35: Going live

‘Do you remember my brother?’ Asked Hans.

‘I never met him. All I remember was in our final year you telling us he had got a place at MIT to do engineering. Ah, a red light has just started flashing in my brain.’

‘That’s right. And he stayed there. And over the years he didn’t switch to computer science like everybody else, he went into accountancy.’

‘Oh, god.’

‘Oh, yes. And now he is financial advisor to half of the Boston tech community! Imagine my surprise when he told me that you were the money behind one of these MIT start-up, spin-offs.’

‘Not all of it, I assure you!’

‘Something that is supposed to be all about driverless technology but isn’t, more monitoring driver behaviour. Then he says to me you know how these brain scientists and psychologists still once in way do animal experiments, in controlled environments? Well, not much longer he says, soon humans will volunteer to become their own lab rats, in their own mobile labs!’

‘So presumably, that’s when you allowed your brother to upgrade you from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century?’

‘That and the fact that the EU began thinking there must be something wrong about sheep being allowed to roam freely on a mountain in a national park. So, anyway you stay awhile, have a day on the mountain, help-out with the sheep? I could take you down to the railway the day after tomorrow?’

Wandering the hills was something we’d never done together before, much talk of adjusting to sounds, apparent silence that slowly becomes filled with a whole new palette, quite distinctive from the patchwork peninsula countryside we were most familiar with. We soon realised we were following the paths made by the sheep. I’ll brush over the athletic sex with attitude at altitude - which I know is the last thing you want spelt-out. It was obvious when to return, we just followed the sheep.

‘Stay back, there’s still a few to come.’ We’d been approaching the sheep pens and watching Hans filling the feed troughs. There must have been a hundred and fifty or so, and the noise! ‘Tony, you’ve done this before, when I point one out, grab it high on one of the back legs, then flip it and I’ll take a look.’ After I’d helped for a while, Charlie was invited to join in. Inevitably at one point she fell over backwards, Hans roared with a laugh that seemed to echo around the valley now that most of the sheep were quietly consuming. I went over to help her get her arse out of the mud, bending down I said; ‘Ever wondered what schadenfreude means? You’re looking at it!’

Going back down the mountain was the scariest part of the whole trip. We sat on the bench seat of Hans’ farm truck, with Charlie in the middle. Knowing the track so well Hans had just his left hand on the wheel and having to stay in a low gear, spent the whole-time gesturing with his right, keeping up a constant dialogue with himself about EU agriculture policy and the behaviour of his neighbours. To us strangers it felt like a bare-knuckle ride! It wasn’t that much better once we were on the main road, here was a man who clearly expected to have all roads to himself! In the end, as with so many greetings and farewells these days, the effusive praises seemed to be being directed at Charlie.

One night and almost two half days later, we took a taxi home from the railway station. It dropped us at the communal entrance by the side of the complex. ‘You never have explained, is the whole place actually owned by the trust?’

‘The freehold yes, plus the lease on our apartment.’

‘Which explains why you have part of the original with the best views and the biggest rooms.’

‘You’ve been getting to know the neighbours. Sort of, all before my time, father’s big project really.’

‘How come?’

‘Well the original Georgian terrace suffered bomb damage at both ends during the war. Now, it had been rundown before, in the nineteen thirties, so things were just patched up a bit, but basically left. Father, had the grand idea of saving the façade and redeveloping the rest out the back. He started by buying up a few of the leases, then just waited. Eventually the whole place came up for auction, some interest, not a lot, he reckoned he got a bargain because of the location and size of the site. Then he set about looking for a developer...’ I was interrupted in mid-flow.

‘Excuse me, sir!’

‘Jim! You look quite, flushed.’

‘I wanted to catch you before you realised what happened. And explain like.’

‘What has happened?’

‘Well we weren’t expecting it, there’s no storage anywhere else at the moment, so we had no choice but to enter your premises and just dump it, there’s an awful lot of it.’

‘Oh, I see. It doesn’t take up that much space does it?’

‘Well, it didn’t weight that much, but you get that with electronic stuff don’t you, more packaging than the actual thing. Let me help you with that bag, sir.’

Jim proceeded to lead the way. ‘What’s he talking about?’ Said Charlie.

‘Shtoom.’ I whispered.

‘What?!’ Exclaimed Charlie on entering.

‘Thank you Jim, there’ll be something in your Christmas stocking.’ I was just about able to close the apartment door.

‘That was a bit offhand, it’s barely summer!’

‘He understands. Still, a little more bulky than expected.’

‘But what is it all?’

‘Our media suite.’

‘What, like do-it-yourself tv studio?’

‘More or less, don’t worry it’ll be very discreet, you won’t notice it most of the time.’

‘Here? In case you hadn’t noticed it’s already an office, a library, lounge and the only space big enough for any kind of indoor exercise.’

‘Well all this packaging breaks down to a couple of the latest remote tv cameras, tripods, monitors, minimum cable, some extra lighting if it should be required. The stage is done, the classy, sophisticated set - complete!’

‘But why, who are you going to be broadcasting to?’

‘Well just the people I already Web chat to really, I just need to train myself up for now, and stay ahead of the opposition with the tech.’

‘So, what, ponce about, whilst expounding on your latest ideas?’

‘Well, walk and talk might be a bit ambitious at first. Just sit casually at the desk. Work out the ideal set-up, say, quite a lot in-shot of the old antique desk, with my latest devices discretely lying around. Learn to calm my face and gestures when it’s more or less a close-up, but all with tv quality and the accomplished background.’

‘This is going to take days to clear.’

‘We can work on it together. You may wish to use it yourself; I can just see you as an online instructor in more or less alternative anything. We know the camera likes you.’

‘I’d be lost for words, I’m not like you, in love with the sound of your own voice.’

‘I’ll ignore that. But think, you have the presence, the stillness, perfect for camera work, besides, you can work to a script, we just place one of the monitors just to one side of the camera, they can be fed autocue easily enough.’

‘Blimey, you have got it all worked out.’

‘Don’t I always.’

‘I’ll make some tea - if I can find the bleedin’ kitchen?!’