by Earl Nelson
Grand Mum was having a wonderful time and I hoped she would stay with it rather than that duke. No luck there, she asked me if I could supervise here on Friday as she had a dinner date with his Dukeness, my words, not hers.
Of course, I would.
I was back at Pinewood Studios the next day. This day would be a run-through of the script. All the principal characters were there. The woman playing the part of the famous actress was new to the acting world.
She was gorgeous and had a wonderful voice. I could see why they picked her for the part. The only negative was that she had a pretty high opinion of herself.
While I could work with her I doubted if we would ever be friends. The last straw was at a break where she started complaining about the cost of the Royal family and that the institution was archaic and should be done away with. Who would have thought that American me was a Monarchist at heart?
I wasn’t ready to give the colonies back, but I favored the British set up for Britain. It was probably due to my close relationship with the royal family.
After lunch, we continued with our lines. At one point she stopped the reading and told the writers that here was a wonderful place to put in a line about the redundant royal family.
I had to ask if a comedy was the place to put in a political statement. The writers didn’t have any problem adding her line.
That got me up on my high horse so when I had to respond to her screed I made a pro-royal statement. That brought some tension between us that reflected in our body language for the rest of the afternoon.
At tea-time, the writers left us and had a conference. When they came back, they told us that our disagreement about the Royal family was exactly what was needed.
It gave a reason for us not getting together until we made up at the end of the movie. I asked how we would resolve our disagreement. It turned out that she as the actress would get a part in a Hollywood movie and we would move there to live happily ever after.
I objected as I would have to give up my bookstore. This got me some weird looks as there wasn’t a bookstore, it was a prop in the movie.
I explained that my character had been built around being a bookstore owner and that is what attracted her to me in the first place. It didn’t seem logical for me to walk away.
We reached an agreement that Foyles would buy out his bookstore and that he was looking to buy a laid back bookstore in the US.
Thus the royal family issue became a moot point as we weren’t going to live in England. At least as the movie ends. I still didn’t care that much for the girl.
We were going to have to kiss several times during the movie. This meant we would have to have hundreds of kisses on set. Well, she was good looking. I would just have to man up.
When I got back to The Meadows in the evening it was a right mess. There were vehicles parked everywhere. There must have been several hundred cars on the property.
The word about the treasure trove find was out. After changing I went out to the dig. I drove along the newly made gravel road. I took one of the estate cars. No way was my Aston Martin going on that gravel.
I had to show identification to get past the SAB people, which was more than fine with me. Grand Mum was at her tent with another group of her friends. I didn’t know there were that many silver-haired women in England.
They were feeding the guards and students. The guards were there in small groups eating like normal people. As one of the ladies said the students were like gobbling gannets.
I did find David who had set up a large tent of his own. They were still in the preparatory stage of the dig. This included developing a map of the site. He told me this would be the most significant find in a hundred years.
He had seen the chests delivered to the British Museum and had delivery receipts for them. It would be several weeks before there was an official valuation but that he was told it would be in the millions. Since I had agreed in writing to donate any reward to the Museum they wanted a high valuation to excite the public. Interesting how that works.
David told me that he was going to give a tour of the site to reporters once they had it mapped out and had walkways staked. He asked if I would have any objection to a BBC crew filming the dig at various stages with the idea of making either a movie or TV series out of it.
I told him that was a wonderful idea and that we wanted to charge them to offset the costs. My accountants were going to love the new mess I had created for them.
Chapter 13
I gave a press conference at the dig on Saturday morning. David asked me as he was getting pestered all the time. I knew there was no escaping it and that I just should do it and get it over with.
The questions were all predictable.
“How did you find it?”
“I stumbled across it on a walk. I tripped on a root and noticed a stone with inscriptions.”
“How much was in the chests that were removed?”
“We won’t know until the British Museum values them.”
“What do you think about all of it going to the Crown?”
“That is the law.”
“Normally a reward is given. Do you have any idea how much you will receive?”
“It doesn’t matter. My company has already donated it back to the British Museum.”
“What company is that?”
“Treasure Troves, PUC.”
On it went until they were repeating themselves. Finally, I said, “One last question.”
A man in the back raised his hand, he hadn’t asked any questions until now.
“Is it true you are the wealthiest person in the world now?”
“I have no idea, the Sultan of Brunei and others don’t share their financial status with me. Yes, my companies are worth a lot of money and will earn more in the future. It’s not about the money though, but about what you can do with it.”
“And what will you do with yours?”
“Build a company that helps businesses and through them the people.”
“Wouldn’t it be better just to give the people money directly, letting them decide what to do with it, instead of you thinking you know what is best for the world?”
“I don’t know what's best, but I hire smart people to advise me and manage my businesses so that I can hire people and improve their lot in life.”
“You are a filthy capitalist!”
“And proud of it. This press conference is over.”
As I turned a shot rang out. I looked back, security guards were all over the last man to question me.
No one was hurt except that the man who had fired the shot would have a tremendous headache where he had been coshed.
The SAB people held him for the police. Of course, all the reporters who were at the press conference were asking me and each other questions.
The shooter kept yelling nonsense. Well, it was nonsensical but it was finally figured out he was a true believer of Marx and Engels. He was going to kill the filthy capitalist.
Lucky for this filthy capitalist he was a poor shot.
I thought it was luck that had security right there. They were suspicious of him from the start. His press credentials were good, though from a communist newspaper, so they let him in.
At the same time, they kept several people close to him. As soon as the pistol came out of his pocket two guards were on him. When he fired the gun his arm was pointed straight up in the air.
Hiring SAB proved to be a good decision.
The local bobbies showed up and took statements from all present, at least all who had not left the scene. It was funny watching all the press interviewing each other.
David wanted to know if my life was always like this. Thinking about over the last three years I told him, “Pretty much.”
“Sucks to be you.”
“There have been some very good times to offset the bad.”
“If you say so, how many times
have you been shot at?”
I thought about it, “I haven’t kept count.”
“If you don’t mind, I’m not going to be sitting next to you at any public events.”
“Only if I don’t have to defend you in any faculty meetings.”
He pondered, “Maybe getting shot at isn’t so bad after all.”
We had a good laugh and went our ways. I liked that guy.
Grand Mum had all the details before I got back to the house so I didn’t have to explain all of it. She wanted to know why I hadn’t hit the rotter. I told her I hired people to do that.
She thought that was an excellent idea. This explained Mum's attitude to the world more clearly. Hit someone in our family and we hit back harder.
Sunday was out watching the dig, at least for three hours. After a while, I realized this was like watching paint dry. They were being meticulous like I had never imagined.
Everything was being marked, photographed, and documented before even a leaf was disturbed. From watching their work, I began to understand the time and money a project of this size would take.
I realized I needed to have the accounting people work with David so he has the money he needs. From what I understood archaeologists were always underfunded and trying to save a ha'penny. This project did not need to be done like that.
I made a mental note to let him know that I wanted this to be the best dig and restoration the world had ever seen. That guy that tried to shoot me had one valid point. What use is money?
Monday, it was back to class. I thought people would be asking me questions about the find and attempted shooting. Apparently, university students like to think they are too sophisticated to ask questions.
That is except for Tom, Bill, and Steve. They were all over me wanting the gory details. So between lectures, I shared them as I saw them.
At home that evening, I had a note to call the Prettyman company in London. They needed to talk to me. From the way, the message read it was urgent.
I called before heading out to class on Tuesday. It turns out they were having trouble getting the whiffletree linkage to work correctly. They decided to call the author of the paper.
They tracked him down to his company. IBM! He was reluctant to talk to them because IBM was doing work in that area. He did let it slip that it involved typewriters.
Well, there went that idea down the drain along with my development money. Prettyman’s wanted to know where to proceed with the project. I asked if there were any funds left on the account. They told me no, as a matter of fact, I owed them one hundred pounds for work done beyond the budget.
I told them I would see that they got their money but the project was dead. I was mad, mad at myself. The one lesson I should have learned in the Economics class was business intelligence. All I would have had to do was read the biography of the author of the whiffletrees article and I would have known that IBM was ahead of me.
I contacted my London office which had just opened. It was attached to the freight forwarding business, but Jim Wallace had set up a small office just to handle my affairs.
They would handle all my cards and letters that I needed to sign rather than ship them to me from the States. An accountant there handled my financial matters as opposed to company matters.
I called him and explained that Prettyman's would be sending a final bill for one hundred pounds and that we would pay it. After that, the project was finished and was to be used as a tax write off.
I gave some thought as to how I was going to handle the Economics course project and grade. As far as the Don knew, I was failing at this point.
What he didn’t know about was Treasure Troves, PUC. I had set it up out of personal funds, not company money. Depending on the British Museum’s evaluation the find would meet the requirements for an A.
He had set it on gross profit, not net. Since I was donating the money back to the Museum a large sum would flow into the company and then back out. To hype the find to the public it was in the Museum's best interest to value the find as high as they could. It would cost them nothing to do so.
This would give me another personal tax deduction which accounting informed me I needed desperately. The only question was whether I should let the Economics class know now, or surprise everyone later.
I was inclined to let it wait, as the Don was being a jerk about things. It would be cool to set him up and then shoot him down. Not very adult of me, I know.
After thinking about it some more, I decided to update the class on the project now. I could savor the thought without taking the action.
It would look like I was taking a high road while getting to enjoy the low road thoughts. It was the best of both worlds. Was I growing up, or growing cynical?
I did call the Museum and asked when the evaluation would be complete. They thought it would be another couple of weeks. They gave me a ballpark figure of ten million pounds, give or take a few million.
Yeah, I could savor some thoughts while doing the right thing.
Chapter 14
Thursday morning I set up my trip to Spain. I had a map book of the region my new properties were in. The main ranch was near Granda in the Andalucia Region.
I had to change planes twice to get there but they were good connections and the flights were all on time.
I was flying commercial and could have chartered a flight but had second thoughts about doing so. I didn’t want to end up like Howard Hughes. Afraid of everything and everybody.
Considering it was winter the weather was sunny, cold but sunny. On the trip down I read the Spanish newspapers that had accumulated at The Meadows.
There were two of them, ABC from Madrid and Ideal printed in Granada. ABC had been subscribed to at my request ever since I started school at Oxford. The purpose was to keep my Spanish up to speed.
I had got lax on reading the daily edition but I usually got caught up on the weekends with binge reading. What I like about ABC they were always pushing for the royal family to come back into power.
I’m not a royalist in the general sense. I took the American stance of rooting for the underdog. With Franco in power, they were the underdogs. I suspected it would take Franco’s death for anything to happen.
The newspaper Ideal was Mr. Hamilton's idea. He suggested that when I obtained the property from the Duke that I keep up with local issues at least until I knew what I was facing.
The only item in the Ideal was about the land being sold that would contain the intersection of 902 and 44. There had been big development plans but they were now on hold. These were two major highways.
I paid attention to all the names in the article. They meant nothing to me right now, but I bet they would soon.
The writer of the article didn’t seem upset about the developer not being able to proceed.
I also had a copy of the quarterly reports that the Duke had received from his agent. The income amounts were within what one would expect. I had my accounting staff review them to make certain.
They thought the rents were a little low and that I might consider raising them. I wasn’t going to do anything until I had visited the site.
I had dressed very casually for the flight. That meant I had on boots, jeans, a polo shirt, and a sport coat.
I had let the people who ran my new house know that I was coming. I was told that I would be met at Armilla Airport.
My last flight was a puddle jumper. Since it was a Cessna 320 I could have flown it. There was one other passenger on board. He slept most of the one-hour flight so I had time to wonder what was waiting for me.
I would never have guessed. I had a Hartmann soft duffle bag for my two days of clothes. I intended this to be a quick trip. I really shouldn’t even be making this one with so much going on.
I needed to see what I had bought and see if there were any issues.
Waiting for me at Armilla Airport was a guy about my age and his youn
ger sister. She must have been fourteen. A nice looking girl but not beautiful in a fashion sense, normal in other words.
He was holding a sign with Richard Jackson on it.
I identified myself with them. We piled into a station wagon made by a company named SEAT. I had never heard of it before. It was a rough-riding car without much attention to detail like Americans or other modern country cars.
I asked and told it was made in Spain. From the driver's tone, I didn’t say anything negative about the car. It was the best they had.
I was only half paying attention when I was asked a question in Spanish by Alejandro, so didn’t hear it. In English, I asked him to repeat his question.
He did so in pretty good English. The little girl Elisa stated to her brother in Spanish.
“I guess he doesn’t speak Spanish.”
She continued, “He looks like Rick Jackson the American actor, but he is big and has a British accent so can’t be him. Besides everyone knows that American actors are short. They have to stand on boxes to kiss the leading ladies.”
Poor Alan Ladd, he had set an image for Americans that wouldn’t be lived down for a long time.
Alejandro replied, “I don’t care who he is, I just hope he isn’t here to raise our rents. We are barely getting by just as it is.”
Now that brought me up short, I had been considering raising rents based on my accountant's recommendation. What was going on here?
I asked in English, “What is life like on the ranch?
I avoided using la estancia or la hacienda.
They gave me a basic description of what I would call farm life. Elisa told me about her school. What she described sounded pretty dilapidated to me. This was strange as the Dukes records listed a large amount being used to modernize it.
I asked about how expensive it was to live on the ranch thinking that they would tell me that rent was included in their pay for working the ranch. The money sent to the Duke would be an accounting quirk to show the purported income from the estate.
