by Earl Nelson
She bet the Queen Mum Nina would trigger you to your error. The Queen Mum didn’t think you would realize it until you were airborne.
“Do you have any idea of the bet?”
“It was a shilling so the Queen won’t have to raise our taxes too much to pay for it.”
“The Queen sets the tax rate?”
“No, but the Prime Minister leads the House of Commons, she has some influence with him. Off with his head type of influence.”
I knew she didn’t really have that sort of power, but on second thought I wasn’t going to test it out.
“So what can be done?”
“Well, you could come back and look in the cargo hold. The ladies have your complete wardrobe there. I must say you have a lot of clothes.”
“A lot, what did they do load my entire wardrobe on board?”
“They had duplicates made of everything.”
“That means I have three copies now, one in England, one in America, and one onboard the aircraft. I wonder who keeps it all straight?”
“I was told your Valet took care of it.”
“I have a Valet? Will he travel with me?”
“That is what I was told.”
“Where will they be on the aircraft.”
“They will share the stewardesses área in the cargo hold. We have set up Pullman Coach type rooms with bunks. He has a work área for tailoring, laundry, and dry cleaning will have to be done ground side.”
“How do they get back and forth inflight?”
“Apparently, you didn’t notice the small elevator in the main galley. There is one on most 707’s now for extra food storage etc.”
I thanked him and hung up.
I no sooner rang off than the phone rang. It was the Managing Director.
“You didn’t give me a chance to pass on some other information.”
“Such as?”
“The ladies also had a complete set of your gear, swords, bows, and such placed on board. Since the cargo hold on a 707 is so large they also put a car onboard. We had to enlarge the doors to doublé size so the car would fit. It will take a heavy-duty forklift at each airport to unload it.”
“What car?”
“I haven’t seen it but I was told it Bently S2 Continental Convertable. They tried for an Aston Martin like you already have but none were available.”
“That was thoughtful of them. I wonder who is paying for all of this?”
“Why you have Sir Richard. The purchases were made through us and we have billed and paid. We appreciate the timeliness.”
The only access my Grand Mum had to my accounts was The Meadows household accounts. I could see the monthly bill now, five pounds of sugar, five shillings, one pound of butter five pence, one Bently seventy thousand pounds.
Thinking of it that way I had to laugh. The anger I had been starting to feel melted away.
Next, I called Grand Mum and thanked her for taking care of the clothing issues. I also asked her about this Valet I now had in my employee.
It seems he was the son of Prince Phillips's Valet and this was his first independent job. He had trained under his father as an apprentice so there was no question about his knowledge.
Now to see if we could get along. From my reading, I knew that a man's Valet knows more about him than his Mum. Now that was a scary thought.
I tried an act of small revenge on Grand Mum when I told her that I had just bought a car to take with me.
I just thought I had revenge, she never missed a beat.
“That's nice Richard, I will use the Convertable here at The Meadows.”
I had to backtrack quickly.
“Age and treachery beat youth every time.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Besides I talked it over with your Mum and she said it was okay. I put everything on the household accounts.”
That did it, I managed to choke out a goodby and hang up I was laughing so hard.
After I settled down I called Nina back to update her on my latest aircraft finds. She thought the clothes and car were a nice touch. Also, a Valet could help my image.
I didn’t know how to take that. Did I have a bad image because of the way I dressed? I was also smart enough to leave the comment alone. Some conversations could turn awkward, and this was one of them.
It ranked right up there with, “Does this dress make me look fat?”
We talked about trips we could take after I purchased the plane and completed my business trip around the world.
I would need to check on my estate in Spain one of these days. I did receive regular reports and things seemed to be going well.
Ninas trips revolved around the fashion world. This would mean trips to Rome, Paris, and New York. She was also interested in learning if there was a fashion center in India. This could be a huge untapped Marketplace.
I asked her how she felt about China.
“Do they have fashion in China? All I have seen is those horrid suits worn by Mao Tse-tung. Also since they are closed to the West we couldn’t do business anyway.”
“I would be too sure about that. I think they may be ready to open to the West. If they are we will have an inside track.”
“How is that, Rick?”
I guess I had never mentioned my trading deals with China involving rubber in exchange for my cargo handling system. Also, there was the fact I was shipping wheat to China to stave off a famine.
To say she was impressed was an understatement.
“Rick, you are one of the most important people in the world!”
“Not hardly, though I might make the top one thousand.”
“And how many people do that?”
“Uh, one thousand?”
“Rick! You know what I mean. Things that you are doing affect a lot of people. Why haven’t I heard this on the news?”
“China has to save face, if these events became public they would rather let their population starve.”
“Surely you exaggerate.”
“That is what my Chinese contact told me and I have no reason to disbelieve them. They look at the world differently than we do. They have six hundred and sixty million people, so what if a few million starve.”
“Oh, what a horrid thought.”
“I’m trying to prevent that, so please don’t tell anyone about what I just shared.”
“I won’t, my silent hero.”
Now I don’t know if she was taking the piss or not, but it was time to get out of this conversation.
We ended the phone call with the normal pleasantries but she added, “I think I am in love with you.”
“I think the same, but we are still too young, aren’t we?
“I’m rethinking that almost every day.”
I got off the line and went, “Whew!” I felt like I was in love with Nina. She was everything I could ask for in a wife. She is smart, pretty, same value American value system as me, and did I mention pretty?”
The only problem I wasn’t ready to get married. Kids our age were doing it all the time, I felt that I had to grow some more before committing to marriage.
There was no other girl on the horizon, but I didn’t want to rush into a life long marriage. I know divorces were becoming more common but that wasn’t my style.
Married is married, like a carpenter I was going to measure twice before cutting once. Hmm, somehow that sounds dirty in this context.
After talking to Nina I went downstairs to dinner. A stranger was sitting at the table. As I surmised he was my Valet. Grand Mum introduced us. I liked Harold Green on our first meeting. Time would tell how we would wear on each other.
He was about five-ten and one hundred and fifty pounds. His handshake was firm and he had a ready smile. His hair and eyes were brown and he had a typical English pale complexion.
I knew I would like him when he told me he should probably be paid more since my sleeves
and legs were so long that ironing would take forever.
Since I had no idea what I was paying him I told him no, he should be paid less as the ironing would go quicker as there would be an economy of scale.
He chuckled at that and we started a long-term relationship which ended as true friends.
How could you not like a guy who laughed at your bad jokes?
Chapter 29
The next morning I had to face something I had been putting off. The stops for my worldwide check up on my businesses had to be finalized.
The idea was to first talk to the leaders of the major divisions after that a select group of their direct reports. I needed to make certain that what I was hearing were the facts of the matter, not what someone wanted me to hear.
This would give subordinates a chance to give me the word on any problems directly. I hope that there would be none, but unless I checked I wouldn’t know.
The groups under Jackson Enterprises that I would visit and investigate, well give the subordinates a chance to talk to me were, Transportation led by Todd Goodson.
Under him were the Scottish Lines directed by John Churchill. This was based in Liverpool, how did it get the name Scottish Lines?
Then there is Howell Freight led by Robert Wilson. This had started as a joint venture between Jackson Enterprise and the Howell family. The Howells came to us with an offer to sell it to us.
They only had so many family members and they wanted to concentrate on their oil business and farms.
I wondered why a farm could take so much time and effort based on my large spread in Spain. On inquiry, I learned that my operation, if placed in the Argentine would be considered a hobby farm. Their ranches and farms were huge!
The Production operation which produced the actual cargo containers had a new VP named Roger Finnigan. He reported to Todd Goodson and was the person I was most interested in talking to. He had been on board for a year now and I hadn’t met him yet.
It would be most interesting what he would say when given the opportunity.
After Transportation, I wanted an update on Personal Products to see how Don Pearson and his team were doing. Even though the real money was in Transportation this group along with Home Products under Mark Downing were most dear to my heart.
Jackson Entertainment wasn’t a huge concern as there were no new movies or songs. They just were keeping track of residuals at this point. It was a nice chunk of change but was mostly a bookkeeping operation at this time. I
I had no new movie offers at this point and wasn’t certain if I wanted to make the time. As far as songs go, the twelfth of never would be too soon.
The bookkeeping aspect applied to the Brokerage operation. We had grown this by buying up firms in many countries. Each firm was still being treated as an individual and operating under many of the same leaders using their original policies and methods.
This was more like an alliance rather than a single business. It was making a lot of money so maybe it was a case of it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Ah heck, I knew that I would fix it when time allowed. I wanted a unified presence in the business world.
Also, who knew what policies were in place in countries like the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
It was time for me to visit my Spanish operation.
Then the was the question of what port operations to visit. After dithering for several hours I selected Hong Kong, Tokyo, Long Beach, Savannah, Hamburg, and Valencia.
Ideally, I would start at the nearest operation, Liverpool, and work my way around the world ending up back in England.
To achieve my objective I had to visit Jackson Enterprises headquarters in LA first, then Pittsburgh. This to followed up with a trip to Liverpool for the Scottish Lines then on to Howell Freight in Buenos Aires.
After that would be port operations.
After Hamburg then Valencia. I would then head to Hong Kong, then Tokyo. Then in a weird hop Savannah then back to Long Beach.
I know this itinerary would add time and many extra miles but I also know I could handle only so many projects at a time. I would start at the top of the Enterprise and get updates on all the business.
This would be followed by Transportation working my way down the chain to individual port operations. This was inefficient as all get out. Like why didn’t I visit the estancia in Spain while there?
While inefficient in the travel itinerary it would let me concentrate on each business segment separately. This would avoid confusion. Besides I had been booted out of Oxford, why not travel for a while.
I would never share this with anyone but I was embarrassed by the entire episode and wanted a change of scenery. Getting caught with that desk in high school had been the single most embarrassing thing the I had done up to this point.
At least it didn’t make worldwide headlines in the entertainment section. I guess the front page would have been worse.
I had been told many times that any publicity was good publicity. I don’t see how being seen as stupid on the world stage could be considered good.
I typed up my proposed trip along with the rationale for each stop. My first impulse was to call my Dad and see what he thought of my plan.
As I was picking up the phone I had second thoughts. He wanted me to be more involved in running my businesses and know what was going on. I had to figure these things out without running to him for everything.
I thought it through as to who I really should be contacting. It boiled down to Jim Williams and Todd Goodson.
They had the complicated parts of this plan. Everyone else was on a business visit. I thought about how I could handle this with one in Pittsburgh and the other in LA while I was in London.
Silly me, here I had a 707 and flight crews sitting idle.
I placed a call to Todd and then Jim. They were both available on Wednesday. This was Monday. I would fly to Pittsburgh tomorrow, Jim would fly to Pittsburgh and we would jointly go over my plan.
I used the copy machine to make extra copies. After that, I call the flight center to arrange my plane for tomorrow. It was short notice but they were able to do it.
Next, I found Roger watching a cricket match with Grand Mum and let him know we had a meeting in Pittsburgh Wednesday morning, we would spend Tuesday flying. His response was a nod while he watched the match.
Grand Mum asked why I was going to Pittsburgh of all places, she thought they still had red Indians roaming that part of the world. I tried to tell her otherwise but I don’t think she believed me.
Anyway, I gave a brief explanation of why I was going. She told me to be careful in the Argentine as she had heard stories about the wild women there. If she only knew.
Tuesday morning Roger and I were driven out to the Oxford flight center by Mr. Hammond. He was having fun with the world as he wore a grey chauffers uniform and accompanying hat.
He was able to drive onto the airfield and take us to the steps to the aircraft. He jumped out to open my door. Since I had nothing but my Hartman briefcase it was an easy transition.
I did look around and see that quite a few people had stopped to stare. How disappointed they would be if they knew it was only me and not some important person.
Then I remembered Nina’s reaction to my current activities. Nah, I’m still not that important.
The flight itself was uneventful in so far as there were no inflight concerns. It was fun exploring all the facilities on the aircraft. I even used the elevator down into the cargo hold.
Since it was only me and Roger as passengers the stewardess didn’t have much to do. When I went downstairs as I thought of it they were sitting around with their high heels off relaxing with a glass of what I thought was white wine.
I ignored this as I didn’t think they were supposed to be drinking while on duty. I was disabused of this thought when one of the hostesses picked up a can of SevenUp and refilled her glass.
Well, she start
ed to, she caught a nail on the pull tab. I learned a new expression which I shan’t repeat.
She and the other women agreed that it was some dumbass male who designed this pull-tab. They were convenient if working on a commercial flight but they had all caught and lost a nail to them.
I decided that I had urgent work in my office.
I also started giving it some thought as to how to improve the design so this wouldn’t happen.
That was all the excitement we had in the back of the plane. I thought I would go up front and see how the flight deck was going.
Chapter 30
The flight deck was a normal flight deck for a 707. As this was a long flight over wáter there was a flight engineer along with the pilot and copilot. What was really different three guys were sitting in seats behind the flight deck. They were the relief crew for long flights.
One was reading and the other two playing chess. I didn’t know much about chess but looking at their game I could tell they weren’t Borgov’s.
I talked to all the crew for a little while. They wanted to know how it was to land a 707 single-handed.
My reply was a simple, “Scary.”
“It might have been scary but you did it, what do you attribute the success to?”
“A good emergency checklist and professional guidance from the ground. From my training, I mostly knew what did what, but not when to do it, or how much to do it. The checklist told me what to do in what order, ground-control told me how and when to do it.”
“The point is you didn’t freeze up.”
“I didn’t allow myself to think about the consequences if I failed, I just listened and followed the instructions like a robot.”
“Rick, I heard the cockpit recording, you sounded like you had ice water in your veins.”
“That is from my training. Mr. McGarry drilled me into sounding calm no matter what I felt inside.”
“I read about your training from Bill McGarry, it must have been something to be taught how to fly by a hardened combat pilot.”
“It was, if you need an airfield strafed I’m your man.”
“I think we will leave that to the airforce.”