by Terry Morgan
You'd be surprised how popular they are. Little old ladies love them.
"And another of Ho's own designs is one that pisses into buckets or fountains. All we have to do is fix a short metal tube for a dick and an electric plug. That's where my production team come in. I've got three old guys who were already here when I came, a teenage dick fitter apprentice and my foreman, Alan, who I call the production manager.
"Oh, and if you saw another old guy in the garden that's Cyril. He's way past seventy but he does a bit of weeding and feeds the fish. Cyril's the one with the job specification. I'm putting him onto painting the brick wall next week - nothing fancy, a splash of red paint to save any proper pointing. Might sell up soon, you see."
Godley sighed, put his tinted spectacles on and looked over the top of them at his visitor. "You’re very quiet. I like a quiet person. Shows you're listening. Absorbing the success story.
"Do you like red brick, mate? I don't. The remains of the old red brick factory building are now hidden behind the laurel bushes at the back, out of sight, out of mind. The old red brick factory is where we finish off gnomes and attach the fishing rods, dicks and plugs. Garden gnomes are at the back but garden gnomes are really the front, if you get my gist."
Godley winked at his visitor but got no reaction. "No, don't even ask. I shan't be taking you out there even for a quick look. This new glass and steel office of mine is where the real action is."
Godley pushed his chair back and stood up again. He went towards the window but then looked back over his shoulder at his visitor.
"You're looking at me," he said. "But I've seen that look before. You are thinking that no-one can make money from plastic garden gnomes, aren't you? But as that old song says, 'It ain't what you do but the way that you do it.' You heard that song before? That song could have been written for me."
Godley turned and came back a few steps.
"Another song is 'Happiness, happiness'. You remember Ken Dodd? He sang it because he thought he'd got around the Inland Revenue by not paying his tax."
Godley then stood with his thumb to his mouth like a microphone.
"Happiness, happiness," he tried to sing, "The greatest gift that I possess. I thank the Lord that I've been blessed. With more than my share of happiness. Remember dear old Ken now? He was a bit premature with that song because they caught up with him, didn't they? He didn't have a business head on him, you see. He should have stuck to jokes and his tickling stick. Poor old Ken should have asked me. Never sing about it, mate, I would have told him. Keep it quiet. Be clever with it. Stick it somewhere, preferably under a foreign mattress."
Godley sat down, exhausted by his singing. He swung around one full circle in his white leather executive chair.
"You know another of my most popular sayings? Go on try......Oh well. Money is where the money's stashed - that's what I say. Got it mate? Wink, wink and say no more, eh?" Arthur Godley nodded, winked and grinned all at the same time, but if his visitor nodded then it was barely perceptible.
"But you know the secret of a successful modern business, mate?" Godley asked as his winking subsided. "Diversification. Diversify or die I always say. Sometimes I say die or diversify, but it's all the same. And do you know how I do diversifying? Do you? The garden gnomes and the old factory at the back is the front. I think I already mentioned that before. But you get my meaning? No, it's the front for Godley Investments.
"It's amazing what you can offset against a business that's losing money if you're clever. You see once I'd set up Godley Investments things really took off. Clowns wanting to buy me out are like bees around a honey pot nowadays."
Arthur Godley stopped. He stared at his visitor again. His visitor was staring back and, as far as Godley could recall, he'd still said nothing since his arrival. It was very unusual. Godley coughed, perhaps nervously, and stuck a finger inside his shirt collar to release a neck hair that had got stuck. Then he took a deep breath.
"You're looking at me. I hope it's not a look of envy. But perhaps, like me, you enjoy listening to a successful entrepreneur explaining how it's done. Perhaps you feel you are enjoying the company of someone from whom you can learn a thing or two, relaxing in his sumptuous office, seeing how entrepreneurship, enterprise, hard work, ingenuity and touches of inspired genius can be turned into wealth. I assume you saw my Bentley parked by the front door."
Godley paused, fiddled with his watch strap next to the matching gold cuff links.
"On the other hand," he paused a little longer. "I can see from your old suit that you're not a high-flying businessman from the financial sector. Are you perhaps a landscape gardener? Do you work for the Council? Because if so let me tell you something. Do you know there is a plan to sow wild flower seeds on that patch of waste ground next to the Quick Fit car repair shop? You believe that? God help us, I thought. What is the world coming to? As soon as I heard I phoned Krupton Council. 'What the fuck's going on.' I said, 'It'll end up looking like some of the residents around here - unkempt.' You know what I mean? So if you work for the Council go back and tell them.
"Now, you've seen my Lawson's Cypress trees by the lake, what do you think? I like evergreen trees. I had a maple tree once but the bloody thing turned bright scarlet in the autumn and dropped leaves everywhere. I soon got that tree sorted - you're sitting on it right now. Fir trees, that's what they need - trimmed ones so that the rubbish from McDonalds is held back and doesn't fly into the road, onto the Krupton Estate and then blow down here to my gate."
Godley laughed, got up and went to the window again.
"But the scene from my picture window wasn't always like that, you know. I may appear to be a tough, no nonsense businessman with a proven track record but I have my softer side." He sighed emotionally, looked out onto the garden
"I'm a great follower of natural history. I've got a book on dinosaurs at home. A few million years ago, you would have seen dinosaurs, sabre toothed tigers and bloody great woolly elephants with long tusks out there beyond the brick wall. They dug up a bone or two on the common a while back so there must have been a jungle around here at some time. Wild beasts probably prowled right where my sunflowers are and big gorillas probably sat thumping their chests right where my desk is now. Can you imagine that?
"If you stand here at the window looking out with your eyes closed as I sometimes do, you can imagine such prehistoric scenes. The book I've got has a colour picture of a bloody great Tyrannosaurus Rex looking down on a frightened little creature that looks like it knows its time is up. On the next page, the T Rex is standing on its hind legs bellowing to the jungle with steam coming out of its mouth telling everyone he's just had his breakfast and is now on the lookout for lunch. All you can see on the grass is a pool of blood. I like that T Rex and I read that book a lot. There are lots of pictures in it."
Arthur Godley turned away from the window and returned to his desk and swivel chair. He looked at his quiet visitor whom he now noticed looked unshaven. It was hardly designer stubble, more like three days untrimmed growth. His suit, he concluded, was probably off the peg, Marks and Spencer, and the unpolished brown, lace-up shoes probably from Clark's. He was sitting with his feet in the Clark's shoes side by side just off the carpet, his knees together and his white hands in his lap. But at least he was listening, not interrupting, taking it all in, learning and showing respect. Also, Godley was pleased to see, he looked impressed, but he’d hardly moved.
Godley made a play of looking at his gold watch, checking the time.
"Sorry about the natural history lecture, mate, but the role of a business guru is to teach and enlighten on many diverse subjects which have influenced his success. And we all need to know where we come from so we can plot a way forward. Everyone needs a starting point and I always think mine goes way back to the time of that T Rex. I often sit here imagining bloody great lizards with red and green scales, sharp teeth and big jaws plundering along between the giant ferns in search of the next snack.
"Thinking about it, things probably haven't changed much. The bigger you are, the sharper your teeth, the deadlier your grip, then the more likely you are to survive. It's the far-seeing eyes, the nimble legs, the keen sense of smell to sniff out prey. Sniff it out and snuff it out I always say."
He leaned back in his chair and swivelled one more full circle.
"So, that's enough from me on the subject of survival of the fittest, but I like to start with a warm up. Are you going to take notes? Where shall we start? I'm sure you'll say we need to start at the beginning, how I made my first million. Am I right?"
Perhaps Arthur Godley's visitor nodded, perhaps not, but Godley thought he saw a slight movement, which was enough.
"I'm sure you'll say we need to start with the question everyone asks when they come in here for advice and mentoring - how did I, Arthur Godley, God's gift to Krupton business and the town's economic saviour, start out on his epic journey."
"Well.............," he leaned back, shut his eyes and smiled as if having an erotic dream. "Just like that original God I started with a blank sheet of paper. That old God had already done his bit by creating heaven and earth. Also, a fair bit of the water he had created had already flowed under the bridge when I got here. So, it was up to me to
