1 DOWN DURNLEY BOTTOMS

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

Chantelle is 16 band beautiful, Braxton is in his nineties...

FOR ALL THE GOLD...

Chantelle liked nothing better that her walks along Durnley Bottoms down Swanspottle way because along Durnley Bottoms the air smelled like air should smell. There was an orchard down there and in summer and early autumn it smelt the way orchards do.

A word about Chantelle.

She was sixteen and flawless. On a summer day like this was she dressed in white shorts and a pastel tee-shirt, an outfit that went with her delicious waves of golden hair and appropriately golden legs, like sugar goes with spice.

She liked to sing quietly to herself as she walked along, tunefully, often creating her songs from nowhere as the summer breezes teased her and the rich fragrance of the orchard filled her heart with an all-embracing happiness.

The orchard she was so fond of smelling belonged to Baxter Spendthrift, aged ninety three and with a secret absolutely nobody knew. He was the richest man in the entire world, richer by far than any Trump or Branson despite their oft-proclaimed happiness with riches, and yet there wasn’t a man or woman alive anywhere who could point at him and accuse him of absurd wealth. And that wealth was real enough and not a euphemism for personal joy.

He owned vaults in banks. In several banks, yet nobody associated his name with any of them them. They were ostensibly owned by anonymous shareholders and Braxton Spendthrift’s name never appeared among others on lists of key-holders. Yet he held keys: scores of them. He never appeared at meetings where decisions of great international import were taken. Yet he was no sleeping partner but an outright owner of bullion. The real Baxter was hidden within a veritable army of pseudonyms, but the keys were all his.

And when he needed a penny for the guy or a pound for Christmas, well, he had a cheque book, didn’t he?

He had a problem. He knew that he was dying. There was nothing particularly wrong with him as far as he was aware, but he was ninety three and it had been predicted by a fortune-teller way back in the magical sixties that he would never see ninety four. And he believed her even though, deep down, he knew such things as belief in fortune telling depended on the fears of clowns and fools.

He had seen a young girl walking down the Bottoms, a teenager by the look of her, and he liked what he saw. He’d never married, everyone who shared his blood-line had long since passed into the great beyond and if his youthful sowing of wild oats had produced offspring he’d never been told, and even if it had the chances were that even they were dead by now, he being ninety three, knocking on ninety four. So he was alone in the world.

The richest man to ever hold a dream in his head was on his way out, probably to die alone and his carcase rot away unserenaded, the richest and possibly the loneliest man in the world.

And there was the golden-haired girl with her songs and smiles walking past this multi-trillionaire’s humble home. Because it was humble. A cottage bungalow with just enough rooms for himself and the dog, though the dog was dead and buried beneath a Cox’s apple tree in the orchard. He’d never wanted much in the way of living space, though he’d always loved the outdoors and the Bottoms where loneliness was guaranteed. So he had his bungalow, and if half a dozen people were to turn up looking for a bed for the night he’d have been hard pushed to squeeze them in.

It hadn’t taken him long to become fascinated by the girl. He’d watched her through the French windows from his living room, a figure winding past the fruit trees. Long ago, in his teens, he’d had affairs of the heart until his father had passed away unexpectedly and it had become obvious to him that he was no mere penny-pincher but the richest man on the planet. His wealth, you see, was inherited via a complex route involving names without bodies. But nobody knew that, or suspected there were bunches of keys that lead to either paradise or hell. There was always somebody willing and able to attach signatures to documents if such were needed. It had always, as far as he knew, been like that. He wasn’t by any means the first and if he didn’t do something about his lonely state he’d certainly be the last. And if that was the case everything would be made to unravel, there would be a vacuum in the world of money and his name would start to smell rather bad. And he didn’t want his only fading reputation to be like that.

A year ago he’d arranged to have the remnants of his sperm put on ice. Just in case. You never know. Nobody does. But it’s possible he could yet father someone to inherit his multiple fortune. That had always been his dream, but somehow the money had got in the way. He’d always, since his youth, been an isolate.

The girl came back to his mind’s eye. Beautiful cascades of golden hair, a pleasing smile, a song on her pretty lips. There was something there, some reminder of long ago in times when he’d been a lad with hormones begging to be set free, when he’d courted a lass or two and they’d gone dancing on a Saturday night, and afterwards, well, afterwards was his own sacred memory.

It wasn’t easy walking towards the orchard gate. He wasn’t lame or anything like that, but walking was harder than it had been, because of his back which ached like the very devil after only a few yards.

But this time he walked there because he could hear, on the breeze, the sweetest sound of the girl’s voice as she sang of love and dreams and being with her lad.

He could lean on the gatepost when he got there, and that eased his back. He had all the wealth the world had to offer, but nothing eased this darned back of his or made it easy to run and dance along, to gambol like a child or skip like a youth. All he could do was struggle and groan when it ached, and wait at the gatepost to see what he might see.

And here she came. The breeze caught the stranded gold that hung so lightly from her head and he sighed. That hair of hers, the beauty of it, the way the light caught it, was worth more than all the gold in all his locked deposit boxes.

“You’ve got a pretty voice,” he called out.

Chantelle looked up at him. He must be the oldest man she had ever seen, and there was old Mr Brown down her street who must be a hundred if he was a day.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, smiling, the sun on her face, her hair gleaming.

“I wonder,” he said, trying to smile back, but it wasn’t easy, not with the weight of all that wealth burdening him down, “I wonder, would you do something for me?”

“If I can, sir,” she replied, her smile an absolute delight.

“I’m sure you can, sweet lassie.” He felt awkward when it came to putting things into words.

“Then what is it, sir?”

Did she have to call him sir? What was wrong with calling him Braxton? Or even Brax if she preferred it? Maybe she didn’t know his name. That must be it: he’d never spoken to her before, he didn’t know her name so why should she know his?

“I’m Braxton,” he said, and, shyly, more shy than he’d been in eighty years, he added “Would you care to marry me?”