7: Night train to Antibes

There is a tide in the affairs of man that if taken at the what’s it, leads to a cabin on the Riviera Sleeper, only not the French one, but the English one.  As I explained to my paramour, who has lately taken to calling herself my gentleman’s personal gentlewoman, there is in fact no night train to Antibes anymore, but that with a bit of imagination we could create our own. At which point I extracted a slim volume from my jacket pocket entitled Night Trains, The Rise and Fall of the Sleeper by one Andrew Martin, son of the railway and all round good egg.

We were at a table at the Market Café, idling away the evening hours before the arrival of the train.

‘You’re obviously enjoying your cod and chips. I’ll mark it up as a holiday treat. You do know there are plenty of posh seafood restaurants hereabouts that could offer you the same in more salubrious surroundings.’

‘So I would imagine, but not cod, chips and proper mushy peas, with a round of sliced-white bread and butter on the side and a mug of well stewed milky tea with two sugars to wash it all down. When you’ve had a real fish supper at Morecambe or Scarborough, it’s rather letting the side down to settle for anything less.’

‘I’ve noticed that; an occasional reference to real life in the North here, an old world cockney phrase slipped in there. What’s all that about?’

‘Just picked it up over the years I suppose, from some of the lads I hang about with. Ever asked yourself, how do I make more money at my job?’

‘Frequently.’

‘Leave the money from your salary in the bank, it becomes your savings. Never pay for anything you don’t have to, get as much of what you need written up as housekeeping. Then just keep a wad of cash made up from all your tips in your back pocket for emergencies.’

‘Just as you do with the Trust? So how do you cover this holiday? Don’t tell me you haven’t got some way.’

‘Well, some aspects of the journey will involve essential face to face café conferences with European colleagues.’

‘So give me the schedule.’

‘Leave Paddington early morning, underground to King’s Cross, walk back along the Euston Road for a brief appointment at the British Library, before boarding Eurostar at St. Pancras at about eleven I think…'

‘What are we doing at the British Library?’

‘Picking up an original document and walking out with it.’

‘I’ve never heard of that, I thought people spent hours searching for stuff and maybe got to copy some of it if they were lucky.’

‘Usually, but myself and a colleague are going to prove our identity, sign and then deprive the State of a significant historical document.’

‘How come?’

‘Because after a long and torturous legal process we have proved that we are the rightful owners of it, or strictly speaking, rightful owners of what the document refers to.’

‘There’s money at the bottom of this, yes?’

‘In the very long term, maybe. It’s more correcting an ancient injustice.’

‘And what are you going to do with it, immediately board a train and smuggle it across an international border?’

‘Alas no, it goes in matey’s office safe for a few years, until the rest of the world cotton-on to the fact that we control something of real value.’

‘Why do I have to drag along.’

‘Witness. Besides, when you see it, you might just approve of our skulduggery.’

‘Then Eurostar to Paris I presume, or can we go straight through?’

‘Er, no, not on the train we’re going on, besides tomorrow’s hot meal will be taken at the Buffet de la Gare de Lyon.'

‘Another greasy spoon I suppose?'

‘Read the book…'

‘You knew this would get me worked up, the narrow spaces, the moving train. The ladder is just perfect.’ So said Charlie, from the top bunk. ‘Can’t say I care much for our fellow travellers.’

‘Agreed, a dozen unidentifiable tourists, three sad looking businessmen and a couple of our terribly earnest MPs.’ After that brief exchange, we just seemed to be lulled into slumber by the train.

‘Refreshed?’

‘Bloody cold coming back onto the platform’, she said after we’d taken advantage of the showers at Paddington.

‘The sooner we get underground the better.’

We were swept along by the human hush of early commuters and the mechanical cacophony of the train; then, seemingly out of nowhere, Charlotte asked: ‘If I were to get pregnant, what would you do?’

Just as well I had my answer ready; ‘I’d insist that we had a proper church wedding with all the trimmings, 2.4 children and you and your offspring would be made for life.’ The smile was there, full as ever, but of course it told me nothing.

Librarians with pretensions to scholarship, employed by a government agency - we needed the hour and a half I’d allotted, despite having an appointment and with all authorisations in order. Encased by Brutalist architecture, we endured the disapproval of the staff who managed to give the impression we were absconding with their personal property.

Afterwards we repaired at the old St. Pancras booking office, now a café. Our legal companion made an attempt to explain to Charlie what we had purloined. ‘Well it gives title to part of the land at Crawford Park, a part which the Park think they already own, but this specifically refers to a very small worked out mine underneath, which means access to and control of, what was always there underground and indeed what brought mining to an abrupt end; you see, the old adit mine simply ran into an underground spring.’

There was barely a pause before she turned to me; ‘And you want to bottle it?’

‘Well, that may not be economic, but we can easily run a pipe to the clubhouse. Then it is no longer the Park, its Crawford Spa with a capital S.’

‘Water should be free for all.’

‘Try telling that to your local water company, not to mention the manager of the of the filtration plant. You know before this wonderful train shed was turned into a shopping mall, I could have walked up to one of the clerks at the windows in the wood panelling over there, and asked for a ticket on the Midland’s main line, to Buxton via Matlock and Darley Dale. I’d have been travelling to take the cure, to benefit from the healing powers of the waters! In fact, were you and I setting out from Buxton for a walk in the Peak district today, we could fill our water bottles for free from the public fountain. Remind me, how much went on the card for that water you brought us not ten minutes ago?’

In the warm, quite isolation of the carriage, with Charlie sat alongside, I found myself starting to ramble, to free associate on the subject of railways; platform one at Paddington, the old 10,17, the refreshment rooms, Queen Victoria’s waiting room, staying at the old Great Western Royal… Then it was tunnels under London, wartime pilots using Boat Train 1 and Boat Train 2 to navigate by… Ashford, railway town. Railway carriages on ships. The Blue Train. Apple orchards like vineyards, Flanders field, Monet to the west painting trains, Gare St. Lazare.

‘You’re a bit of nerd, in fact more than a bit.’

‘Of course, besides the railways are a network, the Internet of the nineteenth century, especially since most telegraph lines used to run parallel with the tracks. Now then, Le Metro. How to get from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon, using the maximum amount of above ground and elevated track?’

‘I’m reading.’ She’d brought with her volume one of the fourteen volumes of the infamous domestic double act. ‘The young women in these stories are all bonkers, completely away with the fairies. And how can the narrator also be the fool?’

‘Yes, I’ve often wondered about that, it’s there in Sherlock Holmes too from an earlier era, of course then the relationship was the other way round!’

‘Bloody hell!’ exclaimed Charlie after we’d ascended the famous iron staircase with the stone steps and she’d got a glimpse of the salon, the painted walls and ceilings.

‘As long as we get to sit on a bonk-quette, you can have anything on the menu.’

A while later I approached a delicate subject. ‘You’ve been using the camera on your device quite a bit since we left the apartment. We’re going to need a policy regarding photography.’

‘More “impression management”?’

‘Well, up to a point. What do you want the world to know? Bearing in mind that every image has time and place embedded, and as long as you’re connected, you’re hackable!’

‘I always delete the crap ones or the too embarrassing ones immediately.’

‘Very sound.’

‘Everything I’ve taken, of you, us, is on this work phone.’

‘Okay, I suggest we both have to agree before anything is posted.’

‘No problem. What about the revenge porn?’

‘Well, if you can find a way of hiding it, you’re welcome to bring it up in court in twenty years’ time!’

‘We’re not actually on the fastest train are we?’

‘No, we’re on our first Grand Tour together, we travel for learning and pleasure, therefore take the scenic route, and with a bit of luck the sun will be not only lower, but behind us as we approach our destination.’

Once more into a trance; wine regions, varieties of vine, the width of rows, height of vines, type of pruning, spacing of the wires… Lyon and more ruminations on Antoine, the Comte de Saint Exupery... French Popes, funny bridges, the quality of the light and crazy artists, estuaries and wild cattle, men on horseback...

6: Coffee, tea and scandal

‘Incoming! Bandits at four o’clock.’

‘Don’t tell me…’

‘The text just says “With you at four, full stop, Elisabeth.”

‘..it would do. I had a feeling we were rapidly approaching more, tea and scandal.’

‘We have our yoga session to do yet’.

‘Oh, I think thirty minutes will be plenty time enough.’

‘On your head be it.’ Then, looking up from her device. ‘Wow! “They are at the end of the gallery; retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.” That the one?’

‘You’ve got my number Charlie.’

‘Wait. Act One, Scene One, William Congreve 1694 The Double Dealer, oh that’s appropriate.’

‘I’ll ignore that, we have practice to do.’

‘So “gallery”, what’s that?’

‘Er, posh houses of the time would have a long gallery down the whole of one side of the house.’

‘So this bloke says “they” - everyone knows he’s talking about gossipy women huddled in the corner?’

‘Precisely. Come on, get your kit off.'


By now, gentle reader, I suspect you can see what’s coming. Our literally diversion, led to our physical diversions overrunning. This time we both jumped at the sound of the flat doorbell ringing. I glanced at the screen. ‘It’s her, someone going out must have let her in. Quick, you put on your dressing gown, open the door and just say you were changing. When I come out fully dressed you go back in your room and change into whatever works.’

‘Oh, thanks a lot.’

‘Trust me, it won’t work the other way around.’

I confess I left the bedroom door ajar. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Haywood. Do come in. My apologies for the delay, I was just changing after our yoga session.’

‘Yoga! The room certainly has the aroma of the gymnasium. The mats, oh yes I see, of course. Forgive me Ms Sparkwell, but why does my nephew require you to instruct him in yoga in his living room?’

‘It’s a delicate matter, madam. The specific exercises I have been recommending happen to be very effective for tightening up, shall we say, bringing back good order and discipline to the whole digestive system. I’m determined to have a go at reversing all aspects of what I believe is simply - premature ageing.’

‘Yes, of course he has led a totally self-indulgent lifestyle until now, even as a child he would get the most appalling collywobbles. No self-control. I wish you well. Now run along dear and change. Anthony!’

I emerged, completing my transformation on the move for fear she would enter the bedroom. ‘How are you auntie? You look full of the joys. Has Charlotte been taking care of you?’

‘I really think it a bit much making the poor girl answer the door in a state of undress, what will everyone think. You should be more considerate. Especially since I understand she’s been taking you in hand.’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘I shall monitor your progress with interest. After all, you cannot deny that, how should one say - cursed with too much money, you fritter away in idle selfishness…’

At that moment we both noticed Sparkwell, now respectfully attired in her suit, pass through en route to the kitchen, head down and typing furiously. ‘Oh lord, oh my ears and whiskers.’

‘What is it she’s doing that alarms you so, Anthony?’

‘I think she’s just trying to improve her education, she’s heard you make a literary allusion - doesn’t want to appear ignorant when she returns with the tea.’

‘Nonsense, I know my own mind, you’re the one forever offering up obscure references, showing off your knowledge - which after all, we all know is just the result of an education very expensively bought!’

‘Well I expect direct quotes can be unconsciously made...’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Tea, Mrs Haywood?’

‘Thank you, nice to know you’re weening him off those most unsavoury cakes.’

‘May I ask, did you read to Anthony as a child?’

‘Very occasionally perhaps, I have no recollection. No, I don’t think we can seek there for the source of his Bohemian tendencies.’

‘I’ll plead guilty to the lesser charge of Bourgeois Boheme, if you insist.’

‘There you go again. Affectation bordering on snobbery. Despoiling our mother tongue. Mummy used to say it all came in with the Jazz Age, provocative dancing to provocative words.’

‘Dapper Dan was a very handy man on a train that ran through Dixie, Made the beds and ev'rything. All you had to do was ring...’ Charlie spoke with a faraway, wistful voice, not a bit like the song. ‘He has it in his music collection, Mrs Hayward’.

‘There you are, you won’t get away with in the future, coffeehouse-ing your life away.’

‘No alas, after all Aunt, coffee only came in, in the eighteenth century along with sugar. Tea had been around a whole lot longer.’

‘I’m reducing his caffeine intake to one measure per day.’

‘Very wise. Now then Anthony, what’s this I hear about Mr Tufnell proposing to marry a waitress, again!’

‘Fear not, I’ve delegated the matter to Charlotte, after all she knows the girl.’

‘Indeed, how intriguing...’


‘Okay, so I get that students and even teachers are idiots even when searching because they let themselves be led down the garden path, in fact the old “touch your forelock” thing is still there in education despite everything. I get that a lot of learning is unconscious imitation, but how does someone end up…'

‘Well, when you read a book or watch a movie, TV, that you really get to like, it’s all about being able to identify and empathise with a character or characters. But nonetheless you’re still giving equal attention to what you don’t care for, otherwise you’d never appreciate the situation your favourite character is in.’

‘Right.’

‘So time passes, you grow-up, change, once in a while you think, oh my God I sounded just like my father when I said that, more time passes and you end up actually behaving in a way totally at odds with the story you tell yourself, and the rest of the world, about who you are and what you are. So, you are right, we must stay in the moment, let go.’

‘Out there they think love conquers all!’

‘They also think that beauty is truth and that’s all they need to know… We can do better than that, now here’s a quote; “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery.’

‘Who was he?’

‘French pilot and part-time writer, flew small planes around the Mediterranean and North Africa in the Nineteen-thirties, disappeared off the French coast during the war, ferrying God knows what or whom, flying by the seat of his pants.’

‘Navigating with his balls more like.’

‘In an age when women wore silk knickers, and loose trousers that really did hang from the hips.’

‘Never have the hair removed from your actual genitalia. So, I know where to start on your so called library, let’s see, my word, fourteen volumes.’

‘They’re all in the correct order, I should start at the beginning, it will be pleasant light reading for the journey.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Do you have a passport?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we take the night train to Antibes.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Give me ten minutes and I’ll tell you.’

5: Sparkwell and the country house murder mystery

‘You're home early. Party not up to snuff?’

‘No. I mean it was all just the same, but not. All people I know well, but it was me, I’m starting to look at things differently, look at people differently. I felt disgust, but I’m not sure at what.’

‘Decadent toffs?’

‘Oh you’d love that. No, something more basic. I think you’re right, there are natural ways to behave, and it all follows from body movements that allow the right nonverbals, but one’s likely to be locked-up for saying so these days because of what it all implies. The only good thing to come out of tonight’s shindig is that I’ve been invited by Julia to spend the weekend at Checkley Manor.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Oh, I shall need your assistance, fancy a few days in the country?’

‘Make a change from this Victorian watering hole.’

‘Something weird is happening here Sparkwell, I’m starting to look at things from your perspective, whilst you’re starting to adopt my affected speech!’

Charlie made slow progress through the country lanes, too much oncoming of course, not quite use to the car in such conditions, especially the potholes. My mind wandered to almost thirty years ago when one was first allowed a car. Always between thirty and forty on this road. With less traffic, you could use the whole road, with good tarmac and a still intact camber, hedges maintained in the right way, one had the line of sight. I directed her around to the back of the house.

‘Why are we here? I thought we were supposed to make a grand entrance at the front. I was ready to skid to a halt on the gravel.’

‘Because you are “support services” for the house, whilst I’m at home in the country.’

‘But this was never your home, was it?’

‘In the country I am always at home, which is why I’m more dressed down than you’ve ever seen me before, and about to get a whole lot scruffier.’

‘But I want to be outside, not in this suit, you said this place had some of the best unspoilt land and ancient woodland in the country.’

‘It does.’

‘I’ll muck in, I don’t mind, I’ll do my bit.’

‘No, you’ll get your free run of the outside, when the outside staff invite you.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘I mean, ask yourself, a place this size, who’s in charge day-to-day? Right then, let's unload.  We dump the bags a little way inside those double doors, and leave the car keys on one of the hooks on the funny old dresser on the right. You then wander around inside until challenged, whilst I go for a walk. See you in about half an hour I’d say.’

‘You could just announce me as your partner, or fiancé even.’

‘But you are neither. Besides, we could never pull it off and you know it. We are working out, or do I mean working through, this strange set-up precisely because we can’t handle relationships the way others can.’

‘I know. Whatever is fun, although it scares me some of the time.’

‘With a bit of luck, in years to come we’ll be taken for granted, someone will say “I notice those two are still following each other around, are they married?” And someone else will reply, “I never thought to ask.”

‘How romantic.’

Later, when I was making my way through the hall, Gregson appeared from the office; ‘How are the vines sir?’

‘Do you have eyes that see everything?’

‘I noticed years ago you always make for the old walled garden first, I would myself in your situation, your Uncle is bound to hold you responsible.’

‘Were it not for me you’d be responsible for several fields given over to vineyards by now.’

‘I know, I’m in your debt. I’ve given Miss Sparkwell the tour, shown her the room that the boss wants her to have, and where to find you. She said she’d deal with your bags herself?’

‘Excellent.’

‘She asked about the book, I just said it was a gift given to everyone the first time they spend a night here.’

‘Very wise.’

There was the sound of heels on stone, approaching. ‘Tony, my dear child, come and tell me about this young lady of yours, who is she, what is she? You really should confide in me more.’

‘Later, after you’ve met her. Now, I must tidy up a bit.’

I assumed I was in my usual room, sure enough Sparkwell was there, but strangely she wasn’t admiring the view, but seemed lost in the book. ‘Why do you call Lady Julia, just Julia, when in fact she’s another aunt?’

‘Because she’s just a Julia, she doesn’t behave like an Aunt’.

‘You haven’t got a title you’re not telling me about have you?’

‘No, she’s my late mother’s younger sister who married into all this.’

‘So, Aunt Elisabeth is…'

‘My late father’s elder sister, no titles there either I’m afraid.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise.’

‘Seems like a long time ago. Like the book?’

‘It was written fifty years ago, printed about the same time but still new, never read, the spine isn’t cracked or broken. But with a new inscription in real ink by your Julia.’

‘We make progress Watson. Uncle still has crates of them.’

‘But is it real, about this house and a real murder?’

‘No, it is non-fiction, but about an unexplained death in this house, written by the unmarried sister of Uncle’s father, she was convinced it was a murder but nobody else was. So, you know, it’s an amusing conceit to invite everyone who comes to stay or to live here, to solve the murder.’

‘It reads like a murder mystery.’

‘Yes, well the author grew up with Agatha Christie stories. Unfortunately no reader so far has been able to add much, probably because everyone has been looking for a black cat in a darkened room which isn’t even there!’

‘I think I want to you to do me from now on, but always from behind, in the day time. Still lots of oral, then a quick finish.’

‘I’ll see what can be arranged. Dinner at the table in the big kitchen tonight, by the way.’

‘So is it going to happen this year, you said seven years.’

‘Are you organised, if you get enough.’

‘Doesn’t seem right setting up in our own cellar, shouldn’t I have a winery?’

‘What appalling Americanisms you do come out with Uncle. You’re just a French peasant with a few rows of vines on the side, so it’s a Cave, which traditionally means both the place for making and storage, close to the ground or below, so the temperature is always cool.’

‘So why did you make me fork out for that refrigeration tank, vat thing?’

‘Because one year you will be caught out, besides you’ll use it anyway after the pressing, maybe for quite a while depending on the quality of the juice.’

‘Do we pick and press them all, or should I select?’

‘You’re still about five years ahead of yourself!’

‘Gregson said you’ve been skulking around already.’

‘Yes, I’ve re-pruned and tied and put up the first three, on the first row by the north wall.’

‘Well, thanks for telling me!’

‘No, but it will be bleedin’ obvious when you see them, how the fruit will get more light, and you’ve got to force them anyway this far north.’

‘You’re the expert.’

‘But I’m not, I’m just a few steps ahead of you. So don’t blame me when it all goes belly-up.’

‘Quite right Tony dearest. I’m sure he’s planning to get you down here to take responsibility for when to pick. So can we now talk about something else, I’ve heard it all before and I’m sure Charlotte is bored to death.’

‘Can she lie?’ Asked Julia when we were alone.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Thank goodness. I want to call her simple, in the most complimentary way, but one can’t in this rotten society we now live in. Simple goodness. But it’s the ones who can’t lie, the ones who are too honest for their own good who fall at the first fence. Still she’s survived till now. And she’s got you to look out for her, you’ve got an in, to that world. Are you totally besotted?’

‘I’ll be the last to know! She’s intrigued by the book. First book I’ve seen her reading.’

‘You know, I’ve got a hunch about that book.’

‘Yes I know, you told me years ago, when I read it. I really must look at it again.’

‘Did you ever meet her?’

‘I’ve been told I did, but I’ve no memory of her. Probably told by you, probably when you first brought me here. That was a while before you married!’

It was on the last evening after dinner that Julia brought out her notebook. ‘Now then Charlotte I must tell you that we never ask people here to play silly games, or do a turn at Christmas or on Holy days. We just ask everyone to give a little review of the book, I’ve got one hundred and sixty-seven short, paragraph length notes here that I’ve made over the years. Now then, what did you think?’

‘Well, it’s a bit embarrassing really.’

‘Fear not, we never pass judgement, and it’s so long ago now that no one will be offended. So?’

‘Well the thing is, I found myself thinking not so much about the events, but the person who wrote about them.’

‘I knew it, wonderful! We’ve only got about half a dozen who focus on the woman herself. Go on.’

‘I think she herself was a bit disturbed, I don’t mean just by being here at the time, but as a personality.’

‘Yes?’

‘And the craziest thought came to me that, well two possibilities really, but both about the thought that writing the book was a kind of disguised confession...’

‘Don’t mind me dear, I’m just scribbling way.’

‘One was the obvious, she committed a murder, people investigated, made nothing of it, no one thinks there has even been an unlawful killing, let alone murder, or indeed that she had anything to do with the events at all; a couple of years pass and still no suspicions emerge, in her mind no one has noticed the obvious, that she did it. But it prays on her mind, a bit like the thing about genius needing an audience, I’ve committed the perfect crime and nobody has noticed. So the book is her way of getting some satisfaction.’

‘Brilliant.’

‘The other is that she believes she must have committed a murder, she was disturbed in a deluded, hallucinating kind of way and by writing the book she is trying to explain events to herself as a sort of therapy, testing the evidence, did I or didn’t I? Am I sane again, now?’

‘Fascinating. Thank you my dear. You must come again, often.’

4: Charlie on camera

‘Charlotte!’

‘Sir?’

‘Blimey, that was quick.’ The reply had been loud and clear over my shoulder as I sat watching my screen.

‘You didn’t feel me coming?’

‘You must be so embedded in my brain, my unconscious doesn’t think it needs to pay attention.’

‘I’m getting to be a habit with you.’

‘I say that’s rather good. Now then, I’m afraid I have some bad news. I must ask you to brace yourself and take it on the chin.’

‘Don’t I always?’

‘The thing is, that parking space you’ve been angling for, it isn’t going to happen, at least not for years.’

‘Okay.’

‘Now, I know parking fees must make a significant hole in your limited “disposable income” as they say, so what I propose is that you sell your motor, pocket the cash, and I give you unlimited use of my car, when I don’t need it.’

‘What’s the catch? Don’t get me wrong, I really get off on all this, being able to tell everyone I have this salary, bring people here and see them wet themselves. Put on my suit and just walk in anywhere. But you’re the one making me treat every encounter as some sort of trade.’

‘The catch, is you have to take responsibility for the car; see it neatly parked, pass the time of day with the other residents doing the same, see the tank is always nearly full, pay with the right card, always go to the same filling station and to the right garage, because although you’d never know it, Jack runs both of them, keep on the right side of Jack’s chief mechanic etc. etc.’

‘And I suppose somewhere in the “deductibles” on this payslip that arrived this morning is my share of the insurance.’

‘It’s a fifty grand, two seater speed machine - a classic by the time it left the factory, which just happens to be worth more and more with every passing year.’

‘I got a funny look from Madam Concierge when I was fetching it round to the front the other day.’

‘Well, I guess she remembers that it is but weeks since you were humping your portable massage table back and forth, dressed as if for the gym. Fear not, I have some pull with her, I can impose sanctions if she gets above herself.’

‘How?’

‘Excellent, now you’re asking the right questions! But that’s for another day, we haven’t finished with the car yet. Take a look at what I’m pulling up now.’

‘You, bastard! That’s live. And that’s in the treatment room. I suppose there’s one in the fucking shower!’

‘The only cameras in the flat are the webcam on this commuter, the ones in my mobile, see, your work mobile, which is where you left it, your personal mobile which appears to be on, but it just says it is, there, I can’t connect to it, and the two in the dash of the car. Oh, and that would be the one in the TV, but there’s black tape over it because it’s pointless anyway.’

‘So if I take a hand off the wheel to pick my nose, you know about.’

‘First off, this is the same kit used for a video call, okay? But since I own all the devices and they’re on my network, they’re connected; it just looks like some clever trick when you connect to them all in the same moment.’

‘Where does that leave me?’

‘Less than a week behind I would guess, before you’ve learnt to do all I can do - from any of the devices! There’s always a way to be notified if something is switched on, remotely or not. If there’s a good reason not to take the call, don’t take the call.’

Charlie retreated to her mat. ‘It does my head in, computers; the thought of reading any of these books does my head in.’

‘It’s all demonstration, imitation, trial and error, practice, practice, practice, more observation, more practice. Online it’s no different from acquiring the skills, the order and discipline, of your great project.’

‘What project?’

‘Finding a naturopathic explanation for everything. I believe in it too. A lot of those books are about human evolution, I can’t play around online unless I can see the evolution in social media, we are a social species, isolated we get ill and die. Our ancient ancestor’s grooming behaviour, is the key to what happens on your massage table!’

That night I awoke in the dark. ‘I can’t sleep’ she said. ‘Not natural to sleep alone. But I never seem to be able to sleep if someone else is there either. I know how it should be done, it’s just blokes never seem to get it.’

‘Try me.’

‘Spoons position is best.’

‘Yes, I get that it ought to be.’

We rearranged the pillows. ‘Before you ask I’ve never used contraception in my life, I don’t want anything unnatural up there and I hate pills… Oh, God, your dick just got harder!’

‘Yes, now that is truly weird.’

‘Anyway, I’ve been rogered during all phases of the moon and I’ve never gotten pregnant, so, you know.’

‘Noted.’

‘Beds are for sleeping not sex, night time is for sleeping not sex. The idea is, to watch the breath until our breathing is synchronised. Breathing naturally from the diaphragm. Then become aware of the heartbeat, how it also varies all the time, but it too will synchronise. Be in the moment. Images appear but do not let yourself make a story or a moving picture. Choose a still image, one single moment. Now explore the single image…’

I wasn’t aware of anything else said or done, until dawn’s early light found me following her out of bed and into the shower.

It so happened that later that morning the doorbell of the flat rang, poor Charlotte positively jumped not having heard it before. ‘Do I answer it?’

‘Look at my screen, see, like magic, two angles for immediate positive identification.’

‘It’s the Dragon Concierge.’

‘..and off course its only when it’s not her or her co-conspirator Jim the Janitor that you need to take a second look. By the way, just for the record,’ I added, reaching for the door, ‘they are the only cameras that automatically record!’

‘Might I have a quick word?’

‘Of course come along in, let me introduce you to Miss Charlotte Sparkwell my new personal assistant and occasional domestic help. You’ve no doubt discreetly noted her occasional comings and goings in your role as Building Manager?’

‘Indeed, pleasure to meet you Charlotte.’

‘Likewise.’

‘Since you’re here, I should take the opportunity to inform you that for the sake of the old health and safety rules, fire regulations etc. Charlotte is now officially the ‘co-occupier’ of the flat, I’ve surrendered the second bedroom and allowed her to make my home her place of residence, she’s not here much of the time, but, it makes sense financially, don’t you know!’

‘I’ll amend the records.’

‘Now then, you wanted a word?’

Another pause from the early days of this tale of intrigue. ‘Oh yes, this is the paperwork from the last resident’s meeting. Also, No.12 was asking again about being able to rent out their parking space?’

‘Can’t be done, legally speaking, I’ve had it checked. Situation normal I’m afraid.’

‘It’s never empty anyway, as you know.’

‘The daily scramble, a bit like a bun fight breaking out at High Tea I always think.’

‘You’d know more about that than I would, anyway I’ll leave you to your, activities.’

I gently closed the door. Charlie had an interesting take. ‘That’s one of your techniques isn't it? To stay ahead of the game, you do it to them before they do it to you.’

‘Well.’

‘And may one ask, sir, why she seemed to be deferring to you? I’m thinking; does he own the bloody building too? But no, it wouldn’t be as simple as that, it would be a company owned by another company, without your name appearing anywhere until it all came back to Brinkley the accountant, acting for the family trust, just happening to buy shares years ago that never get sold.’

‘Tis the way of things. So, have you worked out my passwords yet?’

‘No. Why would I want to?

‘Because, entitled or not, as soon as you do, you’ll be able to make a start on taking half my kingdom.’