Archaeologists have unearthed what they believe to be the first Roman tax collecting depot to be found in Britain, at Claydon Pike in the Upper Thames Valley. The depot was built around 70 AD, and probably remained in use until the Romans finally left Britain in 408.
Observer
Glutinus Sinus, Tax Inspector 126 (Upper Thames Valley Collection), drew the parchment-piled in-tray towards him, removed the curling stack, carefully and neatly squared it off, pared a stylus with the small dagger issued for that exclusive purpose by Inland Revenue Stores (Silchester), straightened his little skirt, and nodded.
‘Send him in,’ he said.
Miscellaneous Onus, his clerk, scuttled sniffing to the fruitwood door, and opened it. An odour of goat and feet and orifice wafted horribly in; through the gap, Glutinus Sinus caught a brief collage of mud-caked beards and hovering flies and khaki teeth, heard, as always, the distinctive colonial undercurrent of scratching, spasmodically punctuated by the plop of targeting spittle. The inspector shuddered. He had been out here too long. They all had.
‘Mr Cooper!’ called Miscellaneous Onus, into the miasma.
A squat and patchily hirsute figure detached itself from a cackling group who had been engaged in a curious contest from which the clerk had been forced to avert his eyes, adjusted his mangy wolfskin, and loped into the tax inspector’s office.
‘Shut the door,’ said Glutinus Sinus.
‘The what?’ said the Briton.
Glutinus Sinus set his jaw, and pointed.
‘Oh,’ said Mr Cooper, ‘it’s even got its own name, has it? I thought it was just a bit of wall that came open, bloody clever, you Romans, I will say that for you. Door,’ he murmured, shutting it with somewhat melodramatic respect, ‘door, door, door, well I never!’
Glutinus Sinus sighed.
‘Don’t butter me up, Mr Cooper,’ he said.
‘Me?’ cried Cooper. ‘Me?’
‘Please sit down.’
‘I built a room, once, up my place,’ said the Briton, dropping to his haunches, ‘only we had to climb over the walls to get in and out.’
‘Mr Cooper, about your tax-return for the current—’
‘We had not cracked the secret of the door,’ said Cooper. ‘It was beyond our wossname. It must be wonderful, civilization.’
‘Mr Cooper, you are a maker of casks and barrels?’
‘Correct. Definitely.’
‘And yet,’ here Glutinus Sinus riffled through the pile of parchment, selected one, flourished it, ‘you have entered a large deduction against last year’s income for the purchase of new industrial plant, to wit millstones, four, nether and upper. Can you explain this?’
‘I have branched out,’ said Cooper. ‘I do a bit of grinding on the side. Mind you, don’t we all, ha-ha, catch my drift, all men of the world, narmean?’
‘Branched out?’ said the tax inspector, icily.
‘Bit slack these days, coopering,’ replied the Briton, ‘due to introduction of the glass bottle and carboy. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying glass is not dead clever, probably miraculous even, it is what comes of having a god for everything, the Roman god of glass has come up with a real winner, I am not denying that for a minute. All I am saying is, it has knocked the bottom out of the cask business, having a container what does not leak on your foot when you are carrying it out over the bedroom wall of a morning. I have therefore diversified into flour.’
‘Then you ought to be called Miller,’ interrupted Miscellaneous Onus irritably. ‘All this is cocking up the ledgers.’
‘How about Cooper-Miller?’ enquired the Briton. ‘Due to following two professions? It’s got a bit of tone, that, my old woman’d fancy being Mrs Cooper-Miller, she would be invited to open the Upper Thames Valley Jumble Fight, she would be asked to judge the Humorous Bum Contest, it could put us right at the top of the social tree.’ He smiled oleaginously. ‘We could be almost Roman. Uglier, mind.’
‘So,’ said Glutinus Sinus, ‘you are engaged in the manufacture of flour for profit? Why, then, have you made no relevant return for—’
‘Who said anything about profit?’ replied Cooper. ‘Cooper Flour plc is a registered charity, due to where it is distributed to the needy, gratis. It is a good word, gratis, we are all very pleased with it, what a spot-on language Latin is, got a word for everything.’
Glutinus Sinus put his fingertips together.
‘True,’ he murmured. ‘Gratis, however, does not translate as receiving chickens in return for flour.’
‘Ah,’ said Cooper. ‘You heard about that, then?’
‘Mr Fletcher entered them as outgoings,’ said the tax inspector levelly.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Cooper bitterly, ‘he would. You got to watch him, squire. The plain fact is, them chickens are definitely not income. We do not eat them. They are pets. You cannot count a household pet as income.’
‘How many have you got?’ enquired Miscellaneous Onus, licking his nib.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Cooper, ‘I can’t count higher than XLVI. I have not had everyone’s educational advantages, have I?’
‘With all those chickens,’ said the tax inspector, ‘you must be getting hundreds of eggs a week. Surely you eat those?’
The Briton narrowed his already imperceptible brows.
‘Eggs?’ he repeated. ‘What are eggs?’
Glutinus Sinus stared at him for a while. The Briton stared innocently back. Eventually, Glutinus Sinus snatched up his stylus, and drew an egg on the back of a tax-form.
‘Oh,’ said Cooper, nodding, ‘chickens’ doings.’
‘No, no, no!’ cried Miscellaneous Onus. ‘They’re delicious! You fry them!’
‘Get off!’ exclaimed the Briton. ‘Pull this one. I’ve seen ’em coming out.’
‘In that case,’ snapped Miscellaneous Onus triumphantly, ‘how is it that Mr The Other Cooper is buying them at eighteen denarii a dozen?’
‘Search me,’ replied the Briton. ‘He is probably putting them on his roses.’
Miscellaneous Onus sprang from his stool, waving a document.
‘This invoice carries your address!’ he shrieked. ‘How do you explain that?’
The Briton squinted at it.
‘That’s not me,’ he said. ‘You will notice it is signed Mickey Mus. Come to think of it, I’ve noticed our yard looks remarkably neat of a morning. Clearly this bloke is nipping in at night, nicking our chickens’ doings, and flogging them on the side. What a liberty! Imagine anyone stooping low enough to steal droppings. Mind you, you’d have to, wouldn’t you, ha-ha-ha, sorry, just my little joke, where would we be without a laugh now and then, that’s what I always say.’
Glutinus Sinus grabbed the paper from his aide, and threw it in a wastebin.
‘All right,’ he cried, ‘but how,’ and here he plunged a trembling hand into the sheaf, ‘do you explain this? It happens to be your list of deductible expenses for the year ending April 5, 408, in which you have not only put down the cost of enough protective clothing to dress an entire legion, but also some score of expensive items described as “professional gifts, disbursements, tips considerations, etcetera” which I cannot but—’
‘What a marvellous word, etcetera,’ murmured Mr Cooper, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, ‘nearly as good as gratis, I do not know how you lot keep on coming up with ’em, no wonder your beneficient and gracious authority stretches from—’
‘—take to be the most gross and transparent attempt to evade your dues, not only all this, I say, but also an enormous sum attributed to, where is it, here we are, “the entertainment of foreign buyers”. Mr Cooper, do you really expect me to—’
‘It is clear,’ said the Briton, holding up one massive hairy hand, ‘that you have never been up the sharp end when it comes to coopering and/or milling. On the one hand snagging your professional habiliments on splinters, nails, sharp reeds and I do not know what else, on the other coming home of an evening absolutely covered and looking like sunnink ritual cut out of a chalk bleeding hillside, you cannot wash self-raising out of a wolf pelt, sunshine, it turns to paste, try drying it by the fire and what you end up with is a flea-infested giant loaf.’
Glutinus Sinus’s favourite stylus snapped between his fingers.
‘Very well, but what is this entry: “VII formal III-piece gents’ goatskin suits”?’
‘Nor,’ continued Mr Cooper, not pausing for breath, ‘can you turn up with your casks at a smart brewer’s premises with your backside hanging out. I am, after all, a director of the company. Similarly, going about the countryside upon my unpaid charitable works and doling out flour left, right and centre, I cannot look needier than the bleeding needy, can I?’
Glutinus Sinus licked dry lips, and glanced at Miscellaneous Onus.
‘These professional gifts,’ whispered the aide hoarsely, ‘who exactly is receiving them?’
‘You name it,’ replied Cooper. ‘It is dog eat dog in the barrel game. You got to grease palms, especially with foreign customers.’
‘Aha!’ cried Glutinus Sinus. ‘At last we approach the nub, Mr Cooper, or would you prefer I called you Mr Mus? Just exactly who are these foreign customers of yours to whom you are so generous with bribes and entertainment?’
The Briton smiled.
‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘he is a Roman gentleman, one of my most esteemed business associates, a person of great probity and standing. I am sure you would be the first to appreciate that you cannot fob off such a man with a couple of bags of stone-ground wholemeal to stick under his toga and a ferret kebab up the takeaway.’ Cooper picked a dead wasp from his beard, carefully. ‘He is my accountant, Dubious Abacus. I understand he is a big gun. If you care to re-examine my files, I think you will discover that he has authorized my tax-returns personally. I do not know how he finds the time, what with constantly running back to Rome to do the Emperor’s books.’
After a long silence, Glutinus Sinus said:
‘We would appear to owe you a not inconsiderable refund, Mr Cooper-Miller.’
The Briton rose slowly from his haunches.
‘I’ll see the bloke on my way out,’ he said.
After the door had closed, Glutinus Sinus stared at it for a long time.
‘What year is it, Miscellaneous Onus?’ he said.
‘408, Glutinus Sinus.’
The tax inspector sighed.
‘Get our suitcases down,’ he said.