The Toymaster's Castle

Chapter Twenty-Six - Inevitable Economic Collapse

The next day, Saturday, the 'New Socialist Pathway' party held a huge demonstration in the middle of London... they seemed to think that there were nearly a million people there. Jeremy Wheeler, their Glorious Leader had given a speech in which he'd basically said he'd already won. But, even though the commentators on telly seemed to be caught up in the mood, I didn't feel much like celebrating. Looking on from the outside, it all felt a bit like the Nuremberg rally or something.

It really didn't feel safe to be out on the streets anymore and so we just stayed at home and did what we could to complete our Twarky type arrangements.

At least the news seemed to have calmed down the rioters. That evening, for the first time since we'd got back, we couldn't see any fires burning away in South London.

On the Sunday, Daniel took me out on the RIB again. For some reason, he seemed determined to make sure I could drive the thing. He'd put the application for operating the marina equipment on my phone and made me go through the whole procedure of hauling it out of its stand, plonking it in the water, starting the engines and opening the river gate.

He even showed me how to do it by hand in case the power failed - that was a lot of really hard work.

It all felt a bit over the top but he seemed to think it was important!

This time, he even let me drive down the river which was fun but distinctly stressy because there were all sorts of other boats flying around in all directions. You basically had to keep your eyes on the chart all the time without taking your eyes off what was actually going on around you. It was a great relief to get out on the open water and let the baby rip!

We went 'round the corner' of Essex to the same pub we'd gone to before. But at least Daniel took us up the river channel - I'm still not sure I could've managed that! But, even here, the atmosphere was pretty uncomfortable. I mean... nobody said anything but you could tell that people weren't exactly happy with us being in their pub. It was as if they resented us turning up in an expensive boat or something.

We escaped as soon as possible and, once we were back on the water, we looked at one another and wordlessly agreed that we wouldn't be coming back there again.

"I thought you said that the place can't survive without the rich people turning up in their boats," I said.

"It can't."

"Then why were they being so horrible to us?"

"Because of the 'Zero sum game' fallacy that the 'New Socialist Pathway' party has been promoting."

I gave him a puzzled look.

"According to their logic, because I've got more money, it must mean everybody else has less."

I had to think about that. "And it's not true?" I asked.

"Of course it's not true. The nation's economy isn't a fixed size. If I halt my business operations, at least one hundred people will be out of a job... including you! The economy will shrink... the tax take will fall... everybody will be a little bit poorer."

"But couldn't you just do the same job for a bit less money?"

"I could but I'm not going to. Why should I bother?"

I looked at him for a moment then I gave a smile and suggested, "Because you're a nice person?"

"We both know that's not true!" At least I made him laugh.

Early on the Monday morning, George took a van down to Pembrokeshire to organise the delivery of a big batch of the Twarky supplies I'd been busy sorting out. That meant that we didn't have his company on the way into work and I was very glad that I had Daniel with me. Even here, in this posh bit of London, the streets really didn't feel all that safe anymore with piles of rough-looking people just hanging around