CONSTABLE AROUND THE HOUSES a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors

by Nicholas Rhea

  ‘That’s sounds distinctly puzzling to a simple mortal like me!’

  ‘The Council of Ten was a group in the old Venetian republic,’ he told me. ‘They had unlimited powers — not a very good thing for good government — and there were ten of them. Later, they expanded to include seventeen members, but they still called themselves the Council of Ten; they disappeared with the fall of the republic in 1797,’ he added.

  ‘So, there are seventeen faces in the mural?’ I proffered that piece of wisdom to him. ‘I haven’t counted them.’

  ‘Right!’ he grinned. ‘Seventeen faces beaming down from my wall.’

  ‘So,’ — my mind was still searching for the reason why he would use seventeen faces from an obscure Venetian government and reproduce them as if they were performing various activities on the wall of his house — ‘why select those people? Is there some kind of link between this painting and that ancient group? Or a link between this house and the Council of Ten?’

  ‘Oh, no, not at all, nothing like that.’ He was enjoying himself now. ‘But there are seventeen bosses at work, with differing responsibilities, and they’re all there, in this mural. Disguised, I might add, they’ll never recognize themselves, but they’re all there, from the managing director downwards.’

  ‘Your way of hitting back at them for some reason?’

  ‘Absolutely right, Nick, they’re like that Council of Ten, too powerful by far, too inefficient, too insular, far too ignorant of the needs of the work-force, too wrapped up in their own elevated world . . . it’s not good for the company, Nick . . . it makes me so frustrated . . .’

  ‘None of them are here, are they? At your party?’

  ‘Oh, no, I didn’t invite them, the people from work who are here are some of my shop-floor colleagues.’

  ‘They won’t recognize the bosses on your wall then?’

  ‘No chance. If I’ve depicted a man, say in the adultery section . . .’

  ‘Adultery section?’ I puzzled again.

  ‘Oh, yes, I realized that each of my bosses has either broken one of the Ten Commandments or is guilty of one of the seven deadly sins, gluttony, sloth, lust, envy and so on, and there’s “Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife; Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”, and so on, so I’ve incorporated all those sins in this picture, with the face of the person who’s doing such wrongs, but you’ll have to hunt pretty hard to find them all . . .’

  ‘Ten Commandments, seven deadly sins.’ I could see how his mind was working now. ‘That’s seventeen in all. Seventeen people, seventeen sins, seventeen members of the Council of Ten . . . very good, Trevor. But if they do happen to recognize themselves . . .’

  ‘They won’t. If a man has been guilty of, say, stealing parts from work for his own car, I’ve shown him as a woman shoplifting. I’ve disguised all their features, but I know who they are!’

  ‘It’s a clever piece of work.’ I was staggered by its implications and range of meanings. Would anyone, apart from its creator, be able to interpret this mural?

  ‘I enjoyed doing it,’ he smiled. ‘It kept me sane, trying to cope with a batch of bad bosses.’

  ‘And you’re going to give all this up to be closer to them!’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine you wanting to live so close to such a bunch of bad bosses!’

  ‘There’s no option.’ He shrugged his shoulders with a show of acceptance of the inevitable. ‘We can’t afford to stay here.’

  ‘But in York, Trevor, you’ll be saddled with a mortgage, a bigger one than you have here, I guess . . .’

  ‘I’ve no mortgage here. Dad left the house to me; it was paid for. No outstanding debts. The snag was he left no money to maintain it, he had none, it all went on the house. That’s why we went to the local schools, not some smart public school and, I suppose, that’s why I’m in a dead-end job instead of some high flying personal career. But that’s the way things were. When Dad went there was just the house, nothing else, no money; that was my legacy. Like me he could barely keep it afloat either, but he struggled along until he died. Now it’s my turn. I’m struggling like he was but I don’t want to carry on. I want some free time with a little cash in my pocket for Alison and the youngsters.’

  ‘And you’re going to give this up to achieve that? Shame on you, Trevor! There’s no mortgage either! That’s heaven, you know! Even if you sell this place, you’ll need a mortgage to buy a suitable house in York and I can’t see you’re going to be all that better off, what with paying higher rates and so on.’

  ‘We should make a useful amount when we sell this place. No one really wants to buy big houses right now, not with a Labour Government in power and with their record of increasing taxes, so it won’t bring a very big sum, but I reckon it’ll pay for a good house in York, with a bit spare for investment, and a new car. We’ll have to take out a small mortgage that’s based on the valuation of both properties, and it allows a small amount to be invested for security, but at least we’ll have more than enough for a deposit, more than enough to buy a smart car and enough to put aside for investment.’

  ‘And your job will pay the housekeeping expenses, food, clothes, that sort of thing, rates and electricity bills.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So, you’ll still have no cash to spend, not a lot anyway. Not when you’ve paid the bills for running the car, the house, clothing the children and so on.’

  ‘Well, you don’t expect to have a lot of money to spare when you’ve a house and a family and a car to run.’

  ‘Have you worked out what it costs to run a car to work in York, from here?’ I smiled. ‘And you’ve no mortgage here. I’ll bet you’ll not be any better off, moving to York, and you’ll be tied even more tightly to a job you don’t want! Look at it another way, Trevor: imagine not working in York. Imagine working from home. Imagine packing in your awful job to do something you really want to do — to become an artist. You could raise money on this house if you have to, it’s a wonderful asset in its own right. A mortgage on this house would allow you to put some of the cash away to provide capital and an income . . . you needn’t spend all your life travelling to work, you needn’t be away from home for nine or ten hours every day . . .’ And now I was thinking about Alan Knight and what he had told me. ‘You could make prints of this mural and sell them, keeping the mural. The mural is your security or part of your security. You could paint lots of your landscape pictures and make prints of them and sell the prints, keeping some of the originals as further security, and you could use part of the house as a gallery to display them and you could teach art once or twice a week . . .’

  ‘We did talk about doing that, Alison even said she could get a part-time job.’

  ‘Good for her. That’s exactly the kind of support you need. But you must be sure not to spend time dealing with customers and viewers,’ I said, basing my expertise upon the experiences of Alan Knight. ‘You’d have to be creative and get out into the moors to paint while Alison runs the office, sees to visitors and potential buyers, answers the telephone and so on. There’d be no dreadful bosses to cope with and think of the tax benefits of being self-employed — even under Labour!’

  ‘It all sounds very tempting; we did talk about it, a lot,’ he said, ‘but I have no capital to carry me over the first hurdle or two. If I had enough to get me started, to keep me even for six months, I think I could manage to earn enough to provide a living as good as the one I’ve got, perhaps with a bit of teaching, night-school work and so forth thrown in. And I do have a stockpile of pictures which I’ve done over the years.’

  ‘And don’t forget you’ve got the Council of Ten,’ I laughed. ‘Have it photographed, Trevor, make reproductions of it and sell them locally and to a wider audience. This is a classic picture! Instead of covering it up with emulsion when you move to York, stay here and sell the same picture time and time again — that’s part of your capital, surely? Your raw material.’

/>   ‘You sound very convincing,’ he said. ‘Others have said exactly the same thing. Even my family. And you’re saying exactly what’s been going through my mind for weeks and weeks.’

  ‘A friend of mine did exactly that,’ I said. ‘I know nothing about the world of art or business, but he did exactly what you want to do. Alan Knight, he used to be a policeman and was fed up of shift work. He gave it up to be an artist. Why not talk to him? Give him my regards and arrange a chat.’

  ‘I know him,’ Trevor smiled. ‘Well, I know of him to be more precise, he does seascapes, doesn’t he? Of the North Sea? And ships in full sail?’

  ‘That’s him. He had no house, no capital, nothing, but he had a supportive wife, a talent for hard work and enterprise, and guts. Guts was the thing that persuaded him to pack in the police force and launch himself into the world of freelance painting. And he’s doing very well.’ And I told him how to contact Alan if he felt it necessary.

  ‘Thanks, Nick,’ he said. ‘I’ll think about it. If I did leave work to go it alone, and if things went wrong, I could always clean windows. Starting with my own! Now I must dash, or I’ll burst . . .’

  As he vanished into the toilet Alison appeared in the doorway as I was heading back into the party room. ‘Have you seen Trevor?’ she asked. ‘We’ve been looking everywhere for him. I want to make a toast to our future.’

  ‘He’ll be back soon,’ I said. ‘We’ve just had a council meeting.’

  ‘Council meeting?’ she frowned.

  ‘The Council of Ten.’ I knew she would understand. ‘Except there was just the two of us.’

  ‘You think he should stay, don’t you, Nick? And risk everything as an artist?’

  ‘You could always take in bed-and-breakfast if things went wrong!’ I told her. ‘With a house of this size, you’ve always got the potential to earn something. He won’t be happy in suburbia, Alison! That’s just not his life-style. Factory work, semi-detached houses, streets, nosy neighbours, that sort of thing. It’s not him, Alison.’

  ‘I know that, you know that, and he knows that, but he worries about security . . .’

  ‘He could get killed in a traffic accident driving to work,’ I said. ‘Or he could be made redundant. Or there could be a take-over and he could lose his job. Even in a supposedly secure job nothing is absolute. His talent is his security, Alison, and he’s got a massive talent, that mural says so.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do with it!’ she said. ‘It’s painted on plaster, it’s part of the wall. What can we do with a painting like that?’

  ‘I’ve put some ideas into his head,’ I said, and then I saw Trevor heading back into the party. ‘He’ll tell you, I’m sure.’

  I could see by the expression on Trevor’s face that he had already been mulling over my words and I didn’t think he needed much of a push to launch himself into a new career away from the factory which was clearly sapping his self-esteem. I guessed he was paying much of his salary just to drive to work and back. What few luxuries they did enjoy already came from his painting; if he spent all day painting, surely, he could earn more? Clearly, the idea of changing the direction of his life had been going through his mind anyway; my chat, which had reinforced what he’d already been told, might have provided the extra impetus that he needed, and I felt sure that Alison would be totally supportive whatever he chose to do.

  But as people were preparing to toast him on his fortieth birthday, Trevor was hauling a dining-chair into the middle of the room and clambering upon it, with a glass of wine in his hands.

  ‘I’d like you all to drink a toast to our future, me and Alison, and the children. And this house,’ he said. ‘I’ve decided not to leave. I made up my mind just now. So, it’s a toast to the Council of Ten,’ he grinned, winking at me. I knew what he meant.

  And a week later he told me he’d resigned from his job in York, and he and Alison were planning his first exhibition of landscapes which he’d done and saved over the past few years. And among them, he said, would be photographic prints of his astonishing mural. He gave one to Mary and me — autographed, of course. He thanked me for providing the little push he needed, but I said it was nothing to do with me — he’d had the courage to make that decision. I just talked about it. And guess what? I really did envy him.

  I found myself wishing I could have done the same, except that I always wanted to be a writer. But would I have the courage to throw up my regular job? Perhaps, one day, I’d talk to Trevor about it because Trevor is now a very successful artist. And that wonderful oft-reproduced mural can still be seen on the wall in Kirkside House.

  * * *

  Another intriguing house was situated on the moors, a long way from Aidensfield. It was neatly tucked into a fold in the hills above Gelderslack and I had never been to it because it was not a working farm, nor had its owner or occupant given any reason for me to call. On occasions, however, I had patrolled the lofty moorland road which passed the entrance to this house — called White Ghyll Head -- and had sometimes seen smoke rising from its chimneys. For many months my sole association with this place was wispy smoke rising from its two sturdy stone chimney stacks. The rest of the house was hidden from view. By dint of keeping my eyes and ears open I discovered it was owned by a businessman called Robert Scholes, a haulage contractor on a big scale who lived in Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

  Rumour said he operated over 300 vehicles both in this country and on the Continent, working at everything from heavy haulage to cattle transport via food deliveries and furniture removals. He and members of his family came to White Ghyll Head for the occasional weekend during the year and for longer periods in the spring, summer and autumn. Between his visits Mr Scholes allowed friends to use it for holiday breaks, but it was not available to the general public.

  His desire for privacy was reinforced by a large notice near the main gate which said, ‘White Ghyll Head. Private Property. Keep Out. No hawkers or pedlars; no representatives without an appointment’.

  The house was known as White Ghyll Head because it occupied a site very close to the source of a lovely moorland stream called White Ghyll. Hereabouts, streams were variously known as becks or gills, although the name ghyll, and even slack, were sometimes used for small waterways. The source of White Ghyll was a patch of soggy marshland, rich with cotton grass which was formerly used for stuffing pillows and cushions. It was also the haunt of the skylark and the summertime playground for the curlew. The moorland bog, some two acres in extent, drained into a narrow gulley behind the house and from there its small outlet wove erratically through the heather and bracken to eventually tumble over a sheer cliff to form the spectacular White Ghyll Force, a famous local waterfall set deep in a rocky cove. A deep pool popular with kingfishers and dragonflies had been formed by the falling water and from there the beck flowed into the lower section of Gelderslack Dale before joining the River Rye. There were no public footpaths in the area although the local landowners, including Scholes, did not object to the local people walking along the route of the beck — but their permitted route stopped well short of the remote house. For me the house was intriguing because I had never stepped foot across its threshold but, in fact, it became even more interesting due to a strange case of what might be called reverse housebreaking!

  It happened like this. One Saturday morning around half past ten I received a telephone call from Mr Scholes. ‘Can you come to White Ghyll, Constable?’ he asked in a polite voice, with a strong West Riding accent. ‘We’ve just arrived for a family weekend and find we’ve had visitors.’

  ‘Visitors?’ I knew my voice contained a question.

  ‘A break-in,’ he said. ‘Burglars.’

  ‘What’s been taken?’ I asked immediately, in case it was necessary to issue to our mobile patrols quickly with a description of the missing property.

  ‘Nothing of mine so far as I can tell,’ he said. ‘He’s left a note though, saying he’s sorry for taking the pos
t. We’ve had no letters sent here — I haven’t given this address to anyone outside the family — but nothing else seems to be missing. Whether he has taken any letters is something I may never know, and if the mail was addressed to the previous owner, then it’s nothing to do with me anyway. But you’d think the post office would have been asked to redirect the previous owner’s mail and if this burglar had asked if he could come and pick up his letters, I’d have been more than willing. Not that we’re here all that often though. Anyway, the point is we’ve had an intruder, Constable, and it’s all very baffling. I thought you should know.’

  ‘All right, Mr Scholes, I’ll come straight away,’ I assured him. ‘It’ll take me half an hour to get there.’

  ‘I’ll have the coffee pot on,’ he assured me.

  It was a fine, dry, rather chilly Friday morning but a bonus was that the views from the heights of the North York Moors were crystal clear beneath a cloudless sky. It was possible to see for miles; one view opened across to the North Sea which appeared Mediterranean blue in the morning sun, and another extended through a gap to the high Pennines and Yorkshire Dales, some seventy miles to the west. It was a spectacular run and I enjoyed it. Eventually I was chugging in my little van down the unmade lane to White Ghyll Head, having passed the familiar privacy signs and soon the drive dipped into a moorland hollow. Deep in that hollow stood White Ghyll Head and I could see the marshy area behind it with the waters of the beck flowing from it like a silver ribbon in the morning light. The house was built of local dark-grey chunky stone with a roof of matching stone tiles; it looked as if it was sinking into the ground, so low and long did it appear in its setting, and it seemed there was no view from the building. It was one of the traditional longhouses of the moorland regions; in those houses all the rooms were situated in a straight line and linked by a corridor which ran the length of the ground floor along the northern wall.

  At the east end of the house the building continued along the same line to form the cattle byre. One could walk directly from the cattle byre into the house, the idea being that in winter, when the cattle spent their time indoors, the heat they produced would help to warm the domestic part of the building. The bedrooms would be to the same plan each opening on to a long corridor which ran the length of the house. Probably, there would be two staircases.