Paint. The art of scam. (33 page)

‘Oh that’s OK
then.’ Said Seymour as he wandered off to the bathroom and closed the door.

The Last Straw.

Cyril was sat on
the steps of his van, reading the ripped, repaired letter, again. He couldn't
believe it. The letter was from Edward, on official Barrington Estate
stationary, notifying him, Cyril Barker, deed holder of plot 124a, formally
part of the Barrington Estate, is hereby given 30 days to establish a new
access road to plot 124a. The current access road used, is on Estate land and
therefore private property. The said, current road used, will be blocked by
locked gates in 30 days.

He'd got it the
day before. Dennis, the postman, always drops the post in on the way back from
Barrington Hall. He wasn't supposed to. Edward had received some of Cyril's
mail by mistake before and had complained to the post office, pointing out that
plot 124a is not an official postal address and should not be regarded as such.

Dennis had been
earlier than usual. Cyril had emptied the leather bags out on the floor and was
counting it when Dennis turned up, all whistles and laughs, expecting a coffee
and a spliff as usual. He'd counted £25,000 so far, that was the dry stuff,
probably the same again was wet and it scared the shit out of him.

Cyril thought
about hiding, but Roger ran up to meet Dennis's van, barking his head off as
usual, Cyril and Roger were never apart, Dennis would have looked for him. The
van stank of damp, stale, rotting money that was pretty much everywhere. Cyril
had to keep Dennis away. Cyril told him he was just on his way out, Dennis
offered him a lift, Cyril told him he was being picked up, Dennis asked by who?
Cyril told him a friend and finally Dennis got the message and winked at
Seymour. Seymour winked back. Dennis thought Cyril had a woman in his van,
Dennis always thought Cyril had a woman in his van.

When Cyril opened
the letter, he had exploded. Roger ran for cover, not in fear, just in case.

‘Fuck! Fuck!
Fuck.’ he screamed. It took a while to decipher the letter, with its acrobatic
legal talk of sub sections and articles, clauses and various tricks, all
perfectly legal. Basically it meant the only way he would be able to get to his
land was by the river, as it was surrounded by estate land from the North, East
and West, the river being the Southern border. There was a weir about a
kilometre downstream and upstream nowhere to land. It would be impossible. The
old road had been there for years and years. Nobody thought about its legal
standing: it was just there. It was starting to look like Edward had got his
way.

That night had a
crystal clear sky, the moon bright, its reflection sparkling on the river. He
had wandered around his land all through the night, stopping only for another
roll up or another glass of red wine. Roger stayed with him, sometimes
following him, sometimes out of sight, watching him. Everywhere Cyril looked
there was a part of him, his Grandfather and the countless other souls that had
spent time there. He had sat in the circle of stones, set on a flat rock, that
had been the communal campfire for the travelling fruit pickers for decades,
maybe centuries. Cyril had found old coins, buckles and tinderboxes around that
circle. Crude engravings on the stones told a story of long, probably drunken,
nights of laughing, cooking, eating, drinking, loving and arguing. He could
feel the energy coming from the land, like magnetic ghostly pulses that
comforted him.

Cyril had woken,
sat amongst the roots of the weeping willow tree at the river's edge, its rich
healthy branches heavy with thick leaves that danced playfully on the rivers
surface. He looked across the river at the old jetty: its tired, old rotting
timbers, leaning with the flow of the river. The next big rains would wash it
away; Edward would build a new one for the resort.

Funny thing was,
Cyril had no problem with the new resort. He would rather it not be there, but
he would never have objected, not that he could. The fact was that Edward just
didn't want his clients to see Cyril's land across the river. Edward had
described it as a disgrace, a blot on the landscape, a tip, an insult to the
eyes, in many a letter he had written to the council.

He had been
inspected by the council once. Heather Fry, the Assistant Chief inspector from
the Environment Agency, dropped in unannounced one morning. This, Cyril
discovered later, was in order to surprise property owners who had been
complained about; to catch them unawares. Cyril had shown Heather around his
vegetable patch, the chicken pen, the fruit trees and all the various ingenious
things Cyril had done to create his near autonomous lifestyle. Heather was
particularly impressed with his irrigation system for the garden, comprising of
a huge funnel welded on the end of a 50 gallon drum, chained to the willow tree
and submerged in the river. The river flow was, most of the time, strong enough
to force the water through the funnel into a plastic pipe and up to a holding
tank next to the garden. Then there was the old wooden dingy he had found when
he cleared a blackberry bush. It was in a bad way, but Cyril converted it to
hold a turbine wheel that drove two old truck generators that charged a bank of
batteries. The dingy, tied to another tree, quietly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week, churned out enough electricity to give him all that he needed.

Heather had asked
where the old campervan was. That had been mentioned several times, in the
endless letters of complaint from Edward.

Cyril took her
to the van, which was set back amongst some fruit trees, under a large oak with
a massive branch laden with chattering leaves, gently moving up and down with
the breeze. You couldn't see it from the river, but you could see the river
from the van.

Cyril invited her
inside for tea. At first she refused, it would have been unprofessional, she’d
said. But so drawn was she to Cyril and his lifestyle, it would have been rude
not too accept his hospitality. They had a good talk. Heather was heavily
involved with encouraging sustainable living and saluted him for what he had
achieved. She left 3 hours later, with a box bulging with apples, pears and
various vegetables Cyril had picked for her. Cyril never heard from the
Department of the Environment again, but clearly Edward did and was furious
with their response: hence the step up to war footing.

Cyril folded up
the letter, put in his shirt pocket and ran his hands through his dark, curly
hair. Until he’d got the letter, he had already spent the money in his head. A
new shed over there in the corner near the garden, maybe plant some grape vines
for wine. South Eastern English sparkling wine, had recently won a blind wine
tasting in Paris, in competition with wines from the Champagne region in
France. Cyril had looked into it and it was very possible. Sir Thomas had
encouraged him before. He'd had trouble with his vineyard after an unusually
dry Spring and Summer: Cyril had the river. Maybe buy a tractor, he already had
an old plough: that would open up all sorts of possibilities. But now all that
money meant nothing. The thrill of finding it had given way to a deep feeling
of defeat. He had never thought about being in this situation, the possibility
of no longer having the land, why would he? Up until now the Barrington Estate
was part of him and he was a part of it. There was no friction or radical politics
amongst the people on the Estate. If there ever was a problem, which was
inevitable, given the number of different characters around, Sir Thomas always
sorted it out: just by being Sir Thomas. He had a wonderful way with conflict
resolution. Somehow he made people realise how petty and futile they were
being, without a word spoken. He just had this look about him.

Frankly, Cyril
didn't know how to feel anymore and he wasn't alone. Everybody he spoke to on
the estate were now different. No more raucous laughter echoing across the
forest, no more jibing passing Land Rovers, no more spontaneous dinner parties
and practical jokes.

It had passed his
mind to go travelling again, he could do that easily with all this cash. Get
his van legalised, head off to India or Morocco, anywhere. He'd travelled a lot
in the past, but that was back in the sixties. Then you could head into Spain
over the Pyrenees, in your self converted camper and find isolated villages
that would welcome you. You would probably end up working your ass off in
someone's field for hours on end and no doubt find yourself back in some tatty,
nicotine drenched house, with four generations of shouting mad Spaniards,
getting you drunk and taking the piss out of you. That was fun. Now Europe
seemed to be full of retired engineers and pompous, redundant ex-managers with
brand new camper vans, that cost the price of a small house, that have worked
their entire lives, just to retire. They're not half as much fun and perfect prey
to cunning thieves who rightfully want a piece of their action.

In fact Cyril had
come to the conclusion, long ago, that his place and the Barrington Estate was
the only world he could handle. The moment he went out of his world, he would
feel a sense of panic. It was starting to feel like every idea he'd had since
he opened the letter bumped into a wall.

Roger suddenly
started barking and ran over to the track. Seconds later came the unmistakable
diesel growl of Nastasia's 1979 Mercedes 300D.

Cyril loved
Nastasia, had done since they went to school together. She was born on the
Estate, but left when she was sixteen and now had a second hand clothes shop,
just outside Brighton.

The moment they
met, at the age of 10, over in Daletree woods, they became firm friends.
Nastasia, then, was a tomboy by nature. She'd rather be out in the fresh air,
wandering the forests, fantasising adventures, than fiddling around with dolls
with houses that are far too small for them. She thought that kind of stuff was
sick.

Cyril at last had
a friend, a good friend, the fact that she was a girl was not important. They
would play in the woods for hours and hours from early morning, until dark at
weekends.

School was
strange. Havington School was strict. Uniforms were compulsory and discipline
almost military. Being in the same class was difficult for both Cyril and
Nastasia. That ordered, stiff environment was so alien, it was if they didn't
know each other at all. Both of them also had difficulties integrating with the
other kids. Cyril was not a gang sort of boy, wasn't good at sport and not in
the least academically inclined. Despite constant death threats from Nazi
trained teachers, if Cyril 'doesn't stop looking out of the window and pay
attention,' he did well in tests and exams. This, he would discover later in
life, was due to his unwitting use of hypnotic passive learning.

The school was
set in the Sussex countryside and had huge windows to stare out of. No matter
how hard he tried to focus on that blackboard, full of meaningless letters,
that were actually numbers, via algebra, his eyes would end up watching a
peregrine falcon or flocks of migrating birds or anything. In the meantime he
was listening and memorising everything that was being said by his teachers,
their words often accompanied by a good, old fashioned, slap on the head with a
ruler.

Things became
more confusing when puberty started shaking up their hormones. Nastasia, due to
her rather complicated genetic roots, involving gypsy tinkers, Lebanese illegal
immigrants and Portuguese Fado singers, quickly developed into a glorious young
woman who caught the eye of many a testosterone crazed teenage boy.

Cyril had
developed into a healthy good looking lad and, as he watched Nastasia morph
into a woman, he saw their friendship slip away into a confusing emotional mess
that could go nowhere. As kids they would spend hours huddled together under
trees, sheltering from the rain, chatting and laughing, making up stories. But
now all the smells exuded from them had changed all that.

At fifteen they
both left school and went there own separate ways.

Nastasia was
suddenly sent off to live in Southern France with her Aunt. To help her French,
her mother had said. But that wasn't the truth. Something had happened on the
estate.

Rumours were rife,
but the strongest and most feasible, was that Edward, who had by then become a
sadistic, lonely, frustrated teenager, had 'tried something on' with Nastasia.
He had 'tried something on' with a few of the girls in recent months, but
nothing serious had happened, just clumsy, drunken fumbling, easily curtailed
by a playful slap. Word was that Nastasia was walking home through the woods
one night, just before she left for France; Edward had followed her and ‘tried
something on’ with her. Nobody really knew the details, but the four deep
scratches on either side of Edward's miserable face, that you can still see to
this day, in the right light, the chunk missing from his left earlobe and his broken
arm, suggested Nastasia didn't take kindly to Edward's advances. The police
were involved and a few people had seen Edward being taken away in a police car,
the same day that he came out of hospital.

Jenny Fletcher, a
good friend of Nastasia at the time, said she saw her the morning she left. She
was fine apparently, just a few scratches, but fine.

There was no
contact for years, beyond hearing 2nd hand news of each other's whereabouts,
but there was not a day went by without them thinking about each other in some
form.