Chapter 13: It's Not All a Honeymoon

CHUCK

Madame had interrupted my second day with Amina, and she tore apart my idea of living in the log cabin until in desperation I asked, "What should I do?"

Don't you just know it when you're falling into somebody's trap?

Why did I pose that question as if I was going to comply with any suggestion?

From out of a leather case she withdrew one of her pretty drawings. "Can you see what this is?"

I took a look, "A cob*-built thatched farmhouse."

I must admit that it looked a bit like one of those pretty chocolate box pictures of a white painted country cottage, from which I expected to see hollyhocks around the doorway and flowered creepers climbing around windows. But then, I studied the picture more carefully, and I appreciated this was more of an indication of the artist's work than of the design.

A cottage would have two tiny front rooms, this had some four sets of windows on either side of the front door.

Madame went over her drawings very carefully. "I think you know that this is my hobby, drawing and sketching appealing looking buildings that I would like to live in. The trouble is that I know full well that I'll never leave the House. This is what I designed years ago. OK, I have adapted it a little for your own needs."

I studied it very carefully and the related drawings. "But where does the cabin fit in?"

"The cabin stays here, and you'll have to enlarge the stable block, you'll probably need a milking parlour and a room for a few more animals. Goats' milk's very nutritious, and your women can make some decent high quality cheese."

"But? I don't understand."

"You can't live in that tiny poky little thing. You only have to look forward to the end of the year. By that time you ought to have your first baby. Wherever are you going to put it? Certainly not out in the hayloft. I know Amina doesn't take up much space, but she should be showing by then, too. Pregnant women need more room, even if it's just to move around. Come to your senses, Man. You don't need another room or two, it is essential you get yourself a completely new house."

"A new house?"

"You do have a silly habit of repeating what I say. You can't live here with the animals on the other side of a thinly planked wall. The smells alone during the summer will drive you out. The muck twenty yards from the door is a health hazard for your children."

"You're telling me I've got to build a new house completely?"

She indicated the pretty pictures.

"I suppose you've got a good point," I agreed. "When I have the time I'll look into it."

She sat back and roared with laughter, "When you have the time! I know the likes of you. You will never have the time. You will be doing 'a Craggs', still running around, and in thirty years' time this little cabin will have a couple more timber lean-tos banged onto the side. Have you ever read the children's tale about the old woman who lived in a shoe? She had nothing on what will happen to you. If you stayed here, there would be you and twenty children climbing the walls. It would be enough to make you desert your family. Get real!"

"Are you suggesting I have to do it now? I've got a lot on the go."

"And you won't have a lot to do in six months' time, a year's time, two years' time? Don't be silly. You will still have projects lined up in ten years. And you'll still be using those as an excuse not to tackle your real problem and your real needs."

She forced me to sit down opposite her, over the table, as she prepared an infusion, taking the boiling kettle off the hob. "I hope you're still giving the little chocolate-skinned girl a daily infusion."

"Of course I am. She knows what it's for."

She nodded sagely, "Then let's talk about you. This is probably the second day you've had off from work in three years. You're an independent man now. What you need to do is to sit back and make a list of your priorities. What's the use in having a pretty little girl like that if you never see her?"

Madame looked around as if she were frightened that somebody would overhear her admission, "I've devoted my time to my profession. It was only three years ago, just before you arrived, I saw what was happening to people like Craggs. They have been working themselves to death.

"I'm sure that THEY didn't intend that for you. You know as well as I do that THEY believe that the children here should have the benefit of a good family experience. The last thing they want is a single-parent family, or your offspring never to see you and being brought up in an all-female environment. Just think about that. You must make time for your family, and that starts now."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you really have to sit back and draw up a plan of action. Take a leaf out of my book. At least four days a week, apart from checking up the daily returns, I never set foot in the House. Delegation! That's the key, delegation. You shouldn't be climbing up on roofs to do simple repairs. Your time is more valuable. By all means give guidance to how to do things, go visit your sites; but you have proved yourself that you're an engineer now, get someone else to do the day to day supervision.

"You have successfully designed, planned and constructed two of the biggest projects that have ever happened in Hartglade. Get real. You can't work eighteen hour days for long, even a young man in his twenties will burn out like that. You've also proven that you can be an entrepreneur."

"What do you mean an entrepreneur?"

"You've ended up with the brickworks and a slate splitting concern. On top of that, you appear to want to run three or four building sites. You should be sitting back and considering what you want to do, what your real future is. If it's to be the biggest contractor for miles around, you've already achieved that station and got the respect of potential clients. You're in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose your jobs. Turn a few of them down."

"I can't do that."

"Of course you can, why can't you? It's not as if you need the money now. If you do so, you'd still get people coming to you because they wanted the best. You're never going to be able to give your best if you don't get your life balanced. Delegate. Listen to me. Work out how much you earned last year."

"Yes?"

"Now divide that amount by two hundred and fifty which is approximately the number of days you worked.

"Have you done that?"

"Yes."

"There, that's the rate that you should be charging out to people for a day's work."

"That's ridiculous, I can't charge..."

"And, of course, you add travelling time to that if you're working anything less than a full day."

"Nobody would employ me at that rate, it's over three hundred credits a day. A labourer only gets a couple of credits a week."

"Exactly, so you shouldn't be working and charging less than your worth. You've just given me your own solution."

"What do you mean?"

"You employ a couple of labourers and charge them out at a rate of three or four credits an hour. As long as you see that they're doing what you want them to do, you get them to do the work."

"But my customers want me."

"I'm not surprised they want you, you're worth up to five hundred credits an hour, then want to pay you five credits a day."

"What should I do?"

"What you should do is what you were doing at the bridge. You were building it. You were checking to see that it was done properly, you were organising it.

"You have told me that you want to design some of your buildings. You can only do that if you leave the hands-on experience to others. Craggs made that mistake, he's still working himself to an early grave. You must act as an entrepreneur."

She lowered her voice, and I knew there was something confidential in the offing, "What would a person in your position have done in an advanced economy? Think back to your previous experience," and then she resumed her speech at a normal level of volume, "With an overflowing order book and myriads of ways to increase turnover? Come, what would a business have been doing? Certainly the CEO would not be digging sewers and fitting together thunderboxes* would he?"

It began to make sense now, but it was impossible here, "The CEO would have borrowed capital for expansion, taken on more staff..."

"There you are, then."

"But the mutual has no money to lend."

"And you have no need of capital at the moment, but... ?"

"It's the labour, that's just it, there's not one person in the whole region around here who has the technical knowledge that is required There is no one who has the skills to check on technical building standards, to oversee the labourers that I..."

Madame interrupted quite brusquely, "And before YOU came here there was no one at all. And how come there is now? Just think. Use your brain."

"But there aren't any men I could find to contract to work as site engineers."

"That's the sort of question you've got to raise a little more positively."

"What you mean? Raise? Positively?"

"Complain, complain to me, that you are going to find your projects restricted because of the lack of available expertise to supervise on-going building work."

"And what good would that do?"

"Oh, Chuck!" She declaimed in irritation, "That would cause the solution to your problem to emerge. In circumstances like that, THEY make an appearance. Before you know it you would find the expertise just turning up. Good heavens, Chuck, you already need someone to run that brickyard and the slate quarry, as well. Those are full time jobs."

I was still not convinced.

"How do you think I've been so successful? I was one of the few people to tumble to the way THEY work. THEY want us to succeed. THEY want to help us, but THEY won't be able to, for long. Take advantage of THEIR willingness to support us, remember there's a deadline after which there will be no help at all forthcoming."

"Deadline?"

"You read those notes of that meeting."*

"Oh THAT meeting, THEIR meeting?"

"Yes, now do as I suggest, take advantage of THEIR willingness to support us, while THEY can."

"So, how do I do that?"

"I've told you before, you complain to me, to others, you grumble, whine, grouse and protest vociferously about the lack of a skilled overseer for your slate quarry, a man with brickmaking experience for your other business. You inform potential customers you'll have to turn down construction projects because of a lack of site engineers."

"What, more permanent employees?"

Madame Grenouille really went at it hammer and tongs. "Even if you get all the professional help you need tomorrow, you still have to train them up. If you get well qualified specialists, then they will be good for little work until they've spent a couple of years' apprenticeship. During that time they will need to be trained, coaxed, and their hands held, and you have to be there like mom, to blow their noses."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"I certainly am, and don't tell me that you can't afford the time to do this. This is the one thing that you do have, now, while you have no big contracts and you have the funds available. Isn't it interesting that you have thirty thousand credits just when you have need of them?"

"I was thinking of investing that..."

"I'm not like you, I don't have any opportunity for on hand investments, apart from in a brothel. And there's not much point in opening another brothel in Hartglade. Yes, I know I have interests in a number of profitable businesses, but you're no sleeping partner man. You're a hands-on experience guy."

She purposefully stopped in order to give me time to assimilate what she had said. "Invest that money of yours in your most important asset, your family and your house and your home."

"But I shan't need the whole thirty thousand."

She stared at me. I was forced to sit there silently as she began to enumerate the scale of the project she had in mind, " ... Levelling the land, putting in drainage, providing foundations and a mud-free environment all around for your access. Think of the rooms you'll need: rooms for you, your children and your women. Have you thought about how many women you will probably have, three, four? Each will want her own room."

Three or four, that was ridiculous! Two was more than enough.

She was ignoring my being distracted but was in full flood, "And I guess these women will be shelling out rugrats like peas out of a pod every two years. In ten years' time that's twenty more rooms needed for your children, and you will have to allow for expansion, because I'm sure they will not want to restrict themselves to five each."

I was sure that there was some logic that was wrong there somewhere.

"Five each! Children! You're going a bit overboard her, aren't you?"

"Not at all. And she intoned, 'And if our plans work out, within a few years she would have offspring aged two, four, six, eight and ten to manage'. I recognised this as almost a direct quote from that weird document that had ended up in her hands.

She had not finished, "You'll want toilet facilities, you know pregnant women are always going for a wee. Count up how many thunderbox rooms you'll need. Then there's a large family room, eating room, kitchen, nursery, playroom, teaching room, recreational room for the older children..."

"Heh, heh."

"I've not finished yet."

"Surely?"

"Then we have to be realistic, this smallholding with a few wives will have the potential to be almost self-sufficient."

"I imagine that one of my women will be going into Hartglade every couple of days to buy fresh provisions."

"We're talking about twenty plus people here for whom you will have to provide everything. Have you any idea of the bills that that will entail, just for food. I know, I have to pay the inflated prices of the market to feed my girls. We know that with an influx of people coming in, the number of inhabitants, visitors and travellers using the market, the prices are going to be pushed tremendously."

"Some of those visitors will be bringing things to market."

"For the next few years the demand in Hartglade is going to far exceed the supply of food alone, and I'm sure that we shall have to import a lot by rail from up and down the Deer Valley line."

"Heh, hold your horses. Let's not get too eager, let's not get carried away."

"OK, Chuck, let's start with priorities, you are going to have an herb garden?"

"I am, or at least my Amina will have one."

"Then you'll have your own kitchen garden. It doesn't take much more to grow two or three rows of lettuce rather than half a row. This is fertile land here, and by the end of this year you should have a truck garden from which your women can take excess food into market."

"I suppose we could grow a little more than we need for family consumption," I conceded. "But my women will have enough doing the housework, there'll be no time for gardening, let alone farming."

"That's if you restrict yourself to two women, the more there are the more time they'll have for other jobs. Just imagine if you had four, that's one for the cooking, another for the housework, one for the children, and then, no matter how you organise it, there would be a free eight hours to devote to the planting, weeding and the like."

My protestations were ignored as she appeared to progress like an express train, "You'll need to build a new barn for hay, and a decent sized stable block to house at least four horses, a couple of ponies, more if you want to help the children grow up in an ideal environment. A couple of shires you'll need for the ploughing and heavy work. And a pair of mules will never come amiss, either."

I was already picking holes with her outrageous suggestions, but she had not finished.

"Then we have the milch cow or better still while you're running one you can, as easily run a small dairy herd that will need a dozen milking stalls in the shippom*, and you will need a dairy with facilities for churning butter and a decent vat for cheesemaking, as well as a cool cheese store. You can't afford paying market prices for such things, as I have to, for the House."

I thought that was all.

I was very naïve. I knew that when Madam was like this that it was better to keep my mouth shut.

"Then you need to plant soft fruit; raspberry, strawberry, blue berry, blackberry, black currant, white currant and red currant. Trees for shade should include those that give you a crop; a few beechnuts, a couple of walnut trees. An avenue of sweet chestnuts to shade the drive can provide a staple vegetable for a third of the winter months. There are few of them around, so it should be a saleable crop too. You have to do nothing more than pick them off the ground. By the time they are half grown, your children will love doing that."

She was running well ahead of me by now. If she had come with the purpose of stunning me, she couldn't have done any better. It crossed my mind as to why she had not started to invest in a smallholding, and I realised that all her investments were in town. Did I say 'smallholding' to myself? What she envisaged was the epitome of an enormous mixed farm.

But she hadn't finished! I think I switched off for a couple of seconds but she was still in full flood, " ... we come to the orchard. Peach, apricot, apples for eating such as Cox's Orange Pippin, Braeburn and Captain Kidd. Oh, and some russets you must have. You can name them yourself just as easily."

I don't think I could.

"Don't forget the cookers, you need Bramleys and Granny Smiths as well as a Rhode Island Greening. And I forgot, if you want some cider, apple drinkers recommend Kingston Black; while those who aren't as keen on sweet drink prefer something like Yeovil Sour.

"Then there are the plums with varieties like Victoria and Denbigh, they're both delicious. What you need are something like greengages and damsons for pies and tarts. You can bottle those, too, and make jam from them. For bottling you need varieties of pears like Conference, as well as..."

She paused only to catch breath whilst I managed to get in, "Surely, that's enough?"

"That hollow over the way is South-facing and very sheltered, you just have a look at the natural vegetation, it is almost sub-tropical. With a couple of glasshouses you could grow anything, and I'm pretty sure you can get some of the local varieties of date palms and citrus fruits which would do well there. Others have transplanted them successfully from south of Lush"

"Madame Grenouille!" I had to arrest her, "Stop, stop, stop. I don't need all that!"

She adopted a superior look and I knew when I was beaten. But she started talking about hives and honey.

"There's only three of us," I protested.

She assumed that 'know-it-all' expression.

I sank back, "Look, I'm not saying we'll even get a half of that, but..."

"You'll at least build the house?"

I suddenly saw where this was heading, it was going to be far easier just to give in and I agreed to build the house.

She started to lay down the rules. In retrospect I think she had chosen the time very well. Having mentally switched off for a few days' break, I was physically exhausted and one might say I was almost reeling in post coital contentment. There is no way I wanted an argument. I don't know why I let her get away with it, but I listened and just accepted what she said. "What you're going to do is to take on no new jobs until this house of yours is built. I suggest you give yourself four months."

"Four months! I could build a large barn out of cob, in less than a month."

"But you're not building a barn. You'll be building a house with everything that goes in it. First of all, prepare every bit of land. You know, all the topsoil needs scraping off and drainage put in. You'll need hard-core, and a sealed surface to take away excess water from the house and the paths and the yard."