“Correct.” Used to most people recoiling in horror at the word flea, let alone the insect itself, Tuffy was pleasantly surprised by her great-niece’s enthusiasm.
“Imagine if we could copy the piston action of their legs and extract the resilin.”
“Resilin?”
“It’s the rubbery elastomeric protein found in many insects and arthropods, the magic ingredient that helps fleas jump, bees sting, crickets saw and the wings of dragonflies spin. It uses little energy and never wears out.”
“So this is why you need so many fleas? To extract resilin?” Arabella leaned back and looked from her great-aunt to all the specimen boxes.
“There are billions of fleas in the world, and it would take many billions more to harvest a significant amount, but if we could extract the DNA sequencing of resilin and graft that into a plant, we could make limitless amounts.”
“Imagine if I had resilin trainers: I’d be on all the sports teams!”
Tuffy smiled. “Why bother with shoes? We could just inject it straight into your joints.”
“Wicked.” Arabella continued to look down the microscope, fascinated by the fleas’ long, almost transparent legs.
“ ‘Wicked’ isn’t a scientific word; we might have to work on an alternative.” (There was something endearing about the child which reminded Tuffy of herself at that age: all legs and arms and lacking in confidence.)
“What are you working on?” Arabella asked, raising her head from the microscope to look at her great-aunt.
“I had an infestation of mice. Mice carry fleas. Fleas carry disease. Why did the mice population explode? Do their fleas harbour anything unexpected?” (This is bound to bore the girl to pieces and hopefully she’ll bugger off and leave me to get on with my work.)
“It was the mild winter. A cold snap kills off the young ones. I noticed many more voles and mice in the woods this year.”
“As it happens, I agree with you.” (Could it be that this girl is less of a dunderhead than most of my relations?) “It’s vitally important to establish a link between rising temperatures and the proliferation of disease-bearing insects.”
“Is this about climate change?”
“As a matter of fact it is.” (Well, knock me down with a feather.) “How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
Tuffy remembered herself at the same age; it was the year she caught her first salmon on a family holiday in Scotland. She had put the animal straight back after scraping the sea lice from its mouth and skin. Later she had caught sand fleas on the beach. The holiday became even more interesting when she realised that the insects found there differed from those she extracted from the feathers of a dead chicken. A lifetime obsession was born.
Arabella noticed Tuffy’s absent but blissful expression and wanted more than anything to have a front-row seat in her amphitheatre of knowledge.
“Do you want me to bring you some more nests? I know where most are.”
“Why do you think I’m interested?” (She’s been spying on me.)
“There’s a fresh dead deer in North Woods teeming with insects. I could collect it.”
Tuffy looked at the girl. While her common sense told her to desist, greed for fresh carrion overruled her desire for privacy. “I could give you some specimen bags.”
Arabella detected the note of excitement in her voice. “Or I could show you?” She wanted desperately to learn more.
“Privacy is the most important element of my work,” Tuffy said firmly.
“Do you think people could steal your ideas?”
“And intrude on my time.” (She’ll get the hint now.)
“I won’t tell anyone. I swear on Pooter’s head.”
“Pooter?”
“Our dog. He’s my best friend.” Sometimes Arabella thought he was her only friend, but was too proud to admit that.
Hearing the sadness in the young woman’s voice, Tuffy, against all her instincts, weakened.
“I’ll meet you at the back door at six tomorrow morning.” (That will put her right off.)
“I can’t wait.” Before Tuffy could change her mind, Arabella ran out of the room.
* * *
In a small semi-detached house on the outskirts of the Trelawney Estate, Glenda Sparrow was making dinner for her husband Gordon and their eldest grandchild Mark. She was a fine and adventurous cook and tonight was making organic lamb with rosemary, lemon and zucchero rosato followed by caramelised pumpkin pie. Mark was helping Gordon fix some tiles on the roof and she could hear, through the open window, the familiar banter between grandfather and grandson. BBC Radio Two played in the background and, opening the oven door, Glenda basted the meat. When Jane had come to the house with her back wages, pulling £50 notes out of a plastic bag, Glenda had been too surprised to complain about her bad hip and all the other excuses. Besides, there were few employers in Cornwall and, until Gordon cashed in their pension the following year, they needed the extra money. Nor could Glenda imagine life without the job at Trelawney; her mother, her grandmother and many great-great-grandparents had been in service at the castle. When she’d started, aged sixteen, as a scullery maid in the 1950s, there had been over sixty staff. One by one they left and Glenda had worked her way up to head lady’s maid to the Countess and eventually as cook. She’d seen things at the castle that she’d have preferred to forget.
Glenda couldn’t understand why the family were clinging on to the place. Trelawney was a dank, miserable death trap and a deep hole into which to sink a fortune without any obvious return. She wondered if the Earl and Countess would make it through another winter; their room could get so cold that Glenda occasionally had to break the ice in their lavatory. They should be moved to an old people’s home; it was sinful, keeping them in near-arctic conditions for the sake of appearances or to save a few pennies. To add to all the mayhem, mad Aunt Tuffy had moved into the butler’s apartment, bringing plastic bags full of live, hopping fleas. Bumping into her in the corridor, Glenda had screamed with horror and Tuffy had looked almost hurt. “I only ask that you don’t touch them,” she said.
Mark came in first. He was twenty-seven years old, handsome, with broad shoulders set off by a slim waist and long legs, black curly hair and brown eyes in sleepy almond-shaped eyelids. Twice a week he drove from Bristol to Trelawney to see his grandparents, parents and younger sister Celia. Glenda wished he’d give up computing, whatever that meant, and get a proper job nearer to home in a bank or an office. Playing around with games was hardly a career, particularly when he had a first-class undergraduate degree, a Masters and a PhD.
Her husband Gordon, wiry-framed, came in next. He had small, black, deep-set eyes and an almost bald, shiny head.
“Smells good, Gran,” Mark said, kicking off his boots by the door.
“Mark,” Glenda said sternly.
He picked up his boots and placed them neatly in the corner.
“How’s your sister getting on?” Glenda asked, setting the table for three. “Still top of the class?”
“Celia’s got her heart set on a place at Oxford to study politics, philosophy and economics.” Mark washed his hands in the sink and from his bag took a bunch of flowers wrapped in brown paper for his grandmother.
“Thank you, love,” Glenda said, and put them in a jug on the table. “Don’t waste your money on me, though. You should be setting it aside for your wedding.”
“I don’t even have a girlfriend!” Mark laughed. His grandparents would be shocked to hear how much money he earned; more in a week than his grandmother took home in a month. Mark had risen quickly through the ranks of the firm to become Chief Technical Officer.
“Celia brought Toby Scott home the other day,” Mark said to change the subject.
“How did she meet him?” Gordon asked.
“They’re at t
he same school.”
“A bloody toff at the comp. Fuck me sideways,” Gordon said.
“Language, Gordon!” Glenda admonished, flicking him with a tea towel. “What did you think of him?”
“He was awkward but nice. Celia’s going to the cinema with him tonight,” Mark said.
Glenda stopped stirring and looked at her grandson in astonishment. “You don’t mean that they’re sweet on each other?”
Mark shrugged.
“That’s not right,” Glenda tutted.
“Why not?” Mark couldn’t understand why his gran saw a divide between the Trelawneys and other people.
“I work for his parents and grandparents.” Glenda beat eggs, milk and cream into the pumpkin mixture, then added a sprinkle of cinnamon before pouring it into the pastry shell. Taking the lamb out of the oven, she left the meat to rest on the counter.
“You know Celia: she’ll do what she likes and when,” Mark said.
“I’ll have to resign.” Glenda pursed her lips.
“ ’Bout bloody time,” Gordon said. “Don’t know why you go there; it’s not good for your leg or your shoulder.”
“It gets me out of the house.” Glenda put the zucchini into a dish.
“I just said they were friends.” Mark wished he had never raised the subject.
Glenda hesitated. “It won’t work, Mark. You should warn Celia off before her heart gets done in.” She bent down to put the pie into the oven.
“Our Celia can take care of herself. If you scratch the Trelawneys, the same blood comes out.”
Glenda straightened slowly, to prevent her hip twingeing. “Even our Celia doesn’t stand a hope when faced with someone with eight hundred years of superiority bred into them. That family has only ever looked out over fields that they owned, lived in houses they controlled and drank their own spring water. Eight hundred years of being better, richer and more powerful than any of your neighbours gets into the fabric of a person. It’s been reinforced by the servants that take away their shit and by the Parliament that listens to their speeches.”
“They don’t look out on their own fields any more,” Mark said. “I hear it all belongs to the bank.”
Glenda took three plates out of the oven and placed them on the kitchen counter.
“When I was a girl we had to curtsy when the Earl’s carriage passed by. My dad had to take off his cloth cap. In church, we stood up when the Trelawneys came in. My whole family worked for them, my nan and great-gran too. Perhaps that’s why I scrub their baths; serving’s as much in my blood as bossing is in theirs.”
“It’s about time society changed, and it should start here, with that family,” Mark said.
“There’s those who want to lead and those that want to serve. Most people just want pay packets and none of the responsibility. If you were to offer me Trelawney Castle and all those millions, I’d run a mile.” Glenda shook her head. “The Viscountess works herself to the bone already. She looks so tired that my heart breaks.”
“Jane Tremayne is not your problem,” Gordon said.
“The oil tank hasn’t been filled since March. It ran dry last month.”
“No hot water or heating?” Mark’s voice rose in astonishment.
“Three times a week she carries buckets of boiling water all the way from the kitchen to her parents-in-laws’ rooms for them to wash. She buys bumper packs of mince from Freezer World on a Monday and makes it last for a week.”
“I wouldn’t feed a dog that stuff,” Mark said.
“You don’t have a dog,” Gordon pointed out.
“I said to her: ‘Why don’t you sell up and buy a nice flat in Fowey?’ ”
“The meat looks beautiful,” Mark said.
Gordon took his place at the head of the table with his wife on his right. The kitchen was so narrow that Mark had to flatten himself against the wall to reach his chair. Gordon opened two bottles of beer and passed one to his grandson.
“She said it would kill Kitto and his parents to move, since the family has been there for eight hundred years and it would be letting the side down. Said none of them would forgive themselves. They had to keep going somehow.”
“They’ll freeze to death next winter without any fuel.” Mark shivered thinking about it.
“Kitto Tremayne is Chairman of Acorn,” Gordon said.
“Where your grandfather keeps his money,” Glenda added.
“Our nest egg.” Gordon smiled proudly. “Your gran won’t have to work for much longer. Next year I can cash in the pension, tax-free. Forty-three years I’ve been contributing to that pot.” He looked at his wife. “All so that you and I can have a nice retirement.”
“You’re a fine man, Gordon Sparrow.” Glenda smiled at her husband.
“Are you sure you should put all your eggs in one basket?” Mark asked.
“If it’s good enough for the Trelawneys, it’s good enough for the Sparrows,” Gordon said with finality.
“I just wonder if you should diversify—why not sell some of Acorn’s shares and put the money into another business?”
“Banks are safe as houses.”
“I invest all my savings in technology,” Mark said. He owned shares in Apple and Facebook and was waiting for the IPOs of several new start-ups in the worlds of car- and house-sharing. Mark predicted that in future most would care more about having an iPhone than a house; ownership would be considered anachronistic and constrictive; the internet guaranteed freedom and choice. If his own work, teaching a computer about cognitive thought processes, was successful, he stood to make a fortune. It was, he believed, a matter of time before artificial intelligence replaced humans in many areas of life.
“The internet’s only a passing fad,” Gordon said.
“It’ll never catch on,” Glenda agreed. “This country is built on solid things like the monarchy, the National Health Service, the Royal Mail, Lloyds and so on. Why would you trust something you can’t touch or see?”
Gordon and Glenda were educated and informed. Gordon knew the name of every wild flower and most domestic species in both Latin and English. Glenda kept and reread the collected works of Dickens, Walter Scott, Thackeray and Thomas Hardy. In their spare time they sang at the local choral society and made two outings a year to see a production at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Nevertheless, Mark knew that his grandparents would dismiss as folly the trials of automated driverless lorries in California. Nor would they believe that, in the future, Glenda’s fridge would decide what shopping was needed and that all groceries would be delivered by drones.
“Will you carve?” Glenda asked her grandson.
Mark cut the meat into neat red medallions and laid it in fans on white china plates. “When I make my fortune, I’m going to set you up with your own restaurant. People will come from miles around. You’ll become the new Nigella.”
“Don’t be so daft.” Glenda beamed and sprinkled freshly chopped parsley over the potato dauphinoise. Then she arranged spoonfuls of redcurrant jelly and mint sauce next to the cut lamb, making glistening patterns of white, pink, red and green.
The three looked appreciatively at their lunch and then began to eat.
“This meal is beautiful, Glenda,” Gordon remarked, mouth full. “Maybe marrying our Celia would be a step up for the Trelawneys.”
They all laughed.
7
Blaze Takes a Trip
MONDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER 2008
Blaze walked into the restaurant in Piccadilly at 9 a.m. to meet her uncle, Tony Scott. The Wolseley, like Tony, was grand, flamboyant and frequently made over. In previous incarnations, it had been a car showroom and a bank. In former careers, her uncle had been a paid “companion,” but for the last fifteen years he had found his most fulfilling and lucrative role as a private art adviser acting as the conduit betwee
n an owner’s needs and a purchaser’s desires.
As a younger son of the Earl of Trelawney, Tony had, in line with family custom, been evicted from his childhood home on his eighteenth birthday, leaving with nothing but a present from his parents: a book bound in wax paper tied with a yellow ribbon. It was assumed he’d conform to the aristocratic tradition of following “spare” sons into either the Army or the Church, but neither institution wanted such an ostentatious homosexual. “We have some of those deviants here, but none who carry this appalling and embarrassing affliction with pride,” a commanding officer wrote.
Bound by their mutual experience of expulsion and fondness for each other, Tony and Blaze met monthly for breakfast. On the surface, Tony was the antithesis of what the aristocracy represented but he was also, in Blaze’s opinion, a true Trelawney. If her family shared a common trait, it was to conceal an anarchic streak under a conventional veneer. Perhaps it was something in the Cornish water, or living so far from a major metropolis, or an almost feral upbringing with little parental supervision, but Trelawneys never conformed. Their family history was saturated with examples of eccentricity. Until the last two generations there had been enough money to cover up any scandals or peccadilloes.
“Lady Blaze Scott?” A smart, besuited gentleman, the maître d’, bowed slightly.
“My name’s just Blaze.” She never used her title, even to get a table at a restaurant.
“Mr. Scott is waiting for you in the bar.” Her uncle, dressed in a white linen suit paired with a bright yellow cravat, raised his glass of champagne in greeting.
“You are a ray of sunshine, darling uncle,” Blaze said, kissing him on the cheek. He returned her kiss and, taking a step back, looked his niece up and down.
“And you, dearest, are too old to be so thin; a bit of fat is far better than Botox or fillers. Women are supposed to put on one pound a year from the age of forty.”
“Please don’t kick off. I’m having a rough time.”
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