful estate agent. To be exact, an employee of an estate agent. He had not sparked sufficiently to advance in any way. Although selling property had not been that difficult over the period he had graced the occupation, his heart had never been in it. He was just glad it was all over. The experience had, however, given him a feel for land. For property. For what others wanted and how much they might pay for it. And not just property. Industry had needs wider than merely acres of buildable land. It needed water. And drainage. Alan’s salt marshes had a potential that his younger brother didn’t dream of. Luckily.

  The brothers were not incompatible. Alan’s comment to Mrs White was an honest one. They did see each other as ‘all right’. They had both inherited more than possessions from Mr Tewkes (né Mortlemann) senior. He had built the whole of his life, not just his fortune, on entrepreneurial drive. This gene he had passed on though, as is so often the case, whether you be a creationist or Darwinian, the gift had mutated with the next generation. Jeremy, although slack as an underling in an estate office, was no slouch when it came to seeing, and seizing, a business opportunity. Hence one reason why he had languished as a seller of property; he was always on the look-out for associated openings for his own ambitions. In any event, the developing illness of his father not only kept him at home out of filial duty - and also where life was cheaper, the better to sustain Marcia - but, by so staying in the neighbourhood, it had made it easier to take over when the inevitable end came. Alan, the less driven of the two, also had received, from his father’s guidance and example, a business acumen that even the Business degree he had been directed into taking managed not to undo. Both men, along with their sister the, soon-to-be merry, widow Galina, had further acquired the ‘landowner’ manners and skills so assiduously embraced by Tewkes père.

  Alan, on entering the long room, smiled at the patriarchal pose of his brother.

  “Not much fire there to keep your bum warm.”

  “I do that by getting on with things.”

  “You can’t criticise me for not doing likewise, now. Come on! And its colder working on water.”

  “Which is no doubt why you’ve come to see me today. Especially. Thought you wouldn’t wait much longer or for a more casual occasion to turn up.” Alan reddened slightly. Jeremy’s tone had been cold. No humour.

  “I have to make a few important decisions very soon, so I thought it best to get one or two things off my chest now. Sorry if it’s been a great inconvenience.”

  Jeremy had relaxed. A little. Only an iota. Alan knew that he could be an obsessive.

  “Oh, come off it, Alan
! But you can’t blame me. Being wary of your motives I mean. I suppose you want me to fund your fun park. Well, I won’t. Let’s get that straight for a start. Have you seen the bills just for the roofing of the old stable?” He did not mention the upkeep of the gatehouse wherein the other now dwelt.

  Alan was not surprised by the reply. He would have liked some funding, or the promise of some backing; some underwriting perhaps. But he was not over-dismayed. Just a little miffed that it had been given before he had got round to asking the question. He had hoped to ease it in. Foiled in that approach, he abandoned the idea and pressed ahead with his main point.

  “OK! If you say so. It could be a money spinner you know.”

  “Come the next millennium! Don’t kid me. There might, eventually, be a small working profit from the venture – if it ever gets off the ground – but a money spinner? You must be joking. It takes the might of a Peter Scott heritage empire to be big enough to employ and to profit. But your puddles! Not a chance. I’m not putting father’s money where he would never have put it. Sunk it. Literally.”

  “Very well. Allow me some credit for knowing something of what I’m about. Of course we won’t rival the WWT. But there’s room for a one-off, particularly here. We’re far enough away from any of the Wetlands sites and the area’s perfect. Perfect for the birds and, thus, the people who love birds. People who don’t go out and shoot them.”

  “Ha! Just as I thought. So, not only do you want me to give up my money to your half-baked, ill-thought-out project, but you want me to give up my sport as well. The second request, my dear brother, gets the same answer as the first. A firm no. No! Why the hell should I? What use are your flaming ducks except for sport. And the table. I’m not going to shoot the lot. Indeed, I doubt if I’ll get through as many as the hunters in Russia, or Iceland or wherever they come from, and the other countries they fly over. Just take a few more, that’s all. There’ll still be enough quack-quacks for you and your fellow fan club members to cluck over.”

  The cold tone hit home. Alan realised that he couldn’t expect Jeremy to see that his concern was as much with those birds he was introducing as residents as he was with the migrants he hoped they would encourage? The denial had been absolute. Alan cursed his own lack of diplomacy. Maybe a different approach might have made things easier. What didn’t make things any easier at that point was the entry of Marcia.

  “I do hope I’m not interrupting some terribly private brotherish affair.”

  “Of course not, my dear. Alan’s here on a mission. Could be one with which you have a greater sympathy than me.”

  “Darling! We wouldn’t disagree in public, surely!”

  “Hardly public. We are family. Alan may live in the old gatehouse, but he’s scarcely a tenant is he?”

  “Of course not. It was sweet of you, Alan, to go down there. I suppose, technically as your father’s Will said nothing else, you could have insisted on staying on here.”

  Alan didn’t need telling that that was the last thing he would ever do. Even so, his ear had caught Jeremy’s remark. If Marcia was a supporter then, well, if Churchill could sup with Stalin in the cause of the greater good, then? He’d see.

  “I wouldn’t want to come between man and wife”, he had begun in a joking tone, “but if there is any chance of your support in my plea, I might take the risk.”

  “What risk?” Her husband gave the answer.

  “Can’t you guess? It’s this water park mania of his again. Wants me to stop shooting in case I hit any of his precious birds. As I’m most likely to. Father taught all three of us pretty well.”

  “Oh that old business! I can’t say I like shooting things. Anything. I’d rather leave all that to the slaughter houses. That’s their job. We don’t need any stringy duck for our table, thank you. But, after all, Alan, it is a man’s sport. Some women’s also, I do believe. Not me! You’re right. You mustn’t cause any upset between us. I never would shoot, but why should I stop Jeremy’s fun?”

  Alan had felt like exploding at the word ‘fun’, but contained himself. He decided that he would have to go onto the attack to defend his plans. He had come prepared for that. Hence this semi-formal appointment rather than a casual meeting, and the tone that Antonia White had picked up on. Things could start being brought to a head.

  “There may be something on my side”, he had cautiously begun. “I’ve been doing a bit of delving. Down at the library and in the County Records Office. So far as I can see, there are no shooting rights over this stretch of the river or this section of the estuary”.

  “Tell that to DeLacey Thornley!”

  “Not sure I’m that brave.” Alan tried a relaxed-type smile, but although he got nothing back from his brother he did spot a look of some concern from his consort. He went on:

  “Maybe I shall have to. Tell Thornley.”

  “This is silly! He’s been shooting for years, as his father and grandfather before him. For ages. On his land mainly, but on the old Duke’s – yours,” he vitrioled out that last word, “as well. He invited me. Gave Father the go-ahead. Balderdash, brother of mine! Twaddle of the first order. Anyway, since when have you become a legal eagle? These things are enshrined in antiquity and clothed in righteous ritual. People have always shot here. Why, you might as well try and stop Dan Bracegirt as either DeLacey or me.”

  Alan had been forced to smile. At the reference to Dan. The traditional village poacher. Every locale had to have one these days. Vital to the tourist trade and the bantering up of visitors in the hostelries. Dan was becoming the local treasure that no magistrate wanted to touch. As a result, if he was allowed to get a few birds, which he would eat after Ma Olive had cooked them for him, then who was to stop the good and the great in their time-honoured sport? Alan held his ground.

  “Dan is a rogue element in this as in life. He’s never claimed any legal right. Just as well, for there isn’t one.” Again the older brother had snorted his disbelief and his disgust at this seditious muttering. His snort, indeed, had begun to develop into the anger that Alan had inwardly dreaded at the prospect of a face-to-face show down with the great Thornley, semi-retired shot or not. But by then he was committed to his argument.

  “There isn’t one I tell you.”

  “Wait till Lacey gets Gaskell onto that one. You’ll be drummed out of the County if he has his way.”

  “I’ve already done that. At least, got on to Graham Bingley, Gaskell’s partner-in-law. All for free, in case you are wondering how father’s little stipend can stretch so far? Bingley’s a keen conservationist I have been delighted to find out. He agrees with my findings. There are no legal shooting rights over our local waters. What there was, was the granting, entirely on a personal basis, of such permission by the old Duke to Thornley’s granddad. That’s all. Who, in his days, would have queried it? Yet even such authority as that carried disappeared with the end of the ducal line. When our father bought this place, he did not acquire the right to go even that far. Give permission to others as the Duke did. Leave alone allot it to himself. Not in law he didn’t.”

  Jeremy by now was building up a good head of steam. Alan had wondered, for a moment or two, whether he was going to turn physical.

  “Twaddle! A cartload of legal gibberish. If Gaskell has anything to do with whatever this whoever-he-is partner of his has been saying, he’s going to be looking for work elsewhere other than with Delacey Thornley. You can bet your bottom dollar on that. You might not care to, but I shall take great pleasure in telling Thornley of your machinations. Such intriguing as this won’t save your precious geese, I can tell you. I’ve half a damned mind to go out and shoot the lot now, but I’ll save up that pleasure to share with DeLacey. This story will bring his gun out again if anything will.”

  In the months that had followed that interview Alan was relieved to find that there was not a sudden blazing of guns across the wetland. Whether Gaskell was still retained by Thornley he did not know at that stage. What he gu
essed, correctly as time showed, was that Gaskell had persuaded DeLacey and, no doubt through him, Jeremy, that there was a lot in what he, Alan, had dug out of the archives; that to flaunt the apparent finding before further legal research had taken place might result in some unpleasant, if not expensive, litigation. Which they were set to lose. There was growing support for Alan’s plans in the area and, consequently, ever less of it for wildfowlers. Although he didn’t know it, Mrs White had been constrained to give support. DeLacey knew his councillor successor well enough to take note of what she said. She kept her ear to the ground by the simple and old-fashioned way of keeping her feet on the ground. Keeping on the move. She didn’t use her car to go around the town. She walked and talked. The Force, in so far as it was represented by local sentiment, was indeed fully behind Alan Tewkes’ project. Because of that, in part, it had flourished. By the time she, on a later occasion accompanied by Gaskell, had had to tell a ‘council of war’ – consisting of Thornley and a tag-along Jeremy – that there was every possibility that Natural England was sympathetic to compulsory purchase to secure Alan’s boundaries, there was a positive slowing of the open aggression from the gunmen. Yet with it went an increasing determination to bring the project down by any means possible before it became too well established. A chill that deepened as Alan began, slowly but constructively, to build up his dream to the state where the first locals could make their way around his cleared ponds and extended lakes with something worthwhile to see.

  Among the first parties to request permission to do so was the local Junior School.

  The law, in the shape of Graham Bingley, was not the only supporter. Annie Hole was the headmistress of the sixty or so strong village school. She was also the wife of Detective Inspector Gerald Hole who, in so far as his duties allowed, was an active backer of the Tewkes project. They were both bird watchers and carers. Annie’s school was just far enough from the town itself, and just viable enough, taking social considerations into account, to be allowed to survive the mania for ‘biggerisation’. Common teacher-speak, in this as in similarly placed schools, chose a different emphasis of the word, one they wished to keep from the gentle ears of their pupils, as from the County Education Authority on whose goodwill their continuance in being depended. Annie and her two-point-four teachers were enthusiastic supporters of the wetland plan from the start. It would make, as it grew, an increasingly valuable natural resource right on the doorstep. Almost literally. So long as they chose their weather, they could walk the children there and back. That economy would please the authorities. Obesity busting as a bonus! Thus it was that Mrs Hole had gone to see Alan soon after his ambition had begun to turn into reality. She advised a children’s reception/activity area. She could then produce her charges, and others would follow. Some displays. Educational. Some pond dipping. Also educational. An ice-cream bar. Profitable. Not good for the overweight. A larger amount of Alan’s initial capital, most borrowed from a, just, trusting bank, backed by some small business set-up support, than he had at first intended had gone on these ideas. Also into safe walkways where the natural paths were insufficient. After the first season, Alan had had no reason to regret the decision. Children increasingly liked the place. And told their parents. Once a few geese got acclimatised and fed from their hands, he would be on the road to assured success. Others intended otherwise.