Chapter 21

“Daddy’s business can pay the postage, as his contribution,” she remarked. “Are you going home to Greenock or coming with us for dinner? You said your Mum was okay with whatever you decided, didn’t you?”

“Well, I never say no to an opportunity to get close and personal with certain females, so let’s have dinner at our usual place, and if Janet is on duty you can tell her the cash has been sent and she is free of debt.”

Georgina added, “If she on not on duty this time, you can leave her a sealed note about her debts. That will make her a happy girl when she gets it.”

The weather was dry and not cold, unusually so for late January, so we walked slowly down to the town centre. We managed to get our usual table, as business was slack at this time of year. Our regular drinks waiter came to our table, and recognised our trio as regulars.

“Welcome, sir and ladies. What can I get you today? We have a nice Pinot Grigio which might suit the palate of the ladies. Sir might prefer our Sauvignon Blanc.”

Georgina looked interested, so I looked querulously to Sandy to advise on the selection.

She replied sweetly to the wine waiter, “None of us are regular wine drinkers, John, so we are willing to take your recommendations tonight. Bob has led a more sheltered life, so his acquaintance with wine is minimal.”

“In that case, madam, I would suggest a single glass for each of you, and leave it that way until you have assessed the wine for yourselves.”

Her use of his name was solved when I noticed the discreet name badge pinned on his jacket.

He went to leave, then hesitated before telling us, “Your regular waitress is not on duty at the moment. Do you mind if we send another young lady?”

He was being polite. There probably was only one or perhaps two waitresses free to serve us. I told him, “Whichever waitress is available, send her along.”

We imbibed our drinks and the young-looking waitress did a competent job of getting us a good meal, and as we were ordering coffees Sandy asked the waitress to bring us a sheet of writing paper, an envelope and a pen. The pen she came back with was a Bic Crystal ballpoint pen. This placed the restaurant into the superior category, as these pens were expensive to buy, only introduced to the market a couple of years before. Sandy was careful to return it as soon as she had her note written and sealed.

“Please put this aside for your waitress named Janet. It is an important letter for her to get as soon as possible.”

I paid the bill while Sandy phoned for a taxi. I used it to deliver the girls to their house, and then take me to my family home in Greenock. I would be back tomorrow to see my ladies and make more preparations for our nuptials.

I wondered if the gents outfitters would be open on a Saturday. There was only one way to find out: walk down there on Saturday morning and if they are open, start the process of procuring my wedding suit; It would not be highland dress, as our family were all from Central Scotland and so not used to wearing the kilt and all the rest of the Highland garb. I must admit the full Highland dress-wear looked impressive if worn correctly.

I did that on Saturday morning, and they were open for half the day, so I got them to take my measurements and they would check what they had in stock for purchase that they could alter to my dimensions within a few days. I had no idea of the date of the wedding, but I had better be prepared, rather than rushing at the last minute. I may be just coming up eighteen, but I am not stupid. The stupid go into the army and get sense knocked into them. As we finished, I got them to call for a taxi to take me to the Thompson address in Gourock.

Once there, I rang the bell push and Georgina came to the door. She looked shocked, but not at me, so I asked what was the matter. After she brought me inside, she explained, “My boss rang to say the police had called on him yesterday to ask where he got the gold he was taking to the bank. It appears that someone at the bank had an attack of conscience and informed the police, saying he suspected someone was using the bank to turn stolen gold into currency.”

“So what did your boss say to them?” I asked.

“Said he had not heard that possessing gold was a crime, and so why were they bothering him with questions? The policeman explained that if there was suspicion of fraud, they had an obligation to look into it. He explained to the policeman that one of his houses for sale stipulated that payment had to be made in gold, and that the man who finally bought it had to first of all buy the gold so that he could use it to seal the deal; everything was thus done by the rules. Just because the client had to obtain gold ingots to be able to buy the house, that does not make him a fraudster, merely a man obeying the rules.”

I laughed. “Your boss appears to be adept at dealing with policemen, Georgie, by talking to them about rules.”

“He is. Some criminals choose to buy property to hide their ill-gotten profits, but the police know that a criminal would never use gold bars to make the purchase; it is too obvious and easy to identify the purchaser, which is what they don’t want!”

“So was that the end of it?” I questioned.

“For now, yes. The bobby didn’t query how the buyer could have easy access to enough gold to buy a house.”

“Hmm...” I mused. “Perhaps I ought to have some believable story ready if they ask to speak to me. Citing an inheritance could cause them to ask about whose will it was; and you don’t find gold ingots lying about.”

Sandy saw the problem.

“You can’t tell them the truth, so what can you come up with?”

“Could I simply say I bought a house and the gold was hidden inside, like someone not trusting banks with his assets? There is no way they can find the previous owner, because he did not exist in our records.”

Sandy pointed out, “Yes, but where did you find the gold to buy the house in the first place?”

“Oh, yes. There is that.”

Georgie offered, “Could you have met this man and he asked you to buy this house for him without revealing his identity to the lawyer?”

Sandy sounded incredulous, “A man is going to trust a schoolboy with a stack of gold ingots? That is what it will sound like: crazy.”

I had a new idea.

“What if the man had selected me as young, inexperienced and vulnerable, someone he could easily force into doing what he wanted? Say he showed me a gun or a knife and suggested that if I did not go through with his instructions, someone could get hurt. I then followed through and over a week or two was given the ingots and bought the house in my name. Afterwards I heard nothing more, so I assumed the man had met with an accident of his own, and left it at that. I had no idea who the man was or how he had gold in his possession. It was like a fantasy, and too unbelievable for me to report it to anyone.”

“The police would ask what he looked like,” Sandy added. I was ready for that one.

“A man in a dark overcoat of some kind, and a hat pulled forward to shade his face. All I can remember of his face is he wore a mustache and beard. That little bit is so they can deduce it might be a fake beard.”

Sandy was delighted.

“That sounds about right: all vague and inconclusive, and I like the idea of you considering it too unbelievable to report to the authorities. It makes your story more believable. Georgina will be able to confirm your buying the house, and she can say you looked uneasy. Right, Georgie?”

Georgina was quick to agree, adding, “I was unsure about a young man buying a house with gold, but it was not my place to question a client; we never do; it is bad for business.”

Sandy ended with, “You had better go over it again and again in your mind until it becomes almost true in your memory, and you can repeat it without fault.”

I took that to heart and ran over it several times in my head, trying to be word perfect if I had to retell the tale.

Sandy announced that she and Georgie were making lunch, so if I felt like staying, I was welcome to sample their cooking. I accepted the offer, saying, “I want to find out how good a cook my wife will be.” Being in the Thompson household I did not want to be too specific about the wife, in case their father heard me.

Sandy asked if I had been to my house today, and I explained that I had been in Greenock making arrangements for a wedding suit, and so I had not been to the house yet.

Sandy urged me, “Then make a visit after lunch and see how many trips the mechanism will permit. The sooner we get that brick wall installed, the more secure I think we will be.”

“Not to worry, my love. Mortar is pretty well set hard after 24 hours, and keeps getting stronger for the next month, according to a brickie I once chatted to for a while. It is amazing what you can learn by a friendly talk with tradesmen as they work.”

“That sounds fine, but first you have to get enough bricks there and then get the wall built. You worked out how many bricks you need?”

“I did, and I am thinking if I can take a few extras I might incorporate a buttress to give it more lateral resistance if there was an explosion in the rail tunnel.”

“A buttress? What do you know about that?”

“Cathedrals had to have buttresses added to resist the outward pressure on the walls as the building got taller. A few collapsed in the early days, which is why they decided some support on the outside was need to prevent a collapse. These flying buttresses you see are there to direct the pressures to ground level from several heights, and keep the building stable. Most of these cathedrals weigh thousands of tons, and the more height and towers they have, the more unstable they are and need supports such as buttresses.”

“They learned this in the twelfth century?”

“Yes, for it was the Normans who started this ‘building to the skies’ lark. It took fifty years or more before the buildings started falling down in storms, and the masons were forced to revise their ideas on stable structures, just like the ancient Egyptians found with their pyramids.

Some of the middle-kingdom pyramids that had a rubble core were susceptible to collapse, and they had to work out whether it was the material that was the problem, or the angle of slope of the pyramid’s sides. It was a bit of both, so they later moved back to using stone for the whole structure and not just the casing. Making the base wider reduces the pressure on the rock filling, and by the same procedure you reduce the slope to also reduce the chance of collapse. It is not quite buttresses, but the principle was the same: reducing the pressure caused by the mass of the material.”

Sandy commented, “You seem to have learned a lot at school.”

I grunted grudgingly, as I explained, “Much of it was obtained by reading books from the library, Sandy. The central library was my equivalent of early university. I did the reading to learn the subjects. Reading is a marvellous accomplishment. I relish the moment when at around five years old I twigged to the use of letters to make words that had meanings of their own. From then on I read everything I could get my hands and eyes on. The few books in our home were devoured by me, and from them I learned about the British Empire and all the wars that helped build it. The books never made it clear that it was economics that drove everything, so it took years before I could see this underlying law.

If you wanted cheaper trade, it is simpler to make war on a less well-armed country and incorporate it into your empire, then you could strip it of resources quite cheaply.

Businessmen made use of the technique, finding any excuse for getting the military to do the warfare deed, and then the businessmen could make fortunes exploiting the resources.”

“So did that affect your politics?”

“No, for I already had formulated the type of political action I wanted to see in the country. I would support any candidate who saw things my way, though few did; they were mostly focussed on how to appeal to the voters, and not to the needs of the country.

I could see the need to improve the environment, through seeing how Greenock viewed from the hills behind became clearer during the trades holiday fortnight. That was when all the chimneys stopped belching black smoke into the air, and you could breathe more freely. Admittedly the Clean Air Act five years ago helped that a lot, but it took so long because it was an enabling act; it had to be adopted by each local authority. Adoption forced coal burners to switch to smokeless fuels. It ought to have been a compulsory national law with a date by which all the polluters had to stop polluting.

Okay, rant over!”

Sandy was a bit shocked at my views, but noted that they were intensely practical and intended to improve the country and not to help any economic force.

When we sat down to lunch I got a surprise: the lunch was very basic: fried bacon and toasted cheese on lightly toasted bread, with a side salad. It tasted great! Sandy explained to me that lunch at home was more of a snack, with the main meal kept for dinner in the evening. I had been spoiled by eating lunch at our chosen restaurant. I had to admit this was a tastier lunch that the bland stuff served at my high school where some pupils might be put off by strong tastes. School lunches aimed at the lowest common denominator, probably quite rightly, so that every child could take the food. For some poorer kids, this was their main meal of the day. You could tell by how they cleared their plates and even asked for seconds if there was enough left over. The dinner ladies were happy to see them well fed, and I suspect that extras were earmarked for these pupils, to help them continue to be decently fed.

After lunch, Sandy escorted me to our house to make sure I did another brick delivery without accidents and reported on any sign of life at that future end. We tried another trick, using a broad strap that ran over my shoulders and ended with a bag holding two bricks at each side. It was heavy, but all I had to do was keep it secure and clear of my feet until I was at the lab, then I could split the load and transfer the bricks to where the growing pile was stashed.

It worked, so we now knew that four bricks could be taken at a time, with care. There was nothing different in the lab, and no sound to be heard at the tunnel doorway, so we could assume a lack of attention there.

The system’s battery admitted to being able to cope with a second trip today, so I managed to deliver eight bricks in one day; a real achievement.

We then moved to the back door and did a walk-through of our house, discussing what should or could be done, and when. It was when we reached the door to the technical room, where the space/time travel mechanism was situated that it occurred to me that a good lock on this door was essential if we had any visitors such as tradesmen; especially when you considered the stack of gold bars sitting inside, unprotected. Sandy agreed, and promised to get Daddy to ring up his locksmith of choice to come and install a strong lock. I would have to be on site during the fitting, but I was sure that I would get time off my duties for that task.

Our other discussions were mainly giving my agreement on their choice of window curtains they had already selected and had been delivered. They just had to be hung, and I was informed that my presence, while welcome, was not essential. Curtain rails had already been in place for many years. The remainder was another walk-through of the kitchen with its new appliances, so that Sandy could tell what they all did, and how they operated, because I might on occasion have to operate them myself. I had to think about this suggestion, then I realised that if my wife (or one of them) was nauseous because of pregnancy, I would have to deal with filling and putting on the washing machine or cooking a meal. Even loading the new dish-washing machine had to be done in a layout that the machine required to work efficiently.

I listened carefully to my Sandy, my love, my life-mate.

I could see that my job as husband was going to be that of agreeing with any household decisions the ladies made, and following instructions where they were temporarily unable to undertake their chosen responsibilities. My thoughts were that I should learn a few recipes for snack meals in the interim to prepare for such eventualities.

Becoming a husband was more than learning how to make love with my wife in a satisfactory manner; there were practicalities involved in being a family.

In the old days, when several generations shared a home, it was Granny who held sway when Mum was indisposed, but today life had changed and a husband had to be more hands-on in the household, albeit under orders from his wife; drying the dishes, laying the fire in the fireplace, hanging out the washing on the drying line, moving furniture around for vacuuming underneath, doing D.I.Y. projects such as painting and decorating, and even going shopping for groceries and such essentials. I quickly learned to be specific about quantities and quality in shopping.