Chapter 7B

And back to Dave...

I missed the call, of course, despite disentangling myself from the bed clothes and getting downstairs in record time. When I did finally find my phone, though, I saw a missed call from May, and a new voice mail. Which latter I ignored in favour of simply phoning her back ... and got her voice mail. Which was annoying, given that I knew she'd called only minutes before, but somehow not a surprise. I picked up the message instead, listening to it as Kath came down the stairs, too, wearing nothing but a T-shirt.

"Everything OK?" she said, carefully, as I put the phone down. "Only you came down the stairs at a rate of knots, looked quite surprised when I got down, too, and now you look a bit confused. So what's up? Or should I just bugger off and mind my own business?"

"Oh ... no ... its OK ... just that the call I missed was from my friend May's phone ... she's being helping out with liaison while I'm up here ... but the message was from Debbie - who I talked about earlier? - with ... well, bad news ... her partner's died, quite suddenly, she's back in London, thought I ought to know. But now May's not answering the phone. Hang on, I'll try Debbie's mobile directly."

She sat and waited while I made a succession of calls - Debbie's mobile, then May's, then May's home again - without getting an answer. Eventually, I sort of slumped in front of the remains of the fire - I was still naked and it wasn't warm - where she put a rug around my shoulders and went to make some tea. I was still sitting, thinking, when she handed me a mug and sat down beside me.

"So ... is that you back to London tomorrow, then? I think if I had someone like you around - who cared for me the way you obviously do about her - I'd ... well, I'd quite like them around in a situation like this."

"Well ... yes ... but I do have to get stuff sorted out here ... though God knows that could wait ... but the message she left was simply to say she was OK, would be staying with May - who's a nice woman - for a few days and would speak to me when I got back. So I don't know. Part of the problem is precisely the way I do feel about her ... of course I want to be there, but at the same time there are things we have to sort out between us and now would not be a good time for that. I mean, she's just lost a guy she was really close to for years ... hardly going to be looking for a replacement tonight, is she?"

"No. But the very fact that you're thinking like that - that you're aware of the issue - makes me think that that's not going to be a problem ... any more than all that unresolved stuff was when the guy was alive, I suspect. And I still think she needs a friend - as many friends as possible - more than you need a meeting about development grants."

Which was perfectly correct, of course, and I gave her a brief hug. And then I phoned Debbie's mobile, again ... and she picked up.

In fact it was both an easier conversation than I'd expected and a considerably more reassuring one. Debbie sounded quite calm - she'd done a lot of her crying on May earlier on, she said - and at least superficially in control. She said she didn't want me to come back to London immediately - even made a joke about how she was going to sell the flat she'd lived in with Phil and therefore needed me to sort out stuff up here urgently - but would like to talk - not in the office - when I got back. Eventually we arranged that she should meet me at Euston off the train on Thursday morning (I'd have to skip the meeting with the time share people, I thought) and we'd take things from there. And with further mutual assurances that we were both OK - and that I hadn't driven the business into a ditch since she'd been away - she rang off. The whole call had lasted three minutes and forty two seconds - I checked.

Kath was looking at me when I ended the call, having tactfully moved slightly away while I was talking, and gave me an appraising look.

"You're not going to leave it at that till Thursday, are you?"

"No, of course I'm bloody not ... that's OK for this evening but I'll give her another call tomorrow during the day ... send her some flowers, too, probably..." I laughed. "If nothing else that'll confuse her ... but that's OK for this evening, I think."

"Right," she said, "'Cos its getting pretty cold in here and if we're going to sit up all night I better do something with the fire." A pause. "And, Dave, if you don't want to come back to bed with me, that's OK ... I know you have things to think about."

I nodded, appreciating the thought. "No ... actually I'd like to go back to bed with you - maybe not to have sex, but I would quite like the company if that's OK with you. And I wouldn't mind another drink, at the moment, if there's any of that wine left?"

There wasn't, but she found a passable bottle of scotch and we took that upstairs with us. Where we did have sex ... calmly, gently and ... comfortingly. Kath was a really, really nice person, I thought as I fell into a deep, deep sleep.

Next morning, we got up and got our various acts together as though we'd known each other for years - strange how it sometimes works like that - sharing a brief hug on the doorstep. Kath was going to work, of course, while I had a couple of trains to catch to get to my meeting - with a good connection, for a change. As we went our separate ways, I mentioned that I'd be back in the valley that evening - same pub, probably - so should she find herself there ... She laughed and said that it was always possible. Then laughed again - more to herself this time - and commented that even if she wasn't, her sister undoubtedly would be...

Which thought kept me amused for a while but then business kicked in again as I got the first call - from some very senior guy at PCW - before I'd even got on train number one, and it continued pretty much through the forty minute journey. It appeared that the powers that be were unhappy with my "precipitate" approach to property purchase - apparently you needed a committee to deal with investments on this scale - and it took a fair amount of my dwindling stock of diplomacy to point out that it was actually our money (even if most of it had recently been theirs) - and, thus, it wasn't something I needed prior approval for - without making the situation ten times worse. As it was, I simply got hassled by various different people within the organisation - the first guy presumably not having been senior enough? - and thus failed to find time to properly prepare for the meeting I was actually going to. It was, I felt, all somewhat unnecessary - for a start, I knew Carla was on board and that everyone I had had to talk to would have seen the business plan and thus could have raised any concerns well beforehand. OK, I thought, so my erstwhile friend Ms White - sod the Alison - had probably been presenting my conduct in a less than flattering light ... which pissed me off a bit ... but I cheered myself up with the thought that the main problem was that I was challenging basic assumptions of corporate behaviour ... and that that was pretty much what the operation had been set up to do in the first place.

As it happened, my lack of preparation prior to talking to the Regional Development folks was hardly a problem, either. They were a singularly relaxed bunch and thus quite a relief to deal with after my corporate "partners". In fact, it didn't take long for me to wonder why we were actually meeting at all: I knew what they had on offer from the e-mails Debbie had copied me into; equally they were well aware what we were looking for - and the fact that getting money from them was, for once, not crucial to our relocation plans. Maybe they were just curious to meet people who weren't trying - in effect - to blackmail them ... or maybe it was just that, what with the latest recession and all, they just didn't have a huge amount to do.

Eventually, I decided just to come out and ask them directly - strange behaviour in the business world, I know, but sometimes quite effective. And discovered that they had a wish list of stuff they wanted from us.

In fact, someone, somewhere on the political side of things, had decided that hi-tech industries were the way to go ... and we were about as close as they'd got to date. Thus, they were keen on us sharing our "expertise", acting as a focus for other local initiatives, skilling up the population and all that sort of thing. Which took me back a bit ... we might produce software and do most of our business over the net but it wasn't what I'd have called particularly high tech ... no cutting edge manufacturing processes, no world changing advances at all ... and not actually that much expertise. I mean, I was pretty good at what I did - not being a corporate clone, mostly - and Debbie, Naz and Seffi were all talented people, but...

But it was a nice office and they were nice people who served nice coffee so we chatted away and in time ideas began to emerge ... about how our plans to go green in a big way with the building conversion might help other local start ups - from local builders gaining experience of working to these standards through to a company on the coast developing low impact micro wind turbines and looking for test sites. And then, about how the completely and deliberately excessive IT capacity we'd planned could also be used to benefit our peers ... from free web hosting and wi-fi for the village through to - well, it was vague, but using downtime on our servers to run simulations and stuff for local techies - those wind turbine guys, again - or maybe doing actual CastList type stuff with local organisations. It was vague, but it felt good ... certainly something - or many things - we could work on. I left them an enthused and happy man - grants and rebates agreed, to be sure, but also with the feeling that I'd just met a group of people who could really help make our "good neighbour" ambitions a reality.

The good mood persisted through the journey back to Bowmere, despite the trains getting back to normal by being both late and crowded. Once there, I had an hour to wait for my connection back up the valley by bus - I could have got a taxi, but, hell, it wasn't as if I had anything massively urgent to get done. So I went and found a florist and sent some flowers to Debbie - assuming that she'd still be staying with May - and then sat in a cafe, checking e-mails and things (Carla had sent me a single liner: 'You're annoying people. Good. Keep it up.") and then phoned Rosie at her work, apologising that I would be heading back to London early the next day and that I would therefore not be able to meet our prospective temporary landlords. Not to worry, she said, something could be worked out. Which I was sure it could - though I'd be hard pressed to say why I felt so certain, given that I was primarily dealing with people I'd only met a couple of days ago - which thought further cheered me as I finally got on the ancient, rattling, local bus. And enjoyed a thoroughly pleasant - if ridiculously slow, by London standards - journey through some of the most beautiful scenery in England ... in bright Autumnal sunshine.

So I was an exceptionally contended sort of bloke as I got off the bus and crossed the green to the hotel. The mood was hardly dented by coming across the vicar, who cut me dead - the Revolted Rev indeed, I thought - and then further improved by collecting messages from the receptionist that included one from Debbie - saying that she had the flowers already (bloody hell, that was quick, I thought) and loved them ... and another from May, letting me know that Debbie herself seemed OK and was beginning to get some of the practical stuff organised. Ah, well - we were meeting the next day, I pointed out to myself, we'd see how it goes then.

I had a quick shower and ditched the trainers I'd been wearing for some walking boots, also grabbed the essentials for a quick walk in the hills - compass, map, waterproofs, that sort of thing - and then wandered into the village co-op to pick up some food for the afternoon. Inevitably, it was Rosie holding the fort behind the counter.

"God, someone looks happy," she said without preamble, "So I take it the meeting went well?" I agreed that it had, that a number of interesting new possibilities had emerged. She looked pleased, told me that she'd talked to the timeshare people earlier and that they were available early evening if I felt like talking to them then. Which of course I did, and agreed that she should invite them over to the hotel bar - where else, really - at about five ... and if possible be there herself: There were things I wanted to talk to her about, I said, which would be a bit difficult to do when she was working. And, on that slightly mysterious note, I set off ... and had an even better afternoon ... on my own in the hills.

I got back to the hotel at about four, and went back to my room to sort stuff out prior to my departure the next morning ... and to give Debbie a brief call. She was still staying with May, which she said was what she needed for the moment - she's been very loving, she told me - and was feeling that she was getting things together, if slowly. She also started to tell me about the funeral arrangements - in Glasgow on the next Monday - and her own plans for getting back to work but I cut her short. We were meeting the next morning, so could discuss things in person then - I'm not keen on talking on phones, anyway, and in this case I felt I needed to observe the body language as well as hear the words. I knew Debbie after all, and that meant I knew just how good she was at managing her presentation. So I finished the call, saying, "Look, we'll talk talk tomorrow - quarter past twelve at Euston, OK? So, till then have a nice evening - well, a relatively relaxed one, anyway..."

"I will ... and you too ... and I'll look forward to seeing you then ... I've missed you while I've been away..."

I agreed that I'd missed her, too, and with that we hung up, went our separate ways for the moment.

Which in my case involved making a coffee in the room - proper coffee, not the normal sachet of instant muck - and writing an e-mail to Carla which I'd send as soon as I could get a mobile signal tomorrow. By which time I was about due to meet with Rosie and her friends so I wandered down to the bar to see whether we could do business.