Текст книги "What a cave up!"

Автор книги: Джонатан Коу

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Prologue 1942–1961

1

Tragedy had struck the Winshaws twice before, but never on such a terrible scale.

The first of these incidents takes us back to the night of November 30th 1942, when Godfrey Winshaw, then only in his thirty-third year, was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire as he flew a top-secret mission over Berlin. The news, which was relayed to Winshaw Towers in the early hours of the morning, was enough to drive his elder sister Tabitha clean out of her wits, where she remains to this day. Such was the violence of her distraction, in fact, that it was deemed impossible for her even to attend the memorial service which was held in her brother’s honour.

It is a curious irony that this same Tabitha Winshaw, today aged eighty-one and no more in possession of her thinking faculties than she has been for the last forty-five years, should be the patron and sponsor of the book which you, my friendly readers, now hold in your hands. The task of writing with any objectivity about her condition becomes somewhat problematic. Yet the facts must be stated, and the facts are these: that from the very moment she heard of Godfrey’s tragic demise, Tabitha has been in the grip of a grotesque delusion. In a word, it has been her belief (if such it can be called) that he was not brought down by German gunfire at all, but that the killing was the work of his own brother, Lawrence.

I have no wish to dwell unnecessarily on the pitiful infirmities which fate has chosen to visit upon a poor and weak-minded woman, but this matter must be explained insofar as it has a material bearing on the subsequent history of the Winshaw family, and it must, therefore, be put into some sort of context. I shall at least endeavour to be brief. The reader should know, then, that Tabitha was thirty-six years old when Godfrey died, and that she was still living the life of a spinster, never having shown the slightest inclination towards matrimony. In this regard it had already been noticed by several members of her family that her attitude towards the male sex was characterized at best by indifference and at worst by aversion: the lack of interest with which she received the approaches of her occasional suitors was matched only by her passionate attachment and devotion to Godfrey – who was, as the few reports and surviving photographs testify, by far the gayest, most handsome, most dynamic and generally prepossessing of the five brothers and sisters. Knowing the strength of Tabitha’s feelings, the family had fallen prey to a certain anxiety when Godfrey announced his engagement in the summer of 1940: but in place of the violent jealousy which some had feared, a warm and respectful friendship grew up between sister and prospective sister-in-law, and the marriage of Godfrey Winshaw to Mildred, née Ashby, passed off most successfully in December of that year.

Instead, Tabitha continued to reserve the sharpest edge of her animosity for her eldest brother Lawrence. The origins of the ill-feeling which subsisted between these unhappy siblings are not easy to trace. Most probably they had to do with temperamental differences. Like his father Matthew, Lawrence was a reserved and sometimes impatient man, who pursued his extensive national and international business interests with a single-minded determination which many construed as ruthlessness. That realm of feminine softness and delicate feeling in which Tabitha moved was thoroughly alien to him: he considered her flighty, over-sensitive, neurotic and – in a turn of phrase which can now be seen as sadly prophetic – ‘a bit soft in the head’. (Nor, it has to be admitted, was he entirely alone in this view.) In short, they did their best to keep out of each other’s way; and the wisdom of this policy can be judged from the appalling events which followed upon Godfrey’s death.

Immediately before setting off on his fatal mission, Godfrey had been enjoying a few days’ rest in the tranquil atmosphere of Winshaw Towers. Mildred, of course, was with him: she was at this stage several months pregnant with their first and only child (a son, as it was to turn out), and it was presumably the prospect of seeing these, her favourite members of the family, which induced Tabitha to forsake the comfort of her own substantial residence and cross the threshold of her hated brother’s home. Although Matthew Winshaw and his wife were still alive and in good health, they were by now effectively consigned to a set of chambers in a self-contained wing, and Lawrence had established himself as master of the house. It would be stretching a point, all the same, to say that he and his wife Beatrice made good hosts. Lawrence, as usual, was preoccupied with his business activities, which required him to spend long hours on the telephone in the privacy of his office, and even, on one occasion, to make an overnight trip to London (for which he departed without making any kind of apology or explanation to his guests). Meanwhile Beatrice made no pretence of welcoming her husband’s relatives, and would leave them unattended for the better part of each day while she retired to her bedroom on the pretext of a recurrent migraine. Thus Godfrey, Mildred and Tabitha, perhaps as they themselves would have wished, were thrown back on their own devices, and passed several pleasant days in each other’s company, wandering through the gardens and amusing themselves in the vast drawing, sitting, dining and reception rooms of Winshaw Towers.

In the afternoon on which Godfrey was to leave for the airfield at Hucknall on the first leg of his mission – something of which his wife and sister had only an inkling – he had a long and private interview with Lawrence in the brown study. No details of their discussion will ever be known. Following his departure, both women became uneasy: Mildred with the natural anxiety of a wife and mother-to-be whose husband has set out upon an errand of some importance and uncertain outcome, Tabitha with a more violent and uncontrolled agitation which manifested itself in a worsening of her hostility towards Lawrence.

Her irrationality in this respect was already evident from a foolish misunderstanding which had arisen only a few days earlier. Bursting into her brother’s office late in the evening, she had surprised him during one of his business conversations and snatched away the scrap of paper upon which – in her version of events – he had been transcribing secret instructions over the telephone. She even went so far as to claim that Lawrence had been ‘looking guilty’ when she interrupted him, and that he had attempted to seize the piece of paper back from her by force. With pathetic obstinacy, however, she clung on to it and subsequently stored it away among her personal documents. Later, when she made her fantastic accusation against Lawrence, she threatened to bring it forward as ‘evidence’. Fortunately the excellent Dr Quince, trusted physician to the Winshaws for several decades, had by that stage made his diagnosis – the effect of which was to determine that no statements made by Tabitha thereafter would be received with anything other than the deepest scepticism. History, incidentally, seems to have vindicated the good doctor’s judgment, because when certain of Tabitha’s relics recently came into the hands of the present writer, the contended scrap of paper was found to be among them. Now yellowed with age, it turned out to contain nothing more remarkable than Lawrence’s scribbled note to the butler, asking for a light supper to be sent up to his room.

Tabitha’s condition deteriorated still further after Godfrey had left, and on the night that he flew his final mission a peculiar incident took place, both more serious and more ludicrous than any that had gone before. This grew out of another of Tabitha’s delusions, to the effect that her brother was holding secret meetings with Nazi spies in his bedroom. Time and again she claimed to have stood outside his locked bedroom door and caught the distant murmur of voices talking in clipped, authoritative German. Finally, when not even Mildred was able to take this allegation seriously, she attempted to make a desperate proof. Having pilfered the key (the only key) to Lawrence’s bedroom earlier that afternoon, she waited until such time as she was convinced that he was engaged in one of his sinister conferences, then locked the door from the outside and ran downstairs, shouting at the top of her voice that she had captured her brother in the very act of betraying his country. The butler, the maids, the kitchen staff, the chauffeur, the valet, the bootboy and all the domestics immediately came to her aid, followed closely by Mildred and Beatrice; and the entire company, now gathered in the Great Hall, was about to climb the staircase to investigate when Lawrence himself emerged, cue in hand, from the billiard room where he had been passing the hours after dinner in a few solitary frames. Needless to say, his bedroom was found empty; but this demonstration did not satisfy Tabitha, who continued to scream at her brother, accusing him of every manner of trickery and under-handedness, until finally she was restrained and carried to her room in the West Wing, where a sedative was administered by the ever-resourceful Nurse Gannet.

Such was the atmosphere at Winshaw Towers on that dreadful evening, as the deathly silence of nightfall spread itself over the venerable old seat; a silence which was to be broken at three o’clock in the morning by the ringing of the telephone, and with it the news of Godfrey’s terrible fate.

∗

No bodies were ever recovered from that wreckage; neither Godfrey nor his co-pilot was ever to be accorded the honour of a Christian burial. Two weeks later, however, a small memorial service was held at the Winshaws’ private chapel. His parents sat stone-faced and ashen throughout the proceedings. His younger brother Mortimer, his sister Olivia and her husband Walter had all travelled to Yorkshire to pay their respects: only Tabitha was absent, for as soon as she heard the news, she had thrown herself into a frenzy. Among the instruments of violence with which she had attacked Lawrence were candlesticks, golf umbrellas, butter knives, razor blades, riding crops, a loofah, a mashie, a niblick, an Afghan battle horn of considerable archaeological interest, a chamber-pot and a bazooka. The very next day, Dr Quince signed the papers which authorized her immediate confinement in a nearby asylum.

She was not to step outside the walls of this establishment for another nineteen years. During that time she rarely attempted to communicate with other members of the family, or expressed any interest in receiving them as visitors. Her mind (or what few, pitiable shreds and tatters of it remained) continued to dwell inflexibly on the circumstances surrounding her brother’s death, and she became an obsessive reader of books, journals and periodicals concerned with the conduct of the war, the history of the Royal Air Force, and all matters even remotely connected with aviation. (During this period, for instance, her name appears on the regular subscribers’ lists of such magazines as Professional Pilot, Flypast, Jane’s Military Review and Cockpit Quarterly.) And so there she remained, prudently left to the care of a trained and dedicated staff, until September 16th 1961, when she was granted a temporary release at the request of her brother Mortimer: a decision, however compassionately taken, which in itself would soon come to be regarded as unfortunate.

Death visited Winshaw Towers again that night.

2

Sitting at the bay window of their bedroom, looking out over the East Terrace and the bleak sprawl of the moors which rolled towards the horizon, Rebecca felt Mortimer’s hand rest gently against her shoulder.

‘It’ll be all right,’ he said.

‘I know.’

He squeezed her and went over to the mirror, where he made small adjustments to his tie and cummerbund.

‘It’s really very nice of Lawrence. In fact they’re all being very nice. I’ve never known my family be so nice to each other.’

It was Mortimer’s fiftieth birthday and to honour the occasion Lawrence had organized a small but lavish dinner, to which the entire family – even the outcast Tabitha – was invited. It would be the first time that Rebecca, thirteen years her husband’s junior and still possessed of a childlike, rather vulnerable beauty, had met them all at one sitting.

‘They’re not monsters, you know. Not really.’ Mortimer rotated his left cuff-link through fifteen degrees, squinting at the angle critically. ‘I mean, you like Mildred, don’t you?’

‘But she’s not really family.’ Rebecca continued to stare out of the window. ‘Poor Milly. It’s such a shame she never remarried. I’m afraid Mark’s turned into an awful handful.’

‘He’s just got in with a boisterous set, that’s all. Happened to me when I was at school. Oxford’ll soon knock that out of him.’

Rebecca turned her head: an impatient gesture.

‘You’re always making excuses for them. I know they all hate me. They’ve never forgiven us for not inviting them to the wedding.’

‘Well that was my decision, not yours. I didn’t want them all there, gawping at you.’

‘Well there you are: it’s quite obvious that you don’t like them yourself, and there must be a rea–’

There was a discreet knock on the door, and the butler’s gaunt, solemn figure took a few deferential steps into the room.

‘Drinks are now being served, sir. In the ante-drawing room.’

‘Thank you, Pyles.’ He had turned on his heels and was about to leave when Mortimer detained him. ‘Oh, Pyles?’

‘Sir?’

‘If you could just look in and check on the children. We left them in the nursery. They were with Nurse Gannet, but you know how she … dozes, sometimes.’

‘Very good, sir.’ He paused and added, before withdrawing: ‘And may I offer you, sir, on behalf of all the staff, our warmest congratulations, and many happy returns of the day.’

‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’

‘Our pleasure, sir.’

He made a silent exit. Mortimer walked over to the window and stood behind his wife, whose gaze remained fixed on the pitiless landscape.

‘Well, we’d better be getting downstairs.’

Rebecca did not move.

‘The kids’ll be fine. He’ll keep an eye on them. He’s an absolute brick, really.’

‘I hope they don’t break anything. Their games always seem so violent, and then we’d never hear the end of it from Lawrence.’

‘It’s Roddy who’s the little devil. He goads Hilary on. She’s a sweet little thing.’

‘They’re both as bad as each other.’

Mortimer began stroking her neck. He could feel her nervousness.

‘Darling, you’re shivering.’

‘I don’t know what it is.’ He sat beside her and impulsively she nestled against his shoulder, like a bird seeking refuge. ‘I’m all of a flutter. I can hardly bear to face them.’

‘If it’s Tabitha you’re worried about –’

‘Not just Tabitha –’

‘– then you’ve nothing to be afraid of. She’s changed completely in the last couple of years. She and Lawrence even talked for a little while this afternoon. I honestly think she’s forgotten that whole business about Godfrey: she doesn’t even remember who he was. She’s been writing these nice letters to Lawrence from the – from the home, and he’s said the whole thing’s forgiven and forgotten as far as he’s concerned, so I don’t think there’ll be any trouble from that quarter tonight. The doctors say she’s more or less back to normal.’

Mortimer heard the hollowness of these words and hated himself for it. Only that afternoon he had seen evidence of his sister’s continued eccentricity, when he had surprised her in the course of a walk around the wildest and most far-flung reaches of the grounds. He had been emerging from the hounds’ graveyard and was about to strike out in the direction of the croquet lawn when he caught what seemed to be a glimpse of Tabitha crouched in one of the densest areas of shrubbery. As he approached, without making a sound for fear of alarming her, he was dismayed to find that she was muttering to herself. His heart sank: it seemed that he had, after all, been too optimistic about her condition, and perhaps too precipitate in suggesting that she should be allowed to attend the family party. Unable to make out anything intelligible from her broken mumbles and whispers, he had coughed politely, whereupon Tabitha gave a little scream of shock, there was a violent rustling from the bushes, and she burst out a few seconds later, nervously brushing the twigs and thorns from her clothing and almost speechless with confusion.

‘I – Morty, I had no idea, I – I was just …’

‘I didn’t mean to surprise you, Tabs. It’s just —’

‘Not at all, I was – I was out for a walk, and I saw – I thought I’d explore … Heavens, what must you think of me? I’m mortified. Morty-fied, in front of Morty …’

Her voice died, and she coughed: a high, anxious cough. To ward off a heavy silence, Mortimer said:

‘Magnificent, isn’t it? This garden. I don’t know how they keep it so well.’ He took a deep breath. ‘That jasmine. Just smell it.’

Tabitha didn’t reply. Her brother took her by the arm and walked her back towards the terrace.

He had not mentioned this incident to Rebecca.

‘It’s not just Tabitha. It’s this whole house.’ Rebecca turned towards him and for the first time that evening looked deep into his eyes. ‘If we ever came to live here, darling, I should die. I’m sure I would.’ She shuddered. ‘There’s something about this place.’

‘Why on earth should we come to live here? What a silly thing to say.’

‘Who else is going to take it over when Lawrence is gone? He’s got no sons to leave it to; and you’re his only brother, now.’

Mortimer gave an irritable laugh; it was clear he wanted the subject dropped. ‘I very much doubt if I shall outlive Lawrence. He’s got a good many more years in him yet.’

‘I dare say you’re right,’ said Rebecca, after a while. She took a long, last look at the moors, then gathered up her pearls from the dresser and fastened them carefully. Outside the dogs were howling for their supper.

∗

Poised in the doorway leading from the Great Hall, her own small hand folded tightly in Mortimer’s, Rebecca found herself confronted by a roomful of Winshaws. There were no more than a dozen of them, but to her it seemed like a vast, numberless throng, whose braying and mewling voices merged into a single unintelligible clamour. Within seconds she and her husband had been pounced upon, separated, absorbed into the crowd, patted and touched and kissed, welcomed and congratulated, plied with drink, their news solicited, their health inquired after. Rebecca could not distinguish half of the faces; she didn’t even know who she was talking to, some of the time, and her recollection of each conversation would forever afterwards be hazy and unfocused.

For our part, meanwhile, we should seize the opportunity offered by this gathering to become more closely acquainted with four particular members of the family.

∗

Here, for one, is Thomas Winshaw: thirty-seven, unmarried, and still having to justify himself to his mother Olivia, in whose eyes all his glittering success in the financial world counts for nothing beside his continued failure to start a family of his own. Now she listens tight-lipped as he tries to put a favourable gloss on a new development in his career which clearly strikes her as more frivolous than most.

‘Mother, you can get an extremely high return from investing in films these days. You’ve only got to be involved with one really big hit, you see, and you’re sitting on an absolute fortune. Enough to compensate for a dozen failures.’

‘If you were just in it for the money you’d have my blessing, you know you would,’ says Olivia. Her Yorkshire accent is thicker than her brothers’ and sister’s, but her mouth has the same downward, humourless turn. ‘The Lord knows, you’ve shown yourself clever enough where that’s concerned. But Henry’s told me what your real motives are, so don’t try to deny it. Actresses. That’s what you’re after. You like being able to tell them you can get them a job in the pictures.’

‘You do talk nonsense sometimes, Mother. You should listen to yourself.’

‘I just don’t want any member of this family making a fool of himself, that’s all. They’re no better than whores, most of those women, and you’ll only end up catching something nasty.’

But Thomas, who feels for his mother no more or less than he feels for most people – namely, such contempt that he seldom considers them worth arguing with – merely smiles. Something about her last remark seems to amuse him, and his eyes take on a cold glaze of private reminiscence. He is thinking, in fact, that his mother is quite wide of the mark: for his interest in young actresses, strong as it is, does not extend to physical contact. His real interest is in watching, not touching, and so for Thomas the principal benefit of his new-found role in the film industry lies in the excuse it gives him to visit the studios whenever he wants. Thus he is able to turn up during the filming of scenes which, on the screen, will simply offer innocent titillation, but which in the actual making provide perfect opportunities for the serious voyeur. Bedroom scenes; bathroom scenes; sunbathing scenes; scenes involving missing bikini tops and vanishing soap suds and falling towels. He has friends, spies, minions among the cast and camera crew to alert him in advance whenever such a scene is about to be shot. He has even persuaded editors to give him access to discarded footage, sequences which turned out to be too revealing for inclusion in the final cut. (For Thomas has started out by investing in comedies, modestly budgeted, reliably popular entertainments starring the likes of Sid James, Kenneth Connor, Jimmy Edwards and Wilfrid Hyde-White.) From these, he likes to clip his favourite images and turn them into slides which he will project on to the wall of his office in Cheapside late at night, long after his employees have gone home. So much cleaner, so much more personal, so much less risky than the tedious business of inviting actresses back to his house, making them absurd promises, all that fumbling and coercion. Thomas is annoyed with Henry, then, not so much for giving away secrets to his mother, as for implying that his own motives could be quite so commonplace and demeaning.

‘You shouldn’t take notice of anything that Henry tells you, you know,’ he now says, with a chilly smile. ‘After all, he is a politician.’

∗

And here is Henry, Thomas’s younger brother, already recognized as one of the most ambitious Labour MPs of his generation. Their relationship goes beyond the ordinary ties of blood and extends to a number of common business interests, for Henry has a seat on the board of several companies generously supported by Thomas’s bank. Should anyone have the temerity to suggest a conflict of loyalty between these activities and the socialist ideals which he professes so loudly in the House of Commons, Henry has a variety of well-rehearsed answers. He is used to dealing with naïve questions, which is why he is able to laugh airily as his young cousin Mark shoots him a teasing glance and says:

‘So, I take it you’ll be travelling back to London first thing tomorrow morning, in time for the demonstration? We all know that you Labour bods are in cahoots with CND.’

‘Some of my colleagues will undoubtedly be attending. You won’t find me there. There are no votes in the nuclear issue, for one thing. Most of the people in this country recognize the unilateralists for what they are: a bunch of cranks.’ He pauses to allow one of the under-footmen to refill their glasses of champagne. ‘Do you know the best bit of news I’ve heard all month?’

‘Bertrand Russell getting seven days in the slammer?’

‘That did bring a smile to my face, I must say. But I was thinking more about Khrushchev. I suppose you’ve heard that he’s started testing H-bombs again, out in the Arctic or somewhere?’

‘Really?’

‘Ask Thomas what that did to shares in the munitions companies a couple of days later. Through the roof, they went. Through the bloody roof. We made a few hundred grand overnight. I’m telling you, earlier this year, with Gagarin coming over and everyone talking about a bit of a thaw, things were beginning to look a bit shaky. I didn’t like the look of it at all. Thank God it turned out to be a flash in the pan. First the Wall goes up, and now the Russkies start letting off fireworks again. Looks like we’re back in business.’ He drains his glass and pats his cousin affectionately. ‘Of course, I can talk to you like this, because you’re family.’

∗

Mark Winshaw digests this information in silence. Perhaps because he never knew his own father, Godfrey, he has always regarded his cousins as paternal figures and looked to them for guidance. (His mother has attempted to offer him guidance too, of course, has tried to inculcate her own values and codes of conduct, but he has, from an early age, made a point of ignoring her.) He has already learned a great deal from Thomas and Henry, about how to make money, and how the divisions and conflicts between lesser, weaker-minded men can be exploited for personal gain. He will be going up to Oxford in a few weeks’ time, and has just spent the summer working in a minor administrative capacity at the office of Thomas’s bank in Cheapside.

‘It was so kind of you to give him that job,’ Mildred now says to Thomas. ‘I do hope he wasn’t a nuisance or anything.’

Mark’s expression is one of undiluted hatred, but his glance goes unnoticed, and he says nothing.

‘Not at all,’ Thomas answers. ‘He was very useful to have around. In fact he made quite an impression on my colleagues. Quite an impression.’

‘Really? In what way?’

Thomas proceeds to tell the story of a discussion which took place between senior members of the bank over lunch in the City one Friday afternoon: a lunch to which Mark had been invited. The conversation had turned to the recent resignation of one of the partners over the role taken by the bank in the Kuwait crisis. Thomas feels called upon to explain the details of this crisis to Mildred, assuming that, as a woman, she won’t know anything about it. He therefore tells her how Kuwait was declared an independent Sheikdom in June, and how, only one week later, Brigadier-General Kassem had announced his intention of absorbing it into his own country, claiming that according to historical precedent it had always been an ‘integral part of Iraq’. He reminds her that Kuwait had appealed to the British government for military support, which had been promised by both the Foreign Secretary, Lord Home, and the Lord Privy Seal, Edward Heath; and that, since the first week of July, more than six thousand British troops had been moved to Kuwait from Kenya, Aden, Cyprus, the United Kingdom and Germany, establishing a sixty-mile defence line only five miles from the border in readiness for an Iraqi attack.

‘The thing is,’ says Thomas, ‘that this junior partner fellow, Pemberton-Oakes, couldn’t stomach the fact that we were still lending enormous sums of money to the Iraqis to help them keep their army going. He said that they were the enemy, and we were more or less at war with them, so we shouldn’t be giving them any help at all. He said it was Kuwait we should be dealing with as a matter of principle – I think that was the word he used – even though their borrowing requirements were pretty negligible and the bank wouldn’t get much out of it in the long run. Well, there we all were, with people chipping in on both sides, putting the alternative points of view, when somebody had the bright idea of asking young Mark what he thought.’

‘And what did he think?’ asks Mildred, with a resigned note to her voice.

Thomas chuckles. ‘He said it was perfectly obvious, as far as he could see. He said we should be lending money to both sides, of course, and if war broke out we should lend them even more, so they could be kept at it for as long as possible, using up more and more equipment and losing more and more men and getting more and more heavily in our debt. You should have seen their faces! Well, it was probably what they’d all been thinking, you see, but he was the only one who had the nerve to come right out with it.’ He turns to Mark, whose face has remained, throughout this conversation, a perfect blank. ‘You’ll go a long way in the banking business, Mark, old boy. A long way.’

Mark smiles. ‘Oh, I don’t think banking is for me, to be honest. I intend to be more in the thick of things. But thanks for giving me the opportunity, all the same. I certainly learned a thing or two.’

He turns and crosses the room, conscious that his mother’s eyes have never left him.

∗

Mortimer now approaches Dorothy Winshaw, the stolid, ruddy-faced daughter of Lawrence and Beatrice, who is standing alone in a corner of the room, her lips set in their usual petulant, ferocious pout.

‘Well, well,’ says Mortimer, straining to inject a note of cheerfulness into his voice. ‘And how’s my favourite niece?’ (Dorothy is, by the way, his only niece, so his use of this epithet is a touch disingenuous.) ‘Not long now before the happy event. A bit of excitement in the air, I dare say?’

‘I suppose so,’ says Dorothy, sounding anything but excited. Mortimer’s reference is to the fact that she will shortly, at the age of twenty-five, be married off to George Brunwin, one of the county’s most successful and well-liked farmers.

‘Oh, come on,’ says Mortimer. ‘Surely you must be feeling a little … well …’

‘I feel exactly what you would expect in any woman,’ Dorothy cuts in, ‘who knows that she is about to marry one of the biggest fools in the world.’

Mortimer looks around to see whether her fiancé, who has also been invited to the party, might have heard this remark. Dorothy doesn’t seem to care.

‘What on earth can you mean?’

‘I mean that if he doesn’t grow up, soon, and join the rest of us in the twentieth century, he and I aren’t going to have a penny between us in five years’ time.’