Anything For a Quiet Life (28 page)

“Surely you’re wrong, Professor,” said the landlord. “It belongs to the Queen. Like whales.”

“Not so. It is
terra sine titulo
.”

Baffled by this display of Latin, the landlord said, “Anyway no one in their senses is going to pitch a camp where the tide can come up and wash it away. Stands to reason.”

“From what I heard,” said the gnome-like man, “there isn’t a lot of reason in anything these people do. They’ve got a flag with FF on it. Standing, so I understand, for the Freedom Folk, but it could be something different.”

A number of alternative suggestions were offered, most of them unprintable. Sam, who had finished his beer, intervened for the first time.

“Diddun I see in the paper,” he said, “that Portree had got rid of ’em? How’d they manage that, eh?”

“By force,” said the small man. “They’re a rough crowd down there. What they did, they turned up one morning early, about a hundred of them, slung out the caravans and tents and pulled down the shacks. Then they ran a fence of barbed wire round the place before anyone could stop them.”

“A bit rough,” said the landlord. “Wasn’t there nothing they could do about it?”

“Well, of course, the man who seems to boss them – Lipitt, or some name like that – he went off to the police. When they arrived they found them camped out beside the road and a dozen tough characters guarding the way back through the barbed wire what they’d put up. The Inspector said, ‘We’re not going to have any trouble. The first one who starts a fight, we run him in.’”

“Meaning,” said the tall fisherman, “that since they were out they’d got to stay out.”

“The law,” agreed the Professor, “favours the status quo.”

“So what did they do?” said the landlord.

“What could they do? They couldn’t get back without a fight, so they packed up their traps and moved off down the road. At night they pitch camp on the roadside. Provided they move on each day, no one can do anything about that.”

Sam said, “How long ago was it they got turned out?”

“It was last week.”

“And Walden’s – what – about thirty miles from here?”

The landlord said, “Don’t you worry, Sam. The council won’t have a crowd like that in here, not in a month of Sundays.”

Sam said, “Come to that, I don’t suppose Portree wanted them neither.”

At the next office coffee break he retailed what he had heard and found an attentive audience.

“I read something about it in the local paper,” said Jonas. “Opinion seemed to be divided about the rights and wrongs of it.”

“I can’t see that it’s a question with two sides to it,” said Claire. “The people who turned them out were the ones who used force. Surely that put them in the wrong.”

“The first wrongdoing,” said Sabrina, “was when they camped on someone else’s property without permission.”

“Apparently it was common land.”

“You’re using the expression very loosely, darling. If it was what the law calls common land, that only means that the inhabitants had the right to graze their animals on it. It certainly does
not
mean that strangers had a right to come along and live on it.”

“I don’t think it was that sort of common. It was a piece by the seashore without a private owner.”

“If it was above a median tide mark it belonged to the community and came under the jurisdiction of the local council.”

Sam said, “That was what they was saying at the pub. They’re nothing but a crowd of no-good dropouts and the council would turn ’em out neck and crop if they tried the same game round here.”

“Then I’m afraid, Sam,” said Claire, “that your worthy friends in the saloon bar of the Fisherman’s Arms are, as usual, talking nonsense.”

The tone in which she said this made Jonas look up at her. He said, “Have you got some information that we haven’t?”

“You can call them dropouts if you like. They are people who have got tired of an insanitary overcrowded life in our inner cities” – unconsciously she found she was quoting the artist – “and find a gypsy life healthier and happier.”

“Happier for them,” said Sabrina. “What about the people they impose themselves on?”

“There should be room in this country for everyone. Wasn’t the government telling us, only the other day, that the countryside was over-farmed? The mistake people make is thinking about these people as criminals. Some of them are very poor, it’s true. They can’t even afford a proper tent, let alone a caravan. They just lean two pieces of corrugated iron together—”

“Claire,” said Jonas, “you seem to know a lot more about this than we do. Who have you been talking to?”

“As a matter of fact I happened to run into Philip Wroke again in a café in the town.”

“Don’t tell me he’s one of them.”

“He has been with them now for some months, yes.”

“That certainly gives them a touch of respectability.”

“Oh, he’s not the only one. There are several artists, not as well known as he is, I agree. And writers.”

“Poets, no doubt,” said Sabrina.

“I don’t know about poets, but they’ve got a radio dramatist. And a pop group. They call themselves The Strollers. They’ve made quite a few records.”

“That was one of the things they told me about,” said Sam. “They practise all night. Keep people awake, you see. No thought for others.”

Jonas said, “I should imagine it’s difficult to discipline a crowd like that. Have they got a leader?”

“Wroke is regarded as second in command. The leader, the man who founded the group, is called Lipsett.”

“And what is he?” said Jonas. “An artist, a writer, or a musician?”

“I’m not sure.”

“If it’s Raymond Lipsett,” said Sabrina, “he’s a man who writes articles for left-wing publications. I’ve read quite a few of them. Able stuff, but totally perverted, of course.”

“Of course,” said Claire sharply. “If his views are left of centre they must be perverted, mustn’t they?”

“Children, children,” said Jonas. “Don’t scratch each other’s eyes out.” He could see that Claire was losing her temper and that Sabrina would like nothing more than to provoke her. “May I point out that it is now half past eleven and that I, at least, have work to do.”

This was true. It was a question of mineral rights at Maggs’s farm which had reached the Crown Court at Brighton. Jonas had decided to brief counsel and was drafting a case for Mr Kendrick, QC. It was a complex matter and he had to devote his full attention to what he was dictating, but something was niggling him. He knew his secretary as well as any shrewd professional man would be likely to know a girl who has been working for him for nearly six years, but he had never suspected her of holding strong left-wing views.

Perhaps Wroke had got something to do with this? To date Claire’s relationships with the young of the opposite sex had been casual to the point of flippancy. But a forty-year-old artist . . . He realised that Claire had been sitting with her pencil poised for some seconds and wrenched his mind back to the question of the minerals which underlay Farmer Maggs’s fields.

At a quarter to seven on the following morning a matter which had been of remote interest took a sharp step forward. Jonas blinked his eyes open and picked up the telephone from the table beside his bed.

It was the hermit, Francis Delamere, and he was very angry.

He said, “They’ve come. You’ve got to do something.”

“Do you mind,” said Jonas swinging his legs out of bed and sitting up, “telling me what you’re talking about?” He found that he could think more clearly when sitting up, which was as well, because Delamere was almost incoherent with rage.

“Last night,” he said, “after dark. Like thieves in the night.”

“Your house has been burgled.”

“No, no. Worse. Much worse. They’re all over the Dingle.”

There was no need for Jonas to ask who they were. He could guess only too easily. He said, “I suppose you’re talking about those campers.”

“A rabble. You’ve got to move them on.”

“I’m very sorry about it. But it’s not really my job.”

“Certainly it’s your job. You’re my solicitor, aren’t you? Start an action.”

Jonas’s experience had hardened him to clients who demanded actions on every conceivable and some inconceivable points. He said, patiently, “Just who would you suggest I start an action against?”

“These people. The FF.”

“The first difficulty is that they’re not, as far as I know, a corporate body. And if we could get over that one, what are we starting an action for?”

“Trespass.”

“
You
can’t sue them for trespass. You don’t own the land.”

“You’re making difficulties. If the law won’t help us we shall have to take matters into our own hands. Like they did at Portree.”

“No,” said Jonas. “Whatever you do—” But he found that the telephone had gone dead.

He dressed hastily, thought about breakfast, decided that speed was all-important and got his car out. As he was starting it, Sam appeared and jumped in beside him. The quickest approach to the Dingle was along the golf club road. They parked the car in a lay-by and took the track which led down the winding left-hand bank of the stream. As they turned a corner they came on the scene of the action.

A strong fence, three lines of barbed wire fixed to uprights of angle iron, barred their way. There was a narrow opening through which the track ran. The men standing beside it were clearly both sentinels and guards. Some action was going on in the camp itself. Men and women were crowding round a shanty composed of two corrugated iron sheets. Jonas said, “Good God! Isn’t that Delamere? The stupid old coot. He must have wriggled in under the wire at the top end. What did he think he could do?”

The crowd parted and they could see that two men were carrying the old hermit, who was still struggling.

“Better get him out, hadn’t we?” said Sam. “Before he hurts himself. Or gets hurt.”

He marched up to the gate. The guards said, “You can’t come in.”

“No such word as ‘can’t’ in my vocabulary, chum,” said Sam and marched on. The guards took one look at his formidable bulk and decided that he was out of their class. Jonas, like a small tender being towed by a battleship, followed in his wake.

At the foot of the path they met the carrying party coming up.

“Put that man down,” said Jonas, “at once.”

“Fuck off,” said the leading porter. “He tried to pull down our shanty. We’re going to pitch him out on to his head.”

“Better put him down,” said Sam mildly. “Or get your own head knocked off. Your choice, mate.”

The second porter, who had appreciated Sam’s potentiality, had already let go of Delamere’s legs. His companion had no choice but to follow suit. Delamere fell on to his knees, stopped there for a few moments, then climbed slowly to his feet. He was clearly dazed and shaken. The crowd who had followed him up were standing round, not actively aggressive, but silent and hostile.

They opened out to let a man through. Jonas felt certain that this was their leader. It would have been easier to judge his age if he had not had so much hair on his face. Two bright blue eyes stared out from a forest of beard, moustache and curling side whiskers. Despite all this foliage Jonas thought the man was not much past his middle thirties. He said, “If your name’s Lipsett and you’re in charge here, I have to warn you that if your people had harmed this man you’d have been in bad trouble. He’s nearly eighty and the rough handling he’s had might have very serious results.”

“He brought it on his own head,” said Lipsett. “He came in uninvited and started to pull down this man’s shack.”

“That was stupid, I agree. But he should have been restrained without violence and removed politely.”

“Would you have been polite, if someone had started to destroy
your
house?” It was the voice of an academic, pitched in the upper register, intellectual, relishing controversy.

“I should have sent for the police,” said Jonas curtly. And to Sam, “Help this man back to the car. We’ll all feel better when we’ve had something to eat.”

When they got back Sam cooked breakfast for them. Delamere had no appetite for food, but drank several cups of sugary coffee, which seemed to revive him. After breakfast, Sabrina joined them. She had heard the news. She said, “They seem to have learnt from their experience at Portree. This time they got their fence up first.”

“I’ve been out of touch with things for a long time,” said Delamere. “But when you asked me what action I could take, I seemed to remember – Isn’t there something called an action for nuisance?”

Sabrina fielded this one. “You mean the noise they make at night?”

“And by day.”

“Yes. I expect you could found an action for nuisance. But it wouldn’t do you a lot of good. It’d be a civil action and might take a year or more to get to court. And if you won, you wouldn’t get rid of them. You’d simply get an award of damages.”

“Oh,” said Delamere rather blankly. “Then do you mean there’s nothing I can do?”

“Nothing
you
can do, no. But the council could get quick results if it set about it the right way. Normally the court will grant a speedy remedy in a case of aggravated trespass.”

When the old man had departed, unhappy, but apparently persuaded to rely, for the moment, on council action, Sabrina said to Jonas, “The present council may do the right thing, but you’re not forgetting that we shall soon have a new one.”

“I had forgotten,” said Jonas. “When’s the election?”

“The first week of April.”

“And does it worry us?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve heard some odd stories.”

It was one morning, ten days after this conversation, that Admiral Fairlie arrived, by appointment, in Jonas’s office. He came to the point with naval promptness. He said, “We’ve got a crisis on our hands. I’ve been talking to Bob Rattray. Saul Melford has been taken to hospital with suspected thrombosis. They’ve started exploratory surgery, but however successful they are he won’t be back in action for some months.”

“Which means that he can’t stand at the next election.” Jonas was studying a marked plan of Shackleton and its environs. “He’s West Ward, isn’t he?”