Chapter 21: The Ham House of Horrors

After the roulette was done and dusted, we then had to drive to Ham House. For those who do not know it, this is one of the biggest aristocratic mansions, or, more accurately, castles in Britain. It is next to Richmond Park, where I was brought up. A lot of my childhood was spent literally in Richmond Park, the Queen's park. I have been on their back door since I was an egg. I saw the myxomatosis their rabbits were infected with when I was four and it made me cry. It was a hideous sight to see an animal dying that slowly, literally falling apart. Thank you commerce, industry and business for that one. I am not surprised the bloke who invented that killed himself.

So, Ham House, next to Richmond Park. That is the kind of huge château where the roulette wheel must surely exist. You cannot have people walking into a shed in Wandsworth for that. So, they were going to film the huge staircase into Ham House and pretend that it was the way into the casino, not the studio where it really was. More fitting up of the viewer, in other words.

Mind you, none of them would have got anywhere near to Ham House were it not for me and Kiran. The organisational abilities of the media and the super-rich leave a lot to be desired, compared with those of your average anarchist cell.

'Where is Ham House?'

'Haven't you planned the route from bloody Wandsworth to Ham?' I said.

'Er, no.'

'Fortunately for all of you, I come from around here. You will have to follow our Volvo.'

So a fleet of top, expensive cars followed our two hundred pound Volvo, barely still on its wheels, with "I Have Escaped" on the back window, through some of the worst traffic in East Sheen. I took them there on purpose. Initially it was an error. I had really loud drum-and-bass music pumping out of the car, windows down, an illegal smoke in a traffic jam, because who is going to nick you there? Everybody can see you doing it, though. All these establishment and media types were in a row of about five cars following us. It was fantastic. "Looks like we got ourselves a convoy!" Hang on, isn't that illegal under the Criminal Justice Act? I think it is.

We went down the road past Queen Mary's hospital in Roehampton. My mum used to be a nurse there but it was now closed due to cuts. They kept in constant phone conversation with us while we were driving, so I was giving them a pocket history of the area and they were all getting a bit frustrated because we were behind time and we were not getting there and this was a bit ridiculous and then...

'Gerard wants a pizza. Gerard has to have a pizza, now, we have got to find a pizza place now.'

'Tell him,' I said, 'to stick it up his arse. This is some of the worst traffic in the world and he is like a petulant schoolboy. Tell him to go fuck himself.'

'Gerard wants a pizza. Gerard gets what he wants.'

'Gerard can suck my cock. We are trying to get to Ham House to keep your show alive. We are running out of time, it is now dark.'

'Gerard wants to know if the traffic is always as bad as this, because he dimly remembers taking part in a polo tournament with the Royal Family somewhere near here.'

'Tell Gerard this is the seat of power in Britain, he should know more about it if he wants to take Britain over, which I suspect is his ultimate aim.'

'Give me the phone,' Kiran said, 'you're driving. It's illegal.'

She spoke into the phone then. It did not change the party line.

'Tell him to fuck off,' she said, meaning Gerard. 'We are leading this procession of cars, we know what we are doing. But Craig does apologise, we have gone down the wrong road, but we are now going to be stuck in traffic for about an hour.'

'Gerard doesn't do traffic, he's got a helicopter.'

'Well tell him to go and fucking get it.'

It was like having a spoilt kid in the car behind. No-one else really had any problem with any of this, even the film crew, who were eating money like I eat drugs.

'I do know of a pizza place,' I said. 'We'll take him for a bloody pizza. In fact, we'll take him to the pizza place my nan used to take me to. It's full of middle class luvvies and we'll cause a bloody splash in there.'

'Oh, it's all right,' came the message from the other car. 'Gerard doesn't want a pizza now.'

'Is he a wind-up?'

'Yes, he is a wind-up.'

I have to admit, though, he does have a good sense of humour, but it is all derogatory humour, it's all childish wheezes. There is no surreal humour there but it is very funny prank behaviour. He could take your trousers off without you knowing it, although that very thing happened to him. We will come to this. I have seen his arse and he could well have experienced one of the lowest points of his life when that happened, and this is where we will end it, very shortly. However, we were in traffic in East Sheen and Gerard was winding everyone up. Well, no wonder his staff are so bloody unhealthy with him guzzling their energy, getting them to fetch him a pizza and then, 'Don't want a pizza now.' It was like petulance, it was like any kid, and here was a curious but very revealing coincidence. This is the very same prank that Lily pulled on Lionel. Remember? Two main differences - she was more skilful and got a bigger laugh out of it, and the other big difference is that Lily was two and a half and Gerard is supposed to be a grown man.

Of course I had done the same to Luke when I told him I wanted something very important, Ghostrider. So we were all at it. It was contagious.

Anyway, we were in a traffic jam in East Sheen as we worked our way up to Ham House. Ham! With me a vegetarian! What is going on here?

So big is Ham House that no-one can afford to own it. There has not been a private owner of Ham House in probably more than a hundred years.

'You'd like that, wouldn't you?' I said to Gerard. 'It's a blip up from what you've got.'

'It's a sad, sad thing,' he said, 'that the days are gone when people could be this wealthy. Can you imagine actually owning this and Richmond Park? Can you imagine having hundreds, and hundreds and hundreds of staff? Unfortunately, those days are over.'

'Game, set and match, mate,' I said. 'You are watching it all move over to me and my kind and gradually, brick by brick, stone by stone, the water is dripping on the edifice and melting it away and one day there will be nothing of it left.'

'You're nice, but a bit disturbing, Craig,' he said, in his broad Yorkshire accent. 'You were one of those weird kids at school weren't you. I never could grasp them.'

'That was the point. I grasped you, however, because you made more noise in the classroom than I bloody did.'

At the time this conversation happened I was standing in the foyer of Ham House where we had to get out of our two cars, walk up the steps separately, still in our suits with our dickie-bows.

There was no point in our not being allowed to talk now.

Take Two: Get out of the car, walk up the steps in your dickie-bow.

Take Three: Get in the car, drive back out through the gates, drive back in through the gates, get out of the car, walk up the steps.

The director from Wandsworth was still the director of this. It probably cost Armada television more money to hire that building to use the front of it as an illusion than everything else put together. Gerard immediately made friends with the woman who runs it, and I made sure that I told her of my family's history and that my grandmother, who is ninety-two, lived half an hour up the road. It is interesting to me that people at each other's throats should have lived in such close proximity for many centuries.

'My grandmother used to baby-sit for Lord and Lady Hartington,' I said to Gerard. 'You know who they are? I think you do, because they are the ones who own Yorkshire. Here's a bit of synchronicity. This is fantastic because, sorry Gerard, my grandmother was the nanny of the family that own yours. Game, set, match and soul to me. She had more involvement with bringing up Lord and Lady Hartington's children than they did. They won't be wanting Yorkshire back, Gerard. Get on your knees and thank me for emancipating your family from the British aristocracy, because without my grandmother you would have a far more cap-touching attitude than you have got. Yeah? You didn't know that did you?'

'No, I didn't,' he said.

My mother helped to bring them up too now and again, but she did not like going up there. Oh, they do not live in Yorkshire, obviously. They live very close to Richmond Park, they do. This is those kind of fuckers oldest garden.

You can get magic mushrooms in Richmond Park. A senior conspiracy of little pixies made sure the spores were laid down for that one.

Then we had to be filmed walking out of Ham House, together. Gerard kept trying to walk faster than me. Is it always a race in his life? But I did big strides while he did mincing, ladies' steps. We got into our respective vehicles and were driven off to our new destinations. His: a little flat in West Wales. Mine: Ingols Hall. That is how the show will begin and what a pile of dung. Kiran was watching.

'This is utter shit,' she said.

Well, of course, all the rest of them had to do their filming separately, so while they were not filming us, Gerard and I decided we had better hit a pub, because he is good for that, I will tell you. If you want to go and have a laugh and a piss up and a chat, he is a slave to that as much as I am. He is not too workerist not to go into the nearest pub and get drunk at the soonest opportunity and have a great laugh and in a great loud voice, entertaining everyone and impress them at the same time.

We were in the pub because we had shot our business and they still had to shoot the gambler walking in, the two other fellows, and they had loads of 'edit outs' to do where they pull away, get camera shots of stuff and pull away again. They do shoot a lot of film without people in it so that they can use it to fill edits.

Rather than wait around while they were doing that, we adjourned to the pub. Eventually we had the head chef of a rich restaurant with us and the salesman, who hardly said anything, mainly because he was younger and in awe of me and Gerard as we had been on the show already. That is what people want nowadays. We had Kiran, me, Gerard and, at varying times, Noël came wandering in. Gerard made sure that Noël and Armada got us the drinks. He is a classic. He does think people should get money out of wealthy establishments but if you are not clever enough to do it, then fuck you. I was quite prepared to buy my own drinks, but he does not buy his own drinks, oh no.

'Noël come here, I'll tell you,' he shouted out in his Yorkshire accent. 'I have had such a laugh with you, all right, you're buying everybody drinks.'

'Yeah,' Noël goes, 'all right, okay, what do you all want?'

'Well, you get it out of expenses Noël?' I said.

'Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.'

'Well,' I said, 'in that case...'

I was expecting Gerard to buy the drinks, because he was the richest person here, but I never said it, and why should he? I would have said "No, I'll get my own,".

So we are in the pub.

'Noël, get us a drink will you?' Gerard said. 'You've been a right card, it's been lovely working with you, but get us a drink. Give us your wallet, Noël.' Gerard took his wallet off him and took money out of it, only giving him a percentage back. Of course. We told Noël. We were not exactly grassing up Gerard, but I just don't like to see people thieving off one another.

He took a wallet off of him, took money out of it and then he did the usual classroom bully thing, he held the wallet above his head and being a tall bloke, and Noël, being quite cool, quite tall... not quite cool... very, cool actually, but a bit stupid...

But he nicked this money off Noël.

'I do like you, Noël,' he said. 'You're so easy to wind up.'

Then he gave him back half the money. He fooled him. He had done a switch on him. He had given him back twenty quid instead of the full forty, so he kept twenty quid in his pocket and then Noël put his wallet back in his pocket and walked off.

'He doesn't even realise,' Gerard said. 'I've taken twenty pounds of him and he doesn't even know it.'

'Does that make you clever, then, does it?' said Kiran.

'Well,' I said, 'there you go. That is symbolic of your whole life, isn't it really. Personally, I think that is disgusting.'

He was really confused and upset that we did not find it amusing.

He also said to Kiran, 'Oh yeah, that grand a week business,' he said. 'Of course I spend more than that but I wouldn't want the tax inspector to find out.' And he grinned at her.

'I don't think that's clever,' Kiran said.

'Sorry?' he said.

'That's a really outrageous thing,' she said, 'robbing schools and hospitals of money.'

'What?'

He thought we would just go 'ha ha ha,' like everybody else he mixes with does, as if the taxman is this common enemy. Well, no. Not really, because that is who is funding anything that we have that approximates to an education system and a health system, even if it is also funding the military, which I do not approve of, as you know. Gerard was constantly confused at our moral stance. That means you have not met many people like us, I thought, have you? And I sure as shit have not met many people like him.

'I am not out to exploit you, mate,' I said, 'I'm out to take your money away, and everybody else's money away and then make sure everybody has got the same. I'm not out to make myself rich or get richer than you. I do not want to be richer than anybody but, I only have as much as I have in order to give me the things I need to fight the system that makes people rich and poor. So it would be useless for me to starve to prove a point. Unfortunately! Because if that did prove a point we would have solved this shit years ago because plenty of people are starving.'

I will never remember the exact tenor of our conversation but he was probably sick of the bloody phrase 'starving children' by the end.

'You know I'm rubbing your face in it, mate,' I said.

It made him uncomfortable. He would run his finger around his collar, looking overheated suddenly by my line of conversation. Sitting next to us were an Irish girl and a Cockney who could not believe what was happening in their local pub.

'I can't believe it,' she said. 'You're an anarchist? You're a multi-millionaire? You're a chef? You've just done a life-swap?'

She was all over Gerard. Her boyfriend wanted to punch his lights out, because it is all about men thinking, "I'm going to fight you for the women." That is what it is in Gerard's world. That was what it probably was in this bloke's world too, because I could see it written all over his face.

Kiran obviously found it greatly amusing, comparing Gerard to James Bond, who is a character who she does not find remotely attractive. I think it amused her, because I was a bit concerned that she might have thought, "Oh he's a bit of all right. Under different circumstances I might have gone out with him." That is something that most human beings cannot help but do. If you are really honest, you do not look for other people you want to fall in love with but it is human nature to go "what if?" in your head and that is how a lot of human beings judge each other. "Could I share my life with this person?" This is not even that gender specific any more, in society, but it did amuse her when she realised that, no, she could not sleep with a man like him because 'Bond' is where his head space is at. The weird thing is, I considered his partner from photos I saw around his house and, from what I had heard about her, and from the camcorder footage of them that my father took of the final event, and, yes, she was very attractive but she would not understand a bloke like me if she had three lifetimes to consider it. So there was nothing. You could not have met four people who were so sexually uninterested in one another, which is interesting really, because that does very rarely happen. You will always find some electricity in a group of like-minded people. By contrast, from a sexual point of view, our two couples could have been from different species. We had the appearance of human beings from the same gene pool, but there has been a separation of consciousness in human society and here was an example of it. It may have been forced through purely on economic terms, but what we have makes us what we are. I do not want to be considered a materialist here, but if you have nothing you have something. You have the absence of material goods, and, in some cultures, that is considered to be an improved state of being from the way most of us behave. That is what the Buddhists would say, at any rate.

'What's it like being a millionaire then?' the Irish girl wanted to know.

Everybody was interested in him, I noticed. That is, I like being the centre of attention, and I was miffed that Gerard was their focus. I had plenty to say, whereas he had little or nothing. Yet the sad, sick disease that love of money is for this society meant that no-one asked me about anarchism, about squatting, festivals, the multi-racial nature of our relationship, our child, no-one asked Kiran about India, no-one asked either of us about what it is like to put on events, to play live music, take drugs. No-one asked us a damned thing. We could have talked all night. What had Gerard got to say? Not much, apart from money, but as soon as it was realised that he was so rich everybody wanted to know how rich, where, why and under what circumstances and that's what he gets off on. As it went on, I began to understand that they really were not interested in him at all. They were interested in his money.

'Well, at the polo club ball I have to fly flags,' he told them. 'I fly the English flag, Welsh flag, I have to fly the Scottish flag, the Irish flag, I have to fly various European flags, the Argentinian flag. It is so tiresome.'

'You just want to fly the English one, then?' I said.

'You know,' he said, 'all this bloody political correctness...'

'Well,' I said, 'I'm glad I don't have to worry about that. There is only one flag that I fly if I have to fly a flag at all.'

They all looked at me for the first time.

'What would that be then?'

'The Skull and Crossbones.'

Hilarity, especially from Gerard, because, yes, you had been swapped with a pirate and I had been swapped with a captain on a ship of the line. These parallels through history are very pertinent. Genghis Khan, read Captain Teach; Cœur de Lion read Nelson, who was the richest man in Britain, remember, richer than the Royal Family. Here we go again, more historical connections. I think they thought I was joking but I am not joking. I have my own personal Skull and Crossbones design. I think everyone should have their own.

However, being the centre of attention was not enough for Gerard. He cannot concentrate on eye-to-eye, face-to-face for very long. He has to have something more important to do. He must always have something more important than the company he is in. Always, everywhere. So he rang his missus.

'Do you want to chat to my wife?'

Well, fucking hell-fire, I thought. I am sure she is not going to want that Gerard! I did not say that to him, though. It made me a bit uneasy all the same. Here we go.

'Here you are...'

'Hello, hello...'

Gerard was addicted to the mobile phone. He was more on-phone than off. It was mostly business, but it was also an addiction. He is on the phone so much, he will end up not being able to lower his arm one day. He will become like one of those Sadhus, those Hindu holy men who keep their arms up in the air for thirty years, but he will not have a choice. There will be loads of millionaires with their arms stuck in the air. "Oh no, I definitely can't cook now! In fact, I can't do anything. I can't wipe me arse!" Oh, what a horrible job that will be! "What do you do?" "I wipe the arses of the rich! I get to see what state all of them are in." But we shall come to Gerard's arse later, because I saw it and I bet you are all wondering how that happened. I will tell you later.

'Go on, have a chat to my good lady wife. I've got her on the phone.'

It was not even a bloody question. Before I knew it, the phone was in my hand. Gerard never really means it when he asks you a question. It is going to happen anyway.

'Well,' I said. 'You've had an interesting time.'

This very sweet voice answered.

'Yes, yes we have.'

'Did you enjoy yourselves?'

'I suppose in some ways we did.'

'That's good,' I said. She did not want to talk to me. This was obvious.

'Pass the phone over to your wife. I'd like for them to chat.' he said.

Kiran did not want to talk to Mrs. Braughn and Mrs. Braughn did not want to talk to Kiran. I suspect that they are both a little more realistic about their desire to destroy one another than the two blokes, who were still having a game in the playground. There was no fake charm between the women. That will be the final battle, as I said. It is for the women to decide how this world goes, because me and Gerard are like little boys by comparison to our partners.

'Hello, how are you?' said Kiran.

She turned back to Gerard.

'She wants to talk to you.'

Now, that speaks volumes, does it not? No girlie-girlie chat about boyfriends, about the lives that they lead, and, more importantly, their attitudes towards men as she would have with a woman she wanted to talk to. None of that. "Bitch! Whore! Slag! I want to kill you!" from both, to each. Without a single word. Telepathy.

I will tell you one thing, this whole process was great marital therapy. If you feel your marriage is about to break up, go on a reality life-swap programme with one of the richest people in the world and you will realise just how excellent your other half is and stop bloody shouting at her because when she is having a go at you, you deserve it. Then when it is serious and you have got a real problem on your hands, that is when you realise that there is more than a little respect between you. I really came to know that about Kiran and me. She is willing to let me go when she thinks I ought, and slap me down when I need it.

I could see no such trust between Gerard and his other half. I heard a rumour from the crew that his wife grew up in an orphanage, originally. Now she is one of the richest women in the world. Gerard loves our class system all right, I had seen that, but I wonder if his wife does. I suspect that for the first time in his life he has actually met his match, which is why I do not think they will stay partners for long. Her empire will go one way, his will go another. That is not what he wants from a woman and she was not playing ball and I could tell she was really pissed off he had done that life-swap thing to her, like she had no choice.

He sat there, I sat there. I hate to admit it, but we did make each other laugh. Everyone was laughing. We were more similar in personality than we were with any of the other blokes there. He is going to be loath to admit this. He is not going to want to be associated with or compared to me at all I am sure.

I know you are all thinking, "What about his arse?" Well, that is coming, that is coming and it was not a pretty sight for a heterosexual male like me. I am not fixated with it and there is no homo eroticism implied. If I were going to decide under the will to change into a bi-sexual, and God, if I could I would, I would not go for bloke like him. Bleeding hell. Did I shaft him up his arse? No, that is all right. I shall leave that for his friends to do. I shafted him in other ways.

We had shot the show, and then the beginning of the show, and then the beginning of the beginning, and finally we shot the end of the beginning. It was like a Churchill speech. They sent for him and he left the pub to prepare. We had come to the very end, the filming of the moment when I first meet Gerard. Of course, by that time I had spent the whole afternoon with him.

When I returned to Ham House, there he was already, sitting in a comfy leather chair. It was all set up for a kind of Dimbleby-esque chit-chat, with a table in the middle with water on.

Film, camera, lights.

'Action! Craig, walk in, sit down. Stand up. Walk back. Walk in, sit down. Craig! Stand up. Walk back. Walk in, sit down...'

Seven or eight times.

'All right,' I said to Gerard sitting down next to him. 'How are you doing, mate?' As if I did not know.

'Well, this has been interesting hasn't it?'

'Mmm. Isn't it weird that we are enemies by any other name...'

'Oh, we're not enemies...'

'I should say we are, Gerard' I said. 'Let's get right down to brass tacks. This is bloodless and non-violent and therefore the right way to go about things.'

'Oh,' he said, 'I'm a man of the people I am. I'm no threat to anyone.'

'I don't think so,' I said. 'You were certainly a threat to the stuffed fox I found in your living room.'

'Oh, that fox?' he said. 'That died by accident, that did.'

'How come?'

'One of the cutting machines on our estate accidentally caught it and it got carved to pieces and the reason I know that was because it had been screaming all night in agony and so I found it in a ditch and put it out of its misery. It was a humane thing I did there. I was so glad the taxidermist made it look like it was a whole fox.'

No amount of taxidermy would have produced the fox I saw if it had been caught in a trench-digging machine, Gerard. Stop it. It is an illness! Tell the truth.

Did I say that to him? No. I said a lot more to him than that.

'Were you brought up a thief, Gerard?'

This was me now, interrogating him. He did not ask me a single question. He was like up in front of the judge.

'Did your dad bring you up to go through people's pockets?'

'Well, no Craig, no he didn't.'

'And does he approve of theft?'

'Oh, no. He's an honest man.'

'Well,' I said, 'if you weren't brought up a thief then you should be as disgusted as me about what is happening in Iraq, shouldn't you?'

'Well, I only know Britain, I don't do politics.'

I don't believe you only know Britain, Gerard. You seem to circumnavigate the globe on a regular basis and you don't go business class do you? You only fly by private jet, don't you? That's how above the average upper middle class businessman you are. You don't do public transport do you? My mind was like a chip fryer. He took a helicopter to Wandsworth. He was very proud of that. Well, London traffic is quite rough. Some of his friends were amazed to discover I travelled by car. They do not unless they can help it. This whole country is under the belief that everybody is a car addict and that the pinnacle of human success is to have an expensive car. No. These people fly. They have air superiority. Us proletarians or 'middle class' average men in the street do not very often go up in the air and when we do we are like battery hens in 707.

'Donald Rumsfeld is a thief going through people's pockets, like the lowest grubbiest sneak thief on a London street, the most reprehensible mugger of grannies.'

'Like I say, I don't do politics.'

'You had one of the men responsible for the bombing of Basra as a guest at your polo club ball. If you invite him, that's a political decision, Gerard. He would not have been a guest at the function that you played at under canvas in West Wales. That would be politics as well. Act or not act, you can't escape politics, my friend.'

'I don't get to choose the guests,' he said. 'I don't know who most of them are.'

Stop lying! Slap on the wrist, in fact, I don't think you ever tell the truth, that's how mentally deranged people like you are. Stop it. Just tell the truth. I didn't need to say it. The public would decide.

I read him the riot act. I knew this was going to be the last thing that anybody remembered. This will be the conversation people come away with, not me shouting Redman down. Therefore I knew that the last sound of my voice would be the teacher slapping the stupid school boy on the wrist for polluting the world when he was expressly asked not to. I squeezed him dry. In fact they had to pull me off him.

'Craig, I think you had better stop now mate, I think that's it.'

This was Luke. Gerard looked like I had sucked his bones out. He kept moving backwards as though I were going to hit him but I do not hit people unless they are trying to hit me first.

After a short breather, there was a nice conclusion that they had planned already. We had both been given the opportunity to buy each other up to a thousand pounds' worth of presents. At this final meeting we were to divulge what we had bought with Armada's cash. Silly bollocks had bought us a computer. Well, that's lovely. We have got one. It was in the living room in front of you all week, I thought, but in your rich man's way you imagined that just because it looked old, it was therefore no good.

'Oh, that's lovely Gerard. Thanks.'

I must not be ungrateful after all, I thought, but two computers in a flat that size? How am I going to cope? We eventually got Armada to swap his idea for a lap-top.

'What have you bought me then Craig?'

This was my moment.

'I have bought you,' I said, 'a four day course at the Centre for Alternative Technology in North Wales. They have used the rest of the money to buy you a bookcase full of books on alternative energy and maybe we can forge ahead with the second industrial revolution to prevent our species and many others from dying out.'

'Oh, that sounds interesting. I'm thinking of going into recycling. There's a lot of money to be made in trash. Oh, this is good, I've had people look into this already. I believe that you can convert waste material into all sorts of things and it is worth a bomb. Where there's muck there's brass!'

'Well, that's a start then,' I said. 'I suppose doing the right thing for the wrong reason is better than not doing the right thing at all. Please do go into waste, Gerard!' Up to your fucking neck, I thought.

'The Afan Valley should be turned into a centre of new technology, mate,' I told him. 'Don't make ski slopes, don't make squash courts. Have a festival there every year, have workshops, courses. You can easily run courses now you've got a load of books on recycling and alternative energy,' I said. 'Can you imagine the beauty of it, Gerard? And your family's name will be put to it. Like those big investors in the first industrial revolution. The huge families who go into the history books not because they had a lot of money, but because they used their lots of money to be fundamental in one of the most important changes the human race has ever made because the next industrial revolution is going to make the first look like when we climbed down from the trees. Yeah?'

'You're well read, you are. I have to apologise. I thought you were all lazy and semi-literate.'

'How many times have I heard that,' I said.

'Well, I am impressed. You're not lazy,' he said, 'either of you, you or your wife. I find it even more bewildering therefore why you work so hard for no or little money.'

'No,' I said, 'you don't, do you? You don't understand at all but what I want you to put into your head is the sight of a gleaming glass and chrome sailing galleon in the year 2030 that zips across the Atlantic at an incredible speed powered by nothing more than the wind.'

'Oh, that sounds like a great idea.'

'Bring it on! Because I ain't got tuppence to put into that, but you have. That is why we are just as important as one another.'

'Oh, I'll think about that. I will think about that. Craig, it's been very nice.'

Shake hands. Finished.

Not going on telly? Why the hell not? The thought only popped into my head because I was in the project. I had not thought about it before. Fleets of majestic airships with Renaissance paintings on the side, perhaps of Pegasus, passively cutting through the sky, not scarring it with a trail of jet engine fuel, most of which they dump before they land, over West Wales as they are coming in from the sea. Sort it out, or there will be trouble.

Anyway, now we come to his arse. We had gone up and down the stairs - the apples and pears. We had gone into the pub - the rub-a-dub. I had made him look like traffic jam shunt... There's a new one. Just invented that one. That's what Cockney Rhyming Slang is all about. "Have you just traffic jam shunted me off?" Because it does feel like that when someone shunts your car. "You've invaded my space and damaged my vehicle. Do I look like a Traffic Jam Shunt?" Well, after all that fun, we came to his Muck and Brass - his arse!

So, this was the last time I saw Luke Houlgate, the last time we saw Gerard Braughn, the last time I saw any of this. I gave Luke a big hug after the whole thing and we had done the final shoot. I had to do it. He looked as though he would have cried if I had not done it.

'That was something else, mate. Thank you very much indeed.'

'No,' he said, 'thank you.'

'Mate,' I said. 'I don't know what to say. You fucking changed my world.'

'You changed mine.'

'I know I have,' I said. 'This is big.'

'I jolly well hope we work together again, Craig, and I hope we meet at the very least.'

'I don't think that's avoidable.'

Gerard went up to him and said this to him:

'You fuck with me and I will destroy you!'

Out of earshot, where there were no witnesses. Gerard Braughn would make sure there were no witnesses. Luke would not lie about that either. It was scary. I would just have cracked him if he had threatened me like that. Same as now. If you want it now, don't hang that over my head. If you ever threaten me, I assume it is to the death - now. I cannot walk around looking over my shoulder because you have got money enough to hire an army to take me out. It is now, mate, which is why, I suspect, he did not do it to me, because he knows that. Plus, he had just spent a week with Carrot, and I think he had come to the conclusion that we were a little bit more evil than him if need be. He kept saying, 'Oh, did Carrot like me?'

'He wanted to forge a bloody empire with you, mate,' I said.

'He makes me laugh, he does. We had a lot in common.'

He scared the shit out of you, I thought. You want to be his friend, don't you? No amount of military would be wise to take on Carrot and his family.

Anyway, Luke rang me later, to tell me about Gerard's threat. He was scared.

'If you need any help, just give me a call, Luke.'

'I feel a bit happier now,' he said.

'I bet you do,' I said. 'I think you've upset a few people, mate. Do you want a safe house at any time in Wales? Because if you do, I'll get you one. We can make you disappear very quickly if you need to.'

'I don't think it will come to that, Craig.'

'But we must assume there is the risk of it,' I said. Gerard was not a pussy cat. He is probably the closest I have met to someone who could make someone disappear. I have met people like that in the criminal element, but, by God, it is rarer than you think. Gerard could make sure the police were in on it, though, so it does not matter if you are an Armada film director, he thinks you are nothing. You could be the president of the United States, that man would not use that as an excuse not to kill you. John F. Kennedy found out all about that. All the same, Gerard you are an idiot, I thought. You don't threaten a director. He is the Priesthood. King Henry VIII was an fool in the end because it does not matter how many of their churches you burn, you are the loser. If the aristocracy in this country had not done that, they might still be supreme rulers today, however loath I am to say it. Always stay close to the director.

Mind you, at the time I left Ham House, I had no idea that Gerard had said that to Luke, of course. That was after we had left. We left first. I was gagging to get away. We had already missed the off licences. We got into the car and made our way past the area where they were dismantling all the little towers that they had built to house the cameras and the boom mics. We drove away, blaring out drum and bass music as all of the film crew were packing up. Now, after all the struggle they had getting me into that suit, they were not very quick off the mark in asking for it back again. They left it until the very last minute, running up to me, just as we had approached our car, to retrieve it. So I had to get out of the suit with the dickie-bow and hand it back to them really fast. I did this with ease, though, because I am well used to dressing and undressing out of doors at speed. I often wear different clothes on stage for a particular performance at night to the ones I have been wearing throughout an afternoon at a festival. I was just standing by my car, opened the boot, got changed back into my flight jacket and my DMs really quickly and handed them back the suit.

Of course, Gerard Braughn is much less used to doing costume changes in the outdoors. He was just up ahead of us, as usual trying to get out in front. He was a bit concerned about where he should get undressed.

'Well, bloody hell, where am I expected to change into my own clothes?'

'Well, here,' said one of the aides.

'I am not used to taking my clothes off in public,' he said. 'Are you mad, woman?'

'Change them here,' she said.

We started pulling away & as I was getting nearer in the car with the windows open, with the drum and bass blaring out, I could hear what was going on.

'What, just take my trousers off here?'

He was totally unaware we were just getting closer and closer, and closer to the situation. Yet again, I could see him, but he could not see me. Maybe we had the Celtic glamour in our favour here: the ability to go unseen. I could not believe it.

'Here, Kiran,' I said, 'look at that.'

There he is.

'What? Bloody take my trousers off?'

'Look, please, we need the suit back, Gerard, and we have put up with a lot of this. It is our suit, give it back!'

'Oh, bloody all right then!'

The trousers come down in one shot, in a panic, looking very, very distressed by the whole situation. However, in that panic, he had also pulled his underpants down at the same time. Just at that precise moment, our vehicle turned and shone our headlights right on his arse.

Thank you, God, I thought. Thank you!

'Fucking hell,' Kiran said, 'that's fantastic.'

I leaned out of the window.

'Oh,' I said, 'that looks good.'

He turned around. I would guess that that could well have been the lowest point in his life.

'Oh no! His woman, even she's seen my arse! No-one sees my arse unless I pay them to see it!'

It was like he was suddenly completely naked in a bus queue in Hammersmith. I just had to stop the car. He was frozen in terror like a hypnotised rabbit in front of on-coming headlights, doing an inadvertent moonie at us, a very working class thing to do of course, and something I am sure he has never done. He looked at his arse. He looked at me. He looked back at his arse.

'You've had some bloody bad luck over all this haven't you, mate?' I said.

'Oh no,' he said, pulling his trousers up, 'it's all right.'

It was not all right. Kiran was just laughing and laughing.

It did not look pretty.

Drive on, I thought. Leave him alone, the poor bloke. He had never been so humiliated, unless it was back at school or something and that is why he has ended up the way he has. "Someone nicked my trousers when I was eleven... It's happened again!" Yes, walking home without your trousers from school must be have been a bummer, but I suspect, Gerard, that you were the sort of bastard who did that to other people, especially the very vulnerable kids. It has all turned around now mate, has it not? He is probably thinking, "I'm bloody glad that wasn't on camera," completely forgetting that I am a writer. And the pen is mightier than the sword. But as my mate Tom Dasgupta asked on the phone recently, “Is the pen mightier than the television?” Well unless this show goes out we may never know.