24: Recollections of a long life - gone astray

We first heard word of an impending crises at Checkley Manor when Julia texted, asking for a crash meeting. ‘What should I reply?’

‘Er, “We are at the Dissipated Kipper till about 12,00am comma with Tuffy Tufnell full stop”. That should do it.’

‘Why are we here?’

‘Good question, now I’m not particularly religious as you know…’

‘I mean why are we here, meeting Tuffy, I only sorted him a couple of days ago.’

‘I’m sure you did. But I haven’t spoken with him for a while, thought we might catch up.’

‘But why here, a gastropub is hardly your cup of tea.’

‘Well, makes a change. You never waitressed here then?’

‘No. Wish I had now, could have learnt to do proper silver service.’

‘Is that what they call it, formal waiting at table?’

‘Of course.’


When Tuffy arrived I invited him to sit down and asked him what he fancied. ‘That’s alright old man, I’ll order myself at the bar.’ And he was gone.

A moment or two later I turned around and there he was chatting away; ‘My, God. He’s even faster out of the trap than I’d imagined.’

‘Oh no, he’s not trying to pick-up the barmaid?’

‘Succeeding by the look of it. I assumed I’d have to give him a bit of a nudge.’

‘You’re setting him up! After what happened the last time?’

‘Yes, but Carrie’s much more his type and more likely to come across.’

‘And… You’d know all about that I suppose? What’s going on? This is a proper thought through scheme, isn’t it?’

‘You don’t wanna know.’

‘No I don’t, but you think she’s a serious contender for a relationship?’

‘Yep, and the perfect distraction.’

You… You’ve just let me off the hook.’

‘That was the general idea. And I don’t want to know either.’


‘I want you to hack your Uncle…’

‘Say that again.’

‘Stop him, make the words fall off his screen, or whatever it is you do.’

‘That’s not exactly the business I’m in, Julia.’

‘No, but you know people who do.’

‘In the most extreme circumstances, associates of associates, I suppose.’

‘Well this is a real emergency Tony - all our reputations are at stake.’

‘How come?’

‘Your Uncle has taken up writing his memoirs again.’

‘Oh, golly good!’ Turning to Charlie; ‘This has been an on-off project of Uncle’s for some years now, working title - Recollections of a Long Life.’

‘Well he has to be stopped.’

‘Why? You’ve been allowed to read some of it.’

‘Not really, I just caught a glance over his shoulder, that was enough.’

‘What did it say?’

‘It said, “..sometimes I see reflected in my nephew, myself as a younger man”.’

‘Oh, come Julia, that’s the sort of thing that would worry my Aunt Elisabeth, but not you!’

‘I know you Tony, and I know my husband, I know precisely what he intends.’

‘Anyway, Charlie and I are a team now, anything you require of me, will require her approval.’

‘Does Charlotte want to read about the Sixties and Seventies from someone who was there and does remember? All about a couple, who’s company she hopes to go on enjoying for the foreseeable. I’d be embarrassed to be a guest in my own house.’

‘But really, if this is just the old stories about running naked through the woods, high on whatever…’

‘From whom did you here that? Not your Uncle I trust?’

‘I don’t recall. Ill-informed servant’s hall gossip no doubt.’

‘It would be better for all of us if the entire period was airbrushed out.’

‘At the risk of having my head bitten off, who cares? Uncle isn’t exactly a public figure. He’d be unlikely to find a publisher anyway.’

‘But what if he does it as a blog or an e-book? Bots will search, names will link, everyone will know.’

‘Wait a second, let me get this clear. You’re saying Uncle will name, names; some of those are the rich and famous and that will mean his revelations will show up in search results and suggested links all over the Web?

‘Yes.’

‘But why would he name people?’

‘Revenge.’

‘Can I take your order, sir? Nice to see you Tony darling, you are stopping for lunch?’


‘So, what’s he using to write the Recollections?’

‘Bought a new laptop, paid cash for some reason.’

‘Oh yes. You, helped him set up then, got him online?’

‘No, no, he’s been going to a night class, they helped him with all that. Besides, he said he didn’t need to connect to my Wi-Fi yet.’

‘I bet he didn’t.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think he’s read you like a book, anticipated you’d come to me, taken avoiding action. You didn’t happen to notice if he’d bought uninstalled software on old fashioned discs or flash drives etc.’

‘He said he needed back-up.’

‘Nothing much you can do then I’m afraid. Nothing much any of us can do, if it was all set up with help in a “dead” location, allowing the disabling of location tracking, the Wi-Fi and perhaps more besides. And presumably he’s not done something dumb like carrying a mobile whilst he was doing all this?’

‘Still hasn’t got one.’

‘Well there you are then. Sorry and all that. Just don’t go doing something silly like breaking his password and copying the text into your machine.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it would go straight into your cloud account. Then it would come down to your own default settings. Privacy is usually all about permissions to share, it doesn’t stop your operating system suggesting links for viewing based on whatever content you’ve given it! You might see a link to advice or an app; something interesting about copyright, attribution, plagiarism, libel etc. You click on and read, thinking I must stop Uncle making an arse of himself, yet all the time you are actually, bit by bit, putting his stuff out there for him…’

‘But that’s awful.’

‘Well, only if you think the thinking machine is your enemy, rather than making it your friend.’

‘And how is that supposed to happen?’

‘Well, it sort of requires a change of world view, seeing the machine not as part of some other realm or virtual world, but part of the here and now, it brought us here today via text, sits at the table with us, we interact with it in much the same way as we do with each other, gossiping about you and uncle and the past, showing what we feel. Me trying to be helpful whilst at the same time wondering whether Tuffy is still in the building, because after all I’m pretty certain that when I go and pay the bill I’ll find Carrie loitering ready to interrogate me about said friend…’

‘Who is this Carrie person?’

‘The barmaid, used to be something in PR, associate of the infamous Buffy Trumpton.'

‘All you’ve done is depress me Tony, I was going to reward a positive outcome with an offer about Christmas.’ Suddenly Charlie grabbed me under the table and hung-on - I took it as a danger signal.

‘Ah yes, well we’ve not come to a view as yet on what to do with our Christmases.’

‘So what is your advice, re said memoirs.’

‘Don’t interfere, let him do as he wishes, I can’t believe he’s not taken your feelings into account. After all, a whiff of scandal might be just the thing to shift a few books at the end of day!’


‘I don’t do Christmas.’ Charlotte said categorically, pausing, reluctant to start the engine. ‘I’ll stay at home if you’ve got commitments.’

‘We can do better than that, devise a way of avoiding Christmas altogether. We are not without resources. Of course, there is another alternative.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Create the Christmas we always wanted but never had. I mean, if Charles Dickens could fix it for an entire nation, it can’t be that difficult for the two of us!’