CPO
These moments of content did not last. For shortly after they had dined as well as any in the Kingdom and retired to one of the reading rooms, Belter outlined the reason for their gathering. Apparently, a plan which had been in the air for some years to build a mini-port in Chelsea Harbour had suddenly got the green light, and the building which housed both The Clef and Base was scheduled for demolition, as access for the large vehicles involved in port-building would be required. Naturally, they would be compensated, but nobody really cared about that, as the club’s finances were very solid.
‘I don’t know why they call it a Compulsory Purchase Order, anyway; surely they are not compelled to purchase anything,’ said Barney angrily. ‘They should be honest about it and call it a “Forced Sale Order”. That would get people to take notice.’
Belter nodded in agreement.
Barney Hoofsdew slumped back into his chair and glared moodily towards his outstretched feet. He was a well-built man, tall, blond, with high cheekbones and dark, blue eyes, who might have cut rather a handsome dash were it not for an unusually narrow face, which seemed to squeeze his features together and give him a somewhat cubist countenance.
Barney had gone to the same school as Drade and Belter, but finding it all very dull, had left a couple of years earlier and not gone to university, but drifted around important cities of the world for a few years, before settling in the right part of London. He had tried his hand at business, opening first a juice bar in the King’s Road and then an art gallery just off it, but both had flopped and he had been forced to flee London for his mother’s home in the provinces, while his father stepped in to clear up the damage. Now older and a little more circumspect, he occupied himself advising wealthy friends on how best to shield their money from The Inland Revenue, and had become something of an expert in setting up foundations, trusts and shell companies in far flung places.
‘The trick to avoiding tax is to keep the money moving around,’ Barney had told Drade once. ‘When the government of one jurisdiction gets too greedy, just up sticks and put it somewhere else. Same thing applies to business – slightest sign of a tax rise or more regulation and my guys relocate. It’s a bit more complicated with actual businesses – you have to move stock, set up premises and the like, but money itself can be moved with a few signatures and the touch of a button.’
‘What if all the jurisdictions were equally greedy?’ Drade had asked innocently.
‘It’ll never happen,’ Barney had said. ‘There will always be a differential, not because some places are less greedy than others – they’re all greedy – but because some have understood that it’s just a fact of life that when your tax rates are low, you attract wealth and business, and strangely enough, you end up collecting more taxes.’
That had made no sense to Drade, but having been assured only the day before that Barney was an ‘a’solute genius’ by someone who generally did make sense to Drade, he had been prepared to go along with it.
‘So the secret to collect more taxes is to actually tax people less?’ Drade had asked.
‘Exactly,’ Barney had said triumphantly. ‘Strange but True.’
‘So, if you had a business and you wanted to actually pay less tax, you need to head to a place with higher rates of taxation – or even better stay here in Merry Ol’ England!’ Drade had said.
Barney had gone silent at that point, and then with a dismissive wave of his hand he had changed the subject, and Drade, still reeling from the sheer depth of the debate had time to reflect on what a clever fellow Barney was. When they had been at school, Barney, noticing how fast rabbits breed, had worked out a system of retiring at thirty by simply breeding rabbits.
‘Each rabbit pair can have up to a dozen young every month or so. And each newborn can be ready to litter up themselves when they’re only six months old… ’ he had told Drade as they had sat in ‘the hollow’ down by the music rooms, on one of those endless summer’s evenings towards the end of term.
‘So, if you start with two bunnies at the beginning of January, by June you might have sixty who are all starting to breed as well…’
Drade had lain back at that point and gazed up at the heavy branches of the cedars of Lebanon, which had clustered together to form this mossy retreat.
‘Long and the short of it,’ Barney had continued, ‘going into year two, you might have a thousand breeding pairs instead of just one… And you can imagine where that leads.’
It had turned out that by the time Barney would be thirty, he would have bred many millions of the things which, even if he sold them for a few pennies each, would have made him a millionaire. He didn’t follow through with it – which was a shame, as Drade had been looking forward to seeing what sort of a house a million rabbits needed.
‘Perhaps he was a genius,’ Drade had thought. ‘Unlucky with that fruit bar though.’
Drade was yanked back to the present by Barney’s protests.
‘Here we are, your local council, your representatives, at the end of the financial year and we have completely run out of things to spend your money on, so we have decided to acquire Base and turn it into a lousy port.’
Drade took a sip of coffee and looked from Belter to Barney and back to Belter again. Belter said nothing and Drade took his lead from him and sipped again.
‘So Belter, this is definitely going through?’ asked Barney.
‘That’s what I heard from both Harris and Kim independently. Notices go up right now and it becomes official by the end of the month. The Purchase Order goes through on the nod because it has all been okayed with the minister, and then we have a few months to get out of the way so that their bloody cranes and things can get through,’ replied Belter.
‘Rats!’ said Barney.
‘We do get the land back at the end of it apparently, but what would be the point of that?’ added Belter, his voice full of gloom.
A heavy silence fell upon the three.
‘No chance of us fighting it, I suppose?’ asked Barney.
‘How?’ said Belter.
‘How indeed,’ thought Drade. ‘Everyone loves a port.’
Belter continued, ‘The forces of the local council, the London port authority and the influence of the large construction companies, to say nothing of the project’s investors, would be ranged against us. Nobody important really loses.’
‘Also true,’ thought Drade.
‘What does Duppo say?’ asked Barney.
‘Says there’s very little that can be done. He is looking into mounting some kind of legal challenge, and there is always English Heritage, but the problem is that even though the building is old, it isn’t that old,’ replied Belter.
‘And the Governor? What’s he going to do?’ asked Barney.
‘Who knows? We might be able to relocate – find another place, but it would be a nightmare, and take ages and I doubt it would ever be the same. This place has heritage and history.’
‘And what of us? What are we going to do?’ asked Barney, his voice cracking slightly.
‘Good question,’ thought Drade. It really was a shame that the people who made Base what it was – the characters they were, Drade’s fellow Trustees – were truly his family more than his friends. In addition to Belter and Barney, there was Duppo, who was actually a first cousin of Belter’s and a splendid chap, always helpful, even though he was another lay-lawyer. Then there was Duppo’s brother Bixie, one of the few, one might say, who actually worked for a living: a surveyor with a partnership in Battersea. There was kilt-wearing Arthur ‘Nobblie’ McFaddon – tremendous fun, great drinker; and Jamie ‘the boater’, who actually recorded his permanent address as ‘1, The Thames’ and was fighting some quasi-legal battle with the Post Office for it to be recognised as London’s main thoroughfare. Then there was Kim with the limp, who was getting on a bit and who probably needed a stick; and his very good friend Francis, who had only just turned 25 and didn??
?t need a stick but always had one. They were the best of friends.
And there were others too.
The clock out in the hall chimed the half hour, slightly more mournfully than normally, Drade fancied. There were footsteps scuttling up the side stairs, a door opened, and from a distant place an excited conversation between three or four club saplings sprang out, and for an instant engulfed the room with youthful energy, which was banished immediately the door was closed. Drade looked around him; he remembered how he had plotted with pals to steal the crown jewels on Memorial Sunday over here on the Black Table under the mirror, but then how they had decided not to follow through. He reminisced about how he had met Belter, after all those years, over here by the pigeon holes that held their post, and how he had at once been swept back into the exciting world of Belter Trelawney, who had suggested a spot of horse-spying that very afternoon! He considered how the same pigeon holes had delivered the bad news about his parents, and the good news about his cousin and that wretched attaché case. Over here, he once supped finely on French paté wines; and there, out there on the terrace he had spent a hazy summer’s evening with the boys, shooting at apples with an air rifle. And the next day the Governor had had an exceedingly stern word with them all ‘on behalf of all the Trustees,’ and, of course, he had been right, and they had offered the most fulsome of apologies. How, at the bottom of the stairs, he recalled that it had occurred to him that he should like one day to fly an aeroplane, but by the time he had made, it to the top he had abandoned the idea as quite a needless exertion.
‘If God had meant a fellow to fly, he would have been born with a pilot’s licence in his pocket,’ he had observed.
And who could forget how, on more than one occasion, he and the boys had become so remorselessly drunk that they had been forced to sleep over in the rooms upstairs, or when one of the lobsters had managed to cut itself free of its ties and escaped from the kitchen, blindly slashing out at and terrorizing all in its path.
Drade’s eyes ran along the splendid wooden panelling which encased the room, imbuing it with such solid permanence. The chairs, clad in the softest of leather, with their high, broad, dignified backs, struck at just such an angle as to afford respectful comfort without grovelling. Ageless England gazed through the paintings, which adorned the walls, judicious and calm, tamping passions and soothing minds. The brickwork heavy and immovable, the columns Herculean, the carpeting soft and comfortable, the tapestry of The Great War and the heroes who finished it, the shelves full of mottled books jealously guarding innumerable secrets, the glass-fronted cabinets sparkling as they reflected the bright afternoon sunshine which streamed through the tall, sash-framed windows; all of these Drade saw, and the bar, discretely tucked away in a corner being worked quietly by Harry the barman; the newspaper rack, the occasional tables and the airs themselves.
Drade allowed his eyes to close that he might expose his senses to Base’s heavy airs. And heavy they were, with the memories of a thousand meetings, of formal parties and black ties, of impromptu gatherings and fizzy wine, and cheeses and ports and late-night carding and fresh morning walks, of laughter and tears, of argument and agreement, of expectation and confirmation.
Base was their world; where would the world be without Base?! And worse still would be the manner of her passing: that Base should have the airs savagely smashed out of her, that she should gutted without ceremony, torn apart limb from limb in broad daylight by a heathen, soulless, pointless lump of metal. An unthinking, uncaring, unknowing, unfeeling wrecking ball on a chain. The ignominy! It must be stopped; it will be stopped – but hark, what was that? Had it actually been stopped?
Somewhere deep, deep within the limitless depths of Drade’s unfathomable mind a bell was ringing. Or was it a foghorn? It seemed to clang, but sometimes at depth horns do clang. Whichever, there was something he had heard, read, seen, or perhaps simply dreamt, which might help in some way, if only he could lay a hand on it.
‘My problem is,’ he reflected, ‘that my mind is so packed full of stuff that getting to something in particular was often well nigh impossible on account of something else getting in the way.’
He strained to reach into the gloom.
‘Rather like an angler plumbing the depth of a very deep river with a very long arm rather than a fishing rod,’ he thought. ‘God it was dark, and the fish weren’t taken by his bony fingers – cunning little devils – pop them on the end of my fork with some chromolavagically correct vegetable, like a carrot, if you happened to be a yellow fish – or perhaps a green one would be more complementary and more vegetable-like. Of course, there weren’t any green fish any more; they had all been eaten by the plants. No, no…something was wrong…plants don’t eat fish…not unless...’
‘Drade,’ the foghorn seemed to be saying. ‘Hamish wake up!’
Drade started, his head bouncing off the wooden panelling to the side of his chair as though it had received a bolt of electricity. He must have nodded off. Something he found often happened during periods of intense concentration.
Barney was leaning over him and Belter was staring fixedly at him from across the coffee table.
‘Nigel has just been in and asked if you wanted a light supper – it’s fish tonight, straight from Billingsgate’
‘I’ve got it,’ said Drade.
‘What?’ said Belter.
‘Fish?’ said Drade.
‘Fish?’ repeated Barney. ‘What is it that you’ve got?’
‘I’ve solved the problem.’ He paused looking gleeful from one to the other, ‘the problem of the purchase order.’
‘And?’ said Barney.
‘What do you think of that, my old pieces of pie?’ Drade chuckled to himself.
‘It just shows that when needs must, when it’s really important, Hamish is absolutely up there with the best of them,’ he thought.
‘Depends on what “that” is,’ said Belter drily, an eyebrow raised.
Professor Delaney
Professor Darren ‘Dazzy’ Delaney was a tall, thin-framed, austere-looking fellow. He was, judged Drade, in his late sixties, just muscular enough not to look lanky but not so much as to impart to him any rigidity. He wore jeans supported both by the thinnest of belts and a tucked in white t-shirt with the words ‘Just Hangin’’ on it in bright green letters.
One would imagine that during the sixties, when everybody else was ‘digging the Beatles’, smoking anything they could put flame to, and doing their best to look as enlightened as possible, the then young Darren was the class swot, being the one who would stay late in the science lab to finish that experiment, or the one who found himself fascinated by the latest news of computering afoot. Then, when the trauma that school is for those of a scholastic bent was over and most had dropped out and gone to new places like Africa or India, whence their grandparents had fled, or done a stint communing with nature in some dugout in Wales, Delaney had been the one who had safely enrolled on a science course at one of those new universities.
There he had spent three years huddled together with a bunch of other pimple-afflicted types who could not string a sentence together intelligibly, but who were frighteningly good at maths and had encyclopaedic memories for facts about all sorts of unlikely things.
The years passed and his school-friends had started to dribble back to Mother England and had then spent time circling the job-market like hungry sharks, or dipping in an out of college, or perhaps, even more alternatively, living in an inner city squat and being politically active before finally settling down. Whereas no sooner had Delaney graduated, than he had been fingered by his lecturers to join them in their never-ending quest to impart wisdom to the next generation of students.
He had been without doubt the funky, cool teacher – who was not actually funky or cool. The one who might have worn an earring – not a large, decorative one, like a pirate – but perhaps a stud or an uncomplicated loop: a placeholder for a
life he had wished he had had. He would have been the teacher who went drinking with his students, smoked a cigarette or two round the back of the building, swore occasionally, and talked openly about taboo subjects like taking drugs. But the truth was he was, the most conservative of fellows: hard-working and dedicated, precise and serious. And whilst, without doubt, Delaney drove a daring-looking motorbike – it would have to have had a sidecar, because he had never had the courage to take a driving test, and he was by nature a cautious man. And whilst he was also a union man with had radical dreams, and wanted to be listened to, he was also one who would never complain out loud for the sheer terror of being overheard. As a young man he may have had long hair and a wild beard and possibly been a pipe smoker, yet as the years had gained on him, thinning his hair and greying what remained, he had carried his hair shorter and trimmed his beard closer, and the pipe became an ornament left on the bookshelf to gather dust along with a wood sculpture from Africa which had been brought back by one of his wandering friends.
Drade almost felt sorry for the man in front of him with his ‘Just Hangin’’ t-shirt, for, without doubt, Delaney was the least likely person to be causally ‘Just hangin’’ anywhere. Drade had found out about the good Professor by sheer chance in one of the old journals left by his grandfather. It was the article about mud build-ups in the Thames and the stilted oarsmen.
Delaney peered over his living room at the trio which had just bounded in unannounced from the street. A gust of air came in with them and blew a flotilla of papers off the academic’s desk. As they glided and slid their way towards the floor, Barney tumbled out an apology.
‘Sorry about er...’ he motioned back with his thumb towards the open front door, which was visible out in the hall. ‘…We did knock but er…the damn thing just flew open.’ He glanced round at Drade and Belter for support.
‘We did – a couple of times actually,’ said Belter hopefully.
The professor fixed Barney and Belter with an eye apiece. He despaired of the world for the calibre of youth it was creating. He would never have dreamed of bursting into someone’s house.
‘How very rude! How shocking!’ he thought. How could it be that young people are so ill-disciplined?
Nevertheless, he showed no reaction, because knowing himself to be a forgiving, laid-back, relaxed kind of a guy, he managed to control his instinct to bawl the trio out of this house, and instead half bent down as if to pick up the papers.
Barney took the hint, immediately knelt down and having gathered the papers together, placed them in a careful pile upon the Professor’s desk.
‘Anyway,’ said Belter, trying to draw a line under their somewhat disorganised arrival, ‘we’re here now – so all’s well.’
‘That ends well,’ added Drade, whose sense of tone occasionally abandoned him.
Belter shot Drade a look that would have nailed him, had Drade noticed it.
‘Yes,’ said Delaney.
He appeared to be recovering.
‘So you three would be the ones who share my concern about the lotic ecosystem of the River Thames?’
‘Yes, indeed, the old lotics,’ said Barney, smiling cheerfully at Drade, who obligingly smiled back.
‘Lottie, lotic, lentics, as we used to say in Geography,’ Drade giggled, and then paused, ‘or was it Latin?’
Professor Delaney appeared mystified and looked from one to the other of the three, wondering at first, if by chance he had misread the letter they had sent him, which had seemed articulate and considered. It then began to dawn upon him that these were not in fact the three who had written at all, but just a trio of random people who had wandered in from the street. He decided to play along.
‘Lentics is actually something quite different, and lottie is a contraction of the name Charlotte.’
Belter began to feel that this conversation was beginning to lose focus and authoritatively cleared his throat.
‘We are the ones,’ he declared.
The professor seemed mollified.
‘Right, right, good. Well anyway, as I said on the phone, this research of mine is a little dated.’
He glanced down at a faded ring-bound book, which lay on his desk. A flicker of pride crossed his face and he reached out and tapped the book-cover gently.
‘It was part of a much larger piece of post-doctoral work, that I did about forty years ago. Back in those days we scientists were extremely worried about global cooling and nuclear winters. The big thing was surviving the wall of ice which was making its way down from the Arctic towards Northern Europe and North America. My research challenged all that.’
Delaney paused without looking up. Years of lecturing had lent to him the remarkable ability to sense when he had a captive audience, and he certainly sensed it now. For captive they were indeed; as fish in a bucket caught on a hook. But in fairness, one would have to point out that the three friends, being by and large unaware of the ‘wall of ice’ theory, were rapt in anticipation of some thunderous revelation, rather than in awe of what had thus far been revealed. Nonetheless, all – even Drade, usually a little looser with his attentions than his friends – were utterly nailed.
‘You see, I’m actually a physicist by training, with a special interest in fluid mechanics, dynamics, that sort of thing, and early one evening, quite by chance, whilst I was collecting some data for a quite unrelated experiment, I stumbled upon a curious phenomenon caused by an overspill of raw sewage after a particularly heavy storm. I called it…er…a poohluge.’ Delaney sniggered and looked up.
Belter glanced quizzically over at Drade and then at Barney, who remained staring at Delaney.
‘What I noticed,’ continued the professor, hurrying along, ‘was that just a tiny excess of sewage and other pollutants – like the exhaust from boat engines, for example, caused a disproportionate rise in algae formation and a much higher incidence of fluvial stagnation. Now ordinarily this wouldn’t matter much because the river would simply dissipate the algae, but this particular point where this er...house of yours, er...is situated in what we call a dead-flow area.’
Again Delaney paused and looked from one to the other. His head bobbing up and down as if he were sharing their realization of the profundity of his find. His eyes settled upon Drade, who found himself inadvertently nodding back in sympathy – a reflex which became more vigorous the more Drade became aware of it, to the point that, after a couple of seconds, Drade found himself nodding encouragingly to his two friends, as if to elicit support. He received none. Barney continued to stare without a blink at the professor.
Belter spoke up, ‘So the rivers would become muddier, would they?’
Delaney grimaced and threw an eyeball in Drade’s direction before answering Barney.
‘Not just muddier. The whole ecosystem would collapse!’
‘The lotic ecosystem,’ interjected Drade with some smugness.
The professor glanced with approval at Drade. His suspicions confirmed, he was the smarter one.
‘You see,’ continued Delaney, ‘once a river starts to stagnate, water stops circulating, and algae and other, well…what we call autotrophic organisms start to flourish, which causes even more stagnation. It’s a kind of vicious circle. Pretty soon, the river turns into a muddy sort of bog, and if nothing is done to remedy the situation, the river simply disappears.’
The professor paused – perhaps he was moving a little too fast – even the smart one was looking puzzled.
‘Rivers are a critical component of a balanced ecosystem. If they disappear, the local effects will be staggering: plants dry up and die, and animals simply move away. Absolute disaster…’
‘So what you’re saying,’ said Belter slowly, ‘is that if they build a port near our house, the Thames will disappear?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far,’ said the professor with a hesitating smile, ‘but...eh...it would certainly complicate matters.’
He
chuckled. He had liked the impact his words had had. Perhaps the fat one was not as stupid as he looked.
‘Are you sure you’re not saying that the Thames will disappear?’ asked Belter hopefully.
‘Positive,’ replied the professor, adopting a much more serious face, his earlier optimism gone. ‘This needn’t be a huge problem if all the pollutants are treated properly.’
‘But what if they aren’t?’ persisted Belter.
‘They will be,’ insisted the Professor. He hesitated, thought, and finally added, ‘Although they probably won’t do as thorough a job of it as I would like. People don’t know as much about fluvial dead-spots as you might think.’ He sighed.
Barney glanced at Belter. Was this a breakthrough?
The professor continued, ‘Plus there is, of course, the problem of actually getting hold of a copy of my work to find out about them in the first place. UPC doesn’t archive all its research any more – no space you see. And to be honest,’ the Professor glanced up, ‘it wasn’t all that well received.’
Belter glanced at Barney, and then back at the professor.
Delaney caught the look and read it well, adding before any suspicions could materialize, ‘Not that I’m saying it was discredited or anything – not widely so at least.’ He chuckled towards Drade. ‘It’s all political at that level. You know friends, favours, back-scratching and so on.’
Drade knew all about back-scratching and nodded with empathy.
The professor was encouraged. ‘Or perhaps it was just a little ahead of its time.’
He paused and was briefly transported back to his PhD days; he had been younger of course, tall, athletic, handsome, popular and gifted. Goodness, he had really had it all; his untamed intellectualism and keen instincts came together to fire off one brilliant piece of work after another. Yes, perhaps with hindsight, he had been a little too challenging to the stuffy academic establishment. He was thankful they had been replaced, and grateful that he had been able to play a part in that vital evolutionary process. Yup…who knows, had it been a different time, a different place...well.
‘How did you get to hear about it by the way?’ he asked, addressing Drade.
‘I’m widely read,’ replied Drade with a knowing smile.
‘Yes, yes, you must be,’ mused the Professor. ‘I wish I were.’
The three tramped down the garden path and away from Delaney’s bungalow. Ely blossomed in the sunshine and Drade fancied he caught the faintest scent of summer in the air, carried past him by a light breeze. He allowed the latch of the wooden gate to close and scurried to catch up with his friends.
‘Well, that was a lot of good,’ said Belter presently, as the three of them approached Station Road.
‘Yah, thanks for that Hamish,’ rejoined Barney, his voice brimming with sarcasm.
‘No problem,’ cheered Drade. He began to whistle quietly, something he did when he was pleased with himself but did not want to show it. A blackbird seemed to whistle back at him albeit it with somewhat more skill.
‘Very nice,’ thought Drade, ‘but lacking in tune; and without tune, you lack direction, and when you lack direction, you may be very good at what you do, but what you do will never be very good’
The blackbird, unaffected by Drade’s criticism, continued his meandering melody.
Perhaps it was the synchronicity with which the other two walked – hunched over, hands in pockets – perhaps it was their continuing silence, perhaps their morose faces or perhaps that tremendous sensitivity for which the de Buxtons are famed, but presently Drade began to have the sense that his friends were not entirely happy.
‘Something wrong boys?’ he enquired airily.
‘Well, yes there is actually,’ said Belter. ‘You drag us all the way here because of a piece of discredited research from an unknown institution, written before we were born, by an old man who doesn’t think that building the port will be a problem anyway. That’s what’s wrong.’
Drade was taken aback. ‘Well yes – all true. Yes, yes, I do see how you might think that.’
Drade did not resume the whistling, but instead joined the other two in staring at the ground, hands jammed into his pockets. ‘Not, perhaps, my finest idea,’ he reflected. ‘Well intentioned and imaginative – certainly, but maybe a little optimistic.’
He kicked a stone with malice.
A family trait, the old optimism: his grandfather on his father’s side had died in his early twenties trying his hand at breaking-in horses in Africa when he got himself skewered on a gatepost. Uncle Nathan on his mother’s side almost died trying to swim Loch Ness in the middle of winter. He had some crackpot theory about freezing water triggering the body into doing superhuman things, which turned most definitely not to be the case. He, too, had been young. In fact, reflected Drade, with all the optimists in his family being so young, it was quite miraculous that baby Hamish had made it into the maternity ward at all.
Stopping in his tracks, Barney interrupted Drade’s revelries. ‘Of course, there is one advantage to an unknown piece of research from an unknown place by someone unknown, and that is that it probably hasn’t been thoroughly de-bunked. There would be no need – like disproving the theory that the earth stood on the back of a giant tortoise – absolutely pointless.’
‘True,’ said Belter. ‘Bunkish research has fewer detractors; on the other hand, it is more difficult to get people to believe it.’
‘Yah, but once a piece of bunk has been generally accepted as non-bunk, it doesn’t matter much if it is bunk or not. People simply go along with whatever the consensus view is – look at global cooling.’
By this time Drade had completely lost track of what was bunk and what was not, but he did not mind too much, and since it had been he, who had had the idea of going to Professor Bunk in the first place, the deep satisfaction that vindication bestows began to well up from within. He beamed at his friends.
‘So what we really need to do,’ said Barney, ‘is get a consensus going that building a port where Base is now would be environmentally damaging.’
‘Umm...’ doubted Belter.
Barney continued, ‘At the very least, we might be able to delay the project by a few months, or even a year, and then who knows, maybe the investors will change their minds.’
‘Or run out of money,’ added Belter.
‘You never know. There might even be some truth in it.’
Spirits raised, the trio boarded the train at Ely station.
It was one of those old trains with separate compartments, which are still used during non-peak hours on the less important lines. The three bundled and slammed the door. There was more than a whiff of conspiracy in the air, with Barney and Belter making the main decisions as usual, with him, Hamish, ably in support.
Drade was immediately transported back to his schooldays, when they, musketeers three, had come together to brew beer in their dormitory. He recalled the research they had done, the sending out for books, and the muted discussions and arguments that had ensued once they had been read; the purchases they had made, and how they had secreted them into the building and managed to keep them hidden from their peers; how the brewing had been done in an alcove in an old room on a deserted floor just above the dorms and just below staff quarters; how they had sneaked down the stairs between classes and at all hours of the night to add sugar, stir and filter the mixture, check the temperature and the acidity, and do all the little things that needed to be done to bring their Shelly-like creation to fruition; and how finally, after what seemed an age, they judged that the moment of consumption had arrived; how only then did they invite the entire year to a ‘late night drinker’ in their dorm, where they had all feasted on the tastiest of cheeses, the crispiest of biscuits and a nectar of such refinement and civility that it was determined there and then that the process be repeated at the soonest opportunity.
Oh, and didn’t they overdo it somewhat? Belter had
claimed a touch of food poisoning and spent the entire next day in bed, as did poor old Guppy, who had vomited out of the window so forcefully during the night that he managed to hit a passing owl. But Drade and Barney had limped courageously to rugga practice early the next day, and had only been saved from ridicule by the fact that everybody else was feeling just as fragile.
Mr. Stephens could not quite figure it out. ‘Sluggish!’ he exclaimed to a colleague, ‘it was as though they were pulling ploughs through a marsh – never seen such a dismal performance.’
The stock crashed together as the train came to a juddering halt at Cambridge and Drade was wrenched back to reality. He looked over at his friends, who were sitting opposite one another, deep in conversation. Barney leant forward spitting out ideas to Belter, who, ever the sceptic was sitting back, eyebrow cocked.
‘What we need is some research into the ‘global cooling’ theory, and work out how it came to be accepted as a scientific fact on a par with evolution and relativity,’ said Barney.
‘To what end?’ asked Belter.
‘Well, if we try the same moves, the same strategy with Delany’s theory, we might well be able to get some support and see where it goes.’
‘So, you mean…create the impression that there is research out there which suggests that knocking down Base will prove to be bad for the environment?’
‘Something like that, yah. I mean, perhaps we shouldn’t really talk about Base or The Clef – it might look like self-interest. We should talk about the greater good of the neighbourhood...and the planet.’
Belter was being won over.
‘Sow the seeds of doubt in their minds,’ added Barney.
‘Umm…yes...yes,’ said Belter, moving his head back while he scratched his chin slowly and thoughtfully. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm to find out how they did it. Might be rather interesting.’
‘Exactly,’ said Barney. ‘Why don’t we try and find out as much as possible about global cooling, how the idea came to be accepted, how was it spread, and what did people do about it.’
‘Fine,’ agreed Belter. ‘Drade, you in?’
‘Of course,’ said Drade, keen to make amends. ‘Why don’t we begin at, er...the er...that library just off Leicester Square?’
The Ice Wall Cometh
As guarantors of the common man’s right to better himself, libraries, should always be places of quiet, of study, of thought and reflection, and in these respects The Westminster Reference Library fails miserably. The continuous rustle and shuffle of peoples’ comings and goings, the clankings of lifts, and closings of doors, the mobiles, the mouse clicks, the stampings, the chatterings, the coughings, the droppings of pens, the heavings of books, and all the rest fighting against the intolerant roar of engines passing through the tourist ridden metropolis.
It is a curious place because, apart from the usual shower of students and pensioners, it is one of the few places in that part of the world where one can actually find locals. Not the wealthy locals who buy pied a terra in Soho, so that they can call themselves Londoners and belong somewhere, nor rich foreigners looking to escape the claws of greedy governments by investing in some property somewhere else. Instead there were people whose parents and grandparents were born, worked and died just nearby; who themselves grew up in central London and went to the local school before it was closed; and who, in spite of being driven out of the local pubs by the prices charged to tourists, deprived of local grocers (who themselves had been crippled by property taxes), afraid to wander around their own ‘manor’ on account of the violence and petty theft, and unable to get anywhere anyway on account of the traffic, had somehow stayed on.
There was Simon Affley of Cambridge Circus – thirty five years and still a marketer, as his father had been – working on his family tree; Simone Law, a professional pianist and teacher (much rested of late), who needed information about examination syllabi for some of her pupils; Adrian Winethorpe, working on a school project about traffic levels in central London; Gavin, his father, who needed some local archaeological information. There were legal assistants and bookkeepers, writers and journalists, tramps and viscounts all rubbing shoulders together in this democracy of words and letters.
At ten o’clock, Drade and friends, all of whom had made a gargantuan effort to be timely, found themselves amidst this motley collection of characters rummaging through papers, journals, books and pamphlets with the eagerness of a gang of bargain hunters at a flea market.
Belter buried himself in the microfilm section and sifted through an impossible number of old scientific journals – his legal eagle eyes scanning page after page, picking out the pertinent words and phrases and jotting them down. Barney worked online separating the mountains of unreliable, and at times downright misleading ‘facts’ from those that were well sourced, while Drade concentrated on articles in old newspapers and popular magazines. Between the three of them, and with six hours work and only two coffee breaks and nothing to eat, they managed to put together a picture of the past.
The ‘global cooling’ theory had never been as widely believed as, say, evolution. Even at its most popular, the idea had its detractors. Nevertheless, research into global cooling attracted considerable funding, created noticeable public unease, and impacted legislation around the world for decades. Research conducted by major organizations from the UN to the CIA supported the idea that the world was cooling, as did many eminent academics; and the popular press abounded with predictions of great famines, wars and disease when the cooling finally came about.
There were clearly important lessons to be learned here.
At Base that evening, Belter assumed the role of ‘chap in charge’, as he always did – not feeling comfortable any other way. Drade had a tendency to end up being ‘chap in charge’s chap’, a sort of ‘underchap’, as it were, which left Barney – slightly left out – as a kind of was a kind of inspirational outsider character, who was nevertheless one of the boys.
Harry the barman wafted amongst them, dropping warmed goblets of nectar down upon the tables’ velveteen greens. The clock by the door ticked and tocked heavily, and the bright fire crackled in its grate.
‘So, what have we learned about global cooling?’ asked Belter, to Drade and Barney, who were slumped opposite him cradling their warm brandies.
The first thing that struck Drade during his day of study in Leicester Square was that he had found it immensely difficult to nail down quite how and where the theory had originated. It seemed that it had been one of those times when an idea was everywhere and yet nowhere in particular. He searched for an analogy.
‘You know when you are walking down Symons’s Street and you are suddenly surrounded by the smell of coffee roasting, or Pelham Close early in the morning and somebody is always baking bread?’
Belter and Barney nodded.
‘But try as you might to track down the cafe or the house with the baking you simply can’t. Well, global cooling was a bit like that. During the seventies, the idea seemed to be everywhere, but it is jolly hard to nail down exactly where the ideas were coming from. At first I thought there was one definitive piece of research, but there isn’t – just several rather inconclusive studies, which were quite narrow in any case.’
‘There must be something solid somewhere,’ said Belter.
‘Not that I could find,’ sighed Drade. ‘There was a projection done by a some know-it-all at MIT, which predicted lots of global cooling in the eighties and nineties, but it was all rubbish because the boffins used different methods to make the calculations and it was just coincidental that the lines happened to be pointing the right way.’
‘Is that it?’ asked Belter.
‘Well, there was something in Reader’s Digest, or something, which included loads of anecdotal evidence for global cooling – you know, when I was a lad we didn’t need long trousers, it was so warm – and that sort of thing, but nothing firmer; and Nat
ional Geographic did a big dramatic spread on core samples, which seemed to suggest a cooling trend, but the models they used were all over-simplified and useless. I’m afraid that finding something hard and fast is a bit like trying to catch sticklebacks with one of those nets on a piece of bamboo: you see a great pile of fish down there, you lunge at them all with the net, not aiming at any one in particular, but hoping to bag at least two or three and you end up scooping up nothing.’
‘So there was just a general something in the air?’ asked Barney.
Drade pondered. This was one of those pivotal moments, one of those times when he really needed to be absolutely sure of his facts. He needed to get this spot on, no mess-ups allowed, no room for Hamish’s notoriously close-to-the-bone sense of humour, no wobbling or vagueness; precision was the key. He sighed: the burden of responsibility weighed upon him and he glanced down at his notes.
‘Well, one of the first things that strikes me is that every scientist interviewed in these magazines, seemed to be pictured with a suspiciously large tape recorder behind them.’
It wasn’t that Drade had only looked at the pictures during his day of study in Leicester Square, but he would hardly have described himself as a bookish type – quite the opposite in fact.
‘Printed words have the uncanny knack of putting a fellow to sleep,’ he had observed once. ‘Whereas pictures of things, or better still the real things, do the opposite. Probably why we sleep with our eyes closed.’
Added to which, it was generally reckoned that a picture be worth a thousand words, and given that Drade had seen hundreds of pictures that day, a simple piece of arithmetic would amply demonstrate the extent of his toil. Drade was well aware, of course, that these ‘tape recorders’ were old fashioned computers, from a time when computers needed whole rooms to house them in. He had read that somewhere.
‘They’re just old fashioned computers,’ said Belter. ‘In those days they needed to be that big because the parts were enormous.’
‘I know, I know.’ Drade snapped, more than a little annoyed at himself for letting Belter beat him to it. ‘What I mean is that there seemed to be an unshakable faith in the power of science and its ability to predict.’
‘It does predict and predicts very well,’ said Barney. ‘People have landed on the moon.’
‘Yes, it does, but there have also been some amazing botch ups,’ said Drade. ‘Like, well…like global cooling. The point about the tape recorder is that when a scientist stands there with a mysterious piece of hi-tech equipment behind him, he immediately looks more credible. If we want to be taken seriously we need to produce images like that – lots of them. Not enough on their own, but a good start.’
‘So we can use that unshakable faith people still have in science to our advantage,’ said Belter
‘Exactly,’ said Drade.
‘So we should get some scientists behind us?’
‘Yes, I think that would be the way to go. Not quite sure how you would do it though.’
Drade paused and thought for a moment.
Now how would one go about getting the old boffins on side? In truth, Drade did not really know any personally, as all his university buddies had been called to the humanities. He did have vague memories of there being a ‘technical section’ at Durham, where the serious, swotty-looking types would gather. And he had always assumed that the top floor of the main library was where they studied; but since he had never been there, he could not be sure. They were never present in the local drinkeries, they tended to eat packed lunches and were never really out late. Perhaps he should suggest the three of them pop up to Imperial some time and have a look in at them – see how they operate and what gets them going.’
‘What I noticed,’ said Barney, ‘is that nobody really seemed to care about global cooling until the media got hold of the idea and started to dramatize it. There were stories on Newsnight, a few TV documentaries and suddenly it was everywhere. The same thing happened with UFOs in the fifties: first aliens were just something loons with foil helmets cared about, then War of the Worlds came along, and suddenly everybody was seeing them.’
‘Yes…a good film, a story or something, is very important,’ said Belter. ‘People have to be able to visualize these things rather than be presented with some dry, scientific abstract.’
‘A picture is worth a thousand words,’ agreed Drade, playing it safe. They were right of course but getting a film done seemed even more impossible than getting the scientists on side.’
‘Umm, well, perhaps, we should go through the actual process by which the earth was supposed to cool?’ suggested Belter.
‘Ah, well, that’s a bit easier’ said Barney. He stood up reached inside an attaché case he had brought with him, and pulled out a bundle of photocopies he had made. These he spread out over a nearby coffee table so that they could be easily read. The three poured over them intently, as though they were maps to hidden treasure.
At length, Belter rose from the table and cleared his throat with authority. ‘So, as I see it, the mechanism is this: heavy industry, which didn’t really exist a couple of hundred of years ago…’
‘It always starts with something like that, doesn’t it?’ interrupted Barney.
‘What do you mean?’ said Belter.
‘Well, it’s always something new, like er…heavy industry, motor cars, mobile phone signals, GM food, you know... Every time somebody invents something new there’s always some clot out there with a crackpot theory which proves that whatever it is, it is going to bring about the end of the world. Whereas in fact, when the end of the world actually happens, it will be caused by something completely insignificant which was always there, like dark matter or something.’
His words hung in the air like a cloud of dark matter. Uncertain, Drade looked at Belter. As far as he could make out, Barney had made a fair point. Was Barney perhaps mounting a challenge to Belter’s position as ‘chap in charge’?
Belter was silent for a moment, his brow rising fractionally.
‘Thank you, Barney – ever the philosopher,’ he said, just managing to lace his honeyed words with Tabasco.
‘Thanks,’ said Barney to Drade’s great relief.
‘So, this industry,’ continued Belter, ‘pollutes the atmosphere by shooting out particles of dust into it. These form a protective shield around the planet and have the effect of reflecting the sun’s rays. This causes the planet to cool marginally at first, but critically, the coldest parts of the planet – the poles – cool faster.’
Barney interrupted, ‘That’s because the heat is carried by convection currents, which move outwards from the equator; and the polar ice caps are the furthest places away from there.’
‘Right,’ said Belter, ‘the poles are furthest away and they are white, so they reflect the sun’s rays, and cool faster until hitting a tipping point which spawns another ice age.’
‘So it’s a sort of vicious circle?’ said Drade
‘Yup. So, the effects on mankind could in theory be devastating. Many of the world’s largest population centres like London, New York, Washington, Berlin would be covered in ice, whereas other parts of the world, which are currently desert or jungle, would get a much more temperate climate. No wonder everybody was in a panic!’
‘It’s absolutely perfect,’ said Barney. ‘We need a theory of that calibre, simple to understand and promising dramatic consequences.’
‘We do,’ said Belter.
Barney looked down at the cuttings scattered upon the coffee table.
‘It’s so funny, because it was quite a big thing at the time, but now it just seems absolute rubbish,’ he said.
‘How so?’ asked Belter.
‘Well, it just seems to be so off-the-cuff. I mean you could just as easily argue that all that pollution actually makes the earth warmer by keeping the heat in, or that it makes the earth darker by keeping the light out, or whatever you wanted really.’
/>
‘True,’ agreed Belter. ‘It makes you think, doesn’t it? How do people actually come up with these theories?’
‘Well, that’s what this is all about Barney,’ said Belter. ’With a little imagination, you could prove just about anything. All you need is a skeleton of a theory and then you go hunting for the facts. Opposite of the way it should be, but I don’t think we should get bogged down in the morals of it.’
‘And besides,’ continued Barney having appeared not to have heard Belter, ‘so what if there was mass migration to new temperate parts of the world? Perhaps it would have been a good thing and had beneficial effects. Everybody seemed to be scared simply because of the possibility of change without really thinking about what those changes might bring. Perhaps we need to somehow get that into the debate.’
‘What? Scare them with change, you mean?’ said Belter. ‘Just any change?’
‘Yes,’ replied Barney. ‘Change bad, same good.’
‘Might help, going to be lots of changes afoot, better the devil you know and so on…’
‘Exactly.’
Drade had started to lose track of the conversation once more. ‘So what are we talking about here? Old Prof. Delaney’s theory of rivers clogging up scares people into opposing the port?’
‘That’s the idea,’ said Barney.
‘Umm…’ Belter wasn’t sure.
‘It can you know,’ said Barney. ‘What we need to do is flesh it out a bit, build up a scientific consensus, and put it together with a colourful narrative, and people will start to get scared and at least begin to doubt the idea.’
The three fell into thought for a moment. Belter looked in Barney’s direction – but through him – nibbling his lower lip, silently calculating the probabilities of success. Barney continued to study the cuttings on the coffee table; in his mind they had already stopped the port and were rushing on to have the whole area protected from future change by an Act of Parliament. Drade looked from one to the other, wondering where they would go from here.
At length, Belter broke the silence. ‘I suppose there would be no harm in giving it a shot.’
‘Better than doing nothing,’ agreed Barney.
And Drade agreed too: as far as he was concerned, the only thing they had to fear was failure and perhaps a little personal humiliation. What was that when placed next to the future of their club?
The friends pulled their chairs closer together and plotted anew. In quiet tones they defined and redefined the nucleus of the idea handed to them the day before by Professor Delaney. They discussed the way ideas came and went. They talked about rumour, fashion, gossip, buzz, and, of course, consensus. They studied the whole notion of credibility: how it was possible for one to be incredible to some people but perfectly believable to others, all the while saying the same thing; and how to go about saying completely contradictory things to different people and seem perfectly consistent. There was much weighing up of the ‘impact of this’, much debate about the ‘effect of that’, and how ‘would the other look’ in any situation. Many a nectarine goblet passed its test upon their tongues. And friends did pass discreetly by and nod over politely as they did, or whispered the faintest of ‘evenings’ to them one and all, and keeping a reverent distance from the plotters as if sensing that something of import was in the offing. In the brew...
It was indeed an ambitious plan with lots of debatables and uncertainties, but as Drade peddled his way back home later that evening he could not help but feel excited at what was in prospect. Later still, cosseted by pillows and bedclothes of soft wools and cottons, in that uncertain place twixt wake and sleep, his toes stretched out to claim new unconquered territories amongst the sheeting, and he reflected upon Barney’s maxim of ‘scaring with change’, and how odd it was that some people found the prospect of change daunting and fearful, whilst others found it exciting.
‘Perhaps we’re all scared of change, it’s just that some of us like to be scared,’ he thought. ‘In which case, the type of change which would prove universally unpopular was the type that wasn’t actually that scary.’ He would mention that to the boys tomorrow.
Far, far below, in the square, revellers where throwing passing shots at one another. Good-naturedly, they staggered on, meeting others upon their ways, and greeted, and hugged and passed yet others with the merest of sideways glances, swaying slightly. Cabs trundled by, hailed down the instant they appeared or shot into the darkness – lonely souls searching, seeking kindred spirits all. Till gradually rest resumed there in the town, and many floors above Drade’s friendship with Morpheus was refreshed and emboldened. And as he slept, yet in other parts of London, in the bakeries, on the trains, in the sorting offices, and upon the river, the day returned anew once more to trial those who dared to dream afresh.
Alfie
The need to provide a consensus galvanized the three friends into a frenzy of activity not experienced by any of them since their school days. The first thing that Belter did was establish a headquarters in Base itself. On the second floor there was a garage-sized room which at one point had housed linen, cleaning equipment and supplies for the building. These had been moved to an outhouse and for as long as anyone could remember the room had lain empty and was referred to by all as ‘the broom cupboard’.
Belter persuaded the Governor to allow the three friends to set up camp in there, putting in photocopiers, computers, phone lines, internet access, tables, chairs, filing cabinets, noticeboards, as well as piles and piles of stationary, most of which had been borrowed from the nightclub in the basement, which always had too much. He also provided them with a PO Box for deliveries and mail.
‘Much better that we do business in here,’ said Belter on the occasion of their first official meeting in the Broom Cupboard, ‘gives us a bit of privacy, and being on the second floor, doesn’t disturb anybody else.’
The other two nodded; they appreciated that Belter had done a sterling job of getting the office set up.
‘Seconded,’ said Drade.
‘Carried,’ said Barney.
Having been trustees for most of their lives, they were familiar with the rubric of meetings and general comportment thereof.
‘Now the first order of the day is finding out how we are getting on with this consensus building,’ said Belter.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about this,’ said Barney, ‘you see the problem is that between the three of us, we lack gravitas,’ said Barney.
Belter was silent for a second. ‘You mean to say we’re a little lightweight?’ He sub-consciously rested his hand on his paunch.
‘Well, what I mean is that in societal terms we are all pretty insubstantial.’
‘Speak for yourself Barney,’ said Belter, who had always regarded himself as one of the country’s great mercantile engines, making sensible investments wherever he could and driving forward commerce and trade. Drade for his part, said nothing, but the word ‘insubstantial’ had slapped him on the cheek like a wet fish on a cold day. Granted, brain-wise he might not have been the tastiest cheese on tray, but he was very well respected in the circles he frequented and, in terms of society…well, it may have been a couple of generations since a Drade caught even a whiff of a title, but still, the smell of ermine lingers long.
Barney sensed the disquiet. ‘Not meaning to be offensive, but, we three, let’s be realistic. Young Hamish here has absolutely no occupation and, statistically speaking, would be classed as long term unemployed. You Belter would, I suppose, be a self-employed speculator, but not much more; and I am a Henry who dabbles in tax evasion. We are going to be batting on behalf of the environment, but we don’t have a green credential between us.’
Drade was beaten, there was undoubtedly a shred of truth in what Barney was saying. ‘Its all about heft,’ he murmured as Barney continued to outline his ideas, ‘I wonder if that’s why elephants are prized for their intellect more than, say, aardvarks which look v
ery similar?’
Belter took the criticism rather better. ‘Fair point, Barney.’ he said, ‘we do need some heavyweight credentials. Shall we buy some degrees online?’
‘No, I was thinking is that we need a supporter, or rather a standard bearer, for the cause of saving Lots Road from being turned into a port – someone substantive, educated, wealthy, classy, statesmanlike – a leader.’
‘Sounds a pretty tall order,’ said Belter. ‘And where are we going to find someone like that?’
‘Well, I was thinking about that too, and it would be well-nigh impossible for us to pull in someone of that calibre who would be interested in helping us. But there is nothing to stop us from creating a figure of great eminence to head up the cause.’
‘Creating someone?’ Drade was incredulously. ‘Barney was smart,’ he thought, ‘and knew all sorts of things about just about everything – but I don’t think he’s quite up to actually making a person!’
‘You mean inventing someone? A fictitious person?’ asked Belter.
‘Yes,’ said Barney.
Drade breathed a sigh of relief. He was beginning to think that either he or Barney had lost it. Luckily, neither of them had, and they both remained the very sanest of people.
‘A bit like the man that never was during the Second World War?’ said Belter.
‘A bit like that,‘ said Barney. ‘What we should do is draw up a complete profile of the kind of person that we would like to head our campaign to save Base. It needs to be very thorough, so that we have a total understanding of who he is, where he comes from, how he got there, et cetera. We should know everything about him, just as if he were sitting right here in the room with us.’
‘Right, so this man…should he be a bit of a greeny then?’ asked Belter.
‘Actually, I think it would be better if he were not. Better that he be a man of science – a real hard bitten, objective type, unaware of the world, above the petty squabbles that occupy the minds of those less intellectually endowed – the type who wouldn’t notice if he were wearing two pairs of trousers, or if someone put sugar on his chips. The kind of guy they haul onto current affairs shows to lend the intellectually lightweight interviewer some credibility, but who, for reasons known only to himself, then goes on to rubbish said presenter, creating one of those awkward moments on the telly, which are such enormous fun to watch.’
‘Right okay. Then what?’ said Belter.
‘Well, then, we build this guy up somehow, turn him into an icon, get him to lead protests against the port, and hopefully generate enough disquiet to delay it for a few months,’ said Barney.
‘And of course the other plus is that if there ever was any kick-back from our little scheme, we wouldn’t be affected. He would be a kind of lightening rod, and we could remain more or less anonymous.’
‘Well, quite,’ said Barney.
‘Yes, yes, I see. But he shouldn’t be a crusader, but someone who is very reasonable and moderate and who lives for something modest.’
‘His research,’ said Barney.
‘Yes, that’s the ticket,’ said Belter.
‘Perhaps someone who has done well, made money and has a philanthropic side. Generous, giving, someone you can trust not to be acting in his own self interest.’
‘He would have to be a generous one and not too oily. People are such cynics these days and always suspect the worst,’ agreed Belter.
‘A grant giver?’
‘A grant giver. Yes, he would be a giver of money, and time.’
This was all getting a bit incredible for Drade, who had been forced to slip into high gear to keep up with his companions, who were now sparking away. Wherever would they head to next? Drade determined that the only way to keep a lid on these two was to race ahead and slow them down a bit. Mockery was not in Drade’s nature, but he was feeling a little under-utilized at the moment, and from time to that he felt the need to remind people what a true polymath he was.’
‘You’ll be saying he’s a vicar next!’ he exclaimed. (‘That’ll show them,’ he thought, ‘I’ll give Barney and his insubstantials!’)
‘A priest!’ said Barney so inspired he completely missed the point.
‘A bishop,’ said Belter. ‘No, hang on a sec – a Bishop of where? Might be a bit tricky’’
Drade felt lost again.
Belter paused. ‘But he might have attended seminary school somewhere and dropped out on discovering an even higher calling.’
‘Yes, religious certainly, but not a priest – too risky.’
‘Far too risky,’ agreed Drade, as he had thought all along.
‘Only one problem chums,’ said Belter. ‘What if someone wants to meet him, or if he has to attend a conference, present a petition, talk on the radio? How do we get round that?’
The three fell into thought, but before long Barney piped up. ‘Well, of course we represent him; so it would be us who present any petitions, and radio’s easy, just phone in the interview.’
‘Because the professor’s far too busy,’ added Belter.
‘Quite,’ agreed Barney, ‘and as for conferences, well, obviously he couldn’t do them because none of us could carry that off, so we would have to keep postponing them, send in apologies, getting in substitutes and the like.’
‘Going to be tricky,’ said Belter.
‘We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,’ said Barney.
‘Fine, so we create a standard bearer for the folks out there. And this broom cupboard will serve as his London office. We should put notice on the door and the letterbox. Oh, and he’ll need a desk.’
‘Yes, actually that’s not a bad idea; he might not exist in reality, but if we are going to convince others about this person, we should begin by convincing ourselves. Let’s get him his own stationary, bank accounts, file a few subscriptions to various magazines on his behalf. I’ll take care of that lot.’
‘Thanks Barney,’ said Belter, ‘we can rent out one of the Trust’s apartments in his name. I’ll have a word with Oscar.’
‘Got to be done discretely,’ said Barney. ‘They can never be in on it – at least officially speaking.’
‘Does he have any personal friends here in London?’ asked Drade.
‘No, no I don’t think so, but he has got a club – the Noughet up by Russell Square – convenient for the universities and not of a high enough profile to attract attention.’
‘Excellent!’ said Belter.
‘His own mug?’ said Drade still doubtful.
Barney and Belter looked puzzled.
‘For his coffee and tea,’ explained Drade. ‘My old tutor at Durham had one with his name on it.’
‘To remind him?’ quipped Belter.
‘In fact it is little touches like that which will make the difference here,’ said Barney. ‘We need to start thinking of everything like that and remember that since our man doesn’t really exist we are going to have to do everything for him, and yes,’ he looked at Drade, ‘someone might have given him a present of a coffee cup with his name on it. It’s the sort of thing people do.’
Vindicated, Drade joined his friends in the task of creating an icon for the cause, and on that day Professor Alfie Cabot, scientist, inventor, writer, speechmaker, philanthropist and statesman was born. And the friends, having agreed an outline for him, set about filling in the details.