In the end, as we unpacked the media suite, Charlie became curious and I could see she was beginning to soften, a little. Finding storage for the packaging of the small but expensive bits was easy enough, then we had fun demolishing the larger items to fit the inevitable array of wheelie bins. Within twenty-four hours we had two tripods, each with a camera and tablet sized monitor attached plus a decision made on what should be wired to what, and what wireless! I managed to persuade her to surrender some of the space in the tall kitchen cupboard for the extra lighting gear that would not be in regular use. Then it was a matter of location, location, location. ‘Camera one, aimed at me and my desk has to be close to the window for the best light.’
‘But that’s the thing, a permanent blot on the landscape, obscuring my view.’
‘What we need is an aspidistra to hide it behind.’
‘A what?’
‘Indoor plant much favoured by those raised in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.’
‘But that’ll just ruin the view even more!’
‘Well, let’s say we put a discrete marker on the floor for the right position, so it can rest somewhere else..’
Later. ‘Now then, I’ve not been unmindful of your doubts about “broadcast yourself” so I’ve dug out an old video, first shown to us by our drama teacher at school. Is Michael Caine a name to you?’
‘Of course he bloody is.’
‘Well, I suggest an evening on the sofa watching telly, well fifty minutes anyway, I know it’s not quite your style, but for a masterclass in camerawork?’
With thoughts of school drama still in mind I invited Cat MacIntosh around the following day so we could play a little. ‘Er, ah yes, here we go; “We don’t manage too badly, eh Didi, between the two of us?”
“Yes yes. Come on, we’ll try the left first.”
“We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?”
“Yes yes, we’re magicians. But let us persevere in what we have resolved, before we forget. Come on, give me your foot. The other, hog! Higher! Try and walk. Well?”
“It fits.”
‘What on earth are you two doing?’ So said Charlie, breaking the spell.
‘Play acting, just like the old days, Cat’s Vladimir was the highlight of our last year in the school dramatic society.’
‘Thanks old man.’
‘And you played the other one?’
‘Estragon, yes.’
‘Ideal casting then, an inseparable double act’, she opined.
‘What can you mean?’
‘I know he’s your go-between, your trusted lieutenant, your right-hand man, the Mr Fix it, a cut-out…’
‘What have you been saying to her?’
‘Well.’
‘It’s my fault I suppose, asking too many questions, I had him on a table at the spa after he’d sprained himself, had to get him to strip down, noticed all the scar tissue.’
‘She could tell the age of stuff old man, I had to sort of explain.’
‘What, you’re your own whistle-blower? Is Charlie now guilty by association?’
‘Sorry old man, but Charlotte’s as trustworthy as anyone.’
‘That’s not the point, need to know, you can’t lie about what you don’t know!’
‘She could tell what sort of injuries they were, she said if I explained a few things, she’d keep it all to herself.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘All for one and one for all old man. Besides no names mentioned, just how you really operate, pull things off. I mean Charlie’s a useful operator in her own right, no reason she shouldn’t be fully in the loop.’
‘Charlie, will you marry me?’
‘No.’
‘You see, she can’t be bought off!’
‘So! Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You planned it. Cat was the trigger man, and presumably the unnamed mining engineer who actually set it up was by then hundreds of miles away?’
‘Er not exactly, he had to hang around in order to go back in, check everything had gone according to plan, pick-up the evidence.’
‘Evidence?’
‘Search with his device for the remains of the tiny wireless detonators. Naturally Cat and I had to make sure he didn’t walk off with them.’
‘You don’t leave anything to chance then?’
‘We try not to.’
‘Which still doesn’t answer the question everyone wants answered! How do you cause an explosion, that leaves a crack that lets the pond drain by just the right amount, but with no trace?
‘You cause a microscopic earthquake, measurable with a micro-seismometer from a few hundred metres away but not much more. The explosion breaks the tension in one layer of rock, causing it to slide a tiny amount against the next, the fit is no longer perfect so over time a small amount of water will seep through.’
‘Okay, so it’s all scientifically calculated, but how is it actually done?’
‘With a tiny amount of the old plastique, extruded like a liquorice bootlace!’
‘Oh, right. Still, must have cost a packet?’
‘Well not really. This small-scale geological tech stuff is well known these days, all sorts of applications; precision tunnelling, quarrying, fracking…’
‘Fracking!’ But then, suddenly it was Charlie’s turn to be interrupted by her phone. ‘Bandits at four o’clock!’
‘Again!’
‘Well it has been awhile.’
‘Wait a sec. It’s not on my device!’
‘She’s sent it personal to me, wants to run a Tea together with a treatment.’
‘Oh, really!’
‘I’ll prepare the treatment room.’ And with that, she was gone.
‘I say, you thought you were being like Bernard Shaw, when really you’re another Mary Shelley, ha!’
‘Get out! Leave me. I would be alone.’
All too soon the bewitching hour arrived. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Hayward. Do come in.’
‘Thank you my dear. Anthony, you’re looking a little peaky.’
‘Oh, just the burdens of senior management, the underlings forever rebelling.’
‘What are you twittering about now? How does Charlotte put up with you?’
‘Someone else asked that question a while ago.’
‘Little wonder.’
‘The treatment room is prepared Mrs Hayward, if you care to step this way.’
Later, when Tea appeared, the Aunt commented; ‘Don’t you feel my nephew looks a little stressed Charlotte?’
‘Now you come to mention it, madam.’
‘Whilst I’m entirely grateful for the efforts you’ve taken with his physical health, perhaps we should now really be attending to his psychological wellbeing?’
‘Indeed, madam.’
‘Anthony, I wish you to submit to daily head massages from Charlotte and any other treatments she judges appropriate.’
She caught me with a mouthful of tea, it required all my effort not to spray it across the room. ‘Very well auntie, for the foreseeable.’
‘Nice to hear you concurring without complaint for a change… Why is there a camera on a tripod pointing at your desk?’
‘Online video link, been talking to old chums across the herring pond.’
‘Charlotte, translate if you would.’
‘Well, I’m not that well up on the technical side of things, naturally I try not to eavesdrop, but Tony has friends in Boston, Massachusetts who share his interest in putting computers in cars.’
‘Really! Well, I suppose, on reflection, his own life has been entirely rudderless, it’s hardly surprising he should want to make other people’s driverless!’
‘Ha! I say auntie you just made a funny. That’s rather good.’
‘I do have a sense of humour Anthony. Just because when I’m with you, it is almost always necessary to take a stern line, doesn’t mean that when in more civilised company… Well anyway. Now then, tell me about Mr Tufnell, I understand another potential relationship has fallen by the wayside.’
‘Of course we could make our own home movies now.’ Charlotte mused.
‘Don’t even think of going there. You may be the most accomplished performer I’ve ever come across, but that show-off side to you would lead you in the end to seek a wider audience.’
