Dermott Hayes's Blog: Postcard from a Pigeon, page 36

Trumpet’s Downfall, part 4

Fifi Fontaine was, as her Grande Tante was fond of saying, ‘puce hors l’ancien bloc’. She would also say,  ‘il y a plus d’une façon d’accommoder un lapin’ or as les rosbifs say, there are more than two ways to skin a cat. She was ready for Alderman Trumpet but first, she had other guests to whom she must attend.

Mrs Mayfly greeted these guests as they arrived in their fancy carriages, two in all. Two gentleman travelled in the first carriage, one, a tall, distinguished man dressed in a top hat and fine silk suit, understated but expensive, the other, a short, beefy man, dressed well but in a suit a size smaller than his portly frame could accommodate. He had a goatee beard, beady eyes and sweated, profusely.

Five men travelled with them in the other carriage. These were well dressed, too if not as expensively and their manner was abrupt and cautious to Mrs Mayfly and her staff but obsequious and obeisant to the two men, their apparent employers.

Mrs Mayfly lead them to the main reception hall where the ladies of the house were assembled for them to see and get acquainted, as Mademoiselle Fifi had instructed. Drinks were served although, with a glance, the five men took up positions by the doors and windows while the two gentlemen accepted refreshments.

They were barely settled when Mademoiselle Fifi came into the room and they greeted her like she was a familiar friend of theirs. Without further ado, the three withdrew to one of La Confiture’s private rooms for a meeting that lasted less than ten minutes. When they emerged, Mrs Mayfly couldn’t help notice how Mademoiselle’s pallor had changed and she looked flushed and excited. The two gentlemen were equally animated. They called for drinks and invited their employees to join them. Then they set about introducing themselves to the ladies of the house.

Mademoiselle Fifi made her excuses, bid them well and withdrew to greet her supper guest, Alderman Trumpet who, at that very moment, arrived at the door clutching yet another bouquet of pink and red roses.

He was greeted, to his obvious delight, by Mademoiselle Fifi who led him straight to her private chambers, on the other side of the house.

…………………….

Alderman Donald Trumpet woke late the following morning to the sound of thunderous hammering. First, he thought the hammering was self inflicted and allowed himself a wry grin. But it persisted and, in persisting, caused a complimentary tattoo. This time the hammering was in his head.

Disoriented, he stretched a hand and scrabbled for the bell rope to call a servant. He left strict instructions for no-one to disturb him this morning. The hammering persisted at his front door and in his head.

‘Who the devil is that making that infernal noise?’, he roared.

He threw one leg out of the bed and dragged the other beside it. Slumped, he reached for his drawers and yanked them on, hastily tucking his nightshirt inside. He slipped his feet into the slippers by his bed and stood up. A wave of dizziness hit him and he sat back down.

Just then Bench knocked and entered. The abruptness of his manservant’s entry he ignored, because it was so unusual for Bench to ever enter his bedroom.

‘Bench? What the devil is going on?’

Bench was smiling. Bench doesn’t smile but Bench was smiling. This added to his confusion.

‘The town advocate is here to see you, sir,’ said Bench, now grinning widely, ‘and the town constable.’

‘What? At this hour? What the devil do they want?’

‘They beg leave to speak to you, sir, on matters of some importance and discretion?’

‘Discretion? They think it’s discreet to call on me at home while I’m still abed, with an ague, too, I’ll warrant,’ he said, rubbing one side of his head with the flat of his hand.

Bench left without commenting. Trumpet dressed and followed him downstairs. The Advocate and the Constable were standing in the drawing room. The Advocate carried with him a sheaf of papers.

‘I hope you have a good explanation for this…,’ Trumpet began but the Advocate interrupted.

‘Donald Trumpet, I have here a warrant for your arrest.’

‘Preposterous,’ Trumpet bellowed, ‘on what charges?’

‘I was getting to that,’ the Advocate, a deliberate and careful man, said, before continuing, ‘on charges of using Government land for the purpose of illegal profiteering, abusing employment terms for Government agents, extorting illegal payments from citizens and gross abuse of your office of public representative.’

Trumpet listened, astonished. The charges, he knew, were flimsy, difficult to prove and wouldn’t stand scrutiny. He was about to say so to the Advocate until he held the palm of his hand up to silence him and continued, ‘there is a second warrant regarding the ownership of a bawdy house, a felonious condition that is clearly contrary to your office of Alderman.’

Trumpet slumped into a chair, confused, the ownership of a bawdy house?

‘I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘I don’t own a bawdy house.’

‘On the contrary, sir, we have copies of the deed and other documents related to that establishment, La Confiture, which cite you as the proprietor. In addition, you were seen leaving there, last night, by all accounts inebriated and just shortly before the house was raided following complaints regarding noise and boisterous behaviour.’

Trumpet stared at the document before him, dumbfounded.

‘If you are ready, sir, we wish to execute our warrant.’

‘Execute your warrant?’

‘We must arrest you and take you into custody for a hearing before the Magistrate, where you will be formally charged.’

Arrest, charges, warrants, Magistrate, all these words just became new discordant notes in the symphonic clamour that could, he thought, wrench his brain clear of its mooring. Bench stood there with his top hat and great coat, still wearing that inane grin.

‘Bench, fetch Mr Phibbs for me. Ask him to attend the Magistrate’s Court to have this confusion sorted.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Bench said, still grinning.

‘And wipe that stupid smile off your face.’

‘Yes, sir.’

………………………

Trumpet’s lawyer, the Honourable Arthur Phibbs, took no time getting Donald Trumpet through the preliminaries of reading charges and then formal arrest but when it came to a question of bail, the Magistrate demurred.

The ‘illegal profiteering’ charge, it turned out, was far more serious than any of the others, even ownership of the bawdy house. It appears, according to the town Advocate, when Trumpet  claimed ownership of the salt marshes and the foreshore to further his control of the shell fishing, he neglected to obtain a licence to fish on the foreshore, however, which is, by law, Government property.

Furthermore, he’d excluded many traditional fishing families from operating there and, since they did hold licences when they fished there, they were, technically, in the employ of the Government as agents. These fishermen, under the leadership of one Jack Connell, had banded together as an Independent Fisheries Co-Op and were the prime complainant in this case, beside the Town Advocate.

It was a tricky and convoluted set of charges but the sum of money involved could amount to 100,000 guineas or more. If it stayed in the Magistrate’s Court, the Advocate hinted, trumpet would incur a substantial fine but little else. However, if the charges were presented at the Crown Assizes Court, he might incur a heavy penalty but also a substantial jail term. Trumpet couldn’t help but admire the ingenuity of the charges and how they were framed which made him wonder how a bunch of ignorant fishermen could’ve put them together.

His question was answered with the appearance of Bench, his manservant, still grinning and in the company of Connell and his cohorts. His political rival, Thomas Wellspring II followed. Trumpet conferred with his lawyer, Mr Phibbs who then made an impassioned plea to the Court for leniency and leave to allow Alderman Trumpet time to make amends and retribution and the freedom to answer the charges before him.

After some deliberation and considering, in mitigation, the Council election that day for the Alderman’s own seat, the Magistrate gave him bail terms for a personal surety of 100,000 guineas.

There was a cheer as Trumpet stormed from the courthouse. The surety, he estimated, amounted to his total worth and he’d yet to find out how he acquired La Confiture and for what price?

Do you think?

 

He has to meet the architect on the top, unfinished floor of this 18 storey building and he ponders why the hell they always  meet in dangerous places, like the top of buildings? Then he drops and smashes his glasses.’Be careful, it’s dangerous,’ someone said. ‘Oh, I didn’t realize‘, he says.

Trumpet’s Downfall, part 3

Thomas Wellspring II found Bench waiting for him, as arranged, in the back room of a small alehouse, down a laneway near the dockside. It was a deceptive location, he noted, barely noticeable in the alley gloom but inside, so much more spacious than one might imagine, given its narrow doorway and single, sashed window.

Wellspring was greeted by a servant and led to a room off the main chamber, tucked away in a corner. This room was well proportioned and, though without windows, well lit, from above by a high, glass skylight. It was lined with bookshelves from a dark hardwood and a lavish collection of leather bound books.

There was a marble fireplace at one end, large enough for a man to stand in and lit with a fire blazing with logs. Two comfortable carved walnut chairs were set up on either side of the fire with a decanter of port and two glasses on a low table, between them.

The rest of the room was dominated by a sturdy oak dining table, worn but well kept and gleaming. Wellspring wondered at the comfortable lavishness of the room and who it belonged to when Bench walked in.

‘Thomas Wellspring,’ he said, ‘thank you for agreeing to meet me. May I offer you a glass of port?’

Mortimer Bench greeted Wellspring with a handshake before directing him to the high backed walnut armchair with the velvet burgundy cushions.

‘I am very impressed with your choice of meeting place, Bench. I must say it is deceptive and I’m surprised I never knew of its existence. Who does it belong to, pray tell?’

‘It is mine, Mr Wellspring, a home from home and a little enterprise of my own, apart from my daily duties.’

To say Thomas Wellspring was astounded would be to underestimate his discomposure. He flopped into the armchair beside Bench, mouth agape, speechless.

‘Alderman Trumpet is not the only person adept at sleight of hand and creative accounting, Mr Wellspring,’ Bench told him, ‘as the Alderman’s manservant and general factotum, I am party to all his ventures and handle all the details of his transactions. That is why I wanted to meet you. I have information that I believe should be useful to you.’

Bench took the glass stopper from the decanter on the table between them and poured two glasses of port, one of which he offered to Wellspring. When he took it Bench held his aloft in a toast and Wellspring, who was yet to speak, clinked glasses with him.

‘To Failsafe,’ Bench toasted.

…………………….

The meeting of Failsafe fishermen, clam pickers and shellfish wranglers took place, behind closed doors, in the back room of another alehouse, just four doors from Thomas Wellspring’s meeting with Mortimer Bench.

The meeting was called by Jack Connell and passed by word of mouth from household to household. Connell was surprised at the turnout since he was sure many of the old fishing families of Failsafe were resentful and distrustful of Connell and his fellow migrant workers who had replaced them in the salt marsh fisheries.

But what they held in common was stronger than their mutual resentment; it was their hatred of Donald Trumpet and what he’d done to destroy their livelihoods and the town they all loved.

‘Thank you all for coming here on such short notice,’ Jack began, ‘I know it can’t have been easy but the sum of our interests is greater than any bitter feelings we might have for one and other, I’ll warrant.’

There was a muted grumble of agreement. Men stood guard at the doorways and muted lest they betray their presence to the spies of Trumpet, of whom they had no doubt, there were plenty.

‘Thing is, there’s enough to be had from the fisheries to suit every family here and more if the profits therein were not finding their way into the coffers of Alderman Donald Trumpet.’

The rumble of agreement let him know he was on the right track.

‘What we didn’t know was we can take it back and restore this town and its fisheries to whom it belongs, those that work ‘em.’

There was a further rumble until one voice spoke out, asking, ‘exactly how do you think that can be done?’

It was the cue Connell waited for and proceeded to outline for them, in detail, the plan proposed by Trumpet’s own man, Mr Bench.

Trumpet’s Triumph, Part I, a Dickensian tale

Trumpet’s Challenge, Part II

Trumpet’s Downfall, part 1

Trumpet’s Downfall, part 2

Tree

 

He had a bunch of questions, like why did they call him Rupert, for example? Isn’t that a cartoon bear’s name? I mean, c’mon? And then growing up in an urban jungle, wall to wall concrete and they pick up your shit. All I want is a tree to pee.

Trumpet’s Downfall, part 2

This is it, blog post #500. I began writing this blog in 2014 but by March 2016, I had written only 80 blogs. The other 420 have been written since then. It is fun but it does take time to find your groove, so to speak. I’m not interested in telling everyone what a wonderful day it is or donning my pom poms and running a cheer – believe me, it would not be either a pretty or edifying sight. On the other hand, I am a writer and crave readers. I don’t write what you want to read all the time and I’ve certainly never fashioned my reading for such a result. But I do try to post things that make us all think about who we are and what we’re doing. Unfortunately, these are questions I find myself asking almost every day. If I can guide anyone or offer experience or advice, an opinion or a comment, I’m there. Those who know me, know they don’t need to ask, as for those who don’t, well, ask. Thank you for taking the time to read my rambles. Onwards and upwards, eh?

 

Thomas Wellspring II’s plans to oust the nefarious Trumpet were well in hand. Through family connections he mustered the support of those Council members who were independent of Trumpet’s crooked wiles and, through secret talks, gathered the support of the wealthy families, those founding fathers who controlled the old money and industry of the town.

Now the election was at hand, he was ready to strike. First, he must meet Bench, Trumpet’s man who has sent him a private note by messenger, declaring, mysteriously, how this meeting might be to his advantage.

His father, Thomas Wellspring I, advised against it, claiming it could be some sort of trap. ‘Bilge,’ grandfather Benjamin declared, ‘Bench is a good man, from a good family.’

Thomas thought it over and decided to attend to Bench, nothing was ever certain with Trumpet so he must use whatever support he could muster for his cause.

…………………….

Donald Trumpet felt like he was walking on air. His boat had just come in in the shape of a perfumed and handwritten note from the woman of his dreams, Mademoiselle Fifi Fontaine, inviting him to have supper with her that night in her private chambers at La Confiture.

‘Bench, Bench’, he called out, wondering why his retainer was not in his shadow, lurking, as was his wont.

Bench appeared in the doorway. ‘Yes, sir?’

Trumpet noticed a spring in Bench’s step, even the hint of a smile, lingering in the corner of his mouth that was usually shut tight in a lipless slit. But he was too distracted to bother with his lackey’s humours.

‘Bench, fetch me my finest suit. Lay it out in my room, I have a dinner date this evening with Mademoiselle Fifi. By the way, what is the progress with Connell’s house, I hope that gypsy and his brood are cleared out by the weekend.’

Bench, the shadow of a smile still lurking somewhere in his visage, assured him everything was in hand, before disappearing from the room.

………………………

Mrs. Mayfly didn’t know whether she was coming or going. All afternoon the house was abuzz with preparations. The girls were told to dress in their best and most alluring gowns. After a flurry of telegraphs, to and fro, Mademoiselle Fifi told her she was expecting guests. She was also expecting a special guest for supper in her private chambers. She wanted La Confiture fitted out for a great party for her guests, with fine wine and food. The supper in her private chambers, she announced, would be a different matter.

Whatever Mademoiselle wished, she would deliver. The young lady was a chip off the old Madame, cut from the same cloth, for sure. She had everything in hand but would keep the details to herself until it was to her advantage to employ them.

That suited Mrs Mayfly. She was well paid by the young mistress and the old Madame had assured her security, too, in her will.

Trumpet’s Downfall, part 1

Jack Connell had everything stacked against him; an Irish born Romany migrant worker, married to Consuela, a Spanish Romany woman. He worked for Trumpet Fisheries and eked a miserable life out of digging razor fish and clams from the shallow salt marshes on the edge of Trumpet Cove. Jack and their three children lived in a rundown, cramped cottage, near the marshes, rented from Trumpet Properties.

Every day in Trumpet Cove, Jack felt, was another nail in his coffin. He longed for the road but Consuela tired of it. When she first became pregnant after meeting Jack while the two of them dug clams five years before, she persuaded him to settle there for the birth of their son. So he waved goodbye to his own family and she, to hers, as they uprooted their carriages, tethered their horses and hit the road.

After the first year, they returned but there was less work and, what there was, paid less. All of this came about because of their employer, Donald Trumpet, who had persuaded some, like Jack and Consuela, to stay in his employ. Migrant workers earned less than their town born workers, born of generations of families who made their living from the salt marshes.

Now, five years later, the Romanies never came because the work was not there and the town born clammers were shut out. Trumpet owned the fisheries, the land around the salt marshes and the workers who toiled for him every day.

For all that, Jack enjoyed himself. Living by the marsh kept them from the suffocating confinement of living in a town.Their little cottage, for all its faults in construction, lay in a beautiful spot, indeed, by many’s estimation, the finest spot in the Cove.  He loved his little family, two boys and a girl and his beautiful wife, Consuela. He didn’t mind working for Trumpet, so long as they were left to their own devices. Of course, he knew the wages were scandalously low and whatever they did earn was taken away as quickly in rent and provisions.

He earned a little on the side, line fishing at the shoreline and kept a few lobster pots he built himself off a small cove south of the town.

The trouble started when Trumpet banned migrant workers because he arranged for all his regular workers, former migrants, to get tenancy and work permits while migrants, like the Romanies who gathered here every year, were excluded. Trumpet’s lackey, Bench, took great delight in telling him, while he was Irish and in no need of a permit, his wife, Consuela was a foreigner and born of a migrant family and would therefore be excluded from working. Furthermore, he told him, she was no longer eligible to domicile on Mr Trumpet’s property.

So, the Connells were given notice of eviction, two weeks hence and just the time Donald Trumpet had contracted surveyors, wreckers and builders to descend on the property to raze it to the ground and begin work on the future Trumpet family home for himself, his intended, Mademoiselle Fifi Fontaine and their family.

Of course, it hadn’t occurred to Trumpet to inform his intended of his plans, nor, indeed, his intentions. Nor had it occurred to him to look into the legality of shifting a sitting tenant without cause.

Bench, on the other hand, saw Trumpet’s intentions and Connell’s bad luck as an opportunity from providence, a blessing bestowed and a chance, at last, to put a spoke in Trumpet’s dander, a sour note in his tune and a halt to his march, the thieving upstart.

Mortimer Bench was proud of his family though, through misadventure, they’d fallen on bad times. The Benches were an old family in Failsafe – he refused to call the town Trumpet Cove, even if he was, by circumstance, obliged to pay the odious ‘Trumpet Tax’ – a Bench was among the town’s founding fathers and for many generations, filled the spot of local magistrate.

Mortimer, unfortunately, lost his family fortune. With his father’s premature death, Mortimer was obliged to return from the Law Inns to take up the reins of the family business, of auctioneers, valuers, estate agents and undertakers. He was then a teenager, on the eve of his twentieth year, in the throes of doing what young apprenticed law students do, get drunk, carouse and spend money, gambling.

Thrust into an apparently thriving family concern with full control of the coffers, then brimming, he proceeded to spend and fritter them away until, outfoxed and swindled in a property deal engineered by the late Alderman Sylvester Crook, he lost everything, house and home, his poor mother consigned to the Poor House and he condemned to a life of servitude to the odious Crook.

Bench spent some time explaining his rights to Jack Connell, after he gave him Trumpet’s notice to quit, explaining to him how he qualified as a sitting tenant who, so long as he could pay rent, may not be obliged to vacate his home unless by mutual agreement between tenant and landlord. Furthermore, since Consuela, his wife, was married to him, Jack, considered a citizen and their children all born in the town, Trumpet’s claim regarding his wife’s entitlement were void, even by his own definition.

But Bench had further news for Connell and this was regarding the lucrative foreshore clam grounds in the salt marshes.

Mademoiselle Fifi Fontaine was grateful, marginally delighted and more than a little confused to receive not just one, but five bouquets of the reddest  and pinkest English roses she had ever seen, delivered to her door, not just in one day, but ever.

Fifi Fontaine was always taught to be wary of people who try too hard. No-one ever explained why but when she saw the flowers, she believed she knew. The last bouquet carried a card with an invitation to dinner.

She hadn’t travelled to Failsafe, – or is it Trumpet Cove, she wondered? – to socialise. She came to bury her Grande Tante Blanche, sell her business and return to France but her departure was delayed by endless bureaucratic complications. Her aunt was a wealthy woman who ran a thriving business, surely, she thought, there should be no problem disposing of such an enterprise?

But no, first there were problems regarding the property deeds and then more regarding her aunt’s own identity papers and whether she had the necessary documents to own a business, let alone sell one. This went on and on. So she engaged Mrs Mayfly, a comely lady who had been in the employ of her aunt as a private housekeeper, to re-open and operate the business for her. We might as well make money while we try to sell the place, she thought, there was always a need for a house of leisure.

When the last bouquet arrived she enquired of Mrs Mayfly who the sender was and when Mrs Mayfly explained her curiosity was aroused.

‘C’est le meme Trumpet who hastened mon Grande Tante Blanche to her grave?’, she asked, unaware she’d lapsed into her native tongue, such was her agitation.

‘Oui, Madame,’ answered Mrs Mayfly, even though she’d never spoken a word of French in her life but she got the gist from the young Madame’s disposition and the bill from the Town Council, signed by Alderman Trumpet, she clutched and waved in her hand. It was the same bill that had to be prised from Madame Blanche’s cold fist, when her body was discovered.

‘I wish to send a telegram,’ Mademoiselle Fifi said as she dipped a quill in the ink pot and scribbled, with a fury, on a notepad. Mrs Mayfly took the folded note, saying she would have an undermaid deliver it, post haste.

‘Non,’ Mademoiselle Fifi said, ‘you will deliver it yourself, maintenant.’

Mrs Mayfly, her understanding of French exhausted, looked blankly at her young mistress.

‘Immediatement…NOW.’

Mrs Mayfly needed no further explanation. She scurried out of the room at a pace that belied her age and her portly demeanour. Anything to get out of the room, she thought and the fiery gaze of her young mistress.

Trumpet’s Downfall

Last week, I read a story about and the names he chose for his characters in his books. That got me thinking what Mr Dickens, himself a campaigner and great philanthropist, would make of the name ‘Trump.’

So I decided to write a Dickensian style story with a character named Trumpet, a bombastic character, a politician and businessman, with an extraordinary sense of entitlement and little regard for the people or the lives he ruined.

Since Charles Dickens first began publishing his stories serialized in weekly magazines that were the ‘television’ of their days, I’ve decided to serialize this story in the next five posts and to celebrate the publication of my 500th blog post.

First, here are links to the first parts of the story, Trumpet’s Triumph and Trumpet’s Challenge.

 

 

The final stage of the story, Trumpet’s Downfall, will be published in five episodes.

James Lovelock: ‘Before the end of this century, robots will have taken over’

Fracking is great, the green movement is a religion, his dire predictions about climate change were nonsense – and robots don’t mind the heat, so what does it matter? At 97, the creator of Gaia theory is as mischievous and subversive as ever

‘I’m not sure the whole thing isn’t crazy, this climate change’ … environmentalist James Lovelock near his home on the Dorset coast. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt for the Guardian

James Lovelock’s parting words last time we met were: “Enjoy life while you can. Because if you’re lucky, it’s going to be 20 years before it hits the fan.” It was early 2008, and the distinguished scientist was predicting imminent and irreversible global warming, which would soon make large parts of the planet uninhabitably hot or put them underwater. The fashionable hope that windfarms or recycling could prevent global famine and mass migration was, he assured me, a fantasy; it was too late for ethical consumption to save us. Before the end of this century, 80% of the world’s population would be wiped out.

read more

Daring

 

He stepped outside, went downstairs and then, checking the weather, left the building and walked out the gate. It was his first time out in ten days but he’d run out of milk, the bread turned blue and he wanted to breathe fresh air. Considering his agoraphobia, it was daring.

Breakthrough.

 

When her car windows were smashed and all four tyres slashed, people advised her to leave the area. They were inhospitable, backwoods country folk she was told and things could only get worse. She disagreed. For the first five months no-one spoke to her. This is a breakthrough, she said.