by Miles Hadley
Eventually, Archie clamoured out of bed, tripping over some Tatler and Vanity Fair magazines as he did so. He did not bother to wash, but tried to dress reasonably well. His father liked ‘Good form’ when they had their rare meetings, despite being a former hippy.
Following a quick breakfast and a read of the Times, Archie knocked on his father’s study door.
‘Come in,’ came the commanding voice. Archie had no doubt it had not been nearly as commanding as when he and Fortescue-Lambert had tried to be whirling dervishes in North Africa.
‘Morning, Pa,’ Archie grinned at his father sheepishly. Iain Hodgkin-Smith looked sternly back at Archie.
Typically, there was a Country Landowners Association magazine on his desk, which he had apparently just finished reading. He no longer read such exotic tomes as the Mahabharata. It was as if his father’s persona had somehow merged into the faded grandeur of the house.
‘Now, sit down Archie, my boy,’ Mr Hodgkin-Smith said without a hint of emotion.
Archie sat down in the proffered chair. It was a very worn and cracked Victorian leather office chair in dire need of upholstering. His rear sank into a dip amongst the horsehair, carved out by the posteriors of prior generations. Archie often wondered about the Victorian incumbents at Risely. Their taxidermists must have literally had a field day. There was all manner of stuffed game on the walls and on the sideboard. He had always looked at these with fascination. One or two of the foxes looked a bit moth eaten. On one side of the room there was a shelf piled with old Gazette and Punch magazines. The room smelt musty, the way an old book smells when one presses one’s nose to its leaves – a bit like the other house in Chelsea. A battered art deco clock ticked quietly, but the dial showed it was ten minutes too slow.
‘So, your photography is going well?’ said Mr Hodgkin-Smith.
Archie nodded his head.
‘As you know,’ continued his father, ‘I had a rather serious meeting about the Mausoleum. It’s in a bad state of repair and we’re trying to get a conservation body to provide finance for it.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Times like this, I wish our Victorian forebears had not been quite as ambitious or grandiose with their building projects.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Us poor descendants are left picking up the tab.’
There was a brief pause before Archie’s father carried on. ‘Now, I’d better cut to the chase. There are a few issues that I’d like to discuss with you. What I have to say does not leave these four walls – understood?’ He looked at Archie with some gravity.
Archie nodded his head. A momentary flicker of panic entered his mind. Had his father found out about the last orgy he had held?
Mr Hodgkin-Smith continued. ‘I’ll be quite frank with you, Archie. So long as there are people on this earth, there will always be a demand for food. Land that produces food is the best of the best. We are blessed, Archie, to have so much of it. Especially as the Indians and Chinese are changing their eating habits and increasing food prices.’
Archie frowned slightly, wondering where this was leading to.
‘We must learn to adapt, Archie,’ said his father. ‘After all, adapting is the key to preserving the long-term prosperity of the estate. In many ways, the Trust owning all of this represents such a risk compared to other forms of assets. If it isn’t English Heritage or the council banging on about the house and holding up maintenance for the estate manager, it’s English Nature haranguing us about the woods. Or it’s the bloody ramblers wanting rights of way through what would otherwise be private property. Do you see what I’m hinting at, Archie? Nowadays, everybody wants a piece of us. It can be so draining having to deal with these people. Even though poor James, the manager, is regularly on the case, things still require a small input from us. I would like you, therefore, to participate in more trust meetings. As we have learnt from neighbouring houses, Risely will not survive for future generations otherwise.’
Mr Hodgkin-Smith gave a slight cough and continued. ‘In time, you will be the custodian of it all. I want you to spend more time getting to know the staff such as Charlie, the gamekeeper. As we increasingly have to diversify, there is the possibility – heaven forbid – that we will do corporate shoots. Now, I can’t stand the thought of those City spivs traipsing across our land, but they pay good money and a bit of commerce in that way should not be sniffed at.’
‘What about the usual people who shoot?’ Archie asked.
‘Well, this is going to be discussed in a Trust meeting,’ relied his father, ‘but we will probably give the best times to the corporate people, as they will pay top whack. The leftovers can be for friends and family.’
Archie thought about this for a moment. He knew that times were getting harder, but as yet had no idea of the financial arrangements of the estate, apart from the trust fund he had been given from his mother’s side when he was eighteen. Her side of the family had been far wealthier than the Hodgkin-Smiths.
‘Are we falling on hard times, Pa?’ he asked.
Iain Hodgkin-Smith pondered this question for a moment. ‘The house cost a hundred thousand to keep it running last year, and that was only with a quarter of the rooms being heated. We have a dry rot problem in the west wing, which is going to be costly to sort out, and the roof is in urgent need of repair. One option would be to open the house up to the hoi polloi, but I’m rather against that idea. This is a house to be lived in, not some sort of museum. We are considering getting a licence so that weddings can be held in the great hall. That ought to help pay for the house. Once again, I’m not terribly keen on that idea. I can’t stand the plebs taking over. They get dreadfully sycophantic to people such as ourselves and sometimes they are hard to shake off. Especially now that they have all had their overdose of Downtown Abbey.’
Archie was beginning to understand why his father wished so much that the Victorian incumbents hadn’t built so much – what on earth had they been thinking? Mock medieval might well have been all the rage back then, but it was certainly not very cost effective.
‘Is the estate profitable?’ he asked.
His father replied that it had been profitable on some occasions. ‘Most of the time, we barely scrape by. The farming and food prices fluctuate so much that we have boom years and bust years, depending on the weather and luck with the crops. It is this house that is the biggest drag. If we could knock down a wing or two, then we would be all right. But, oh no, the conservation people will not have it.’
Archie nodded. ‘Do we have any other form of income?’
‘Well, this is just what I was about to come to,’ replied his father. ‘We have substantial off-shore investments via various trusts through Fogg and Co. Everything is discretionary and so it shall remain. Don’t ever think you can beat the experts, Archie. Leave it to them or you will get your hands badly burnt.’
Archie had not known about these investments and breathed a huge sigh of relief inside. He had, perhaps naively, assumed that the farming side of things paid for everything. Thank fuck for that, he thought.
‘Do you have any other questions that you would like to ask?’ asked his father.
‘No,’ Archie responded smiling.
‘Archie, there is one other thing I’d like to say...’
‘What, Pa?’
‘You are a grown adult now and I expect you to behave as such. Your mother and I... we are not completely ignorant of your activities. When I was younger, I was very different to what I am now. One might say I was a bit of a wayfarer and, yes... a hippy. But in the end I realised something... all those people before us... they fought and worked hard to ensure that future generations could enjoy Risely. It was then that I realised that I should do the same. Do you understand what I’m getting at?’
‘I think so.’
‘Then I think that will be all for today, Archie. Thank you.’ Mr Hodgkin-Smith then stood up and showed his son to the door.
Once outside his father’s study, Archie rolled his eyes. There was so much he would have liked to have talked to him about – Polly, for example.
8
Gary sat on the concrete overpass overlooking the passing trains, feeling particularly pissed off. He had run out of money and had to wait for two days before he could collect his benefits. It was drizzling, so he had his hood up over his baseball cap. He had one cigarette left, but realised that he had to save it. He had a deep urge for a nicotine rush and was getting more and more angry and frustrated. He eventually gave in and fumbled for the last cigarette in the packet. He lit and inhaled, drawing deeply on the fumes. He savoured the brief snatch, the brief escape from the grim reality of the day. He turned his phone on to listen to Dregz spit out his angry protest words, one after another:
* * *
It’s a fucking grey world
And I ain’t got a smoke
It’s a fucking gay world
And the place is a joke
MPs, the Queen, police and shit
They stop at nothing to give you it
The streets aren’t ours
They’re theirs for their leisure
Put you behind bars
At their Majesty’s pleasure
I ain’t going to work for anyone around here
Cos I’m destined to lurk
Not a shitty career
Play the system is what they ask
But you can’t win anyway
So they take you to task
Keep the Chavs at bay
That’s what they say
Keep the Hoodies away
They hope and they pray
For more money and shit
But hate over love
Cos they’ve all just quit
Seeing God above
Cos there’s access denied
From love and success
Cos we might have tried
But we just feed their excess
So fuck you UK for denouncing the poor
You don’t pray for our lives to live anymore
You’re as zero as us with your inner souls gone
You’re no hero with us so go, walk on
Fuck your soulless feet, that pass us by
Never to greet or to wonder why
We’re stuck down here
And you’re up there
With your project fear
And not a care
Just stare, stare, stare…
* * *
Gary listened and laughed angrily, muttering to himself as he watched the passing commuters in the trains.
‘Nailed it, Dregz. Nailed it. It’s a fucking grey world,’ he repeated to himself. He stared, stared, stared at them all, the commuters – not giving a care. Them. They. They who had their destination. They who probably escaped every now and then on those cheap flights to foreign places. Places that Gary might never get to see in his entire life. Places that Warren, too, would be excluded from. Places to go that Gary would never know.
Fuck, he thought to himself. He didn’t even have a passport. The place he wanted to go to, above all else, was Paris. He had secretly harboured and nurtured the dream of sitting in a Parisienne café with his Rose or Paulette. But there was nothing for him here. The only exotic thing he could experience was the inordinate number of immigrants roaming the place.
‘Fucking immigrants,’ he muttered bitterly to himself. All he could do was continue with his meagre existence, living amongst immigrants from places he wouldn’t mind exploring. He remembered his mum, shortly before she died, saying, ‘It’s a big world, Gary. I hope one day that you, out of all my family, will get to see it.’
‘Yeah, well, I didn’t want all of it brought onto my fucking doorstep,’ he said out loud.
Gary observed as one of the local lads, Callum, cycled past on his BMX and gave a wheelie.
‘All right, Gaz!’ Callum yelled.
‘All right, Call,’ Gary replied. ‘What you been up to?’
‘Not much. Yourself?’ Callum squinted his eyes at Gary.
‘Just chilling.’
‘Sweet, Gaz. See you around, all right?’ Callum cycled off into the distance, giving another wheelie.
Callum was a good lad, Gary decided. But what did Callum get? Nothing. No opportunity for Callum, either. Just the chance to piss his life away doing wheelies on his fucking BMX.
Gary eventually jumped off the concrete flyover and onto the pavement. As he rounded a corner, he saw Callum again. He was up against a wall. A Death Squad member had him at knife point. He was about to take Callum’s bicycle. The Death Squad member was wearing a hoodie and didn’t notice Gary approaching behind him.
Gary crept up silently and hit the Death Squad member in the head, causing him to fall to the floor and drop his knife. Callum was scared and Gary could hear him breathing heavily. Gary gave the Death Squad member a kicking until he was groaning, writhing and bruised, on the floor.
Callum was too scared to cycle home to his mum, so Gary took the BMX and told Callum to stand behind him and hold on. He slowly cycled, the added weight of Callum causing the handlebars to turn from side to side. Once they arrived at Callum’s flat, the door opened and the partly emaciated Sharon looked at them both with dilated eyes.
Gary knew that Callum’s mum was neurotic, always on a diet and smoked like a chimney. Sharon was a distant cousin of his mum’s and had known her well.
‘Gary?’ she greeted him shakily. ‘Haven’t seen you in a while. What’s happened?’
‘All right, Sharon. Callum was about to have his bike nicked by you know who...’
‘Oh fuck!’ she exclaimed, pulling Callum close to her. ‘You all right, son?’
Callum looked up and nodded his head. ‘Gary twatted the fucker.’
‘Oh... I see. Thank you,’ Sharon said. ‘Won’t you come in, Gary? The least I can do is offer you a cup of tea.’
Gary accepted the invitation and sat down awkwardly on the couch, while Sharon nervously smoked a cigarette as the kettle boiled in the kitchen.
‘I... I remember your mum, you know,’ she said quickly. ‘A good woman. One of the best, bless her.’
Gary looked at her and smiled in agreement.
‘Always keep your glass half full, she used to say,’ added Sharon. ‘Ever the optimist, wasn’t she?’
Gary smiled again and agreed.
‘Your smile’s a bit like hers. Would you like a cigarette?’
Gary took one. ‘Thanks,’ he said, as Sharon lit it for him. Callum went to his room to play video games.
‘I miss people like her,’ Sharon said, inhaling her own cigarette. ‘She was great when my dad died. She’d just sit there and listen. She was ever so warm, your mum. I hated to see her get cancer. I often think... well, it sounds silly… but I often think the best die young so that they are always remembered in their young beauty. They’re never allowed to not be in their prime. Do you get what I mean?’
‘Yeah. Sort of…’
‘Bit like Princess Di.’
Gary watched as Sharon suddenly became angry. ‘Christ! What would they all think if they saw the estate now? I mean, Callum can’t even fucking ride his bike anymore. My aunt Janey has just topped herself over that bedroom tax. Community centres being shut down due to cuts…’ With that, she shakily inhaled more smoke. Gary thought she was about to burst into tears. ‘I think the kettle’s boiled. I’ll just make the tea.’ Sharon left the lounge and went back into the kitchen.
Gary awkwardly waited for his cup of tea. He agreed and repeated the words in his mind. ‘What would they all think?’ Then he thought, They would roll in their fucking graves. Mum would. That’s for sure.
Sharon gave Gary his cup of tea, which he sipped.
‘Is Tony at work?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. He fucking hates that job,’ she laughed. ‘But there we are. What do you do, if you’ve got to pay for Callum and stuff?’
‘Is he still doing the bins?’
‘Yeah,’ Sharon smiled. ‘Won’t be long, they reckon, before that gets automated and even they’ll be out of a job.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Automation and shit. It’s the new industry, apparently. There won’t be many jobs left! It’s already happening in Tesco. No tills. People are too stupid to realise what it’s doing to their jobs.’ Sharon chuckled.
Gary looked at her and smiled. ‘Not much point in me looking for a job, then.’
‘Well, you’re not, are you?’ she smiled back.
‘I do think about it sometimes.’
‘What? Another bin man in the family?’ Sharon laughed.
‘No. I’d love to be an accountant or lawyer. A commuter,’ said Gary.
Sharon looked at him seriously and sat down on the couch next to him. ‘Go for it, Gary! It’s what your mum would want! Go for it!’
Gary looked at her for a moment. ‘It’s tough. I’m in my early twenties already. It would cost a bomb. Anyway, I don’t think I’d get employed, what with my record and shit…’
Sharon looked at him and gave him a hug. ‘Oh, Gaz,’ she said sadly. ‘You’ve got to do something. Even if it’s just the bins, like Tony.’
‘It’s just...’
‘Just what?’
‘It’s difficult to get ahead. No offence to Tony, but doing the bins isn’t where I want to be.’
‘You’ve got to start somewhere, though. Tony doesn’t get paid that badly, you know.’
‘Oh, I’ll see,’ Gary said resignedly.