The 'Cousins'

Part Sixty-One Gamma: Greg Concludes His Business at the Bank

Janie interrupted them by bringing in a tray of coffee and home made cookies.

“Excuse me please gentlemen,” she said with a winsome smile at Greg as she laid the tray on the table between them and poured the coffee. Greg breathed deeply of the coffee’s delicious aroma, which perfumed the air around them as she poured, stimulating his appetite, and regarded hungrily the two, large, home-made cookies on the tray.

Janie smiled and said with pride “Home made. My Grandma’s recipe.”  She left closing the door quietly behind her, Bill offered Greg the plate of cookies as he picked up their conversation.

“Like I said before Greg, Bill Elbury has told me some of what this is all about - I mean you staying here, setting up business in the town. On a personal note, I want to say I think it’s wonderful what you are doing for that young man and these other people, but on a practical, professional level I have to ask, how will you work this? Do you intend to employ them directly or on sub-contract?”

“Sub-contract for the others, but Jess will be working for himself, as a junior partner.” Greg spoke through his hand over a mouthful of cookie and waited until, he had cleared his throat before continuing. ... “ I think it’s important you understand fully what it is I am about and even more so, what it is that I am not about. I am referring to rumours circulating about me. Have you heard them?”

Greg’s directness embarrassed Courtley whose face flushed slightly and he dropped his eyes before shaking his head under Greg’s stringent gaze to mumble, “I am afraid I have heard some gutter mutterings, but …” Greg cut across the manager with a firm denial.

“They are untrue. I don’t know why somebody in this town has it in for me, I can only suspect they don’t want young Jess to get an education. I want you to know I have no immoral designs on the boy.”

“Accepted without reservation Greg,” Courtley looked up smiling; relieved this difficulty was passed over and held out his hand again for Greg to shake.

Greg exhaled in relief. "That’s good.  So what I am doing is setting up a trading house as a US branch of Ghost, my UK trading company, and using it as a vehicle to teach Jess to make trades and do business properly so he can better look after his own future. I’ve already discovered he has a talent for the work. …  I am also setting up a small plant in the Town Hall yard to convert the town’s waste cooking oil into bio-diesel fuel as part of this programme.”

Courtley interrupted “Harvey Denton told me about this and he's quite excited about it.” Greg nodded his acknowledgement.

“We expect to reduce the costs of him running the school buses by using the converted oil. I read in your magazine outside that there are State grants for putting in plants to recycle bio-mass to produce power. You don’t happen to know if they include waste oil recovery plants do you, if so we can do this on a much bigger scale, by collecting oil from a wider area across the State.”

Courtley wrote a note in his pad and asked in some bewilderment.  “In our magazine? Outside?"

‘That’s right- it’s in ‘Nebraska Farmer’.”

Courtley scribbled on his pad with a heavy hand.  “I’ll make sure I read the article and try to find out about any government grants and let you know.” 

Greg had noticed Courtley’s pen tore the paper as he wrote down the name of the magazine. He smiled appreciatively, but his thoughts were darker and thought. ‘I’ll not hold my breath, for a man who says he has his ear to the ground in a farming community yet hasn’t read the local farming press. It doesn’t exactly promise prompt action.’