The drama had developed quickly, like a three-act play. For the first time in his adult life, Jim was seriously in love. This time sex was only part of the plot, although an important part. He had been very fond of some of his man friends in the past – Norman for instance – and had been aware that some of them had fallen for him. However he had usually been able to extricate himself elegantly from these entanglements before they became too intense; almost always remaining on friendly terms with the men in question, some of whom had moved on to get married to members of the opposite sex. Jim was godfather to at least one of their offspring. So that was all right!
With Hal it was different. Hard to say why; it just was. Life, when Hal was around, felt unbelievably good. This is how it ought to be, Jim occasionally thought. Ernest Hemingway wrote: "I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up that I was not happy." Jim’s version was: “I never knew of a morning in Little Kansas when I woke up beside Hal that I was not happy.”
Within weeks of their first encounter, Jim had taught Hal the electronic code to enter Little Kansas; soon after that, he had presented Hal, as a birthday present, with a second-hand Volkswagen Golf. He could now come and go as he pleased. And come he did, whenever he had leave. Jim occasionally wondered whether Hal had family and, if so, whether they asked themselves why they saw so little of him these days. But he did not inquire, and Hal had never mentioned any family. But what about his mates in the regiment?
“Oh, I haven’t actually lied to them in so many words, but I’ve given them the impression that I might have a serious girlfriend not too far away!” Hal told him. “I might have to produce her at a party one day! Cross that bridge when I come to it!” Hal added, chuckling. Jim laughed too.
So, one Friday evening, when Jim returned from a trip into Clumpthorpe, the local market town, where there were two antiques auction houses, he was not surprised to find the former Base Commandant’s house lit up and music playing: Hal was there. A hug, a kiss, a ‘gay Masonic handshake’ (in which you grab the other guy’s crotch and squeeze his cock affectionately through the trouser-material) and, the next thing, they were dancing to ‘That’s the Way I like It’ from soundtrack of The Stud.
“I hate to bring you down to earth,” said Hal when the music finally stopped, but when I got here I found there’d been another break-in. At least, that’s what it looks like to me.”
Sure enough, there was another hole in the chain-link perimeter fence and the door of the former Officers’ Mess proved to have been forced yet again.
“Damn and blast. Another fucking insurance claim!” was Jim’s comment.
“Can you see what’s been taken?” asked Hal.
“Yes: a display case containing a stuffed male White-Tailed Sea Eagle!” said Jim furiously. “It was worth at least £1,000. He was probably the last male of the British subspecies, shot in 1916. He was leucistic, with a white head, as well as tail; so he looked rather like an American Bald Eagle. Irreplaceable.”
The eagle proved to be almost the only item that was missing, although one or two others had been gratuitously damaged. Jim walked grimly across to his office, to start a round of phone calls.
“There’s something odd about that break-in,” mused Jim over dinner later that evening. “That White-Tailed Eagle was never going to be easy to shift. It’s a unique piece, easily recognisable, and I’ve already alerted most of the respectable auction houses.”
“It has to be one of two things,” replied Hal through a mouthful of Yorkshire pudding. “Either it’s a ‘theft to order’ by someone who desperately wanted that specimen for their own collection; in which case you’ll never get it back, or it’s something else..”
“Like what?”
“Someone protesting because they disapprove of the trade in stuffed animals; or it’s revenge.”
“Those other burglars?”
Hal shrugged. “Yeah; maybe.”
Hal seemed to be proved right on Saturday morning. An envelope, posted in Clumpthorpe, arrived by Post. It contained a note written in letters and words cut out of printed magazines or newspapers and pasted on cheap notepaper, whose meaning was quite clear:
Jim was ‘an immoral swine’, whose lack of concern for wildlife and the environment required retribution. He was a notorious fox-hunter, rat-hunter, badger-baiter (“Bollocks!” said Jim, to that last allegation) and a trader in wildlife products. His eagle had been ‘confiscated’ and its source would be “investigated with a view to prosecuting” him.
“The cunts should have noticed the date on the label!” fumed Jim. “1916, for fuck’s sake! My father wasn’t alive then, never mind me. What’ll I not do to them when….”
“Someone said ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’,” warned Hal.
“Hmm..” said Jim dubiously.
“You need some therapy, Chum,” suggested Hal. [He pronounced it ‘ferruppy’] He put his suggestion into practice, hugging Jim firmly and kissing his neck. In a nearby mirror Hal smiled at their reflection: two big, strong men – one blond and one dark – holding each other in a python-like embrace.
Soon after that, the two big, strong men were naked. Then they were grappling in a state of serious arousal. Things might have developed further, if the tannoy at the front gate had not sounded, causing them to spring apart. Jim answered it.
“Get your kit on. It’s Sir Toby Bloodgood and Richard Finch, the MP.”
They dressed hastily; they had both had a lot of practice doing that. A Land Rover now entered Little Kansas and bumped over the grass towards the bungalow. It disgorged its two inmates; one dressed in well-cut country tweeds and the other in riding breeches with ratcatcher. Jim knew both of them from the Great Norfolk Rat Hunt and its Parliamentary debate aftermath, followed by celebratory group sex in Richard’s Westminster flat; he had not, however, expected to see them in Little Kansas, nor at that precise time; it was not an ideal moment to call. However they had a good reason.
“We’ve come to consult you!” shouted Richard, who was wearing the tweed suit. “Hey, who’s this?” He grinned amiably at Hal and stretched out his hand to shake Hal’s.
Like Toby, Jim had experienced sex with Richard. It had been fun but exhausting; a combination of something very like unarmed combat, with sophisticated sex techniques which Richard had picked up while on leave in Thailand. Being handsome and muscular, Richard might well appeal to Hal. Although his country tweeds were not close-fitting, unlike Hal’s jeans, they had been cut for him in Savile Row and they followed closely the lines of a powerful physique. Hal noted with approval Richard’s broad shoulders, narrow waist and rugby-player’s legs. The crotch, at which he had glanced swiftly, looked promising; Hal guessed that Richard was well-hung. Likewise, he noted Richard’s natural officer-bred authority, at odds with the squaddie’s toughness in his eyes. Even when naked – which must be a pleasant sight – this man would be recognisable as a soldier, and a tough one at that.
But, anyway, Richard wasn’t having Hal; not if Jim had any say in the matter. Jim put his arm protectively round Hal’s shoulders, tacitly stating:
Hands off, he’s mine!
Richard noticed this and was amused. He grinned at Jim. He gave Hal the sunniest and most innocent of smiles. Then he turned to business.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” He produced a note made up like the one that Jim had received, promising vengeance for Richard’s successful defence of rat-hunting in a Westminster Hall debate.
Jim nodded: “Uh-huh.”
“I’ve had a couple myself,” said Toby Bloodgood, He tossed onto the table two similar, equally anonymous, letters making blood-curdling threats unless he renounced fox-hunting. “As a Master of Foxhounds, I’m accustomed to this kind of thing – they are usually unsigned – but using cut-out letters is a new one for me.”
“Go on, Toby. Tell them what you think!” said Richard.
There was a pause, in which they stared silently at Toby. Toby paused for a moment and said slowly:
“I think they’re all from the same place; a place near here. Jim, do you know, or have you ever heard of, Gramercy Lodge?”
“Nope!”
“That’s the wonder of it; yet you’re a well-informed local antiquarian. People have forgotten about it. It’s only a few miles away, up a track in a man-made forest. I suppose it’s on the Ordinance Survey map. You can’t see it from the road, or indeed from anywhere else; except, I presume, from a helicopter. If you chose to trespass in the forest, you might see it from a distance and think it was derelict; ready for demolition. There was a time – the 1920s - when it was a byword; regarded as the ultimate in vulgar Victorian bad taste. You know: fancy ironwork along the roof ridges; grotesque gargoyles, crockets and spandrels; variegated brickwork; stained glass; about five weathercocks: that sort of thing. The Army occupied it during the Second World War and messed it up a bit, but not as much as the present occupants have.”
The name started to ring faint bells with Jim. “One moment, please!” Jim darted away to his library, formerly the US Base Commander’s study. He returned with a folio-sized volume entitled Victorian Values: An Architectural Miscellany. Published in the 1930s with illustrations by Rex Whistler, as well as photographs, it was a treasury of the weird and wonderful. “I think this is what we’re after!”
“Crikey!” exclaimed Hal. “It looks like Norman Bates’s motel!”
“In those days it was better-maintained than Mr Bates’s motel ever was. I don’t know what it’s like now” said Jim. “The book says it was built as a shooting-box; a lodge in other words, for seasonal occupation, by the first Lord Vandeleur.”
“That’s correct,” said Toby. “And the late Lord Vandeleur left it for life to his younger son, Valentine, in the hope that he’d keep a low profile, lead a quiet life in the country and stop being a pain and embarrassment to his family. However it didn’t quite work out that way. I know his brother and I got the whole dreadful story from him.”
“Go on.”
“The elder brother, Edward Vandeleur, is a sound man. He did a short service commission with the Bombardier Guards and then studied Agriculture at Wye College. He played rugby for his Regiment. Farms his family’s estate and has made a success of it. ”
“What about the other?” asked Jim.
“Ah yes, the other: Valentine went to university, fell in with the wrong people; fell out with his family; got hooked on drugs and dropped out. He’s been dropping in and out ever since. A shame, really; he apparently used to be quite good-looking and was probably quite intelligent before he addled his brain with LSD. He now lives in a hippie commune, which he founded, in Gramercy Lodge. He subsists on a small inherited income and the proceeds of the marijuana that they grow on a commercial scale in the greenhouses there.”
“Apart from that, what do they do?” asked Richard, keen to keep Toby to the point. “I seem to recall they they released a lot of mink from a fur-farm?”
“Yes, they did; and now we’re overrun with the bloodthirsty little monsters”, agreed Toby. “But, apart from the mink, the hippies were merely an insanitary, embarrassing, but low-profile, nuisance until recently, when they were infiltrated by some militant eco-freaks who make it their career to disrupt farms which they see as un-ecological; naturally they are against all forms of hunting – even mink-hunting - and they are very indignant about our Great Norfolk Rat Hunt which, as you know, was reported in the media. Gramercy Lodge is now their base. So my card, and evidently yours too, is marked.”
“Well, they have struck here, as well,” said Jim and explained about his White-Tailed Sea Eagle.
“It’s time we settled accounts with Valentine’s hippies,” Toby remarked. “The police will do nothing about them. I should know; I’m a Justice of the Peace for my sins. They won’t get your stuffed bird back. They are too busy arresting old-age pensioners for driving at 31 mph in a 30 mph area, or threatening people who do not possess a TV set for not having paid their TV license fee. The hippies have been cultivating marijuana and heaven knows what else for years now. The cops should know about – do know about – that. It’s time someone else took a hand.”
Richard was starting to grin again. He hummed a jaunty Mozartian tune. Jim recognised it from The Marriage of Figaro: “La vendetta” [Vengeance]. Finally he said:
“We could go there at night and burn the house down with the hippies inside it. That would solve the problem at a stroke. Of course we would have to be there, to shoot any who escaped from the flames, but with any luck they’d all be stoned and...Bingo! That’d be fun!” Richard laughed.
“Not if my White-Tailed Sea Eagle was still in the house!” objected Jim.
Toby also objected: “Richard, you do want to be re-elected to Parliament, I presume? If it all went horribly wrong, I don’t think a conviction for arson and attempted – or successful -murder would look good on your CV?”
Richard chuckled again. “You don’t know the electors of Lynchfield and Flogham. They hate hippies; they regard them as vermin. If they even suspected that I’d barbecued a lot of hippies, my majority would increase exponentially and I could keep the seat forever; at least, until I either died or retired! One landowner tried to start a mini-Glastonbury festival on his farm, which is near Lynchfield; it was the object of arson attacks and the field was covered with slurry. So was a rock-star, who happened to get in the way; he threw a hissy fit and stormed off. That’s what my constituents are like!”
“Even so,” said Toby, “I don’t think that Edward Vandeleur, who is after all my friend, would like it. The house is still in theory his and Valentine, who only has it for life, is his brother, even if he’s a right royal pain in the ass!”
“Oh, I dunno. Edward could surely claim the insurance money?” suggested Richard nonchalantly.
“Assuming that it is insured,” said Toby. “I wouldn’t bet on it, if it had been left to Valentine to arrange. He’d usually be too stoned to remember to renew the premiums. My ideal solution would be to raid the place; rescue Jim’s eagle; abduct Valentine; send him to one of those detox places; and then evict the hippies.”
“Evictions take time and lots of money. Even defaulting tenants have rights these days. And detox centres are expensive too.” At times Richard could be maddeningly sensible and reasonable. “So we’re stuck with the illegal – or barely-legal – alternative.”
No-one spoke. Richard continued:
“Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted. First, we need to spy out the land; even infiltrate the commune.”
“And how’ll you do that?” asked Toby. “Wear a long wig and a kaftan? You don’t even smell right! You don’t whiff of pot!”
“That’s not quite what I had in mind, Toby. First, we must do a recce. The hippies must have cars, camper-vans and/or motor-cycles. You, Toby, will know about that, because they’re always getting involved in drunk-or-drugged road traffic accidents or just failure to have a valid, up-to-date license One reads about them in the Press and questions have even been asked about them in Parliament. From the number of vehicles parked outside we can get a fair idea of how many are actually in residence. I guess that the number varies. If there’s a rock concert or some other counter-attraction somewhere else, they’ll be thin on the ground. As it happens, I’m pretty sure there are about three such festivals in the UK and another in Ireland coming up shortly; and horribly cacophonous, although no doubt also horribly profitable, they will be.”
There was some discussion as to who should go on reconnaissance; eventually it was agreed – reluctantly on Jim’s part – that the two soldiers, Richard and Hal, should make the first recce. Jim was able to help; his antiques business included a sideline in historic costumes, real and reproduction, including old military uniforms. Attired in old-fashioned WWII battledress and Denison smocks, they were dropped off near the forest that surrounded Gramercy Lodge. There was one important difference; they did not wear World War II nailed boots. Modern army boots with rubber soles were more comfortable – and silent.
“We look like extras from A Bridge Too Far!” laughed Hal.
“More like Dad’s Army,” said Richard.
“Anyway, it’s not inappropriate. As we know, Gramercy Lodge was an army base during the Second World War,” said Jim.
“Good. Maybe the hippies will think we’re Army ghosts come back to haunt them; if they should see us, which I do not intend them to!”
Richard and Hal made slow progress; the forest, planted by the first Lord Vandeleur to favour game, had not been managed for years; the rides and breaks had become overgrown with brambles and under-brush. There was certainly plenty of wildlife, including exotic wildlife: The squirrels were all black; Richard spotted a Japanese Sika deer; and Hal reckoned that there were a few wild turkeys, which he had seen and heard in Canada while on exercise there. The experimentally-minded First Lord Vandeleur had evidently been keen to introduce new game-species to his sporting coverts.
Finally they found themselves on a small cliff overlooking the front of Gramercy Lodge. It looked even more like Norman Bates’s motel than Jim’s old photographs had done. They lay on their stomachs, checking the objective through binoculars. There were not many vehicles parked on the weed-grown front drive. The ones that were present looked battered and had been painted odd colours, with peace signs and sunflowers on the sides and bonnets. As for the back garden, most of it was covered with poly-tunnels in which exotic plants, presumably cannabis and the like, were being cultivated. Here and there were open flower-beds of white and yellow poppies.
“Opium poppies,” said Richard, who had seen them in Afghanistan and elsewhere. “Not too many weirdos about. Shall we take a closer look?
It was a warm day. The only visible people visible in front of Gramercy Lodge were a topless female hippie who appeared to be stoned, or just deeply asleep, and her naked child, who suckled contentedly on her breast.
“Imbibing LSD with his mother’s milk, I should think!” whispered Richard., looking with disfavour at the grubby Madonna. Let’s look inside!”
First they checked a ground-floor window. Inside was a room set out as a kind of shrine. Buddhas, Hindu deities, African and Polynesian fetishes jostled promiscuously for space. Here and there joss-sticks were burning in tins and dishes of sand.
“Hey, they’ve got a holy relic,” whispered Richard. “Look!”
Hal looked. In front of a large statue of the Goddess Kali lay an open coffin. Inside it lay a pale, waxy figure, apparently embalmed. The features, which were clearly visible, were lean, aquiline and aristocratic. Guttering candles flickered round the catafalque.
“Father Val RIP” had been painted in unsteady capitals along the side of the coffin.
“I think that’s Valentine,” whispered Richard.
“Yep. And they’ve got another holy relic. Look beyond the coffin.”
At one end of the coffin, as though watching over it, was Jim’s stuffed White-Tailed Sea Eagle in its glass case.
“I’ve got a camera,” said Richard. I’m never without it. Let’s risk an intrusion.”
That was not difficult; the front door was open. Clearly the hippies feared no incursion. Richard noticed a number of envelopes with red printed warnings: “Final Demand”, lying on the door-mat. The hippies were evidently behind with their electricity bill, council tax or both. Candles placed in various places suggested that the electricity had been cut off. Somebody was somewhere in the house; plaintive sitar music was coming from upstairs. The two WWII soldiers sidled into the hall. Cobwebs adorned the antlers of the numerous deer heads on the walls. A rusty suit of armour leaned at a drunken angle, ready of topple over. They then moved into the shrine. Richard pulled out his camera and took some shots of the coffin, of its contents; and of the eagle, for good measure. Somehow they got away with it. They again passed the hippie Madonna, who once more did not wake up. They returned, as quickly as they could, through the forest to their waiting car. There were no sounds of pursuit.
“We did it,” chuckled Richard. He seized Hal and kissed him enthusiastically. Hal at first stiffened and then relaxed; he let Richard get away with it. Both got erections. Richard murmured: “Let’s fuck sometime. I’d really like to!”
Hal pulled himself together. “I’d like to, too. But I’m with Jim and I don’t want to hurt his feelings, so no thanks.”
“That’s very noble of you,” said Richard. He was still smiling. We’ll see about that! Sooner or later… But this is not the moment. (Having some shreds of decency, Richard resisted saying “By the way, I’ve already fucked Jim.”)
Instead Richard, still smiling, said: “Be careful. By falling in lerve, the pair of you have surrendered to the Naked God; about the cruellest and most capricious deity there is. Be alert for hazards. Friendship with fucking is far better and, in my experience, lasts longer.”
Hal was not impressed. “Honestly, Richard, you do talk crap sometimes!”
To which Richard said nothing, but continued to smile thoughtfully.
Things had unquestionably taken an unexpected turn. Back at Little Kansas, the council of war met again. Richard summed up:
“Provided that Edward Vandeleur identifies the corpse as that of his late brother, Valentine, which Toby – who has met Valentine, albeit not recently – thinks it is, our position is now much stronger. Firstly, because the hippies have at the very least concealed his death, which is an offence. That death might be due to any of several possible causes: from natural causes to an accidental drug overdose, to murder. In any case they should have called a doctor, obtained a death certificate and contacted the family. They are now in breach of the law.”
Toby Bloodgood confirmed that. Jim agreed to develop Richard’s photos himself and to fax pictures of the corpse to Edward Vandeleur. Once that happened, as Richard cheerfully observed, “All hell can be let loose!”
That, from the hippies’ point of view, was exactly what happened. Edward Vandeleur identified his brother’s remains. The police finally descended on the hippie commune. When the inquest occurred, it became clear that Valentine had died of overdoses of about three restricted drugs, which was a lot; even for someone whose system had presumably become inured to narcotics. It was far from clear under what circumstances Valentine had consumed them. Murder was not ruled out, although – as events proved – Valentine’s death had definitely not been in the hippies’ best interest. As the rightful owner, Edward, Lord Vandeleur took possession of the property; changed all the locks; erected new gates between the armorial stone pillars at the end of the drive and effected repairs. (The previous gates had been taken for scrap in WWII.) Jim got back his White-Tailed Sea Eagle and managed to acquire some of the hippies’ statues at very reasonable prices in the auction of their effects. Gramercy Lodge seemed likely to have a more conventional future: Anglican nuns replaced the hippies as the Lodge’s tenants. It became St Clare’s House. Occasionally Edward received feedback from them. On one occasion a comely young Postulant had been horrified to find a very casually-clad man in her cell. She screamed; he smiled benignly and faded away into nothing.
“That was bloody Valentine,” remarked Edward when he was told. “Still being a blasted nuisance even after death! I’ll have him exorcised; I mean it! I wonder how much that costs… Better ring the Bishop; he’d know!
A few days after the expulsion of the hippies, which Lord Vandeleur, Sir Toby Bloodgood, Jim and Hal had celebrated in style, Jim found himself alone again. Edward Vandeleur was up to his neck in paperwork, now that Gramercy Lodge had reverted to the Vandeleur estate; Toby was doing whatever Masters of Foxhounds, who are also gentlemen farmers, do; this too seemed to involve a lot of bureaucracy. Worst of all, Hal was away on a ten-day exercise in Germany.
It was a perfect evening – or would have been, if Hal had been around. Jim could think of nothing better to do than take a solitary swim in the Quarry Mirror Carp pond; where, if anywhere, Hal’s aura might linger. On the side of the pool Jim stripped to his scarlet briefs but stopped there for some reason. He did not want to swim just yet; the evening was warm and calm and he wanted to enjoy it in peace. He would get naked and swim a little later. He folder his arms and looked out over the pond. Some carp were rising to the fly.
Suddenly a pair of male arms grabbed him from behind and hugged him. Someone laughed; and it was neither Richard nor Toby. Now seriously alarmed, Jim twisted himself round and slid clear. He looked at the other man, who seemed somehow familiar. About Hal’s height, but slimmer and with almost-straight, slightly wavy, blond hair which tended to fall over his forehead. He wore nothing apart from a pale blue Speedo, which matched his eyes.
“How the fuck did you get in here? Who the fuck are you anyway?” asked Jim truculently.
“Come on Jim! You can’t have forgotten me completely. I was told that you had a terrific crush on me once, but nothing happened. You were too wrapped up with that odd boy, Lindbergh! I’m Edmund Carter. We should make up for lost time!”
“I remember! You were Captain of Cricket! But that doesn’t explain how you found me here or how you got in.”
“I used such detective skills as I possess. After school I joined the Army and later was in the SAS, so I know your MP chum, Richard Finch. Good as your defences are, it’s quite hard to stop an SAS man if he really wants to get in. The best burglars – the ones who are never caught – often turn out to be former SAS men. And I thought it might be fun to join you for a swim.”
“So you knew about this pond?”
“Oh yes!”
Edmund again held Jim in his arms; no longer hugging him but running his hands all over Jim’s skin. His fingers slid inside Jim's scarlet briefs; soon afterwards these were on the ground, as was Carter’s sky-blue Speedo. Edmund kissed Jim for the first time in their lives.
