Waiting for the Flyers. Part15: visiting Jess's domain.

Passing the pillars we found ourselves under overhanging branches of ancient lime trees. A row of them on each side of the drive stretched ahead about a hundred metres. At that time of the year the fading leaves created a flickering orangey-red light inside their natural tunnel. It took Lennie a lot of gentle persuasion to get Little Jon to move forward. Each time an autumn-tired leaf fluttered down from the branches the pony started and we came to a halt.

After a faltering ten minutes the tree line gave way to an open paddock dotted with magnificent English oaks on our right. Through the trees we got glimpses of a large red brick house as we followed the drive around a perimeter of the dense woodland on the left. After two right turns the drive presented us to a courtyard in front of an imposing house. In its centre was a large circular feature containing a pond ringed by luxurious green plants. As we approached Jess emerged from the house, his arms out wide in an enthusiastic welcome. It was difficult not to be impressed.

Rushing across to help Junior extract David and me from the car, Jess greeted me and Junior with a hug and chose a deferent hand shake for David.

‘I’m so pleased you agreed to meet me here, Maam. Please come inside the house, I think you’ll find it interesting.’

We followed Jess into a wide entrance hall. The walls, clean but showing signs of mould and years of dust accumulation, had once been a bright shade of lavender. A couple of mounted stag antlers looked down on us, one each side of the head of a wide door leading to a lounge. The other walls bore several hastily cleaned framed photographs of purple fields and groups of men holding instruments. Jess saw me looking around at the décor.

‘This used to be a lavender farm about a hundred years ago, then it was sold to a famous musician. He died here in 2040. After that it was boarded up. Local people were paid to keep the grounds tidy apparently. I suppose when the droids arrived they didn’t bother with the grounds or the house. They had no use for it.’

‘That’s very interesting, Jess. How do you know all this?’

‘The owner requested it be left as it was and sealed immediately after he died. He was called Mikki Asterix. The place is full of papers, photographs and his belongings. He was very rich. A hip-hop artist – whatever that is – he wrote songs for other musicians. According to some papers we found his partner shot herself in 2035. She couldn’t cope with being sterile. Mikki closed himself off to the world after that. It’s a sad story.’

‘That was years before we came to the retirement centre, but we heard stories about the tragedy. Heartbreak house, the locals called it.’ David added.

‘It’s story repeated millions of times around the World in those awful days, Jess. How did you find this place?’

Directing us into the lounge Jess motioned an invite to take a place on one of the two enormous leather couches facing each other. They were similar to the ones in the great house. My tutor said they were called chesterfields.

‘We found it by accident, Maam. We were investigating the smaller store opposite this place to see if it contained food cans like the ones in the big Spa store. The growth from the base of the trees at the entrance was so high we didn’t know it was there until Eric saw something white through the leaves when he went for a . . . um, to relieve himself. When we pushed the leaves away we found the pillars and the driveway. It took hours to fight our way along it. We spent a couple of days exploring. When we didn’t find anything we guessed it was just a road leading to farmland. We were about to give up, then I saw part of the house poking through the undergrowth. I knew straightaway it would make a perfect base. It’s been a tough job clearing all the overgrowth and getting into the place, but as you can see it’s worth the effort.’

‘Jess, why didn’t you ask Alan and Jack for help?’

‘Maam, I told Alan I thought we’d found something interesting straight after we found the drive. He told me to stop wasting effort and concentrate on finding things useful to the community. We had a bit of a discussion about it. When I told him me and a couple of guys wanted to carry on for looking around a while he got really angry. After I found the house I thought, “To hell with Alan, if he’s not interested, me and the guys will move in and work on it ourselves.” I guess that’s when I started thinking about me and anyone who wanted to help using this as a base to explore what’s outside and beyond.’

Jess was starting to get rather animated as he spoke about Alan. I could see pursuing it at that point was not going to help straighten things. I decided a conciliatory approach would be the better route. Fortunately Junior was clever enough to keep out of it.

‘Jess, I get your frustration, but you should know this kind of falling out worries me. It isn’t a good thing to be happening at this early stage of our expansion, it could lead to somewhere none of us want to be. You have already established yourself as a key member of our family . . . in more ways than one.’ I smiled, hoping he got the point about Rachael’s pregnancy. ‘I think just you and me should sit down and discuss things in a peaceful environment before I leave. Meanwhile I’m very keen to see what you have done with this beautiful building.’

After hesitating for a second or so, Jess said,’ Yes, Maam you are right. We all need to be in agreement if we are going to move forward. Why don’t you stay here overnight, we can have along chat. Perhaps in the evening after dinner. We have plenty of food and spare bedrooms, all furnished of course. This Asterix guy certainly like living in luxury, I think you will enjoy it. In the meantime I’d like to talk to you and Junior about preparing some of the land here for farming. It's a pity Jack isn't here.'

‘Jess that’s very kind of you to offer a bed for tonight. Of course I’ll stay, I’m sure it’ll be really interesting.’

I wasn’t sure if Jess wanted me to stay or if it was some sort of ploy, but the brief look on his face seemed to be surprise. Certainly Junior was taken aback.

‘Ma are you su—‘

‘We’ll work out the details later, Junior.’ I tried to give him a STFU look without Jess noticing. ‘Now let Jess show us this around house before we get onto farming subjects.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw David’s silent chuckle. ‘Remind me not to play chess with you,’ he whispered.