Chapter 4: Infinite Variety

The purchase of the work boat marked a watershed in my life. It was an impulse buy that committed me to my future life. It might have taken a day or two to sink in if it hadn’t been for an urgent message from Matt telling me to open my laptop without delay if I knew what was good for me. People think I’m old fashioned about communication, but I have a carefully considered system.

To be fair, the system worked well until my wife found herself a lover. Now it has become a nuisance, fortunately affecting others more than me. I use my phone only for voice calls and text messages. All my interaction with the internet is through my laptop. This suited me when I spent my days at my bench and my evenings at home.

Now, I had to leave Iain and his family and rush to my hotel room to get an internet connection to discover what Matt was getting so excited about. His call demanded that I read the email he had sent without delay. An answer was required immediately, and my presence was essential within twenty-four hours. Since I returned from Vienna my only contact has been guarded texts from lawyers and gossip from Mitzy.

She is a little jug whose big ears miss very little. She does have a tendency to fill the gaps with her own inventions. Much of what she reports is true but there is a good deal of fiction to sift through. In deciphering her messages, I rely on historical evidence going back thirty years, when Matt opened Fairchild Engineering.

As an apprentice he was a keen cyclist, spending his weekends rushing up hills. On an annual holiday to Wales with his cycling club he met a historian on the same campsite. She was looking for historical bicycles forgotten in Welsh farm buildings – or so her professor believed. Matt offered to restore a relic she and her friends discovered. Instead of racing up hills, he spent the weekends cycling to Nottingham to fix Mabel’s antique bike.

When she graduated, she got a job in an auction house where many mechanical devices offered for sale had missing bits which were no longer manufactured. She encouraged Matt to open a business restoring such equipment. By the time I started working for him during the university holidays, he had made new parts for everything from an eighteenth-century pocket watch to a swing bridge over a canal.

I proved to have a knack of finding novel ways of solving engineering problems. I was an inventor but not of anything earth shattering. I sort of filled the gaps to make devices more effective in some way. With the urging of Mabel, Matt expanded the business to take advantage of my gift. We made small runs of prototypes so we could sell the right of manufacture to larger companies.

About twelve years ago, we were all getting fat and happy when Mabel began pushing Matt into expanding the business. We would make our own products with a proper sales force to win our deserved place in the market. Mabel was a great manager, but she was too ambitious for both Matt and me. I had taken to hiding when she stormed into the shop to bully me into convincing Matt to do as she said.

She would have got her way if it hadn’t been for big chief something, a Native American. Mabel was on a committee supporting King Harold. Her lot believed that England would be a far better place if William of Normandy had lost the Battle of Hastings. I found it hard to get worked up about something that happened almost a thousand years before, but she was an enthusiast.

Ten years ago, she went on a retreat with her fellow believers. When she returned, she was passionate about a visiting speaker, the aforementioned big chief bullshit, or whatever his name was. A couple of weeks later, she had a committee meeting in London. Matt stopped for petrol on Monday before she got home only to find his card declined. The account was empty.

He reported Mabel’s credit card stolen but not before she had charged two first class tickets to Wyoming to it. That was the last we heard from Mabel for five years when the discovery channel showed her in the role of high priestess of some cult living off the grid. Their philosophy appears to owe more to the Amazon legends than to Native American culture, but what do I know. Matt was shattered.

The ideas for expanding the business were shelved and we have continued to quietly get rich since then. When Beth claimed the company after Matt’s stroke, her plan was loosely based on her mother’s original proposal; not only is it ten years out of date but Beth lacks the skill and intelligence to make it work. Reading Mitzy’s texts in that context suggests that Matt has decided to make the expansion plan work.

His email gives no details, but it does say that he has had a report prepared on the possibility. Given that he is over seventy and had a stroke a year ago, it would be madness for Matt to take on the expansion. There is no mention of who he wants to implement the scheme but I strongly suspect that my name has featured in the discussions. Beth’s name has not been mentioned either.

Matt has been good to me, encouraging me and paying me fairly for my inventiveness. He added to my indebtedness by assigning to me the income from the patents based on my work. Since Helen’s betrayal, I have wanted to get away, but my duty to Matt as a friend and employer has made me hesitate. I used our joint savings to buy the cottage and refurbish it, but it is only with the purchase of Commie-Tea that I have fully committed to my new life.

To put it bluntly, if I don’t apply myself wholeheartedly to my new life, I’m likely to starve. Giving up and returning to run the expanded business is not an option. It would be bad for Matt and bad for me. He doesn’t need the extra stress, and I’m simply not cut out to be a factory manager. I want to invent things, and I believe that my generator will be a winning development.

There was nothing further I could do until I spoke to Matt, so I put it out of my mind. I called Iain and authorised him to refurbish Commie-Tea, spending up to five thousand. The navigation gear that had been stolen cost ten thousand but I had no plans to sail outside the Minch so a simpler configuration would be more than adequate.

It seemed wise to set off straight away, planning to stop somewhere south of Glasgow for the night. I sent a text to Mitzy telling her I would arrive late the following day and another to Matt’s doctor; I thought it likely that I would need his help to persuade my friend that going back into business was a bad idea. Perhaps Trey Wishaw will persuade him to return to the golf course.

At the start of the journey, I reviewed my finances, what little I knew of them. My salary was more than enough for household expenses and normal family holidays. In addition, I had an account into which I put my bonuses. Last year my bonus was thirty thousand give or take a pound or two; this was my share of the revenue from patents.

I hadn’t actually looked at the books of the company Matt gave me which collected the licence fees. Even if he had given me the lions share in the past, the total must be around fifty thousand. I could live on that as a single man, especially as I expected to pay nothing for water and electricity. I can’t imagine the council tax is much on a cottage without any council services.

I was wending my way through Kintail by that time, so my thoughts naturally turned to Louise, waiting at the end of the road through Glen Shiel. I was still more than a little ambivalent about our liaison. I had no expectations that it would last beyond Easter when the first of the tourists arrived to share her bed. Next winter, I will be a local resident which would rule me out.

It was my readiness to bed her that still puzzled me. Even before I met Helen, I had never been a lothario. I was a long-term lover, cautious about pushing too far on my dates. It was out of character to respond as I did to Louise’s invitation. Then there was my response to Melanie at the travel agency; I had been strongly tempted to seduce her even after she told me why she was sticking with her husband.

That brought me to Eleanor, the brunette who swam with me every morning I was in Vienna. I met her with her husband on the first evening at the hotel. He looked to be over eighty, and rather doddery; she has the wrinkled face of late sixties, but she has a youthful body that enticingly fills a swimming costume. Nothing was said between us, but I sensed that she was waiting for me to make a move. She certainly made her farewell hug and kiss more intimate than I expected. Relationships between men and women are clearly much more complex and varied than I had acknowledged in the past.

In the past, I have dismissed swinging and open marriages as totally alien. Nothing to do with me and the life I chose to lead. It came as a complete surprise when my reaction to Helen’s defection contained not a hint of sexual jealousy. John was welcome to her, but they should not have gone about their affair as they did. If she had asked, I would gladly have let her go.

That brought a new thought: all I feel for Louise is lust, no love, not even affection. Could I have a similar relationship with Helen? I had certainly lusted after her before we were married and for some time afterwards. I deeply resented paying for her dalliance with John, but could I fancy her again if he was picking up her bills? Out of nowhere, at that moment, I got a picture of Jennifer in my mind. Would I be willing to swap with John?

I was close to the Border by this time and ravenously hungry, so I pulled into a service station and booked myself a room for the night before dining on spicy cardboard. It filled a hole and a couple of beers cured the subsequent indigestion. The following morning, after breakfast, I got on the road, wondering how the cook was able to mess up bacon and eggs.

Once I was off the motorway, I pulled into a decent restaurant I had dined at in the past. While I waited, salivating, for my food to arrive, I fired off texts to Mitzy and my divorce lawyer. He replied immediately demanding that I call him without delay. Helen has counter-filed for divorce and insists on meeting me in the presence of our lawyers. Since I was as ready as I will ever be, I told him to set it up. Mitzy sent a happy emoji which I interpreted as permission to visit.

When I reached Matt’s home, the drive was full of cars, most of which I did not recognise. I did consider driving on and returning later but Mitzy must have been on the lookout for me since she opened the front door, put two fingers in her mouth and gave a penetrating whistle. Being no hero, I parked and got out, trying desperately to make my smile look happy and pleased to be there.

She rushed down the path and had her arms round my neck before I was fully upright. “Thank God you’re here, Bill.” I was surprised to see a tear in her eye. “They’re trying to kill him. The last thing he needs is more worry.” I assumed she was talking about Matt, and I couldn’t agree with her more. His doctor had replied to my text saying he would talk to the old fool, so I was happy that my objections to the plan, whatever it is, would have support.

Inside, the living room was full of people. Chairs had been brought from the dining room to accommodate them. Mitzy and I entered from the kitchen so we escaped attention for long enough for me to sense the atmosphere of excited expectation. Matt was standing with his elbow on the mantleshelf, with Trey and his sister occupying the two armchairs. Jennifer was perched on the arm of her uncle’s chair and Beth was scowling from a seat on the carver.

There were several others that I did not recognise. Matt was turned slightly away from me smiling at Faith who was smiling back at him. Jennifer was very obvious: she was the only woman wearing a skirt and she was perched slightly above the rest on the chair arm. The skirt was knee-length so you could see her knee and a shapely calf flowing down to her dainty feet and ankles. She was gently swinging the leg so every male eye in the room was fixed on it.

My arrival went unnoticed for a second or two until a woman in a rather severe business trouser suit drew their attention: “Who the hell are you?” she exclaimed, running her eyes up and down my body. I didn’t know whether she planned to bed me or bury me, but she clearly had some plan in mind. Faith was the first to respond.

“That’s the person who was so rude to me when I was disciplining Jamal,” she told her brother. He rose from his armchair and turned to glare at me. “It’s about time you got here,” he said, his voice sharp and unfriendly. Jennifer also turned towards me which caused her hem to rise revealing an inch or two of thigh encased in - stockings or tights? I seem to be prone to irrelevant thoughts at awkward moments.

“You owe Matt everything and its time you began paying your debt,” Trey continued. Matt had turned towards me with an expression I could not read. It was a rather chubby young man in a wrinkled suit who responded. “I take it this is what’s-his-name, the guy we’re considering as CEO?” He looked at Trey, adding: “I’m not too impressed, I must say.”

He did have a point. The rest of the assembly were in business attire while I was in jeans and t-shirt, comfortable clothing for my long drive. The woman who had first spoken was still eyeing me like a side of beef. “You look surprised,” she said. “Have you even seen a copy of the prospectus?” she added, reaching forward to take a bound document from the coffee table beside her. It was headed ‘Fairchild Engineering’ and had an artist’s drawing of a factory.

The chubby man intervened again, delving into a briefcase at his feet and extracting a sheet of paper which he waved at me. “Don’t give him that until he’s signed the non-disclosure agreement,” he told the room. I had taken the proffered brochure but now I returned it to the coffee table. “Not interested in this or your agreement, chum.”

“You don’t need to read it, Bill,” Beth offered. “It’s just mummy’s plan updated. We’re going for production based on market research. Daddy will be chairman; you’ll be CEO and I’ll be CFO. It’ll be a winner; you just wait and see.” I shook my head, beginning to understand what was happening. Chubby spoke again. “He’s only one candidate, you know. We need convincing that he can do what you say.” I looked at Matt who was looking bewildered; this was not going as he had planned. Trey was still on his feet and still glaring at me.

“Don’t you have to apply to be a candidate for a job?” were the first words I uttered since I walked into this ambush. Chubby gave a sneering laugh. “You’ll apply, there’s no question of that. No one turns down the chance to make half a million a year.” Where did that number come from? We would have to be one of the top three manufacturers in the country to pay the CEO that much money.

I felt anger surge through me as I scanned their faces. They were playing at business – this was Monopoly to them, a game with fake money and no consequences in real life. Matt and I had considered manufacturing instead of leasing our inventions, concluding that it was almost certainly beyond our skill set and definitely light-years out of our comfort zone.

I wanted to shout at him now, reminding him of our conclusions but I could not do so with this roomful of sharks watching open-mouthed. Helpless to advance, I chose retreat, turning and brushing past Mitzy to return to the kitchen. I did not stop there, going straight to the side door and running down the path to the safety of my Land Rover. There was no pursuit.

The streetlights were on as dusk descended on the winter day. Without conscious thought, I directed my car to a commercial hotel on the edge of the business district. It was a favourite with visitors to the factory, I dredged up from memory. I booked it until Sunday and took my bags up to the room. My mind was still in turmoil, unable to find a point from which to start unraveling events.

I removed my jacket and shoes, settling on the bed with my back against the headboard. I made an effort to reconstruct what had happened from the moment I stepped into the ambush but all I could see in my mind’s eye was Jennifer’s leg swinging seductively showing some thigh. I was pondering whether she was wearing tights or stockings when I found myself in a ballroom at a table with my ambushers.

All the men were in evening dress and the women in formal gowns. Jennifer was sitting opposite me in a dress with long sleeves and fastened to the neck. As I walked round to ask her to dance, I could see that the hem just reached her knee. This time, I knew she was wearing hold-up stockings and that they were the only garments she was wearing under her dress

She sneered when I asked her to dance, smiling warmly at chubby when he offered his hand. She eagerly joined him on the dance floor while I stood, forlorn, watching as they disappeared into the melee. Next time they appeared her dress had changed; it was now backless, and when she turned round it had cleavage down to her navel. “She’s gagging for it. You want to get in there, Bill.” It was the voice of Hamish who appeared from nowhere.

“I thought you were only interested in widows,” I muttered “Better a devoted divorcee than a willing widow,” he quipped, stepping onto the dance floor where Jennifer met him. She put her hands to her neck and her dress fell away leaving her naked. She jumped into Hamish’s arms, and I woke up with a start.

I suppose I have dreams like everyone else, but I never remember them. It took a minute to recover. I decided that it was hunger that had brought on the hallucination, so I got dressed and left the hotel to find something to eat. The hotel has no dining room but there is a café about a block away that specialises in business lunches.

The business district was almost empty, the office buildings darkly deserted. When I found the café closed and shuttered, I checked my watch, surprised to find it was already after nine. I walked on for about another block before I spotted a convenience store down a side street. It was empty and it was clear that they were getting ready to close.

There was a Cornish pasty and a steak slice in their hot cupboard, both looking rather the worse for wear. I was trying to decide which was less unsavoury, when the proprietor arrived and offered both for the price of one. Back in the room I discovered that they were almost as disgusting as they looked. While I ate, I turned on my phone, determined to make a start in sorting out my life. While new messages arrived in a succession of pings, I showered, then lay on the bed naked, since commercial hotels don’t provide bathrobes.

Standing in the shower, it was not Jennifer who came to mind but her uncle Trey. He had reminded me of how much I owed to Matt, pushing me to agree to whatever the old man wanted. The debt was not, however, all on one side. Until I joined the firm, he had been restoring antique machinery. My talent for innovation opened new doors and we have profited ever since. If he needed my inventiveness, I needed Matt’s discernment and cash.

He was a wizard at picking the ideas that were most likely to succeed, and he did not stint in funding the development. My ideas have their origin in general engineering principles and a knack for spotting a way to improve the efficiency of machines. We had no problem selling our innovations to manufacturers, but they soon began to press us for an exclusive arrangement.

They wanted to direct my research in the direction of their needs, but I quickly found that I could not design to order. We explained that I needed to be independent to be effective. Once they accepted our position, they simply passed on information derived from their sales teams. I got to know what they wanted and that gave me a direction where I might do some good.

It worked well for quarter of a century, and I was reluctant to change – ‘If it aint broke, don’t fix it’ is a good motto for an engineer. That convinced me that I was the wrong person to be CEO, but it still left me uneasy. Was I being selfish to deprive Matt of his next dream? Perhaps I could set up the new company and bow out once it was up and running.