A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 49 Needles Fell
The purchase of further huge tracts of land outside the Bearthwaite valley, including the huge shooting estate along the south side of the valley which included Needles Fell and the fell at the top of the valley to the west where the pack pony trail emerged, had barely been remarked upon by the media because the recent antics of certain members of the royal family was of far greater interest to the general public. The Needles Fell land extended from the main road at Bearthwaite Lonning Ends all along the length of the valley right round the valley head at the valley’s west to meet the land that lay along the north side of the valley which included Flat Top Fell that was owned by Sovereign Property Managements, SPM. Fencing the Needles Fell land was a huge task that Gervin Maxwell the manager of Bearthwaite’s fencing crews said he anticipated taking maybe three months unless he could recruit more men, preferably twenty-odd or better thirty-odd. It all took time, but he had twenty-three more men in a matter of weeks and things progressed much faster, though he was still recruiting. More trees were planted by Thorbjörn, the Beebell tree nursery manager, and his staff assisted by hundreds of Bearthwaite adults and even more of their children with a view to shading out some of the bracken. As a shooting estate its days were over and Gunni Peabody was going to be dealing with the bracken as soon as he had any Tuskers to spare from the bracken they were currently clearing. In the mean while gates were built into the fence between where the Tuskers were currently working and the Needles Fell land ready for an effortless transfer. Gunni knew it would be effortless because the Tuskers, like all pigs, were intelligent and inquisitive, if not to say nosy. All it would take would be one open gate and twenty-four hours.
The fencing of the newly acquired property had angered many nearby sheep farmers who had illegally grazed the land in many cases for more than a century over several generations because none had ever done anything about it. When they cut fences and allowed their sheep access to Beebell land every sheep farmer in the area had been informed by recorded delivery that sheep belonging to some person or persons were grazing Beebell land and if any of the aforementioned sheep were theirs Beebell would be obliged they removed them as soon as possible. The sheep owners quietly smirked knowing that if Beebell took them to court it would be a long drawn out and expensive affair for Beebell. However, Adalheidis’ researchers had found what was required in a centuries old law, to wit a land owner was entitled to recover any and all maintenance and other costs caused by animals that had been mischievously caused to stray onto his land. It was more complicated that just that which was why the research had taken time, but all the conditions necessary to legally effect that recovery were in place.
The Bearthwaite shepherds were possibly the best in an area that once had been noted for its shepherds. For sure their dogs were the best, so it was easy enough to recover the cost of repairing the damaged fences and the stolen grazing by rounding up some of the sheep for slaughter. The video footage and photographs of the cut fencing with tufts of wool on the cut wire ends were clear evidence that the sheep had been mischievously caused to stray onto Beebell land. It did not matter to the law whether the person guilty of the mischief were the owner of the straying animals or not as long as the owner of the animals had been informed of the animals’ whereabouts, so as to enable them to effect a timely recovery. Too, there was no legal requirement to make information concerning the recovery of the costs incurred by the landowner suffering the mischievously caused losses known to any, including the sheep’s owners. The sheep’s owners had been informed of the situation and that completely fulfilled Beebell’s legal obligations to the owners of the sheep.
Adalheidis had said, “Despite us having a cast iron legal position, there is no point in us having the shepherds return the foreign sheep with a grazing bill because those thieves won’t pay the bill and will just cut the fence again and chase their sheep back. We need to sort this matter out permanently. If it ever gets to court, which is exceedingly unlikely and I’ve no intention of taking the matter there, I’ll quote the law that protects our actions without referring to those actions. I’ll say we only found the number of sheep that are left on our land at that time. They won’t say there were more, for that proves they were guilty of the criminal damage to our fences and the intent to dishonestly permanently deprive us of our grass. That by the way, the intent to dishonestly permanently deprive, is the major part of the legal definition of theft. I think we continue to use a few quiet words spoken into one ear only in a noisy rural pub at the far end of the county, so there are no witnesses, as our only means of communication with them. That way we admit nothing and can deny everything.” The smirking stopped when the owners of the sheep realised that the rent for their grazing would be recovered by slaughtering the sheep, but as Adalheidis had predicted the matter went nowhere near a court.
Harmon and Vinny were Bearthwaite shepherds descended from a centuries long line of shepherds, and they’d just spent several days flushing out the last of the sheep from the Needle Fells site that had been mischievously been caused to stray and graze the grass belonging to Beebell. For days they’d been working eleven dogs between them to pen the sheep ready for others to take down to Vincent for slaughter. Their job on the fell was now over. The Needles Fell site was now clear of sheep and they were taking the very last of them down to the village themselves. As their dogs were taking the two hundred and odd sheep down from the Needle Fells to Vincent’s slaughter yard where Vincent and a dozen men skilled at slaughtering awaited them, and another hundred or so were ready to take the carcasses to the bobbin mill for further processing or storage Vinny asked, “You reckon the sheep we’ve teken are enough to cover the losses, Dad? Or have the ones we’ve teken bin a few extra, enough to be on the safe side as would be preferable?”
“Well, Son, seeing as this is the fourth batch we’ve sent down this week and it’s still only Tuesday and there’s been fourteen of us on the job for just over a month I reckon we’re comfortably on the right side of the losses. It’s Vincent and his lads and Christine and her lasses in the canning shop I feel sorry for because this should never a bin necessary. Vincent’s slaughter men have bin adealing with thirty odd head apiece a day, every day, for thirty-four days now. At least Christine has a bit less pressure now the extra freezers and chillers are available and she has hundreds of women and kids helping out. You have to give it to Sarah, Tommy’s missus, that was a brilliant suggestion to just fill every bloody freezer in the village and on the farms and let folk tek what they wanted when they wanted it and tek what was left over to the bobbin mill as and when there was space for it. As she said it’ll be an inconvenience to folk for a while, but they put up with it seeing as it’s in every ones’ best interests. Still as for fetching them down this lot ’ll be the end of it thank god. Good thing is it didn’t tek that long for Gervin and his lads to have the fences repaired and Harwell’s lads and lasses are keeping a close eye on ’em to make sure they stay repaired.”
“I agree, but I’m wondering if I’ve done my calculations right. So, by how much do you reckon we’re on the right side of it, Dad?”
“What do you reckon, Son?”
“Vincent’s grandson Micky telt me they reckon they’ll have dealt with going on ten thousand sheep by the time all is done. All those trees that Thorbjörn and the nursery folk planted are goners, and don’t forget the hundreds of folk helping ’em, so that’s the cost of the new trees and the labour planting ’em to recover. Then there’re the damage to the fencing, the new stretches of fencing, and that stainless steel stuff costs a small fortune, the fencing lads’ time and the grass to feed ten thousand sheep for what going on two month? Say call it six weeks since we started clearing ’em a month back. I reckon that’ll come to maybe six thousand head to cover it. So, I reckon were maybe about four thousand head in front, give or take a few hundred.”
“You’ve a deal of learning still to do, Son. I put it closer to six thousand head.”
“Well that’s still all right then isn’t it, Dad? As long as we’re on the right side of it.”
When the pair had stopped laughing Harmon said, “As long as there’s bin sheep and shepherds up on these fjälls(1) there’s bin the odd sheep or ten stolen on a pretty regular basis. It’s just a part of the job. Often times they wander on to someone else’s land and it’s just not worth the trouble of doing owt about it, and we all know it’ll all work itself out in the long road. But I don’t reckon any of us are in the same league as Chance and Adalheidis. They’re the ones that said to clear the fjäll and tek the bloody lot, and once we started to finish the job as fast as possible, just to give the thieving bastards a lesson, which right enough they’ll get given. It seems fair enough to me under the circumstances, but it’s sheep stealing on a scale I can hardly get my head around.”
Adalheidis and Chance had left matters for twenty-eight days so as to be able to truthfully say if required that notice had been served to remove the sheep and a reasonable length of time had been given to the owners in which to effect said removal before recovery of Beebell’s losses had taken place. Then they took action. Chance had already apprised Vincent and Christine of what was going to happen a fortnight before and they had all ready, extra folk, equipment and everything else they could possibly need. The shepherds had been up to the Needles Fell site with all the necessary hurdles, light but strong hazel and willow woven temporary fence sections that could be fastened together to provide sheep proof pens. The pens had been assembled such that sheep could be driven in to them from the fell side and then out from the other side onto the lonning leading down to the village. The day before Chance and Adalheidis had said the sheep were to be cleared from the Needles Fell site there was an almost palpable sense of anticipation in the air. Even the shepherds’ dogs were affected by it. Once the clearance was under way the entire community became involved even if it were mum’s making flasks of tea and food for those who were working long hours and children delivering the food and drink to wherever it had been required. Phil and Dave’s delivery kids had spent days delivering meat using their three wheeler delivery bicycles to wherever there was a freezer with space to spare.
As Adalheidis has expected, despite the warnings, the sheep owners, though no longer smirking, still wouldn’t back down and collect their sheep because they didn’t believe that there was anything significant that the Bearthwaite folk could do about the sheep, there were just too many of them. Eventually thinking that the sheep would just about be running out of grass, for, despite the size of the site, there were far too many of them for the poor grazing to last the entire season, they went to visit the site. As they looked through the now repaired fences they saw the long, sere, standing hay like stalks of the foggage(2) that was all that the land had previously supported were all gone replaced by a carpet of young, green, short blades of rough grass that whilst by no means lush looked to be better grazing than the land had carried in living memory. The huge numbers of hungry sheep that had far exceeded the carrying capacity of the land had cleared the old grass out right down to ground, turned it into dung which which the rain had used to promote the growth of better grazing from the undamaged roots that were all the sheep had left untouched. They saw no sheep but several dozen watchful rangers with shotguns preventing them from forcing an entry to the site.
To their horror, by the time they had tried to do something about the state of affairs it was too late, for they no longer had any sheep on Beebell land. They couldn’t get their heads around ten thousand sheep just disappearing with nothing to suggest how that had been achieved. It was assumed, despite the huge number of sheep transporters that would have been required, that the sheep had been rounded up and trucked away to be sold on the quiet somehow hundreds of miles away. It was known to be possible, for sheep stealing on such a scale had been well known in Derbyshire in the early nineteen seventies, yet the level of organisation such an operation would require did not match their preconceived notions of Bearthwaite folk who they had always despised as intellectually challenged due to their well reported high degree of inbreeding. Sasha had once said concerning such matters, “Well reported should be replaced by well repeated, for they are the kind of fools who if they repeat something often enough, in their minds it becomes the truth.”
The law’s requirements concerning ear tags meant it would be virtually impossible to sell the sheep legally and it was dangerous to ‘own’ stolen sheep, so it was assumed that Bearthwaite had a contact with a large, but dodgy abattoir a long way from Cumbria, where the sheep had been slaughtered and moved on into the human food chain illegally so as to avoid any traceability, but there was absolutely no evidence of anything to suggest the sheep had been moved. None had seen any livestock transporters on the roads that accessed the Needles Fell site that were all on the far side of the site from the Bearthwaite valley, and it hadn’t occurred to any that the sheep had been taken down into the valley, where no outsider would have seen them being moved, and that they’d never left the valley. The owners of the sheep couldn’t say anything in the way of accusations, for in an area that was so economically dependent on sheep it was a heinous crime to damage a fence in order to steal someone else’s grazing, and they would be treated harshly should that ever reach a local court. Bearthwaite folk were as uncommunicative as usual and had refused to engage with folk who they knew had deliberately damaged their property in order to steal their grazing from a site they had all paid a lot of money for. The loss of tens of thousands of young trees had stung, for that was a lot of hard work that many of them, and their children too, had helped the nursery staff to plant. That it would have to be done again left a bitter taste in their mouths that they would never forgive. As Julie, Stan’s wife, had said to her sister Lilly who lived at Silloth, “You only get one chance with Bearthwaite folk.”
Adalheidis had merely replied with a smirk to all oblique enquiries, “What sheep?” and continued looking into the financial affairs of the now ex sheep owners view a view to buying out the ones close to bankruptcy as a result of the loss of most of their sheep. She was known to have laught and said with deep mockery to some of her friends, “I am Bearthwaite folk. As such I am a good neighbour, which means providing my neighbours in their hours of need with all the aid I possibly can, so I shall look particularly closely at the financial affairs of those I can assist into bankruptcy.” As a result Beebell acquired some quality land at fire salvage prices, but the best part of that from a Bearthwaite perspective was the loss of a number of bad neighbours. The ex sheep owners who managed to cling on and keep farming would never be a problem to Beebell again and many just lost the will to live and sold up over the next decade. The winning bids for their farms at the auctions were placed by folk unknown to the auctioneers and the local farmers, but then most Bearthwaite folk were unknown to them.
Adalheidis’ reputation as the legal witch of Bearthwaite and not someone to cross had as a result of an article in the Farmers’ Guardian soared across the farming communities of the nation not just the county. As a result of being known to be not just Sasha’s professional legal and accounting team but his friends too Adalheidis, Murray and Chance were acquiring towering reputations behind closed doors in many of the worlds great financial centres. Like all such things their reputations lost nothing in the telling which did them no harm at all. Sasha had laught and said, “Money per se is of little significance to any of us, but it is the currency, if you’ll pardon the pun, which the world uses to keep the score as to how well one is playing the game. So since wishing to control our own lives means we have to be winners and be seen to be winners at that game in turn that means we need to make and be seen to make vast amounts of money, so let’s go to it folks!”
To many of the elderly it was a dream come true, but a lot of folk of all ages at Bearthwaite had decent meals based on lamb and mutton for a goodly while at no cost, and there was a colossal quantity of canned lamb and mutton products in the stores at the bobbin mill available to locals at next to no cost, and several huge walk in freezer rooms had been hastily created to store the carcasses awaiting canning. The usual slaughter of fat lambs at the years’ end didn’t happen at Bearthwaite that year, for there was no need, there was more than enough lamb and mutton in store to last a twelvemonth and more. The Bearthwaite ewe lambs joined the already large flocks ready for the tups’(3) attentions and the wethers(4) were to be slaughtered as mutton over the next couple of years. In the meanwhile Bearthwaite lived off the recovered damages their land had suffered. One unexpected benefit of the incursion of foreign sheep onto the Needles Fell site was expressed by Aileen Peabody, the youngest of the Peabody girls, “The grass on the Needles was nowt but foggage all year round. There wasn’t much of it, and it wasn’t even good foggage at that. All those sheep ate everything off right down to the soil because there was nowt else for them to eat, but look at the grass there now. It’ll never be the best of grazing, but it’s decent enough for owt but dairy cows. There’ll be no point in even trying to graze it over winter, but come spring it would be good for yows and lambs. The point I’m mekin(5) is we could pull that trick on some of the other land Beebell has bought. Just grazing it right down to the soil with far too many sheep till everything was gone would be a lot less costly and easier too than ploughing the grass in and reseeding, and it would work on land too rough or steep to do owt else with too. And where possible we could always just harrow some decent seed in to improve the grazing too. What do you think, Dad?”
Alf had said to Dave, “It’s a bloody good thing that there’s nay a bugger as doesn’t like lamb and mutton in these parts. I wonder just how much you have to eat three times a day to get a sickner of it? I reckon some of us may just be finding out. Mind Vincent was telling me the other day that his van drivers load up with all they can carry and do a few detours via non Bearthwaite spots to sell it at cheapish outsider prices. They only tek cash because they’re not kitted out for payment by plastic and they never have any left over when they turn for home. They’re doing an extra run a week and will be shifting serious tonnage in a month, so maybe it’ll all work out right in the end. Keep it to yoursel, Dave, but they sell entire carcasses to some of the small butchers’ shops out there. The price is right and they only sell to lads as they know are right and who all of us would be happy to deal with. We mek money, the butchers mek money and their customers save money. The meat is spot on as regards quality and health safety. The butchers know that because Vincent says so and the carcasses all bear his slaughterhouse stamp,(6) which they all recognise on sight, so it’s all completely legal, but Adalheidis would rather that the folk as stole our grass are kept in the dark as to what happened to their sheep. Those butchers are good lads and value Vincent’s opinion more than that of the meat inspectorate who are known by all to have made some serious fuck ups over the years especially that Geoff Franks who runs the local bunch of ’em. Changing the subject a bit, Dave. You any idea what the lasses at the Dragon are going to be putting on for supper this Saturday. I reckon it’ll be sheep, but exactly what?”
“Barbecued full length mutton ribs after cutting ’em off the chops with Jeremy’s barbecue sauce, Lad. As many as you can eat. I’ve no idea what else is being served, but that’s what Jeremy is going to be serving at the next bonfire party on the green too along with all the other usual meats. The kids are gey excited by it because they’re going to be doing the barbecuing and baking the potatoes. You okay with that, Alf?”
Alf smacked his lips, grinned and said, “Oh aye, I suppose that’ll do. Changing the subject a bit. Vincent has had to tek on a dozen or more temporary help to process all the haggis he’ll have to mek due to the sheep. I reckon that ’ll be tonnage of haggis frozen. I’ll ask Veronica to put it on for supper in a week or two. I know his van lads will be tekkin some out, but I wonder if Christine could sell any on her internet shop. I’ll ask.”
The recent land purchases made it possible that Beebell on behalf of the Bearthwaite residents had become on paper almost as wealthy as Sasha. Others, outsiders, wondered how Bearthwaite had become wealthy enough to make such purchases, but even if they had been telt the economic model that was used in the valley they would neither have believed it, not understood it, for in Bearthwaite coöperation and shared objectives created wealth and a good standard of living for all along side trust and a sense of belonging and community, whereas in most other places the tunnel vision of personal greed only created wealth for some at the price of isolation and resentment from all others. Those with the wealth had to be constantly looking over their shoulders so as to see where those resentful others were, the ones who were but awaiting an opportunity, any opportunity, to pull them down. Too, they had no idea how Sasha’s contacts manipulated Beebell’s money as well as his own to create more money. Sasha’s contacts comprised an extremely competent group of individuals all over the globe who had financial insights that few others did. Insider trading?(7) Perhaps, but if that were the case none had ever produced a shred of evidence of any illegality and many had looked hard for it.
Something that had surprised most of the residents of Bearthwaite was how many outsiders were Bearthwaite folk without ever having known it. Recruitment was not easy and it was not anticipated it ever would become so, but it was not as difficult to find the right kind of folk as had been feared now that recruitment was more proactive, or more aggressive as Harwell had put it. Sasha as usual had his own views on the matter. “Most coöperative communities founder on power, sex or money. Power to us is something none can have. It is devolved to every adult in an equal share. Naturally some have greater influence than others, but any can call for a vote on any issue at any time. There is more than enough influence available here for any and all as wish it. Sex here is a matter of the individuals involved. None pry, but none are allowed to hurt others. If folk here are having a fling or in a relationship with more than one that is fine as long as they hurt none else. If they do, either it stops or they have to leave, we all know that. Yes relationships fail here, though not many. They fail for any number of reasons, but one failing and then one or both of the parties taking up with a new partner is one thing, an unfortunate but acceptable thing. Carrying on in such a way as to cause one to fail without having the integrity and courage to admit it thus causing grief and heartache is another thing altogether and not acceptable. It is not acceptable to live such that one is misleading a partner into believing a lie about their relationship. We all know this and we all live by the conduct that imposes on us or we have to leave. Money is not an issue to us here. How we live is. There are many wealthy folk amongst us who live well and use their money to enable more of us to live better, including themselves. It is what we have to do to enjoy our own lives to the full. Nothing is perfect, and Bearthwaite is certainly no utopia, for we have to keep evolving how we live as time moves on, but, and this is the key, we are aware that we have to do so. That is why we live well and it is not a difficult thing for many outsiders to see which is the point at which they are no longer outsiders.”
Sasha also had his own theory as to why the residents of Bearthwaite were thriving so well. “It’s possibly a bit like being Jewish in that persecution forced them to rely upon themselves. Jewish folk tend to only marry their own and that keeps their identity separate and alive. Your children are unlikely to marry folk who hate you and treat you badly. We are not faced with such extremes from most outsiders and we are ready to accept some of them as one of ourselves, but here is the crux of it, we only accept those who we are convinced are already at least potentially Bearthwaite folk, so our children are not marrying outsiders, for by the time they marry they are marrying Bearthwaite folk. We too have learnt to rely on ourselves due to the poor values of outsiders. We all know some outsiders say we are a clannish bunch belonging to a cult. Clannish yes and proud of it, but we of course would deny that we belong to a cult. However, maybe it’s not so far from the truth though not in the sense that outsiders mean. We look after our environment and all that dwells in it. We look after each other. We deal honestly even with outsiders, and when they abuse that we make them pay in any of dozens of ways. No matter what happens, we do not supply information about our own folk to any other. I could go on and on and on, but you already know what I am talking about because you are Bearthwaite folk.
“There is no holy text that we follow like most religions have, but we all know the rules of being one of us. Our youngsters take it in with their mothers’ milk. The folk who come to us as Bearthwaite folk from outside already know nearly all those rules, for that to them is the decent and proper way to live, and that is why they are acceptable to us. More to the point that’s why they wish to live here as one of us. We have changed over the last few decades, or more accurately we have changed ourselves. Why? Because it seemed to be appropriate and we all lived better as a result. Now we have a relatively sophisticated ethos and as time has gone on it has become more sophisticated and we have all lived better. It was not always so, but now tolerance is a key part of how we live. We are laught at by some for that, but once the word is spread amongst us about those laughing and traducing our reputations they soon stop laughing, for that’s at least twenty thousand folk who will not engage with those who abuse us. I know there are probably only ten thousand Bearthwaite adults, but we have many friends who whilst not one of us respect us, deal straight with us and like us. If those detractors are in trade that’s a serious loss to them, and it has closed several small village stores in areas where we live in numbers. It just meant two or three van deliveries a week rather than one. Vincent, Pete and Christine know how to deal with that and if required they can load up the bus for a major delivery. They’ve done that a few times already. Because we had money we were able to buy those stores when they failed and in turn we then refused to deal with customers who tret(8) us badly or spoke ill of us. We do believe in freedom of speech, but we also believe that all have the right to refuse to deal with anyone.
“We have all taken a leaf out of Alf’s book. Outsiders pay cash unless they are well known to us for their integrity. Some don’t like it, but as Alf maintains, that is probably the best reason for not dealing with them. Let them go and bother someone else for something they can’t afford. The interesting thing is that our population is increasing much more rapidly than our birth rate. Why? Because to decent thinking persons it makes sense, for it is far less stressful to live and work in a climate of trust, and it is known that we would be absolutely ruthless to any who broke faith with that for personal gain. We all make genuine mistakes and we are willing to give any the benefit of the doubt, but that only goes so far, and after having gone too far such a person would no longer be one of us. Although it has never come to it yet, I don’t doubt that it shall at some point in the future. When that happens, only the guilty should be rejected, not the innocents in their family. That may prove problematic if for example a couple are guilty, but their children have no involvement. We shall have to cross that bridge if and when we come to it.”
Other than where they were fenced in as part of a managed food resource sheep, deer and coneys were fenced out of most of the newly acquired fell land and the rest that wasn’t fenced was used to trap such livestock as strayed onto it for either rounding up and moving to be managed elsewhere or for slaughter for meat. Tony had offered some lurcher pups to the shepherds Harmon and Vinny to train as potential deer dogs. They were fast enough to herd deer, but far more difficult than border collies to train, but Harmon had said, “Once over collies must have been far less capable than they are now, so it’s only a matter of time, and we’ve got the time, generations of it.” Reforestation was undertaken using only native hardwoods, and where appropriate the three native conifers too, Scots pine, Yew and Juniper. Thirty-odd folk at Bearthwaite under the management of Thorbjörn Sveinsson were involved full time in the propagation, culture and subsequent planting of millions of young trees from existing stocks all derived from local specimens to avoid having to buy them in from outside and probably obtaining cultivars not as well suited to the local environment.
The intention was once sufficient land had been acquired and returned to its natural forested state to ultimately reintroduce the wolf and the lynx with or without official sanction as had already been done a few years previously with a few pairs of genetically pure wildcats, uncontaminated by domestic cat genetics, from the north western highlands of Scotland. The cats had been released in forest on Yell Fell, an extensive, isolated and difficult to access piece of land owned by Beebell a long way from any human habitation and hence any likely source of domestic cat DNA. Wildcat kittens had subsequently been sighted with their mothers by Bearthwaite foresters and rangers. The wildcats were different from wolf and lynx in that there had always been populations of them in Britain. They were considered to be in critical decline as a result of habitat loss and degradation, but if and when any were seen and conclusively identified as wildcats rather than feral tabby cats it would be assumed that the observed individuals were derived from the residual native population, and even if it were proven they came from abroad that would not be a criminal offence, whereas sightings of wolf or lynx could only be due to deliberate reintroductions and would be subject to intensive investigation, for that would arguably be in contravention of the The Wildlife & Countryside Act, nineteen eighty-one which made it an offence to release wild animals not normally found in the wild in the UK. Arguably because historically both were normally found in the wild in the UK and the act was open to interpretation regards that.
The decision to obtain some wildcats for release from the Ukraine and Moldova where the levels of domestic cat hybridisation were very low at worst and usually none existent which was a far more prevalent situation, had been taken, but the logistics of transporting them had yet to be finalised. Adio, who supplied the grumpy old men with a lot of their illicit spirits, had agreed that once the animals could be taken to a port where The Free Spirit, his ironically named, new, grossly overpowered ship that could out run any customs vessel and navy vessels too, was not likely to be blown out of the water by belligerent Russian or Ukrainian vessels. He would transport them to somewhere on the coast of Cumbria, exactly where to be decided upon nearer the time. He’d been emphatic that he’d only collect from the Adriatic Sea. He’d stated the Black Sea was a non starter he wasn’t even prepared to think about never mind to discus and he wasn’t prepared to accept a pick up from a port in the Aegean Sea either. He’d explained he had contacts who would be able to live trap cats without harming them in any way and who would have arranged in advance to have a properly qualified vet tranquillise them for a stress free journey with no questions asked.
He’d added that his contacts were environmentalists who were protective of their wildlife and were keen on the idea of extending the European wildcat population in western Europe where they were currently under threat. They would not consider taking older females and risk leaving defenceless kittens behind. He’d also said his contacts had telt him that it was entirely possible that there would be some that had been injured and were currently recuperating in wildlife sanctuaries to be eventually returned to the wild. The sanctuary staff would be happy to have them released in appropriate parts of Britain which would provide the best of all solutions for all concerned because the low population of wild cats in the UK would offer little competition to animals that possibly had some slight disability as a result of previous injury from traps or hunters. He also had contacts in the smuggling trade who would be able to transport the animals west to Split in Croatia, a port city most famous these days as a tourist destination, but it was also a notorious smugglers paradise where most of the port authorities were hand in glove with the smugglers. Split was his pick up port of preference because his ship and crew were well known there, and it would be seen that he was taking on board liquor of some kind, which was perfectly legal there, and as long as he paid the customary gratuities the officials and dockers would even help him to load his cargo, to smuggle into somewhere where it would be far too expensive were the duty to be paid.
At a meeting of the Beebell board with Adio and Alerica his wife it had been decided that it would be better from the animals’ point of view to rehome animals from sanctuaries rather than to live trap animals from the wild. Adio had been asked to arrange with his contacts to have all wildcats that came into the care of the sanctuaries to be destined for Bearthwaite. Sasha had added, “Naturally since we are wealthy and I suspect the sanctuaries are struggling financially it seems only right that we should provide considerable financial assistance to enable them to continue with the wonderful work they do.”
Elle, Sasha’s wife had said to Adio’s wife, “Find out which sanctuaries deserve financial help and those that don’t will you please, Alerica?” She’d received an understanding nod in reply.
Adio had asked, “What if there are more cats than you can manage hereabouts? I understand in the wild they are widely distributed each requiring a considerable territory.”
Hamilton had replied, “There are always the Cairngorms, Kielder, Whinlatter and various other large forested areas in the north, and after all it will be assumed the population of wildcats is increasing and they are spreading out. However, yet again, Tree Huggers Incorporated(9) will unwittingly do our work for us, for it won’t take them long to have special protection orders slapped on the cats and on their environment. The entire nation will be blinded by the reflection off them as they preen themselves in the light of publicity yet again for a wholly undeserved credit for an accomplishment that was not theirs. Unlike them we seek the goal not the credit, but fear not, like all such vainglorious fools they have been sowing the seeds of their own downfall for decades. My only hope is I live long enough to see it.”
Sovereign Property Managements, SPM, who had always had a commitment to never selling land because even if worthless at the time it may not be in future centuries, had after long winded and drawn out electronic negotiations finally accepted an acre for acre exchange for the land along the northern side of the Bearthwaite valley that included Flat Top Fell for far more productive and valuable land that Beebell had purchased in Cheshire contiguous with a large SPM property purely in order to negotiate and facilitate the exchange. Adalheidis and Jimmy had been meeting in her office in the old bobbin mill. Adalheidis was thirty-five and Jimmy was sixty, but despite that Adalheidis was the lead solicitor because she specialised in contract law whereas Jimmy specialised in family law. Adalheidis had smiled with a wolf like grin to Jimmy and said, “This is the point at which it will become interesting, Jimmy, for now it is time for face to face negotiations, and there is no way they will negotiate with anything remotely like integrity. Since they forgot what dealing in good faith means centuries rather than generations ago this is where either we gouge them on the price or they retreat licking their wounds regretting all the money they just threw away. I’ve already cut what I’m prepared to offer in half from two acres to one of prime dairying land for one of Flat Top Fell. Their man who makes the decisions is Malcolm Menzies. He’s an arrant snob, a bigot and not too bright. He could have concluded this months ago at a much better price, but I wasn’t surprised by events. So far everything is going exactly as I anticipated it would.”
“I’ve read your briefing notes through numerous times during the last ten days and that Anneliese Þórsdóttir, which I’m sure I didn’t pronounce correctly, seems remarkably competent and intelligent too. Her sidekick seems to be a waste of space, I know she’s the opposition, but I can’t help but believe that she deserves better than him. So what are we really going up against, Adalheidis? Are they any good?”
“This is their lead negotiator’s business card, she sent me a dozen in exchange for a dozen of mine. As you can see it has her as Anneliese Þórsdóttir which in English would be Anneliese Thor’s Daughter. She explained that in her email though I already knew that having some familiarity with the spooky Icelandic letters that used to exist in the English alphabet too. That one is called thorn, the lower case letter looks like a letter p [þ] but with an ascender as well as the descender. Another looks like a curly dee with a line through the ascender and is called eth [ð]. The upper case is like a capital dee with a horizontal line through the vertical ascender [Ɖ]. Their third spooky letter is called ash or æsh in English. It’s what is referred to as ay ee [a e] ligature in English, which is where the a and the e are squashed together horizontally as if they were one letter [æ or Æ]. Acute accents over vowels, like over the o which occurs twice in her name with an accent over it (ó), mostly change the sound from a short vowel to a long vowel. I reckon she must be even more strong minded than the reports on her I’ve read. Due to its origins as the land agents to the crown SPM is a throw back to before the middle ages and won’t have readily accepted that she is not willing to give up her identity just because they can’t cope with a letter English hasn’t used for a while, and they can’t be bothered to learn how to pronounce, you got it near enough correct by the way. She’s half Icelandic and half Norwegian and as you said very competent, her weak point is her employers who will doubtless hamstring her abilities in order to make her conform with their traditions. Our research suggests that she is a honourable woman, but I reckon this is the point at which her bosses will lean on her, so that she will not be empowered to bring matters to a conclusion which will cost them more money. Her sidekick as you referred to him as is a useless bigot, but he does whatever he’s telt, be it howsoever stupid, so he’s useless to Anneliese and perfect for us. She’d be better off without him. That would be one less thing on her mind to worry about. I can’t see them allowing that though because they won’t trust her.”
“Because she’s not English?”
“Yes. The SPM bosses don’t trust the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish, the northern English too come to that, so she’s got no chance. It baffles me how she got the job. Usually they only employ what they refer to as ‘one of our sort,’ to wit a southerner of the right class with the right background. I suspect they employed her to do background research digging due to her brilliance, but as their financial situation deteriorated they ended up with ever increasingly frequent situations where even they could see any of the boneheads of their own sort would be hopelessly outclassed by any one of any law firm’s office juniors meaning they increasingly had to use her to negotiate. Menzies is her department boss, he’ll be in his early sixties. He’s arrogant, stupid, bigoted and he hates me, all of which make dealing with him a wonderful experience because I don’t feel any sympathy for him and want to rip his heart out to eat it in front of him.”
“Because you’re trans?”
“Yes, but even more so because on the three occasions we’ve gone head to head he left the arena smarting and haemorrhaging money considerably, and I’ve already cost him what could end up being as much as twenty million on this deal. It would have been six months ago when I offered him two acres for one. He messed me about expecting me to go back cap in hand to him. Obviously he hadn’t learnt owt from our previous encounters. I just left it till he contacted me which he clearly choked on. I heard that the rumours I set about concerning us buying other land bothered him. Apparently when word went round that I had closed the deal on The Needles Fell estate with Chance he had a minor seizure. Maybe this deal will see him off. I can but live in hope.”
“Christ, Adalheidis, you are one hard lady.”
“Well I reckon I can be a right bitch, but it comforts me that you think I’m a lady in spite of that.”
Jimmy laught and said, “Aye, but just remember we’re on the same side, so try to avoid biting me. Have you ever met him?”
“Just once. Our first two negotiations were electronic to do with land access rights rather than purchases, and I came out better on those deals than he did. The third one was face to face concerning a plot that we’d already bought from elsewhere and were selling to SPM in a complicated deal that gave us rights to much easier accesses through SPM land to a much larger estate of ours over Ullswater way. Part of the deal was we installed a couple of dozen cattle grids on the access roads and SPM paid us for doing so. I knew they would put off paying for the cattle grids for years. It’s what they do. However, it was a ploy on my part so as to have them owing us money, not a lot of money, but money nay the less. That way when it suits us to either take them to court or negotiate with a liquidator at a bankruptcy hearing I can represent all their other creditors pro bono as well as us without appearing to be vindictive. It was before that meeting that I discovered the rumours that he’s a dirty old man and a lecher. Which I discovered to be true. I admit I deliberately dressed provocatively and it worked.” Adalheidis smiled and said, “Only Matthew has ever seen that much of my cleavage before. I could see the lust in his eyes, his excitement in his trousers and the shame on his face because he knew I was trans. I’d made damned sure he knew that because I knew it would be to my advantage if he couldn’t concentrate on the matter we were negotiating. I reckon we came out maybe three hundred thousand in front because he was keeping his brains in his trousers. That’ll be why he has Anneliese acting for them this time, but like I said they won’t trust her.”
Jimmy grinned and said, “You’re a bad lady and a naughty girl, Adalheidis. So where does that all leave us now?”
“If you’d asked me a couple of years ago, I’d have said that this matter could have taken a few decades to conclude, but I think not. Due to governmental changes, SPM are currently starved for liquidity(10) with which to meet their current and imminently due liabilities, and they have nothing left to put up as securities for a loan that any of their permitted sources of capital, which have to be UK controlled, are willing to take the chance on. If they try to issue promissory notes rather than paying cash all of their major creditors who are large enough to finance this will refuse point blank to deal with them till they redeem their existing promissory notes and the consequent loss of income would exacerbate their lack of liquidity problems which would be a disaster for them. So one way or another, if they don’t deal with us on our terms, they are going to have to sell some of their assets at fire salvage prices which will embarrass them and hurt them financially. They don’t know it yet, though I suspect Anneliese does, but we are their only hope, because we are the only ones with sufficient liquidity who are prepared to pay heavily over the odds for a specific asset we specifically want.
“One way or another they will get back to us within the next twelve months but I suspect less than half that. Oh, they’ll wriggle and bugger us about, but every time they do I’ll drop the offer by ten percent. It won’t take them long to get the message, but if I finally end up dropping the price to zero and refuse to deal with them I’ll take them to court over what they already owe us and as I said offer to act pro bono publico for their other creditors. I’ll put forward a compromise solution which will be accepted because I’ll offer just enough for the court to be able to pay all SPM’s outstanding debts to their creditors, and the court won’t be bothered about owt else. If the court refuses my offer and mess me about I’ll make SPM bankrupt which will put so much egg on so many establishment faces the government will be obliged to step in which will probably be the end of SPM as an independent organisation. However, none of that is going to happen. Trust me, one way or another I’ll get the deal I want. As it is I have already prepared a letter of explanation as to why they just screwed the deal up and what that is going to cost them. Here have a look.”
After a half a minute Jimmy asked, “You think this is what’s really going to happen?”
“I’d put a decent bottle of malt on it, but that would be stealing off you, and I don’t do that to my friends, but Matthew and I’ll share one with you and Hayley after dinner when we’ve won if you like.”
Sovereign Property Managements had at the last minute, as had been expected by Adalheidis, insisted on retaining various rights including the sporting and mineral rights to what lay upon and beneath what they were parting with. Adalheidis had said to Anneliese Þórsdóttir, their senior negotiating solicitor, “No. You know damned well you are already making somewhere between between three and five million sterling(11) on the deal you accepted. I want everything thing that was initially offered. There is no way I am going to allow a bunch of faithless, lying thieves to rip me off. You made no mention of retaining any rights, so to do the deal with me you retain nowt, no rights to owt because that was what my offer was based upon. The deer, grouse, pheasants and all other game, any coal, ore or whatever lies under it are mine, alternatively you can shove the deal to where the sun doesn’t shine. That is non negotiable, and more to the point it is what you initially agreed to. I’m looking to you to keep your word, though admittedly your employers are not known for their integrity nor even if it comes right down to it their honesty either.”
Though embarrassed at the truth of what Adalheidis had accused her employers of, Anneliese had calmly replied, “I’m sure we can come to some equitable and amicable agreement here.”
“We can,” Adalheidis had replied in steel hard tones. “I get what you offered for sale and I agreed to buy and you make a lot of money. That’s it, done and dusted. Either we close the deal right now on the agreed terms or it’s off and my offer is withdrawn. Don’t bother wasting my time with anything else because I’m not interested. I won’t even return your phone calls because I’m not going to pay you a penny for something I don’t want. And for the record if you do get back to me including all rights my offer has just gone down by ten percent due to you messing me about and trying to chisel me on what I would receive for a price you had already accepted. Now you have rejected that deal by changing what you are offering for sale we start afresh. One acre of Flat Top Fell for point nine acres of lush dairy land is now my best offer. Take it or leave it, but still no retained rights or there is no offer. And I’ll add that to the contract, so there can be no arguing about it at a later date when we discover a gold mine under the fell. If we get that far that is. If you agree to that and mess me about again my offer goes down to point eight acres. Every time I get messed about my offer goes down by point one of an acre. Here is a summary of what just happened. You may find it useful to stop that arrogant pervert Malcolm Menzies from blaming you for his failings. If we meet again I suggest you find a new partner, preferably one who unlike that smug idiot sitting next to you, and Malcolm too, can keep their eyes out of my cleavage.” At that she and Jimmy stood up and Jimmy had opened the door and held it open for Adalheidis to precede him as they had walked out.
Clive Amhurst, one of the Crown’s solicitors, a young man of about thirty, said, “She’ll come around and change her mind eventually because they want the land due to where it is. It’s not as if there’s any time pressure on us to reach a deal is it? And that ten percent nonsense was just a bluff.”
Anneliese, a woman in her early fifties, said, “You clearly haven’t done your homework on her, nor on what little is known about those she represents, Clive, and you obviously don’t know too much about what’s going on in our own bailiwick(12) either. She’s probably the toughest and the best contract negotiating solicitor you’ll ever meet. For sure, you’ll never be anywhere near as good as she is, and I can only hold my own against her because I represent SPM. She knows what she wants, and isn’t going to give us anything at all if she doesn’t get it, all of it. Like we normally can, she can afford to wait generations if need be, and she’ll make damned certain that if in years to come we are at the table again her heirs are every bit as good as she is, and the cost of dealing with her will have gone up dramatically.
“I suggest you read what she just gave me. She knew exactly what was going to happen at today’s meeting and from the date on this printer output she knew months ago. However, you’ve just proved your inadequacy yet again because these are not normal times for us, and there’s a huge amount of time pressure on us to reach a deal. At the moment we can’t wait generations. I opine we have less than a couple of months before the court cases against us to recover monies we have written promissory notes to pay start to pile up. Our creditors have been warning us that their patience has been wearing thin for some time. I doubt they’ll warn us again other than with a court summons. I also suspect that we shall not be confronting a large number of individual court cases that we could easily have deferred over time as each came up to court, but a class action represented by the legal team from Beebell headed by Mrs Levens. At last I understand why Beebell never pursued that trivial sum of money we owed them for the installation of those cattle grids. It means they can go to court against us with their best legal minds on behalf of not just themselves but also all the other persons and companies we owe money to without appearing small minded. We will lose badly, looking like the thieving, conniving fools that we are, and there will be a huge compensation claim that we shall have to pay within a calendar month or the court shall impose much more significant penalties. Christ that woman is cute.(13)
“We need a source of liquid capital right now, and she is the only one this side of our current horizons who can provide it, for we can use that land she’s offering to exchange for ours as security to raise a loan. We have nothing left that is not already securing a loan that anyone is prepared to accept as security. We have six, maybe eight, weeks before we have to start selling land and or property, and all we’ll get for it will be give away prices because everyone in the money business is aware of how we are fixed, and for sure she is. The last person who tried to raise a loan for SPM on property already securing a loan did so ten years ago and he has ten years still do do. He’ll be eligible to apply for parole some time soon. I don’t get paid enough to go there, not even for SPM who I doubt will reward him in any way for what he did on their behalf. I doubt he’ll even have a job to go to.
“And no, that ten percent was not a bluff. You just watched at the very least over a million quid,(14) probably two or even a hell of a sight more, walk out of that door with her. The more we delay the less all our assets become worth not just the one she wants because we need liquidity and all the assets we have are anything but liquid. We’re not far off being in a fire salvage sale situation, though I doubt that Malcolm will see it that way till it’s too late. We could conceivably take a quarter billion Sterling hit as a result of this. I can tell from the look on your face you think I’m just a over cautious old woman and we’ll deal with her with no problems. You’ve only ever seen women like me power dress to do business. Then she waltzed in like a pretty little girl wearing that low cut flower print summer frock with a man who looked old enough to be her father and you assumed he was the chief negotiator and went to shake his hand first. She knew you wouldn’t have done your homework, so she set you up to look like an idiot, and you fell for it, all of it, hook, line and sinker. Her cleavage had you off balance and thinking she was the older man’s decorative plaything from the moment she came in, and from the moment you realised your mistake you were stuffed. No one can recover from a mistake of that magnitude, so you were even less useful to me than usual. That confirms that as always she did her home work on us and on you in particular. If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times, do your bloody homework. It’s not up to me to do it for you.
“I’ll explain yet again how these things work. He was her number two, and was purely here so they could analyse the meeting records afterwards from two different points of view, male and female. She never goes into meetings accompanied by a woman, and it’s usually James Claverton or Chance Kerr who accompanies her. James, who was with her today, is a family law solicitor, one of the best who’s recovered millions on behalf of Bearthwaite divorcees and their children who’ve been left by spouses originally from elsewhere, and unlike you he is a gentleman with impeccably good manners. I’ve never seen you hold a door open for anyone, not even for Malcolm. Chance Kerr is a barracuda like accountant of about her age. I couldn’t get away with dressing like she does because I’d be eaten alive, but she’s so dangerously competent that she can wear and look which ever the hell way she feels like and still out negotiate the pants off the opposition. Right now she’s riding a high, I’m feeling like whipped dog and you are too stupid and idle to realise what just happened. Working for SPM does not constitute having a magic cloak that will protect you from all the nasty girls and boys out there. Only competence and knowing the facts, all the facts, will do that because they don’t give a stuff whom you work for, and that young woman is as savage an apex predator as they come. She’s already made billions for her principals, whoever they are who are really behind that coöperative she claims to work for. She’s got god alone knows how many billions of liquidity behind her. It’s entirely possible it’s trillions not billions.
“She has a team of equally gifted and savage accountants to call on, led not by Chance Kerr but by his mentor one Murray McBride who’s technically been retired for years. To top it all she has a research team that is second to none at digging up both digital and documentary evidence. She may even have read through our hard copy files on the matter. For sure she’ll have had our digital files hacked, by one of her team whose identity isn’t known, but who’s reputed to be able hack and alter anyone’s data in such a way as they’ll never even know anyone has been there. It isn’t even known whether her hacker is male or female. That’s why I don’t have anything of any significance at all other than as a single hard copy and I keep things like that in my briefcase. Right now she’s holding a royal flush, and we’ve got a busted nothing. What need has she to bluff? If that class action suit ever gets to court we shall be crucified to the point where we’ll have to make three quarters of our staff redundant and in order to pay the redundancy payments we’ll have to part with at least a quarter of our assets. She not only knew that, she manipulated our senior staff via their bigotry to set it all up for her. If this goes south on us we’ll be disbanded by the government and they’ll take direct charge of whatever remains of SPM, which will mean wholesale redundancies. The truly sick, insane thing is that she’s not doing it to us. We’re doing it to ourselves.
“The only question we had to answer was did we wish to retain ownership of rights that are probably of zero value at any time in the future purely because that’s what we traditionally have done for centuries, or would we have preferred to make probably ten to twelve million. Malcolm screwed up yet again and that ten to twelve million is right now only worth eight or nine. Yes I know she said three to five, but she was understating it, and she knew that I knew that too. That’s prime quality dairying land she’s sitting on, and there’s no debt on it, so she doesn’t have to do anything because she has time on her side. The land isn’t going anywhere, and she doesn’t have to service a loan on it. All we’ve got to offer that she’s interested in is a bracken infested mountain that’s over a thousand feet above sea level with a bloody great chunk of a rock plateau sitting in the middle of it that goes up another fifteen hundred feet. It’s too steep to plough and the whole damned lot is scarcely good enough for grazing sheep on during the warmer months of the year. It’s a complete non starter as regards a shooting estate, and it represents too high a risk for anyone to accept it as security to lend money on. It’s worth bugger all to anyone else, so why the hell she wants it I can’t even begin to guess. And just in case you didn’t realise it she was taking the piss(15) suggesting a gold mine. A thousand years ago it would have made a damned good hill fort, hell it probably was one at some point, but unfortunately those days are long gone.” It was ironic that of all her speculations as to Adalheidis’ motives, which Anneliese had kept to herself, that was the one that was nearest to the truth.
“Malcolm messed her about and had us drag our heels regarding actually sitting down to negotiate. He honestly believed that someone would cut him some slack and advance money with bugger all in the way of security to hold on to in the meanwhile just because we are SPM. I heard a whisper from a reliable source in the city(16) that Adalheidis initially offered two acres for one, but that was six months ago. Malcolm could conceivably have netted twenty-five million off this deal, and all our problems would have evaporated. The deal is probably worth eight or nine to us now and six at best if we mess her about again. Every time we mess her about it’s going to cost us a couple of million. In his mind Malcolm kept her dangling on a hook baited with a deal he had no intention of going through with just on the off chance that he may have needed her at some point in the future, and she obviously knew that, which indicates that she knows a hell of a lot more about our financial situation than any of us were prepared to believe possible. It wouldn’t surprise me to discover she has copies of our bank statements and internal accounts going back for the last five years.
“Malcolm doesn’t do his homework either, and worse he doesn’t even instruct someone to do it for him. He can’t claim he was set up because he did this to himself. She just provided him with the opportunity to do so, he didn’t have to take it, but she’ll know as much about him as we do, if not more, and that will include the fact that he wouldn’t have been able to resist the honey coated trap she offered him. She knew that his arrogance would prevent him even seeing it as a trap. Even if as I suspect she set those whispers going round herself, she’d have honoured them to the letter, with no tricks or chicanery of any sort. That’s how she operates and why she’s so highly thought of in not just the city, but in every financial centre on the globe. And she demands the same ethics off everyone she deals with, or she makes them pay. There are any number of huge international finance houses who would sell their souls to have her negotiating on their behalfs, but she stays with that outfit that runs as Beebell who present to the world as a small outfit based in Cumbria, though their head quarters could be anywhere on the globe. I assume she stays with them because they are larger than all the other outfits bidding for her and pay better. We’re used to being considered to be a big fish and the UK is a relatively small pond, but by her standards we’re a very small fish in a bloody enormous pond. That they are so much bigger than us is something we need to bear in mind.
“Malcolm screwed up so badly on at least half a dozen counts that we ended up in the situation we are now in. He only finally instructed me to sit down and talk business with her because he’d painted himself into a corner and had no other choice left to him, but even then his arrogance and refusal to accept the evidence in front of his eyes spiked any deal I could strike before we even entered the room. She knew what was going to happen and had prepared for it. Despite every appearance to the contrary she was enjoying herself. There is only one intelligent choice for us to make now, but it’s Malcolm’s decision to make, not mine. However, I shall advise the powers that be in writing what their options are, but I doubt that they’ll take it on board thinking like you and Malcolm that she’ll eventually back down, but she has no reason to back down ever. She knows as well as everyone else the Crown is losing influence and SPM’s assets are continuing to be eroded away by the government because it’s under their indirect control and they want the assets as security to bolster their failing economic policies.
“She is only too aware that eventually the Crown, like the rest of the aristocracy, will be history. Christ, it’s not a state secret. Any one who reads a decent paper knows that, and the Labour party has had a commitment to do away with inherited privilege and power for over a century. The only thing that’s saving the Crown and the Aristocracy from them at the moment is they don’t really wish to do away with inherited privilege and power they want to take them over and become the aristocracy and divide the cake that is the Crown and SPM up amongst them. Their only saving grace from the Crown’s point of view is they are all greedy and will squabble on for a long time because they don’t want that division to be an equal one. They all want a lager slice of the cake than everyone else.
“Her fall back position is that SPM may eventually be forced to sell what she wants at a fire salvage price and she can wait to snap it up, and she’ll get it not someone else because she’ll double anyone else’s offer and still buy it for what she considers to be a steal. If we have to sell land it’ll be the poorer properties that are put up for sale first. Properties like the land containing Flat Top Fell that we can do nothing with other than say we own them. She’s more or less your age, and if in the future you end up negotiating with her she’ll eat you alive or walk out on you leaving you to starve. She’s got nothing to lose. God alone knows why, but she’ll be taking a minimum hit of five million on this exchange, maybe double that, and she’s clearly happy to do so as long as she gets all the rights which bothers me. I don’t like dealing with persons whose motives I don’t understand, and even less do I like dealing with persons whose principals I can’t even begin to hazard a guess at as to their identity. We don’t even have as much in the kitty to play with at the moment as she’s prepared to threw away to achieve her unknown goals, because none of our assets, large as they be, are liquid and we’ve reached the end of any line of credit that anyone is prepared to extend to us.
“Our fall back position at best is in the short term we keep the land and the rights and make no money. Then we’ll have our pants sued off us in court, and we end up parting with what she wants as a result of a court order she negotiates with the judge in our absence, so she gets what she wants for free in return for representing all the others, and we have to sell within a court determined space of time sufficient assets at give away prices to meet our debts. She will advise the court which assets should be sold, and they’ll go with her advice because she’ll be putting up the money and the last thing they’ll be wanting to happen is that she decides to walk away from it all and let them deal with the matter, and Malcolm was too arrogant to see that. Like I said, Christ is she cute! The rumour is, which I suspect is true as a result of her past performances, that unlike us when she goes in to negotiate her principals give her a completely free hand, and unlimited resources. Seemingly they tell her what they want at the far end of it and trust her to get it for them as a result of the best deal she can negotiate.
“Think about it, would Malcolm even have considered dealing with her if she’d offered cash for the Flat Top Fell site. No is the obvious answer. She knew that, so she negotiated the purchase of the dairy land in Cheshire that is contiguous with one of our larger properties purely to be able to dangle it in front of Malcolm, and he took the bait. It took her two years to buy that land and it wasn’t cheap, though there were said to be a lot of other elements of the deal that never appeared on paper. She’s been setting this up according to some of my sources for going on five years, three at the very least. Malcolm doesn’t even know what the year will be in five years time. Without doubt she will get Flat Top Fell at a price she is more than willing to pay simply because that to her is the far end of this particular deal. When? God alone knows, but she will get it.
“Malcolm is so bitter about her that he seriously considered having the Flat Top Fell land given to the nation as a small national park just to deny it to her. Then he heard the rumour that if he did the money lost from Beebell could possibly be recovered from his pension pot and such a move would certainly cost him his knighthood.(17) Her offer was manna from heaven to SPM who as I said are strapped for cash and that is going to get much worse for all of the foreseeable future, and without doubt she knew that too because she always does her homework. She probably knows more about the two of us than we do, and it wouldn’t surprise me to discover that she was the originator of those rumours flying round the city concerning Malcolm’s pension and knighthood, for she has many friends there and he has none. I’ve often wondered if he has any friends anywhere. I know his wife left him for someone else after just a couple of years of marriage and he’s never managed to be in a relationship since other than what he’s had to pay for. What I can’t help but wonder is what is she going to want off us next, maybe that land of ours over Ullswater way. Unlike what she’s selling it is in her neck of the woods. Money means absolutely nothing to whomever she represents. They paid well over the odds for that huge shooting estate on the other side of the valley from Flat Top Fell, which incidentally she negotiated with Chance Kerr acting as her other pair of eyes. It’s several times the size of what she wants off us, and that was just a small part of a deal that involved the purchase of a hell of a sight more land than the shooting estate.
“The first thing that was done with it was to fence it, close it to shooting and start planting hardwood trees, mostly oaks I’m told, on it that won’t produce an income for a couple of centuries. That parcel of land must be fifty thousand acres. If the rumours are true what she bought with it from the same owners elsewhere took the total purchase up to more than four times that. It’s not known what she paid for it all, but it is known that it was all paid for in total from a current account, with no loan on it. Some of the Saudi princes and their friends were paying fifty grand each a day to shoot deer or pheasants there, and it earnt the previous owners a tidy fortune. Her principals closed it, so one can only conclude her principals don’t need the income. Where their money comes from and what their ultimate objectives are are anybody’s guess. I know people in the city who can sneer at major Zurich bankers who treat her with a respect bordering on fear, so god alone knows how much in terms of total assets she’s fronting for. Worse, when I started to ask questions about her, every one clammed up, no one admitted to knowing anything about her, and then suddenly within a couple of hours they were all too busy to talk to me.
“On top of that she has the physical muscle of a private army at her beck and call. A team of armed security guards referred to as rangers who are trained in fire arms use, and god alone knows what else, by the army because they’re all Territorial Army Volunteer Reserve members. The Beebell directorate have a good relationship with the army and allow them to do training exercises on some of their more inhospitable and difficult terrain. Terrain so difficult that the army are glad to have access to it for their more seasoned and experienced troops. There’s a rumour that some of the special forces are challenged by what the army puts them through there though the rangers aren’t. Anyway back to that land they recently acquired. There’s a tale doing the rounds that local land owners had been illegally grazing sheep for decades on that estate they fenced off. After it was fenced those land owners cut the fences and drove tens of thousands of sheep onto the land. Seemingly they waited to see what would happen knowing a civil court case would cost Beebell a fortune and probably achieve nothing. The fences were mended and that was the end of the matter.
“How do you mean that was the end of the matter? What happened next?”
“Nothing happened next because the sheep all disappeared. What could their owners do? Admit they’d illegally damaged the fences in order to steal the grazing. Down here grass only exists in parks and is a nuisance that folk have to pay to have cut, but up there it is the raw material of their major industry, which is raising sheep for meat and it’s worth a lot of money. Millions of hectares of grazing goes under the auctioneers’ hammers up there every year. So nothing happened, and nobody ever touched the fences again. The grazing thieves lost a fortune’s worth of sheep, if the rumours are true several million quid’s worth, and nobody has a clue as to where they went. A lot of the owners of those sheep went bankrupt and Mrs Leven graciously helped them on their way and then bought up all their farms via proxies at auction. Then the rangers recruited and trained more men to patrol their assets and those men are legally armed. She’s a dangerous woman for anyone who is less than honest to deal with, but she has a reputation for straight and honest dealings with anyone who is the same.
“Back to our problem. Her price for what she’s prepared to negotiate with has already risen because we messed her about. Up till just now there had been no mention of any retained rights, though she knew that we would do that because we always do. As she sees it, we are not merely guilty of misrepresentation we lied to her about what we were selling and we upped our price at the last minute, which in truth we did by omitting to mention the retained rights from the beginning, and she’ll make us pay for that simply because she can. When we changed what we were selling she said ‘No thanks. I don’t want to buy that, so all negotiation up to that point became legitimately and morally void.’ She then made an offer for what she did want to buy. She behaved impeccably. We were the ones whose dealings were dishonourable. As soon as I was informed her initial offer was on the table I told Malcolm we should be completely open about it, but I was ignored and told to conduct the negotiations the way we’d always done for centuries.
“It was six months after her initial contact before I became aware she’d offered Malcolm two acres of dairy land for one of the fell land and that he’d stalled her for four months. When he got back to her her offer had reduced to one acre for one acre, and Malcolm learned nothing from that, which cost us between ten and fifteen million. Then he stalled her for a further two months. Then with his back against the wall I was brought in. You’d think I’d have been briefed on what had happened up till that point wouldn’t you, but oh no I was kept in the dark about all previous contacts. I only know what I do because I have city contacts of my own and am well thought of. Still, at least I’m not going to be held accountable for what this is going to cost us. Thank god she agreed to all negotiations, electronic and face to face, being videoed. If by a miracle SPM is still around in five years time and, even more miraculously, I still have a job with them, I’ll raise the matter again. If her offer is still on the table that is, but I can’t see her offering anything like an acre for acre exchange then. Her price always goes up if she’s messed about, and it’ll probably be half an acre for an acre by then, if not less, and even at that we’d be making money. I suggest you do your homework to find out what I mean.”
“Doesn’t she have any loyalty to the Crown?”
“Oh grow up, Clive, this is business not a bloody Mills and Boon(18) romance, and despite what the powers that be would have us believe SPM is not the Crown, it’s been a self controlled branch of the government for well over a century. The straight answer to your question is no she doesn’t. She’s half Berlin German and half Cumbrian. She’s also trans and was given nothing but grief by the English for over thirty years till she went to Bearthwaite. Her father treated her so appallingly, both physical and mental abuse, that she didn’t bother going to his funeral. He was from Newton Arlosh in Cumbria, which was where she was born and grew up, but now she’s all Bearthwaite, and they have more in common with the very old fashioned Scandinavian cultures than yours. If you scratch any of them they bleed Viking blood and many of their middle aged and elder folk have Dupuytren’s contracture,(19) the so called Viking disease. Viking names found nowhere else in Britain are commonplace at Bearthwaite. Some of them haven’t been used in Iceland for going on a thousand years. Photographs of their cemetery shew Hogback grave markers just like were used by Vikings over a thousand years ago. Other than at Bearthwaite they have not been used for about nine hundred years, but the most recent at Bearthwaite are less than a year old. Bearthwaite’s people despise Remembrance Day, and from all accounts their reasons for doing so are not without merit. She’s one tough, and, when she considers it to be necessary, brutal lady, incredibly intelligent and a natural survivor, and she’s found herself a perfect environment that appreciates her and her talents and provides her with the opportunities to use them.”
“She’s trans! I mean he’s trans! I’m surprised Malcolm allowed you to deal with him. I thought you said he never worked with a woman to get a male and a female perspective. That doesn’t make any sense. And how did you find all that out about the people who live at Bearthwaite?”
“God, folk like you sicken me, Clive. It’s attitudes like that that ensure you’ll never be better than a third rate negotiator and a tenth rate human being. She, yes she, not he, is trans. She provides the female perspective. That’s how she thinks because that’s what she is. Feeling queasy now are you because you fancied her and couldn’t get your eyes out of her cleavage? This is now, not nineteen fifty-something, and there was no justification for those attitudes then never mind now. Even before Malcolm knew she was trans, as a result of his own idiocy she’d already taken him to the cleaners on two separate deals. I heard the only time they met, which was for their third deal, that she’d made sure he knew she was trans and she dressed to provoke his interest. I guess she’d found out by then he’s a perve, everyone else seems to know. Every time I’ve ever been in his company my skin crawls and I’ve told him point blank if the price of keeping my job is to be alone in a room with him he can stuff the job. Most of the other women here feel the same too.
“However when they met, I guess he was too busy being embarrassed by his lust for what he saw as a bloke with a cleavage to focus on negotiating and after skinning him on their last deal for in excess of a quarter million she nailed him to the wall financially and socially with the city. Then this deal came along, and her being trans and their last meeting were almost certainly a major part of why Malcolm buggered her about for six months. because, impossible as that seems, he’s an even bigger bigot than you are and clearly enjoyed yanking her chain, but in the end it all blew up in his face, as she knew it would. After he’d messed her about for half a year when he got back to her she dropped her offer to fifty percent of what she initially offered and by then Malcolm couldn’t afford to walk away. He had no choice but to continue negotiations with her because she had the money and nobody else was even prepared to talk to him about a loan. I was probably brought in to negotiate this one because he couldn’t face her again, and the best he could do was to leave it to me to clean up the mess he’d created.
“And just for your information her husband is maybe nine inches taller than you and built like a brick built outhouse. He’s in the construction trades and worships the ground she walks on, so I wouldn’t say anything insulting in an attempt to make her feel bad if you value your hide because he would come looking for you. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done just that. He had to be dragged off the last guy who insulted her by a dozen blokes, all friends of his, including his three brothers who are all the same size as he is or he have killed the guy by tearing him apart with his bare hands. I don’t know what was said, but the guy who’d spent eight weeks in hospital, the first two in intensive care, refused to press charges, though I heard he’d threwn the first punch and would have been unlikely to win the case. As for how I found out about the people who live at Bearthwaite, most of it is readily available on the internet if you just Google for it. A search through the local press archives will turn up most of the rest. A few hundred quid spent on a local private investigator paid dividends, though he was escorted from the valley within ten minutes of arriving at the village. He was told by a man who appeared to be in his late seventies or early eighties who spoke with what Fulman thought to be an east European accent, ‘Do not return. The valley will prove to be not good for your health. Do not send anyone else. We were expecting you, Mr Fulman. That is your real name is it not, Mark? Price is just a name of convenience is it not?’ Those were the only words that were spoken to him, for he’d been studiously ignored by everyone he’d approached. He’d given up with adults, and so tried children, but a girl of about eight playing with other girls about the same age pointed a shotgun at him whilst another texted on her phone. The shotgun was pointed at him till a group of men, big men, really big men some about seven foot tall and of massive build arrived.
“One of the men was a hugely muscled elderly black man who smiled and nodded to the girl with the shot gun at which point Fulman saw her smile in return and take the cartridge out of her shotgun. The girl put the shotgun down and the girls all resumed playing hopscotch. Nobody hurt him, but his totally silent escort out of the valley made it clear that would cease as soon as he offered any resistance. Still he was worth the cost because he picked up a huge amount of information locally but outside the valley. Most of it was clearly just bigotry, a lot concerning the LGBTP folks who live at Bearthwaite. However, it is clear they are very different from people outside and live very differently. There’re a few thousands of families live there and some more of them who live on land owned by Beebell elsewhere, yet the only records of house sales there are of outsiders buying from the previous owners who were also outsiders and then selling up to leave, and they all sold to Beebell who do not sell to outsiders. They will rent to selected outsiders and when they are convinced they are no longer outsiders, and I couldn’t find out how they do that, they will sell to someone they then regard as one of themselves. Too, where the hell else do eight year old girls wander about with loaded shotguns with adult approval. Apart from being illegal it’s bloody dangerous.
“Average incomes in the valley are ridiculously low. So low that most residents are on Council tax relief and pay no income tax because they don’t earn enough. They grow virtually all their own food, and tax inspectors have discovered no irregularities at all. Every single person they interviewed was accompanied by a solicitor and an accountant, and at the end of it the tax men were screwed to the floor and obliged to pay considerable refunds. They’ve tried investigating three times and ended up refunding money three times. The big farms, the inn and associated brewery and distillery are very cleverly run by the Beebell coöperative as charities that support the elderly, single mothers and the like that live there. They also takes homeless kids off the streets from all over the UK and provide them with families, education, jobs and a future all of which not only reduces their tax burden massively to virtually nil it pays them a small fortune in grants. Again investigations shew them to be completely kosher. Bearthwaite School which is legally the Bearthwaite Educational Establishment was for some time the only educational arrangement in the UK free from Ofsted inspection. When Ofsted tried to force an inspection they were legally forced to apologise and agree to stay away. Legally the teachers occupy a community owned building for free and they are paid as tutors directly by the parents via their accountants. The school, which legally isn’t actually a school, doesn’t have a head teacher, it is overseen by the chair of Beebell who at present is Murray McBride, who is also their registrar and mayor. It wasn’t long after the school flattened Ofsted in court that there was an avalanche of private schools following suit to get out from under Ofsted control.
“They have no mains services whatsoever. They provide their own fuel, electricity, sewage disposal and water. Winning control of their reservoir was a long and very expensive series of court cases for the utilities company who were shewn to have stolen the water. Mrs Levens representing Beebell in court agreed not to claim back payments for water since Queen Victoria’s day providing the utilities company signed away all rights to everything in the valley including access for maintenance. Beebell now sells water to the utilities company as and when they decide to. They sell a lot of other stuff too to all sorts of people, but the terms are usually odd and involve little cash transference. It is suspected that there are a lot of favours owing involved, but nobody tries anything on with them because the cost would prove to be too high. Usually they stop dealing with such an outfit and a lot of folk who regard Beebell highly do so too which usually results in bankruptcy.
“Beebell rather than the residents receives virtually all income from outside and it provides all the services including street lights, road maintenance, water, fuel, sewage disposal, medical services and education at cost. That is why they pay next to nothing in taxes because they earn next to nothing. They have arranged matters, so that they live well very cheaply which takes taxation out of the equation, and it’s all legal, because they deliberately keep prices and wages to their own residents at rock bottom. No property sold there has ever been sold for a high enough price to attract stamp duty, and nobody’s estate has ever been such as to attract death duties because they arrange matters such that all property reverts to the Beebell coöperative on their deaths. Over the last decade more and more of the properties there have been sold to Beebell in exchange for guaranteed health care all the way to death. All maintenance of the house they live in is provided and regardless of what they need as they age it will all be provided. It’s completely legal and is related to more conventional forms of equity release. Within a few years at the rate they are going there will be no privately owned property on Beebell controlled land, and they don’t need there to be any.
“Most equipment used there is owned by Beebell too. Everything from farm tractors to the surgery equipment used by the doctors, dentists and vets. Prices and rents are what they were elsewhere a hundred years ago, but only for their own. They sell at the going rate to outsiders, when they are prepared to sell at all, but to their own it’s all based on trust which it seems is absolute there. Over the years they have had the odd rogue, but as soon as they are exposed they leave because it’s just not safe for them to stay. There’s a scrapyard owner in the north east somewhere who regularly shoots his mouth off about them driving him out and what they owe him. But he’s a permanently drunken petty criminal with a dozen kids by almost as many women and no matter what he says no one from Bearthwaite has anything to say about him. Too, the residents never talk to the media. They have folk who work for Beebell who issue statements from time to time, but other than that they chose to keep their own counsel.”
Malcolm Menzies, Anneliese’s direct superior who actually made the decisions, was not particularly bright, but he had all the right family connections, his background was Eton, Oxford and the Guards.(20) Besides being a bigot concerning anyone who wasn’t white, was LGBTP and anyone else who he didn’t consider to be ‘one of our sort’, he was also known for being a stickler for following the rule book to the letter, even if some of it had never been written down anywhere. None of which prevented his major heart attack a few days after having derisively rejected Anneliese’s advice and telling her that she was dangerously close to being let go for disloyalty. Anneliese knew the threat was serious and that sooner or later her superiors would find grounds to fire her. Malcolm had had to retire, and Anneliese was promoted to his position. However, it had been made crystal clear to her that she’d been given the post with considerable reluctance because unfortunately, from their point of view, she was their only option with any competence at all and as soon as they found a replacement she would be back to her previous position. That was what she was told but she knew the truth was rather different, she’d be manipulated out, effectively fired.
Anneliese knew she was pushing her luck when she’d said, “There is no point in contacting their solicitors if we try to retain any rights. I am aware of her original offer and that as a result of being messed about for six months she halved what she was prepared to pay. Are we being deliberately obtuse here or what? Mrs Levens has the upper hand and she knows it. Since then she has already reduced her offer by a further ten percent due to Malcolm’s recalcitrance and refusal to listen to me. If we do that again her offer price will reduce by a further ten percent. She told me, as you must know from the video recording, that every time we mess her about her offer will drop by ten percent. I’ve studied her track record and that’s how she operates. She knows as well as we do that we need that land desperately in order to use it to obtain liquidity to meet our immediate obligations with. She has nothing to lose. Time is on her side, and I’m not going to make a fool of myself again so my superiors can blame me for their inabilities to recognise and react appropriately to a reality I had already informed them of.
“I suggest you include the rights as part of the deal and accept her already reduced price. If you authorise me in writing to accept her most recent offer I’ll negotiate the rest of the deal for you. If you won’t I suggest you do the negotiating yourself, and I’ll find another job where I can actually do my job without having my hands tied behind my back because I’m sick of being held responsible for someone else’s screw ups. Reality is what it is not what you want it to be. There’s an old expression that goes, ‘Today is Tuesday and tomorrow shall be Wednesday whether we wish it to be or not and whether we shall be alive to see it or not.’ If you leave it too long she’ll be negotiating with a high court judge what we have to sell to meet our obligations. She’ll get what she wants for free because she’ll be representing everyone else we owe money to, and we will not be invited to be a party to those negotiations. If the court doesn’t do what she wants she’ll bankrupt SPM, the government will disband it, and she’ll still get what she wants for free. However, if you wish to bend over and bare your arses for the world to see you taking a life altering flogging, feel free and be my guest, but as I said I’ll be long gone when that happens.”
The atmosphere in the room was decidedly frigid, but Anneliese was beyond caring and was given her instructions and authority in writing within quarter of an hour. Anneliese knew SPM would now get rid of her at the first opportunity even if they had to fabricate the circumstances. It would hardly be the first time they’d done just that since she’d started working for them. As she contemplated her situation, for the first time in years Anneliese was feeling good, happy even, for she’d stood her ground and won. That the price would be her job and she’d be given no references worth having was irrelevant, for she’d proved to herself that she could be her own woman. It felt more than good, it was liberating. It was in that moment of euphoria that she decided that once the deal with Beebell was concluded she’d start looking for another job, and if she ended up out of work for some time so be it.
Anneliese left the building and bought a coffee and a rye granary bread roll filled with a rollmop from a small bakery for her lunch to eat in the nearby park. She took her time eating, savouring every mouthful, aware that food hadn’t tasted that good for a very, very long time. The chewy slightly sour taste of the nutty textured rye bread and the somewhat sweet Dutch rollmop, a herring pickled with gherkins and sliced onions, took her back to her childhood, even though the rollmop wasn’t the same as the sharper taste of the pickled fish she’d been familiar with all those years ago. She wondered if it were time to leave and go home, for though she’d been happy to settle in the UK she’d never been accepted and marriage and children had eluded her. She never been really happy, but also knew she’d probably be no happier if she went home. The sight of young mothers with small children brought tears to her eyes.
A few minutes after drying her tears and finishing her coffee Anneliese walked to the nearest waste bin to dispose of her paper cup and the packaging her roll had been sold in. The English had always disgusted her with their casual attitude to littering, it was one of the things that had constantly reminded her that not only would she never become English she’d never accept becoming one of them either. She went back to the bench she’d used when she had lunch, contacted Adalheidis and explained what had just happened at her end. She also admitted that she’d wished to accept Adalheidis’ offer, but at the time she did not have the authority to do so, but now she did. She said she’d informed her employers what was her understanding of events, and she now had the authority in writing to do the deal as she’d anticipated it would go down, which was expensively.
“Okay, but you don’t sound as if you’ve been informed about your employers’ latest antic. About an hour ago they emailed my office to say they would concede the game rights but not the mineral rights. I emailed them back saying I want everything and the offer is now point eight of an acre for an acre.”
“Oh, Christ! That must have been just before I left for lunch with my written authorisation to negotiate accepting your most recent offer. They must have known they were going to do that and hung me out to dry to try to conclude negotiations after their balls up. What happens now, Mrs Levens? Please believe me that was not of my doing. I’ll send you a copy of my authorisation to read. It was given to me just before I left for lunch”
Adalheidis read Anneliese’s authorisation on her phone and said, “I did believe you, even without sight of your authority to act which fortunately for both of us is date and time stamped by whichever machine that printed it out and the time is after the time on my reply to their email to me, which my system shews they received and opened before your authorisation was printed. As a favour to you personally, for which you’ll personally owe me, I’ll ignore their latest ploy and exchange at point nine. I’ll email you a contract. If you sign it and return it you get the deal at point nine. If you want any revisions it will cost you ten percent and revert to point eight. If you are not happy about owing me a personal favour on behalf of your employer I shall respect that, but the price to them reverts to point eight, dropping the additional ten percent in terms of acreage as per my email. Your letter authorises you to accept my latest offer and negotiate around that and since it is timed after they received and read my latest offer, you are specifically empowered to accept one acre of Flat Top Fell and all that goes with it in exchange for point eight of an acre of the prime agricultural land that we discussed. As to other terms, at the exchange any land left over in the parcel we wish to part with you will agree to purchase at the average going rate for equivalent land as published by the land registry on the day we exchange contracts. The easiest way to deal with that is we physically meet to finalise the contracts rather than doing it over the internet. I’ll arrange the meeting venue.
“There shall be no exchange of contracts unless the money is transferred at the same time into my holding account, a promissory note is not acceptable because I don’t wish to have to spend five years in court recovering my money. SPM has a lousy reputation concerning paying their debts in a reasonable time frame, which means a promissory note written by SPM has no liquidity value whatsoever. You will owe us maybe four or five million, but, even after my reduced offer, you are still making about six as we are both aware, and I’m sure once one of you usual sources of capital read the contract they will agree to lend you what you need in order to close the deal.” Though Anneliese couldn’t see Adalheidis smile on the other end of the phone call she could sense it and knew that there was no warmth in her smile as she added, “Actually I know several of them will. I say several because they are going to share the risk that dealing with SPM entails. To them it’s SPM that is the problem not me. It’s a matter of trust and my word is seen as money in their bank. Several telt me the word of SPM wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Others described it as barely fit for toilet paper, and all of them loth Malcolm Menzies. I had to speak to them because otherwise they would not have been prepared to deal with you without you putting up an acceptable security first, and we all know you haven’t got anything. I spoke to them to facilitate your negotiations with them, because without that money on the table I won’t deal with you because with nothing to pay me with it would be pointless.
“Neither your financiers nor I are prepared to allow SPM to ever have ownership of the money that will be owed to me, not even for an electronic quecto second.(21) They will transfer the funds owed to me, directly to me, not via SPM. They will transfer the loan to SPM upon receiving the ownership deed for what is currently the land that is in my ownership, which I shall personally hand over. I’ll go over that again. I get the money owed to me by SPM out of what the financiers are lending to SPM direct from the financiers. They are prepared to do that because if the deal goes south they know I’ll just give it back. You give me the deed to the Flat Top Fell land. I then give you my land deed which you give to the financiers and then and only then do they transfer the residue of the loan to SPM. All very straight forward with no opportunity for sharp practice on anyone’s part. Don’t look shocked or outraged. I know you had us and our business practices looked into. Did you seriously believe that I wouldn’t do the same? Your bosses have no liquidity and have probably already set things up with their bankers so that the instant any money enters their accounts it is instantly transferred out, so they can decide how to use it leaving me wondering what I have to do next to get my hands on my money.
“It’s the sort of stunt they are famed for, and you would have been blamed by your bosses, their financiers and what ought to have been much more worrying me, because rest assured I would have set events in motion that would have at best merely hurt SPM financially for decades by shutting down all sources of credit to them in the UK, and by law they may not borrow money from elsewhere, and it is well known that the government have said that under no circumstances will they ever finance SPM. That would leave all SPM employees unemployed since they wouldn’t be able to pay them, and yes I could do that with just one phone call. At worst if the markets were depressed my actions would force the government to disband SPM for negligent incompetence. That would be the only appropriate response open to them which would leave all SPM employees not only unemployed but unemployable. However, that is not going to happen. I have an awful lot more money at my disposal than you do, and as we both know money talks and it is wonderful stuff for persuading other folk to talk too. Your financiers were most accommodating which is lucky for you because otherwise I would have walked away leaving your bosses to blame you for the breakdown of negotiations. Yes it’s humiliating, but that’s how it’s going to happen, a tripartite negotiation with us all at the table together, or it doesn’t happen at all, and given your authority to sign on their behalf we’d all be better off if only you represented SPM at that meeting.
“The part your bosses won’t like is if SPM miss servicing the loan for more than sixty days their financiers will be empowered to take payment in land from the dairying land we are parting with. They will take what ever acreage is equivalent in value to the two overdue payments at the average going rate for equivalent land as published by the land registry on the days the payments were due. The land registry will be made aware of the arrangement in advance and every time such an event occurs they shall be provided with financial documentation to enable them to make such a transfer of ownership. Since the financiers hold the deeds and the contract you will have signed on behalf of SPM agrees to it and the land registry will have a notarised copy of your authorisation to sign that contract the mechanism is proof against all and any legal challenge. The financiers may then choose to sell that land back to SPM or to some one else or to just hold it and charge SPM rent on it which naturally adds on to the payments to service the loan. The cost of the land transfer will be paid by the financiers who will recover it by taking a little more land off SPM. I’m sure you can see that if SPM try to pull their usual tricks they could end up losing all of the land quite rapidly and still have to service the loan. Should they fail to service the loan with no land left their financiers will bankrupt them. The government will have to step in and either pay the loan off in cash, which is unlikely, or redeem it with government bonds. That was the only way I could persuade the financiers to entertain lending SPM anything. Too, I have agreed to represent your financiers in any court cases with SPM free of charge. That was the final part of the deal that persuaded them to lend SPM the money.
“In answer to the question you haven’t asked. Yes this was all my idea and I was the one who drew up the contracts they will be scrutinising after you have signed that the arrangement is acceptable. As security the land is worth it, but only if they can guarantee they’ll actually receive the interest repayments promptly and not have to fight a long drawn out expensive legal battle in the courts. SPM need to clean up their act considerably before any will trust them again. I don’t, and whilst I will do business with them again I will need the sort of cast iron guarantee that this arrangement provides. Alternatively it will have to be money up front in my account, or land registry deeds in my hands. SPM will not be in a position to complain about the financiers being able to take payment in land, for that implies a deliberate intention to default on servicing the loan which would work against them should anything ever go to court.”
Swallowing her chagrin at being totally out manœuvred, and Adalheidis’ probably accurate analysis of what her bosses would have done with the money had they been able to, Anneliese said, “If I owe you for a favour done for me then I owe you. That is fair and I would honour it, but I’m not prepared to owe you personally as part of a deal that one of the wealthiest organisations on Earth, that pays me nothing in comparison with what I make for them, is making millions out of. Your favours are extremely expensive, which is fair enough and I respect that, but I’m not prepared to give that away to SPM who are unhappy with me and I know are looking for a way to get rid of me without it costing them too much money, if any. They didn’t get to be as wealthy as they are by being generous, and with that clause enabling the loan to be serviced by land transference they’ll be looking that much harder for ways to be rid of me. I’m a foreigner and neither liked nor trusted and they are spiteful.”
“Okay, twenty percent less it is, and I respect your integrity and your refusal to sell your soul for your employer to benefit from. That is not called disloyalty, but having self respect where I come from.”
“Tell me, why are you prepared to do this? It must be costing you at least five million when all is done and dusted, possibly twice that.”
“I reckon about six and a half now we’re exchanging at point eight, possibly a bit less depending on land values on the day we exchange. I doubt you’ll understand, but I’ll tell you anyway. To us money has neither intrinsic nor absolute value. The land we’re exchanging is a long way away from our home and was only purchased because we knew it would be attractive to you, specifically we knew it would have been irresistible to Malcolm Menzies. We’re not interested in it other than as a medium of exchange, call it money if you like. The land around Flat Top Fell is of value to us because in our ownership we can use it to keep outsiders and the powers that be farther away from us. It enables us to improve our environment and what matters to us. The money is irrelevant, and in any case it’s a drop in the ocean compared with the liquidity that we have at our command. Does that make any sense to you?”
“Yes it does. It makes a great deal of sense to me. You represent folk who know what is worth having and what is merely glitter attractive to human magpies.(22) As for the extra ten percent reduction, my employers didn’t have to loose it. They chose to hold out for better terms. They went up to the wire, lost and now have to pay the price of failed brinkmanship. They’ll get what is coming to them, a bigger bill. They can’t stop it now because as you said I have the written authority to negotiate with you.
The deal was struck, the heads of agreement signed, all to be concluded five days later exactly as per Adalheidis’ terms which would give the financiers enough time to analyse the complex contractual paperwork in detail. SPM, having agreed that Anneliese was to conclude the negotiations and sign the contract, were only to be provided with the contract after the matter was over, including the transfer of funds. It was Adalheidis’ belief that till they had the funds to manipulate away they would be of the opinion that the deal had not yet been concluded, so by the time they were aware of the matter it would be too late to revoke Anneliese’s authority. She advised Anneliese to keep them in ignorance for her own sake. However, Adalheidis thinking there was possibly further benefit to be garnered from the exchange without recourse to contracts said, “You said SPM were looking to get rid of you, Anneliese, and you didn’t sound too bothered if they did. Should you ever wish a new job, contact me and you have one here at Bearthwaite. That offer is in existence from this second, and it’s open ended.”
“Seriously? This second‽ Open ended‽”
“Yes, this second and open ended.”
“I was threatened with being let go for disloyalty when I suggested to my boss that we accepted your initial offer. Right at the start, I told him to be upfront about the rights and was ignored. Then I was told I was only offered Malcolm’s job after he retired because I was the only person with any ability available to them and I would be back to my old job as soon as they’d found someone else. I knew that meant they’d start to manipulate me out, effectively fire me. I said that unless I had a free hand to do the deal that you and I both wanted and I was given that in writing they could negotiate the deal themselves and I’d leave and look for a new job. Like I said they want me out, but don’t want to pay for it. They weren’t prepared to see me leave and then have to negotiate with you themselves for two reason. The first was because whoever did the deal would have to sign it which would make them responsible for any problems that arose in the future and unlike me they are all career civil servants with SPM expecting to be there till retirement. The second reason was because they believed I’d get them a better deal because I seemed to be getting on with you better than any of them would be able to. However, I accept your offer and I’ll hand my notice in immediately after the exchange has been finalised, and I can’t say I’ll regret it. I’d leave now, but I want the deal to go through as soon as possible for your sake. If I left immediately I’m sure you’d get the deal at probably two or three ten percent tranches cheaper, but god alone knows how long it would take, and I suspect you don’t enjoy dealing with the likes of SPM. However, as what would I work for you and where would I live?”
Adalheidis smiled in agreement with Anneliese’s assessment of her feelings about dealing with SPM and replied, “You’ll work as a negotiating solicitor, what else? Unlike at your present outfit, which from my point of view is nothing more than a joke, you’ll be supported to the hilt and have far more resources to rely on than you could ever dream about having. I’ll tell you about the comedians I worked for after graduating some day. They were far worse than SPM. When you are ready, contact me before catching a train to Carlisle. I’ll send you a text with all the details and have you collected from the station. I’ll also arrange accommodation for you here. I know you don’t have any family over here, but is there anyone we don’t know about whom you would like us to accept with you?”
“No the job didn’t make relationships easy, Mrs Levens.”
“Okay and it’s Adalheidis, not Mrs Levens. I am aware that you’ve wanted family for a long time, like I said money persuades folk to talk. I suspect there are many men here who would be seriously interested in you, and doubtless there is someone here who would suit you. Relationships are relatively easy for all of us here because we don’t have to sell our souls to work and live here, and as long as we are honest about who and what we are none cares. Too, perhaps of importance to you, we have contacts, of whom I am one, who would be happy to introduce you to NCSG, the National Children’s Support Group, an unusual, pan British Isles adoption agency that specialises in finding homes for children other agencies and social services can’t place. NCSG are a very fussy organisation and at the same time they aren’t. Their investigations into prospective parents are much deeper and take much longer than those of any other organisation, but once convinced you would provide a secure, loving and caring environment for children they don’t care about much else. Single, married, living together, LGBTP, whatever, none of that matters.
“That’s why for social services and other adoption agencies they are the organisation of last resort. They have access to potential parents who don’t care about those issues either. Many of the children entrusted to them for placement have been brutalised because they have what others refer to as LGBTP issues or problems, and they could come from anywhere in the British Isles. Would that bother you? My understanding is that racial and religious hard liners tend to be unacceptable as potential parents because NCSG see that as bigotry. They are not bothered what race or religion some one is, but things like membership of a hard line organisation like say black lives matter, militant feminist organisations, or an extreme religious group which probably includes all Islamics as well as a lot of folk in Northern Ireland wouldn’t be acceptable. I’m not speaking for them. I’m just giving you my understanding of how it is which of course could be not entirely correct.”
“No. That wouldn’t bother me. I have a bad history because my family and friends didn’t approve of a boyfriend I once had who was bi. He was stabbed to death in a shopping centre by folk who had found out about him. They didn’t even know him, yet they murdered him. All who had reviled me for going out with him thought everything could go back to being the way it had been before, but events had shewn me what they really were, so I left. I’ve never been back. You being trans was the biggest single reason that my superiors didn’t want to let me go too soon. They knew I have no issues concerning LGBTP persons, but they all do, and they were afraid that that would sour the negotiations to their disadvantage.”
As Anneliese had spoken of her murdered boyfriend to Adalheidis she’d sounded cold and hollow, and it was clear a part of her had died with him. It was in much gentler tones that Adalheidis continued, “I see. I knew about Richard, and I knew you were aware that I am trans, but I didn’t suspect it would work to both of our advantages. Still, as they say, it’s an ill wind indeed that blows to the advantage of none. Well, to move forward. We have more than a few LGBTP folk living at Bearthwaite, but other folks’ tales are theirs to tell, not mine. As I said children placed by the NCSG can potentially come from anywhere in the British Isles, not just the UK.(23) The NCSG do not handle a large number of cases, but every one they handle is a tragedy. Often children are sibling groups, for it is an NCSG article of faith that they be kept together. They could be of any age, but tend to be of secondary school age. [11-18] We have an older couple who live in the valley who have adopted four young adults who had aged out of the system. They range in age from eighteen to twenty-eight I think. What all those youngsters have in common is a desperate need of adoptive parents, stability and unconditional love. It is a Bearthwaite article of faith that there is no such thing as an unwanted child, and we are one hundred percent successful at giving children everything they need, especially a sense of self worth, no matter what has been inflicted upon them in their past. Our men would be more than happy to adopt, and much more interested in you should that be your desire. If you are interested I shall have that disseminated amongst our folk. Are you?”
It took Anneliese a minute or so to realise what she was being offered so bluntly, and another to consider what her reactions to that were, but over three hundred miles [480km] away Adalheidis waited patiently. ‘Yes. I should like that. Please tell me it’s not a prank, for what you are suggesting has been what I’ve wanted since I was a girl, long before I had ever heard of SPM and even longer before I became a woman. Back then it didn’t seem to me that I was asking for so much, just a husband and a family, but I didn’t realise how difficult it was to prove to be. The only real chance I’ve ever had of that was murdered a long time ago, and somehow I have never recognised anything as a chance since then. Maybe Richard’s death changed me, but I don’t know. I’ve heard about Bearthwaite, and did what homework on it that I could, but I never really believed the stories I heard thinking them to be either færie tales told by persons desperately needing something better than the life they had to believe in, or bitter tales told by jealous inadequates, but if only a fraction of what I’ve heard is true then I would rather by far live that life than the one I do down here which is nothing but a vacuum filled with stress and pressure.” Anneliese smiled as she said, “Now there’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one, ‘a vacuum filled with pressure’. However, if what you offer is a joke then my breakdown or worse shall lie upon your conscience, for I shall have burnt all my bridges by then.”
“We are no prank, Anneliese, and we never joke about this sort of thing. We tend to be a humorous and irreverent folk, but withal life itself is a serious matter to us. Not so long ago, but before I moved there, Bearthwaite was a place full of poverty stricken and hungry folk after centuries of abuse by folks like SPM. Bit by bit with the help of numerous decent folk who went to live there the population fought back and reclaimed their land, their assets, their dignity and self esteem as a folk with a unique heritage as Bearthwaite folk, and that includes folk originally from outside the valley. I have played my part in that struggle that has made Bearthwaite the prosperous and happy place that it is today and I shall continue to fight for the weal of its inhabitants, my neighbours and my friends. My husband, Matthew, is a bricklayer from a centuries old Bearthwaite family, though these days he seems to spend more time managing Bearthwaite building and renovation activities than laying bricks.
“We were registered with NCSG for what seemed to us to be a long time looking forward to children and putting some joy into their lives, and ours too. Not so long ago we adopted three siblings who had been badly abused. They’d had two brothers who’d died from it. There were threats to abduct the girls for despicable purposes, but all is well now. Brandon our eldest is thirteen and Melanie, who he is on what we call kissing terms with, is making his life a lot better. Heather is just turned five and has long had Matthew wrapped around her little finger, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Tanya who we believe is going on eight months now is a delight. I’m nursing her and it’s not long since she was fed and she always sleeps for at least a couple of hours after being nursed. Then of course the first thing she needs is changed. The children have made our lives so much better. Many folk here are adopting children we have rescued from the streets. I am not involved in that program, but I’m telt that love, school or training if they are older provides most of what they are desperate for.
“Everything I have telt you about us is true, or at any rate it is a tiny true part of a much larger truth, but I suggest you come to see for yourself. I wish the destruction of none on my conscience, Anneliese. None of us do, for that does not accord with our views about neighbourliness. I look forward to you becoming one of us officially. I say officially because, though you may not have been aware of it, I am convinced that in outlook you have long been one of us. If that were not true my explanation as to why, as others would see it, we are prepared to threw away six and a half million pounds just in order to acquire a rocky, windswept, almost worthless piece of land barely able to sustain mountain sheep would have made no sense to you, and you would have considered it to be foolish in the extreme. Though I should add we are not completely foolish and there are doubtless plans afoot, if not well under way, for none doubted I would acquire the land, to enhance the utility and thus the value of Flat Top Fell and its surroundings.”
“Tell me truly, how much would you have gone up to to obtain what you wanted? And what will you do with it? How can the value of somewhere like that be improved?”
“Who knows? Twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred, whatever? It’s only money. It’s not real. Like I said who knows? We’ve been in the Bearthwaite valley for far longer than the Crown has been around, and we’ll still be here long after the Crown is no longer even a memory, so we could have just waited till the Crown was forced to sell in a generation or six, but it’s better this way. As to what we’ll do with it. You’re really asking the wrong person, for I’m a contracts solicitor, not a land reclamation and improvement expert. Even Matthew would know more about than than I. However, I can assure you that in the medium term that land will become worth a lot more, well at least to us it will. Doubtless the first thing to be done will be the entire site will be fenced to keep out deer, coneys and other folks’ sheep in order to prevent them destroying any land improvements that are made. Bearthwaite has huge gangs of men who do nowt else. Gervin Maxwell who manages the fencers had at least fifty staff the last time I heard, which was a couple of months ago. He was looking for more, so it could I suppose be double that now, but I’m just guessing. It’s a specialist job because the fences have to high enough to prevent deer jumping over them and deer can jump much higher than you would imagine.
“I’ve seen our fences and was telt our fencers use fencing that is eight feet [2.5m] high above the ground. Fences that high have to be able to withstand considerable wind pressure which in our neck of the woods can be extreme especially when the fences catch more of the wind because they have snow stuck to them. In a bad snow storm they become solid and act like a sail. I said eight feet above the ground because they also have to go down into the ground deep enough to prevent coneys and the Tuskers from tunnelling under them or digging them out. I’m telt our fences go two feet [60cm] down and if they hit rock before that they are fastened to the rock with special fastenings that have to have holes drilled for them. In some places concrete has to be used to secure the fences under the ground. Mostly the necessary materials can be delivered by land rover, but sometimes not. Then the cement, stones, sand and water too have to be carried, often considerable distances up steep paths, on pack ponies or if that is not possible on the fencers’ backs. That is extremely hard work, but it is required to reach the more inaccessible and high windswept sites. The fences are expensive because they are made of heavy stainless steel with three inch [75mm] mesh so they will not rust away and need replaced in the foreseeable future and they will even keep muntjac deer and coneys out. Muntjac deer are quite small, but every bit as bad as coneys. Both are capable of destroying endless numbers of young trees in no time at all by eating all the bark off them.
“After the fences are in place the foresters will reforest the land with suitable native trees that will eventually render the place less bleak and windswept. Probably the Peabody boys will clear the bracken out using a huge sounder of Tuskers. After sowing with an appropriate grass and wild flower mix the sheep will finish the job of bracken elimination, and someone will create a walk for the tourists. If possible I imagine a route up to the top of the fell will be established for them which would make Sydney Wheeler happy because I don’t doubt she’d like to build an observatory up there. I’m guessing about most of that, but I won’t be far off because it’s all been done many times before except the observatory I mean. It’ll take five to ten years, but like I said if you’re interested you need to talk to folk who actually know what they’re talking about. After all that of course it’s potentially of interest to tourists who bring money with them.”
It was a much surprised Anneliese who asked, “What are coneys and sounders of Tuskers? And why build an observatory? What for?”
“Sydney teaches advanced level biology, zoology and botany and also lower school science which includes a small element of astronomy. She is interested in astronomy and runs the school’s astronomy club which is difficult because the village is at the bottom of a deep, steep sided valley. The air is rarely clear enough to see well, and the valley sides mean only a small portion of the night sky is visible even on a clear night. So I imagine it would be an attractive proposition to her, but I was just speculating. Our school is a bit unusual in that many small portions of the syllabi are taught by unqualified teachers with specialised knowledge. Meteorology is taught by Joel Williams who is a mechanic, but an expert about weather. Alf Winstanley is a multi talented workshop genius with a deep knowledge of allotment vegetables who teaches some physics, engineering and botany. Morgan Halifax is an engineer who teaches youngsters their first lesson on fractions, just one full afternoon lesson a year, using sets of imperial spanners that go up in thirty-seconds of an inch and things called vernier measuring callipers that measure in inches and millimetres. I wasn’t bad at maths at school and I’m okay with fractions, but don’t ask me what vernier measuring callipers are or how they work.
“Gladys Maxwell the landlady of the Green Dragon teaches some advanced level psychology. Craft design technology is taught by a wide variety of tradesmen and women. Sport is mostly taught by folk who were high level athletes rather than teachers, though some of them are qualified teachers. Murray McBride is an accountant who teaches some economics and business studies. I teach some business studies too, just two lessons on the nature of different business types and how the law applies to them. There are many others teaching small sections of various subjects and our work experience programs are second to none. It all came about as a result of the Covid lockdown when it enabled us to keep our youngsters in education. They didn’t miss a day’s school and not only learnt more they enjoyed it more. It wasn’t easy, but we managed to cover everything the children needed even if we did have two hundred plus persons who weren’t teachers involved. That was what triggered the expansion of the school into secondary education as well as primary.
“In the north we use the word coney for what you call a rabbit. Strictly in English a rabbit is a young coney, like a kitten is a young cat. We are technically correct, and southerners are guilty of sloppy English. I’ve been telt that we are just being pedantically archaic because we are vastly outnumbered by folk who call coneys rabbits. When I telt Matthew that he said that just because billions of flies eat shit didn’t mean he was going to try it.” Adalheidis laught and said, “I accepted a long time ago that I hadn’t married a man with the soul of a poet. However, we speak the way we do because we do and that’s it. As for a sounder that is a group of pigs. I’ve always thought the name appropriate because if they aren’t making a god awful racket they’re asleep, but that’s probably just me. Tuskers are what most folk call wild or feral boar. I suppose that should be wild pig, though the Peabody boys insist they are native suids. The Peabodys are a generations long established family of highly successful farmers. Old Alan Peabody is ninety-five I think, and the latest generation are his great grandchildren, four brothers with four sisters are the eldest and they have dozens of younger cousins, though I suspect the next generation is already on the way. Enid, who was the mother of the elder four sibling died young, and their dad, known as Young Alan though he must be going on fifty these days, married Veronica when his children were small and needed a mum. The younger four of the eight are Veronica’s children though you’d think they all were hers the way the family interact. That was long before I moved to Bearthwaite. Young Alan’s dad is Old Alex and Young Alex is one of Young Alan’s four sons. They seem to have an Alan and an Alex alternating in each generation.
“The four brothers run the dairy and keep several varieties of pigs, all outside. The Tuskers were feral or wild and just moved in a few years ago. Gunni the youngest of the brothers had just left school and he decided to keep them as just another pig breed and call them Tuskers because the boars have pretty impressive looking tusks. I suppose the lads may have as many as several hundred of them by now, maybe twice that. They use them to clear bracken off land that could be better utilised and raise them for meat. Their four sisters keep several exotic breeds of sheep, and rare breed cattle. Elleanor is a bit of a visionary and she was the one who imported the bison from Poland which they breed for beef. Some of the village children call it bife as a joke, from bison beef. Elleanor was also the one who conned her dad, who is a dairy farmer, into allowing her to raise dairy calves for veal. Veronica their mum mostly works as a cook at the village inn, the Green Dragon Inn though she is cordon bleu certified. I think her main work at the farm involves keeping her kids from upsetting her old man too much. Mind you that’s part of the job for all mums I reckon.
“Gunni? Is that a common name?”
“Common enough. It’s one of many Viking or Scandinavian names used in the valley. Viking names for girls and boys are not exactly the norm, but they tend to be used frequently in some of our families. A few hundred folk have them. There are a few surnames derived from Viking names used in the valley too, though most use a patronymic(24) or a matronymic.(25) Matronymics are more commonplace relatively speaking than they are in Iceland, and mostly used by women. We have a long tailed family with a tradition of Viking names that have lived in the valley for ever I think. Every few generations a man named Sturla gives a son the name Snorri(26) which should perhaps resonate with you. The current Snorri Sturluson is a toddler. Vigdís Vigdísardóttir is a internationally renowned soprano you have probably heard of. Her mother keeps sheep and her family too have been Bearthwaite folk for ever and they have always used the same naming system as is used in Iceland. She has a dozen children every one with a name like hers. Some younger folk have taken a greater interest in that aspect of our history recently and have researched Viking names that as far as we are aware haven’t been used since Viking times in order to find names for their as yet unborn children. Such names seem to have been becoming more popular over the last few decades. Gunni is often referred to as Gunni Gris because gris is a Viking and modern day Scandinavian word for pig. I recognised the form of your name as Icelandic. I take it your father’s name is Thor?”
“Yes, but his name is spelt with the letter thorn [Þór] as in my patronymic, though it should be stated the other way around. He is or was till he retired a fisherman on a trawler, he’s from from Húsavik. My mother is Norwegian from Vardø. My full name is Anneliese Ylfa Þórsdóttir. Ylfa means she wolf, it’s the feminine form of Ulf. Some persons at SPM who don’t like me much referred to me me a while back as the wolf bitch. They stopped when I consistently mixed up their names and explained to others in the office that I couldn’t remember who they were. It seems being known as the wolf bitch is better than being of so little significance that one’s name is forgotten.” Anneliese could head Adalheidis chuckling over the phone. “I shouldn’t have been surprised at hearing the name Gunni used at Bearthwaite as I knew many such names are used there. I am familiar with the word grís. It’s less used than svín in Icelandic for pig, but it is used. I have a cousin with a baby named Gunni. My parents and most of my family live in Reykjavik and virtually all the rest are still in Vardø. I came to England to study law at Oxford and then went to Oslo to do post graduate work. That was where I met Richard who came from Swansea. I was going to go home to Iceland, but after my families reaction to him and their expectations of me after his death I returned to England where I started working for SPM. Your name is relatively common in Iceland, far more so than in Germany. I presume it is your middle name?”
“No. My middle name is Bärbel.(27) One of its meanings is foreign. Mum never telt Dad that she named me Bärbel not because she was a foreigner, but because in her eyes he was. Anneliese is relatively common in Germany.”
“What does the M stand for in Mrs M Levens?”
“Matthew, it’s my husband’s name. Bearthwaite is a little old fashioned with that sort of thing, but I like it. Some of my older neighbours get upset if they are not addressed that way, for the implication is they are unmarried mothers. To them that’s a shameful slur they resent. Traditionally, if a woman whose name was Jane Brown married John Smith, formally she would be addressed as Mrs John Smith which recognised her married status. As I said Bearthwaite is a little old fashioned about such things, though nowt is thought to be shameful concerning a lass who has either had a child or is expecting one when she marries.” Adalheidis chuckled and said, “It’s never happened since I moved to Bearthwaite, but I’ve been telt that even in recent times a few brides have gone into labour during the ceremony in the church. In one case the bride gave her vows in between her last few contractions. She telt me she was attended to by a vicar at one end and a midwife at the other whilst her mum and her husband in the making held her hands. These days amongst our younger women being referred to by their husband’s name is seen as a matter of formal respect, but few are bothered by not being so referred to. It is not seen by them to be a matter of shame if they are not even when they have children. How is it that you speak such amazingly good English with no trace of an Icelandic accent?”
“I always liked to read. As a child I read books printed in many languages and I listened to English and other language radio programs. I discovered that I pick up languages easily. I can get by in all the Scandinavian languages, including Finnish and two dialects of Sámi. My father told me about the dialects spoken by your fell shepherds and I would be interested to hear them. His English is not good, but he said he had no trouble conversing with the few he’d met over the years when in various Cumbrian ports.”
“I think you’ll fit in just fine with Bearthwaite folk. Don’t forget to let me know when you are leaving London, so I can have someone pick you up from the station. Don’t be surprised if it’s an artic complete with trailer and looks to be above sixty feet long. If it’s Harry, Charlie or one of their workmates that picks you up it probably will be sixty-odd feet long, but it will be cheaper than a taxi and amongst them they pick up or tip a load in Carlisle every day of the week including Saturdays and Sundays. Depending on when you travel the lonning, that’s the road, into the village may or may not be flooded. If it is the Bearthwaite Queen will pick you and your driver up to bring you home. That’s our big covered boat. It used to be called the Bearthwaite Princess, but after a major refit that turned an open boat into a covered one we renamed it. We did that because Gladys the landlady of the Green Dragon Inn, which is the spiritual heart of Bearthwaite if you’ll pardon the pun, went into labour when the road was flooded in abysmal weather. Susanna one of the local midwives delivered Gloria at home, but we decided we needed a covered boat just in case of medical emergencies.”
Anneliese realised she had weighed up Adalheidis’ position even more accurately than she had imagined, and she was happy to be about to work for a far better employer than her current one, and her personal life was definitely looking up too. What struck her most was Adalheidis had said ‘We’ve been in Bearthwaite’ when Adalheidis had originally been an outsider. She clearly regarded herself as entitled to claim Bearthwaite history as her history. Though she’d said her husband was descended from an ages old Bearthwaite family clearly the definition of what constituted a member of Bearthwaite’s unique culture was a more complex matter that it would seem at first sight. Or maybe not. Maybe it truly was as simple as Adalheidis had implied when she’d explained about how Bearthwaite only accepted folk from outside who truly were Bearthwaite folk already before they moved to live there, even if they were not aware of it. Her Scandinavian background seemed to be a positive thing to Adalheidis, whereas at SPM it had been seen as negative, another case of ‘not one of our sort’.
Later that afternoon Anneliese was told that Malcolm had suffered a series of heart attacks that morning which he had not survived, but she knew despite the now permanent vacancy her days at SPM were like those in a calendar, numbered. As she remembered that old joke she couldn’t help but smile which given what she’d just been told didn’t endear her to her colleagues. Even the women who’d all lothed Malcolm for the creepy pervert that he was were looking down their noses at her. Seeing their looks of contempt Anneliese realised she just didn’t care what they thought about her, for it couldn’t possibly be as poor as her opinion of them, or Malcolm either. That he was dead made no difference to what he had been when he’d been alive, a perverse, bigoted abuser of those he could bully, and she had no time for the hypocrisy of those who supported the speak no ill of the dead(28) stance. At least she thought he wouldn’t be touching up women in the lift any more.
As to the extra ten percent that Adalheidis had reduced her offer by, since Adalheidis had informed SPM of that by email Anneliese considered it unnecessary to remind them of the consequences of their stupidity that she had cautioned them against. So far it looked as if SPM’s hubris had, in the last six months, at current land prices, threwn away in the region of twenty-five million pounds. They’d threwn away at least five in the last few days, and the interest due on their liabilities had been mounting by the hour as they’d done it. Anneliese was aware that since any shortfall in their budget would not be covered from elsewhere using taxpayers’ money they would have to retrench or even lose staff. As she thought about that she smiled again thinking that ironically the saving involved as a result of not having to pay her salary was her last act of loyalty to her shortly to be erstwhile employers. Her colleagues seeing her smile again were no longer thinking disparaging thoughts about her this time they were intimidated
26222 words (Including footnotes)
1 Fjäll(s), dialectal fell(s) or mountain(s). Pronounced fuh + yell(s). IPA fjɛl(z).
2 Foggage, often a term used for grass deliberately grown for winter grazing. A less widely used meaning is the rough and poor quality feed that is found near the ground on badly neglected grazing land and the relatively few dried grass stalks still standing. It is this latter meaning that is being used here.
3 Tup, ram. A male sheep used for breeding.
4 Wether, a castrated ram. Most male sheep are wethered at a few days old if not at birth. Wethers are easier to handle and gain weight faster than rams.
5 Mekin, making.
6 Slaughterhouse stamp, a mark placed on a carcass to identify the slaughterhouse that processed the animal. It is a made with a food safe edible dye.
7 Insider trading is the trading of a public company’s stock or other securities such as bonds or stock options based on non public material or information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider information are illegal.
8 Tret, dialectal treated.
9 Tree Huggers Incorporated, a pejorative name for all environmental evangelistic types. It applies to no group in particular.
10 Liquidity refers to the amount of money an individual or corporation has on hand and the ability to quickly convert assets into cash. The higher the liquidity, the easier it is to meet financial obligations. More savings than debt mean a greater financial liquidity. Cash is the most liquid of assets, whilst tangible assets like land, property and fine art are relatively illiquid because they take time to sell.
11 Sterling, a reference to the UK currency: the pound sterling.
12 Bailiwick, the area that a person or an organisation is interested in, is responsible for, or controls.
13 Cute in this context means astute.
14 Quid, a quid is a slang term for a pound [$1.25].
15 Taking the piss is a colloquial term meaning to mock at the expense of others, or to be joking.
16 The city, used thus the implication is the finance sector of the City of London.
17 It has long been the custom in the UK that senior civil servants are rewarded at the end of their service with a knighthood.
18 Mills and Boon, one of the largest romantic fiction publishers in the English speaking world. They are also a major publisher of academic textbooks.
19 Dupuytren’s contracture is a thickening of tissues in the palm of the hand. The thickened tissues may develop into a hard lump. Over time it can cause one or more fingers to curl (contract) or pull in toward the palm. In many cases, both hands are affected. It has been given the name the Viking disease due to its prevalence in the north of Europe and amongst those of Northern European descent.
20 Eton, Oxford and the Guards, a stereotype associated with upper class wealth and privilege. Eton is a major exclusive private school, Oxford is a prestigious University and the Guards refers to becoming an officer in one of the battalions of operational infantry units that are associated with ceremony.
21 A quecto second, a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second. A time period that is far shorter than any computer requires to do anything. 0.000000 000000 000000 000000 000001 seconds. 10^-30 s, 10E-30.
22 Magpies, one of the pervading myths that surrounds magpies is that they have a penchant for shiny things and will steal your jewellery, cutlery, and even your money. The notion has been engrained for centuries that it has long been the case that persons who collect and hoard things, particularly objects and trinkets with little value, are referred to as magpies.
23 The Republic of Ireland (Eire), the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are considered to be part of the British Isles but are not in the UK, Northern Ireland is part of the UK. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are however part of Great Britain. The Republic of Ireland is a separate nation state.
24 A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one’s father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. It is the male equivalent of a matronymic which is based on one’s mother’s given name. It is the normal way persons are named in Iceland where the telephone directory is sorted alphabetically by given names.
25 A matronymic or matronym, see patronym above, is relatively more common in Bearthwaite than in Iceland, and Matronymics have been becoming more popular in recent years at Bearthwaite. A matronymic, like a patronymic is formed by appending son, dóttir or more recently bur to the genitive form of either parent’s name. In 2019, the Icelandic laws governing names were changed. First names are no longer restricted by gender. Moreover, Icelanders who are officially registered as non binary will be permitted to use the patro/matronymic suffix -bur (child of) instead of -son or -dóttir.
26 Snorri Sturlusons, 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of the Prose Edda, which is a major source for what is today known as Norse mythology, and Heimskringla, a history of the Norse kings. He was assassinated in 1241 by men claiming to be agents of the King of Norway.
27 Bärbel, pronounced bear bell, IPA bɛərbɛl.
28 The Latin phrase ‘De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est’, ‘Of the dead nothing but good is to be said’, is a mortuary aphorism indicating that it is socially inappropriate for the living to speak ill of the dead who cannot defend or justify themselves. Oft quoted as here, ‘Speak no ill of the dead’. Attributed to Chilon of Sparta, it was first recorded in Classical Greek as: τὸν τεθνηκóτα μὴ κακολογεῖν, “Of the dead do not speak ill”, in the 4th century AD. The Latin translation of the book is from 1443 CE.
Comments
Whoo Hoo!! Firsties!
Another outstanding chapter. I always learn a lot from your writings. The amount of detail and backing research is amazing, I had never heard of a quecto second before. I think it must be the same interval between when the traffic light changes to green and the twat behind you blows his horn. :-)
A lengthy GOM Tale ....
...that took me more than an evening to read. I do miss the word count feature that used to appear at the end of posts, but at least we can leave Kudos again and this tale certainly deserves them.
What a lot of ground you have covers in this tale Eolwaen. Your writing is superb and your research extensive and thorough. This GOMT has shown the value of being thoroughly prepared for business negotiations and the extent that knowledge of the other party or parties representatives and their business tactics and reputation as well as any weaknesses that can be exploited is invaluable . Prior Preparation and Planning Prevents P**s Poor Performance - the 7 Ps of life.
I look forward to GOMT 50 and congratulate you most wholeheartedly on the quality and extent of your Bearthwaite Chronicles that I'm sure also includes some of your background knowledge and experiences of such folk.
Brit
If They're Exchanging Property...
...how is any money changing hands between SPM and Beebell? Apparently SPM has had to agree to pay market price for whatever other land out there that Beebell wants to sell, but it didn't sound as though that would happen immediately. In any case Adalheidis hasn't said how much land that amounts to, and they haven't established what the market rate is.
Eric