The deal was signed.
Next day the Planning Committee voted to reject the chain's offer for the playing field, preferring, as it said, to put the needs of the local community first.
On the same day the bulldozers moved on to a piece of derelict land only half a mile away and, financed by the big chain's own money augmented by a large loan from a city bank whose CEO had long nursed a grudge against his opposite number on the chain's board, the first of Monty Wright's supermarkets was erected in record time.
Five years later even the City's most dedicated doubters had to accept that the Wright-Price chain was here to stay. By that time another dozen shops had gone up in the southeast and marketing whiz-kids were keen to climb aboard the bandwagon. The fact that an early appointee to the Board of Directors was a local businessman called Ratcliffe King who had happened to be Chairman of the Planning Committee that rejected the application to purchase the playing field was noted but not commented on. At least not by anyone with any sense. Ratcliffe King wasn't known as King Rat in Lu- ton political circles without reason. No longer a councillor, he retained the title and still wielded much of the political power in his role as head of ProtoVision, the planning and development consultancy he had founded on retirement from public life. Officially his role on the Wright-Price board was and remained nonexecutive, but in the view of many, he'd played a central strategic role in the campaign that twenty years on had led to Monty Wright being knighted for services to industry as head of a company no longer coveted by the market leaders as possible prey but feared by them as potential predator.
'What about Sir Monty?' asked Joe, turning back to Merv. 'And keep your voice down, I think he heard you talking about him.'
'What's wrong with that?' said Merv. 'Not saying anything everyone doesn't know.'
But he dropped his voice a little, or as much as he could, before he went on. 'Like I said, look at Monty. All that lolly plus the title-even got his teeth straightened to go to the Palace, I heard!-and what happens when he applies to join the Royal Hoo? They turn him down flat!'
'So what's your point?' asked Joe, who liked things spelled out.
'My point is, doesn't matter what this plonker Porphyry says. The only way they'll let you into the Royal Hoo is through the back door dressed as a waiter! Maybe that's it. Maybe they're short of staff. They ask to see your testimonials, just you be careful!'
Merv's difficulty in keeping his voice low even to share a confidence was compounded by a compulsion when uttering a bon mot to up the volume several decibels as if to make sure no one in the same building was deprived. Heads turned, and when a few moments later Joe went to the bar to get a round in, he was pressed to elaborate by several of the other drinkers.
The result was, for the rest of the evening Joe found himself the object of much cheerful waggery. Normally this was water off a duck's back, but even his good nature was finding it hard to raise a smile the tenth time someone tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Pardon me, sir, aren't you the one they call Tiger?'
Rumors of the joke must have reached Sir Monty's table. After a visit to the Gents, Joe returned to see Merv sitting next to the baronet, talking expansively. At least he wasn't getting the easy laughs he'd wrung out of the rest of his audience. Indeed, Sir Monty, though listening attentively, had a deep frown on his face. Maybe after his own experience with the Royal Hoo he didn't reckon there was much to laugh at.
Serves Merv right, thought Joe.
'Fancy another one, Tiger?' called an acquaintance from the bar.
'No thanks. On my way home,' he replied.
It wasn't just the golf jokes that had got to him. He'd found himself thinking, what if Merv was right and this guy Porphyry was pulling his plonker by using him to get at some of his fellow members? He hadn't struck Joe as that kind of bean-head, but what did he know about the mind processes of Young Fair Gods? So tell him to take a jump. Except he didn't know how to contact him. OK, just don't turn up. Except he had two hundred quid of the guy's money in an envelope in his back pocket (somehow it hadn't seemed decent to put such lovely clean money in with the dirty old stuff in his wallet). Perhaps he should get there early, intercept him in the car park, hand back the cash and take off. But that would be hard.
'What would you do, Whitey?' he asked the cat, who'd woken up long enough to join him for a late supper after he got home.
For answer Whitey yawned, jumped up on the bed and closed his eyes.
'Good answer,' said Joe, who was blessed with the invaluable gift of rarely letting the troubles of the day spill over into his rest. He lay down beside the cat and soon joined him in deep and dreamless sleep.
6
Pastures New
The Reverend Percy Potemkin, pastor of Boyling Corner Chapel, master of its famous choir, and known wherever song is sung or souls are saved as Rev. Pot, preached a mean sermon.
Twice every Sunday he preached it, and with slight variations he made it do for weddings, funerals, christenings, and the opening of garden fetes.
Any suggestion that a little variety might not come amiss was greeted with the response, 'If it's not broke, why fix it?' And if the doubter were foolish enough to persist in his doubt, perhaps educing in evidence the fact that most regular members of the congregation knew the words by heart, Rev. Pot would reply, 'Now that is good, that's exactly what I want. I'm just a messenger, these are the words of the Lord, and He wants them to be burned on your soul so you never forget!'
A couple of lines from the mean sermon came into Joe's mind as he drove in search of the Royal Hoo Golf Club not long after ten o'clock the following sweltering morning.
Hell is a populous city a lot like Luton, and one of its suburbs is called Privilege and another is called Wealth. They look at things differently there.
Following Beryl's directions he found himself on the big roundabout which he sent the Morris round three times before opting for the only exit that didn't have a signpost. Soon he found himself driving along narrow country roads, not much more than lanes really, winding between high hedgerows. To make matters worse he got stuck behind a tractor for half a mile. Finally it turned into a gateway. When the driver stopped to open the gate Joe drew up alongside.
'All right for the Royal Hoo, am I?' he asked.
The man, who looked like a farmer in every respect except that his expression was happy, said, 'Oh yes, another mile or so, and there you are. Lovely day for golf.'
At least he doesn't assume I'm a delivery man, thought Joe.
Leaning over the gate he saw a possible explanation of the man's demeanor in the shape of an estate agent's sale board across which was plastered SOLD.
'Selling up then?' he said. 'Expect you'll miss it.'
'Miss drought, and drench, and interfering bastards from DEFRA? Oh yes, I'll miss them, right enough! I'll lie in bed on a cold wet winter's morning and think of some other poor sod getting up to milk his beasts! It's a mug's game these days, farming.'
'Lucky you found a mug then,' said Joe lightly.
'Not really. Some so-called agri-conglomerate with a fancy name. 'New Pastures,' would you believe? Pastures! They'll likely cover the place in polytunnels and grow soft fruit. Me, I'll be long gone. Cheers now. Enjoy your game.'
'You too,' said Joe.
He drove on, smiling.
After perhaps a mile the high hedgerows gave way to an even higher wall, topped with shards of champagne-bottle glass that signaled clearer than billboards he was getting near one or both of Rev. Pot's suburbs.
One thing you couldn't say about the Royal Hoo, however, was that it was ostentatious.
