13: Charlie's country pursuits

‘Go on, you know you want to.’

‘But won’t we be in trouble before we’ve even arrived?’

‘Not once they see me run around with the rake immediately afterwards. Now, everything fully manual, centre of the drive, start your manoeuvre level with the front door, immediately after stopping, straight out the drive and around the back as usual.’

‘Holy shit!’

She did it very well, just a slight hesitation before exiting the drive. ‘Some of it hit the windows, I’m sure,’ she exclaimed.

‘Don’t panic, now I’ll get the rake, you do the bags and if you’re quick you might be able to get to the window at the top of the main staircase and take a picture of your handiwork before it disappears. Go!’

It was Julia who appeared at the front entrance moments after I’d begun re-sculpturing the gravel, adopting my most Zen-like manner. ‘School’s out for summer, I take it?’

‘I couldn’t stop her.’

‘Bollocks! You know what my husband just said, after not batting an eyelid; “That boy’s getting above himself”.’ I touched my forelock. ‘Charlotte! Come down at once.’ The echo from the stairwell carried a remarkable distance.

‘They’re expecting you in the library, sir. Miss Charlotte is there already, she’s been forgiven, but they’ve convening some kind of kangaroo court for you.’

‘Thank you Gregson, I know the form, bit before your time but this used to be a regular occurrence.’

‘I don’t doubt it, sir.’

‘What is the actual damage?’

‘Hard to say, the glass along the front has numerous chips and not a few minor cracks, difficult to tell what was done when. But I expect you already knew that.’

‘What ho, one and all.’

‘You have some explaining to do young man.’ Uncle was standing at the fireplace, warming himself against a non-existent fire. ‘The price of our forgiveness is that you give a full and frank account to your beloved aunt, and tireless carer one might add in days of yore, as to how Mrs Tufnell has come to believe the sun shines out of your sorry arse!’

‘I bumped into her the other day, she couldn’t stop talking about how you’d been supporting Tuffy, researching treatments, making sure it was all covered by his health plan, asking her about Alicia Dolby and her clinic, reminiscing about the old days when I used to shepherd you and Tuffy back and forth, visiting Tuffy now he was back in his flat. And to cap it all how awful it must be for poor Alicia to have to resign from that Royal College job and cut back at the clinic due to ill health.’

‘Well, I had to chummy up to Tuffy’s mother the day before his transfer to make sure I’d got my facts right, gossip being what it is.’

‘Ha! Always wondered where the “thorough”, in thorough going bastard came from.’ Uncle’s retort was almost too much for Charlotte, she looked like she wanted to wet herself.

‘But Tony dear, he was off his Section, back home with his mother with a nurse therapist coming in every day in less than twenty-four hours. Now I know many people have thought for years she’s been providing dodgy treatments, but it is a private clinic, they’re allowed, buyer beware!’

‘Tuffy, had to be off the Section to get out, but not Informal, he had to be on a Community Treatment Order so the provider, had to provide a recognised treatment - a CBT qualified nurse in his case - so in turn the insurer had to pay.’

‘Okay, but I’m still not sure I get it.’

‘The electronic paper trail for the NHS, private providers and insurers is pretty much synchronised and locked down in the semi-private system we have now. The only way to make real money is when someone is in a clinic and you charge them cash for treatments that aren’t covered. So that can be anything, from getting promising new treatments fast, to vulnerable patients and families being ripped-off for years on end.’

‘So the system can be played,’ Uncle asserted. ‘You still haven’t explained precisely how you fixed it for Tuffy.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Yes!’

‘Mrs Tufnell can walk into the Dolby Clinic any time she likes, to visit her poor son and discuss his care with her old friend and distant relative Alicia, if she feels duty bound to tell her son there might be a conflict of interest, questions of medical confidentiality and perhaps at the first sign of any paperwork he should make his old and trusted friend his Carer - after all hasn’t that friend already promised to get him out of there within twenty-four hours. Tuffy may be an idiot, but he’s not...’

‘And?’

‘So then I turn up, stick by Tuffy’s side like a limpet, saying only that Tuffy can’t pay and it all has to go on his Plan. Meanwhile his mother is automatically tracking down the boss and confiding all. After that, the staff who are actually looking after Tuffy rapidly arrive at the desired outcome.’

‘But, what about forcing her out of the Royal College?’

‘Oh, I know nothing about that. Although according to the staff some anonymous creep left a print, of a screenshot from some TED style video of her introducing the latest genetics and neuroscience, on her desk. On the back was some message about did this mean she was now going to drop her own research and therapies given that they were based on self-reported questionnaires, handed out by her personally and completed in her presence at the end of sessions, to less than twenty participants with no follow-up and no control group.’

‘I’ll make the tea.’

‘No, no Charlotte dear, you’re our guest. I’ll do that. Tell Tony about your penance.’

‘I’ll tell Tony about the verdict on poor Charlotte! You can sit down now by the way. She should’ve put her foot down, I mean not let herself be swayed by you. She’s to be confined to the woods for the duration, there to commune with nature and find spiritual enlightenment, and learn how to do a bit of coppicing. That reminds me, what do you know about charcoal burners?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘That’s high quality wood coming out of there, we have enough of the big stuff for the wood burning stoves, but the coppiced stuff would be ideal. Well?’

‘I’m not sure I’m in a cooperative mood having been dragged over the coals about standing by Tuffy.’

‘So you do know something. You understand the principles of most things, even if it’s others who end up doing the real work.’

‘I think it’s all about how much wood should be removed in total and the pace at which it is done. Traditionally one individual either does the work or supervises the whole wood; the selection of tress for firewood, the amount of coppicing, how much should stay on the ground, how much taken out, being mindful of where new trees are coming, acting as an ongoing presence in the woods to discourage the larger animals, selecting the really fine stuff for fencing and other woodcraft type uses, and what goes into the burner. Actually I think its two burners because you want to be able to start stacking up the next one, before the other one is cold. So yeah, it’s one person per so many acres, and their pace of work and multiple tasks ensures the woodland never gets depleted, or too dark and dense for regeneration and the balance of the flora and fauna.’

‘All that, off the top of your head?’

‘Well I don’t really know, I’m just trying to reason it out. Ask an expert.’

‘There aren’t any, according to Gregson, apart from the half dozen blokes in the country who can still do it - and they have a hard job explaining anything. I have technocrats designating my land ancient and protected, insisting on a management plan involving certificated workers with machines following a schedule, and Greens telling me the answer is to do nothing because it’s nature, well it’s not, it was planted by humans, only it just happened to be hundreds of years ago, I just wish I knew their practice.’

‘I stayed in a yurt once,’ said Charlie filling our glasses. ‘It was in a clearing, the ground around it was scorched, the forest was planted in regular rows but so dense everyone was scared to go in for fear of becoming disorientated, what’s the point if you can’t see the sun and shadows, feel the wind and change in temperature, which side is damp, navigate, know where to kip down so you’re never get too cold.’

‘Bravo Charlotte, I must get you to write something for the magazine. What are we drinking, Tony? It’s excellent, old I should think.’

‘You two don’t know your own cellar. Older than Charlotte.’

‘Bloody hell! My fault for letting you down there I suppose.’

‘North of the river, top of the hill.’

‘Oh, don’t start that!’

‘It was your father’s butler who told me about it, I was about seventeen, he’d just bought it, left it a bit late even then, pricey he thought, but worth it. I’ve been watching the labels drop off for the last twenty years.’

‘So what has pulling that cork cost me?’

‘Who knows, all sensible people have already drunk it.’

Julia cut in; ‘Well, knowing your tastes, the kind of bottle, it’s red, what you just said about dates means, the eighty-two Bordeaux?’

‘So? Famous little town on a little hill…’

‘St. Emilion’, said Charlie.

‘Well, bugger me!’

(That’s it for ‘season one’, this blog will resume when time permits!)