Road to Recovery

Chapter 24

  It was at the end of Carol’s second week that I finally met up with YN 246; she hadn’t officially been named yet, and on Carol’s advice I told no one at the dockyard of my intended visit, so dockyard security wouldn’t let me in, but fortunately just as I was about to go away in a huff Carol came and signed for me. Unfortunately there was no getting away from the boring bits, meeting Herr Flik and his Directors formally in the Board Room and the design team in their offices, but then after that everyone seemed to get in on the act - even the coffee lady (renamed tea lady for Carol’s benefit) spoke almost perfect English, but finally Carol, with Herr Flik, Donald and Marta in tow managed to formally introduce me to the new love in my life, although she was a lot lighter than when Carol had first met her. As Carol, Donald and Marta agreed that some part or other of the structure was definitely redundant, out it came, after all it was going to end up on the scrap heap one way or another, and she was turning out to be a beauty, even though she was only half completed. When we returned to the Board Room it was a double dose off schnapps all round, but thankfully not Herr Flik’s extra potent variety, and then it was time to go to the pictures. What the design team had done was create a virtual image of Lady S, so first off they showed me how she would look like naked (stripped to bare metal), and then they got the paintbrush out, first the hull. ‘What colour would you like it?’

  That was easy, ‘green’.

  ‘What shade of green?’ they asked, and that was a slightly more difficult question to answer as they had thirty-eight different shaded of green in their repertoire, and I quickly became torn between Kelly, Office and British Racing Green, but that could be finalised later, although I definitely wanted a gold stripe running down the side of the hull, just like the Royal Yacht.

  ‘Real gold?’

  What a stupid question.

  The superstructure would be mainly white, although lemon chiffon looked quite nice as well, but a compromise was quickly reached and the Lady S set sail, in this programme she was already Lady S, it was written on her stern (in gold lettering of course), and the programmers really put her through her paces, whether it was cruising in the Caribbean, riding at anchor at sunset, or full speed ahead in stormy waters, with and without stabilisers. Computers have certainly come a long way since my old Atari ‘Pong’ days. I was even promised a copy of the programme to help me to fine tune my requirements if the order went ahead, ‘if I had a computer large enough to run it’ – cheeky! but even before the hard sell began I already knew in my own mind that this ship was for me, although I wouldn’t let on just yet, it might just save me a few million Euro’s, and finally, as I thanked Carol for a job well done – so far – and said my goodbyes to all and sundry I told her to take a short break before returning to El Campo, and go and have some quality time with her son, after what she had come up with in just 2 weeks she deserved it, and then it was back to El Campo for me - for something to eat.

  It was a grand occasion when the greenhouse opened its doors for business for the first time, and of course I had to be the first one to officially sample the fair, although fortunately the catering staff had all been using the cafeteria for over a week, perks of the job. Marcel was resplendent in his chefs’ whites, Nigel, just back from his three week course (he was a quick learner) was wearing his new Gucci business suit, Florence, his wife, was almost in a very expensive designer label, and the waiting staff were more than happy in their new with it uniforms, but I was in jeans and jumper; nobody had bothered to tell me that it was also going to be a party. By decree I had let it be known to all and sundry that all members of staff, whilst gainfully employed within the bounds of El Campo could use the Cafeteria for their meals free of charge, and Managers could use the mezzanine restaurant at any time as one of their perks, and today it seemed that virtually every one of my employee’s, and there were now starting to be an awful lot of them, were at work; either that or catching up with their paperwork, and as is the norm in Spain wine was on the tables, so by late afternoon there was a very relaxed atmosphere, I had the feeling that this place was going to be well used. As I sat on the mezzanine, suitably ‘relaxed’, I looked down and watched Paul and Eddie bathe in their reflected glory. They had both done an excellent job on the greenhouse BUT their time with me was on the wane, not for a while hopefully, as the Marina had still to be finished, and the golf course had yet to be even started, but I would imagine that they must be thinking of what lay ahead for them ‘post Andrew Michaels’. Originally I had offered to finance them if they wished to set up in business together - but recently I had been thinking of giving them both a career change. Paul had been, before my accident, my friend. As a consultant at El Campo he was still my friend, and so I had no intention of embarrassing him by offering to employ him. I had something in mind that would suit him much better. He was a Christian, not a bible bashing, in your face, church going Christian; I sometimes found those types to be not very ‘Christian like’ behind closed doors. Paul was Christian, in everything he did; he always saw the good in people, and would be the first to offer a helping hand to those in need, and readily forgave those that had transgressed, but had then repented; he was also always the first to put his hand in his pocket to help a worthwhile cause - and what I had in mind was to become his pocket.

  When Itza had told me about his Charitable Trust I asked Vicente to look into the possibility of setting up the same sort of thing for me, and he had finally come back to me a few weeks ago, and it had given me a lot to think about. One of the many worthwhile causes that Itza thought might be of interest to me was ‘green issues’, not the colour of my boat but doing something to help save the planet. Very noble I thought, but what could I do on my own, apart from throwing loads of money at every crackpot scheme that came along. Then I thought of Paul, he would make the perfect Trust Fund Manager. What would Paul do with loads of money? Good question - so I leaned over the mezzanine rail and gave him a wave. Once I had his attention I signalled him to come up and see me.

  ‘Paul, what would you do if I gave you a hundred million Euros’?’

  ‘Retire’ he retorted, ‘I was just explaining to Maria how we joined the framework to the end wall and you called me away to play games - humph’.

  I am sure that Maria would be thanking me later for saving her from a fate worse than death, but I came back at him with ‘I am not playing games’.

  When he picked his jaw up off the floor I explained what I had in mind, my carbon footprint was terrible, so what I needed was for him to do some serious ‘offsetting’ for me. El Campo would soon become self-sufficient in its water and electricity needs once the solar panel farm (in place of the old bomb dump) was up and running (or rather, sat there sunbathing), and the groundwater extraction pumps were on line, but all this jetting about was seriously blotting my copy book in the eyes of the eco-warriors, and I dreaded to think what the Lady S would do to it. I really needed someone I could trust to do some serious ‘offsetting’ for me, big time. A rather glazed Paul (it had nothing to do with the ‘relaxed’ atmosphere) left ‘to think about it’, and suddenly the attachment fittings didn’t seem as important as they did a few minutes ago.

  That was one of them gob smacked, now for the other one. El Campo was starting to flourish in its own right, but it needed nurturing. Someone had to start looking after it full time, and no one knew the place better that Eddie.

  ‘Eddie have you got a minute please.’

  He bounded up the staircase three steps at a time, and when he arrived I benevolently asked him ‘Eddie, would you care to become my Estate Manager?’

  ‘Love to, when?’

  ‘After the house is finished’.

  ‘Great’, and then he was back amid a large gaggle of females.

  Well that had taken all of twenty seconds - what will I do for the remaining forty.

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