Do I have a brother?

I told him not to.

“It’s not your decision,” was his retort.

It was the question of a VAT bill, a £17,000 VAT bill we couldn’t pay. Last quarter we had stumped up £28,000 but this time we didn’t have £17,000 to maintain “The Benefits Supervisor Resting.”

They are merciless vultures disguised as respectable. If you can’t keep up with their demands you are accused. They operate in “Render unto Caesar” quarters behind locked doors and bulletproof glass as the guilty of daylight robbery need to. They are a jackboot hypocritical band, hard with Godlessness. Most people are unaware of an unthinkable concept active in our society, and it never occurs to others to question purpose that is considered good.

Anyway, he’d arrived anonymous like any other guest in a small group. They departed the next morning without ceremony.

He came again not long afterwards bringing his family, wife, daughter, and son. This time I took them on a detailed tour of our enterprise. I expected no further involvement. I am slow to recognise people are knocking on the door of my life trying to get in. Wary? Stupid perhaps?

He came next accompanied only by an amazing young damsel who turned out to be German.

Next time together they brought a party of their friends and by now we’d progressed to dining with them in the hotel dining room. During conversation he stressed his wonder at the ergonomic aspects of our hotel with everything exactly where it was needed in the rooms. The toilet rolls he said were effortlessly handy. That’s because people are full of shit, I thought rather unkindly.

Eventually, after many invitations, we went to visit them in their Netherlands home though I’m still thinking this can’t last. I’m so poor at socializing, too timid and can’t trust my mouth. The finally accepted invitation came with the intriguing choice of ‘primitive inside or primitive outside’ and believe it not, me being rather shy and awkward opted for ‘primitive outside’ which turned out to be a version of glamping in the private coppice surrounding his comfort zone home.

So far, I’d learned he was Jewish, a carpenter and a polyglot.

On their next visit to us he built a porch to my design on the back of the hotel between number 29 and thirty. He supplied all the materials.

His young lady, now his wife, brough her mother and father on their next visit.

Anyway, as I said, I told him not to.

“It’s not your decision,” he’d retorted.

I still think I should have sent back the no strings attached £17,000 he sent us to pay the VAT bill.

Even after losing it all we are still visiting each other as often as we can. They are still an incredible mystery.

Love is benign vapours, strange, subtle, and unfathomable.