The Power of Women by Guy Bellamy

Author:Guy Bellamy [Bellamy, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2021-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

Beverley’s home, with its four bedrooms, two unproductive acres, and empty stable blocks and tack rooms, seemed somewhat underused, but Tim now moved in on the fourth bedroom and converted it into a throbbing powerhouse of activity, with a new desk, a filing cabinet, a word processor, an extra telephone line with answer machine and, best of all, a fax.

From this new toy one morning there stuttered a dozen advertisements for the Jesus Trail, designed in London and intended for the pious readers of religious publications he had never heard of that appeared in countries he could barely find on a map. the jesus trail, they said. the spiritual experience of a lifetime. Some were ambitiously illustrated with the Boy Jesus standing amid swirling mists on the Tor at Glastonbury; others attempted to represent the boat which had brought Joseph of Arimathea on his commercial mission from the Mediterranean. The ones Tim liked stuck to the facts – the financial facts, the cost of this once-in-a-lifetime experience. He phoned the advertising agency in London, selected three, and extracted a promise that they would all be on their way to their distant destinations by evening. Then he went to the bank and opened a new account to accommodate the cruzados, escudos, korunas, lira, pesos and roubles which he now expected to flow in his direction. The bank manager listened to his project in wide-eyed wonderment, studied the advertisements with a sardonic grin, and then granted the new account an immediate overdraft facility of £10,000 for the start-up costs which would be largely swallowed by the advertising agency.

Tim Bonner drove home convinced that patience was all he now needed to obtain a financial security he had always dreamed about. He went up to his new office, the hub now of his empire, and lit a cigarette while he tried to envisage the Trail itself and what he would need on it. Huge signs would have to be painted, seats and food stops provided. A souvenir stall was essential, perhaps with tiny models of Jesus in a boat. There could be a hymn-singing corner to break the journey, and he would certainly sell the franchise for photographs to some grasping lensman.

Sitting there, he had the fanciful notion that the Jesus Trail could lead straight through a supermarket, so that the pilgrims were obliged to pick up a basket at one end and buy things as they moved through the store. He was sure that he could do a deal with the manager, who would pay him a percentage for delivering so many captive customers on a regular basis. The problem was that although there was a Safeway supermarket in the vicinity, it wasn’t quite on the route, and the detour might appear exploitive.

He ditched this idea reluctantly and considered next whether he should have a clergyman in attendance, a man of God in appropriate priestly garb, to give the occasion an air of sanctity that it might otherwise lack. This was the most troubling thought of all.

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