Fantasy For Two

His grandfather on his mother’s side had been a Scot, and Bob had inherited some of his dourness and his cautious carefulness, which balanced his more unpredictable French trait. Now, as he placed both his hands on his desk and studied Mollie, he chose his words very carefully.

She was such a fiery young thing, with so much still to learn, but he liked her. She had spirit and, just as important, she genuinely cared about her fellow human beings. He had no time for these cynical and worldly young people who seemed bored with their lives before they had really begun.

‘Is that what you think—that Alex is the kind of landlord you’ve written about in this article?’

‘Well, isn’t he?’ Mollie challenged him.

‘No,’ Bob told her promptly and firmly. ‘I’ve known Alex all his life and there is no way he would ever treat his tenants badly. In fact, one of the first things he did after his father’s death was set about raising enough money to ensure that those who had worked for his father and were close to retirement could be securely housed when they reached retirement age.

‘He had to fight like the devil to get his plans past the local planning committee as well. Simply allowing people to stay on in the often remote cottages they had occupied during their working lives wasn’t enough for Alex. No. What he did was bring in an architect and instruct him to design purpose-built units suitable for independent elderly people to live in.’

Now it was Mollie’s turn to frown.

‘Anyone can make plans...promises...’ she began, but Bob shook his head, forestalling her.

‘Alex did more than that,’ he told her firmly. ‘Wherever he owns an estate he has financed the building of a small development of these units, close to all the local amenities and complete with resident wardens and facilities for the disabled. He’s even financed a nursing home for those ex-employees who can no longer manage to live by themselves.’

‘But Pat said—’ Mollie began, only to have her boss cut across her objection a second time.

‘There’s no way Pat Lawson would ever criticise Alex,’ he told her. ‘She thinks the world of him.’

Mollie looked away. It was true that Pat Lawson had never actually mentioned Alex by name, she acknowledged unhappily, but she had assumed when the older woman had agreed with her own comments that she had known that Mollie was obliquely referring to him.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ she heard Bob telling her, and he very firmly tore her prized article in two, and then two again, before depositing the pieces in his wastepaper basket.

Then he asked her, ‘Did you get Pat’s recipe?’

‘She’s young and enthusiastic,’ his wife reminded him gently later in the day, when they were having lunch together at the White Swan. The pub had originally been a coaching inn, and since it was owned by Alex it had escaped any kind of themed modernisation and was still very much a traditional English pub, with proper English food including Bob’s favourite steak and ale pie.

‘She needs something she can get her teeth into,’ Eileen added. ‘She doesn’t want to write about recipes and knitting patterns.’

‘Maybe so, but I can’t understand her—to write something like that about Alex of all people...’ Bob said, shaking his head. ‘I told her one of the first things any journalist worth their salt has to learn is to get their facts right. I mean Alex... I can’t think what’s got into the girl. She seems to have taken a real dislike to him.’

‘She needs a crusade...’ Eileen told him wisely, before adding firmly, ‘You know what the doctor said about your cholesterol level. Why don’t you have the chicken salad?’

Mollie could feel her ears burning hotly as she walked through the Gazette’s main office. No doubt everyone had heard Bob rubbishing her article this morning. Well, she didn’t care what Bob said; she knew, she just knew that there was no way that Alex was as white as he liked to be painted. After all, she had firsthand knowledge of just how badly he could behave when he wanted to, hadn’t she?

A brief touch on her arm made her jump. She turned her head to find Bob’s secretary smiling at her.

‘I was just going out for lunch,’ she told Mollie, ‘and I wondered if you’d like to come with me.’

‘I’d love to,’ Mollie accepted gratefully. With the exception of Lucy, the secretary, all the other members of the Gazette’s staff were of a similar age to its owner, and although she was a girl who had never found a problem in meeting and making new friends, and one who, moreover, enjoyed her own company, she had begun to feel slightly isolated and alone since moving to the town.

Bob had just kissed his wife goodbye and was about to walk out of the White Swan when he was hailed by an old friend—the chief inspector of the town’s police force—who, he saw, was frowning grimly.

‘Something wrong?’ he asked casually.

‘You could say that,’ he was told. ‘We’ve just been put on alert. It seems we’ve got a convoy of travellers heading out this way.’

‘Travellers?’ Bob questioned slightly bemused.

‘Yes. You know—hippies. New Agers...’ the chief inspector explained briefly. ‘They pitch up and make camp with their caravans and their lorries and cause the devil’s own kind of problems. If they do decide to make camp locally I’ll have every farmer for miles around on my back wanting me to get rid of them, not to mention the calls we’ll be getting from anxious parents worrying about the possibility of them selling drugs and generally causing problems.

‘I’ve been trying to track Alex down,’ he added.

‘It’s more than likely to be his land they settle on if they do settle locally, so it will be up to him to seek what legal remedies he can to move them on.’

‘What makes them do it, I wonder...?’ Bob mused. ‘I mean why...why decide to live outside society instead of within it?’

‘You’re the journalist, not me. Although most of them would tell you that they have chosen to create their own society...’

‘Mmm...’

Having refused his offer of a drink, Bob made his way back to the Gazette’s offices. If the travellers did decide to settle locally his readers would want to know exactly what was going on. Not, from what he had just heard about them, that any of these young people were likely to confide to him what their plans were. A thought suddenly struck him.

‘She needs something she can get her teeth into,’ his wife had told him about his new employee... ‘She needs a crusade...’

After a sandwich and an enjoyable chat with Lucy, which had included an invitation for Mollie to join Lucy and some of her friends on a ramble the following weekend, followed by a meal at a local pub, Mollie returned to the Gazette’s offices feeling much more cheerful. But her heart sank a little bit as, before she could reach her desk, Bob appeared and asked her to step into his office.

‘New Age travellers are coming here and you want me to interview them?’ Mollie asked him excitedly when he had explained what was going to happen. This was more like it. This was the kind of human interest story she could really get her teeth into.

‘The Gazette’s readers are going to want to know what these people are about, why they can’t stay in their own homes. Don’t they realise the havoc they cause, the damage they do to local crops and livestock?’ Bob was demanding critically, pursing his lips.

Mollie could tell exactly what kind of article he wanted her to write, but there were always two sides to every story.

‘We don’t know yet if these people do intend to pitch camp locally,’ Bob was reminding her. ‘With any luck they won’t, but—’

‘Where are they now? Does anyone know?’ Mollie interrupted him excitedly.

‘Well, they’re travelling this way, from the north. The police are keeping an eye on them, but apparently there’s not an awful lot they can do.’

Mollie quickly drew a brief mental map of the town’s infrastructure. That meant they must be travelling on what had once been the London road. Even if they decided not to pitch camp locally, it would still be worthwhile interviewing them, finding out how they lived, what had made them take to the road in the first place.

‘I could drive out to meet them and see if I can do some interviews,’ she suggested, holding her breath until Bob had given a brief grunt of assent.

Alex received the news of the travellers’ imminent arrival with far less enthusiasm.

He was not antagonistic towards their way of life, nor to them, and in many ways felt extremely sympathetic towards them, but... But he was also a land-owner and a landlord. He knew the havoc their arrival could cause, and the friction which could develop between them and their unwilling hosts. What he couldn’t quite understand, though, was why on earth they should have picked on Fordcaster. They were a small, quiet backwater of a town, well off any of the main arterial routes.

The police had already advised him to get in touch with his solicitor and set in motion what legal remedies he could to evict them, should they decide to settle. Unwillingly he reached for the phone. He didn’t like having to turn away anyone who was in need—it went against his whole ethos and nature—but he also owed a duty to his tenants.