Chapter 27

Thursday morning brought the first reactions to the tender decision. The Sales Manager at Midlands rang and asked Grace for more details of why they had been turned down. She replied that the reason given in the General Manager’s letter was all they were going to say. He tried to bluster for a more details but Grace replied that the reason given was adequate and when he continued to bluster put the telephone down.

An hour later Owen Davies rang.

“Good morning, Miss Ward, Owen Davies. We’re delighted that you have accepted our tender and I have spoken to Mr Walker to say so. I realise that after you and your boyfriend’s troubles with Gareth you might have been against us and no doubt Mr Walker might have agreed with you. So thank you for not letting personal problems deter you from selecting our tender on its merits.”

“Thank you, Mr Davies. I’ll be frank with you. When you visited me to apologise for Gareth’s behaviour I had my Vehicles foreman sitting in the outside office...”

“I noticed!”

“Your apology was sincere, Mr Davies, for which thank you again. Both Terry and I got written apologies from Gareth which we both agreed were sincere as well. You’re right that Mr Walker was initially reluctant to accept your tender but I persuaded him that personal feelings should not over-rule professional decisions and that we were both impressed by the genuiness of Gareth’s apologies.”

“Thank you, Miss Ward. I really am most grateful.”

Grace chuckled. “There is a quid pro quo which is personal.”

“Oh there is, is there?”

“We don’t have a qualified engineer so I took the liberty of running all the tenders under the eye of a Civil Engineering lecturer at the university who Terry knows. He runs a lesser degree course for wannabe building engineers and asked whether we would ask the winner of the tender if their chief designer of the project could come and tell his students about it.”

The response was immediate. “Of course! No problem at all! I’ll warn her off. Her name is Kirsty Green. Get him to drop her a line.”

“Thank you so much, Mr Davies. We’ll be in touch shortly to make detailed plans with you once we have got the project through the Council. I don’t think there will be any problems there. I’ve talked it through with them in outline already and have had tentative approval subject to their seeing the final plan.”

“Great! Now, please call me Owen and may I call you Grace?”

“Thank you, Owen, and yes of course.”

“Thank you, Grace. I look forward to hearing from you as regards the more detailed planning. Goodbye for now.”

“Goodbye, Owen.”

Grace hugged herself in delight. She longed to share the good news with Terry but knew he had lectures all morning. She would have to wait until lunch-time. She felt she ought to tell Hugh though.

She went via Peter who gave her his agreement and support. Hugh was equally receptive. He eyed her with a quizzical smile when she told him of the full plan.

“You’re a devious and scheming young woman,” he said.

“Only in the interests of my company,” she replied, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Lucky us!”

Terry, when she told him later, was delighted.

“I’ll try to catch Paul later. We’re both tied up with lectures all afternoon.”

Grace miaowed. “Don’t be too late back. I might do something desperate if you are.”

“I won’t. Promise!”

To cut a long story short, Paul did indeed write to Kirsty Green and she agreed to come and talk to his students in a fortnight’s time. That was a success. They showed much interest and she agreed to supervise visits at each point on the critical path.

The plan was submitted to the Council and approved in a surprisingly short time, within a working week. Hugh had useful contacts.

Grace suggested to Hugh that they should have an inaugural meeting with Davies. Hugh, Peter and she would be the home team and Owen Davies could bring who he wanted, probably Kirsty Green and his financial manager. Thereafter she would keep an eye on things and only call another one if things started to go astray. Hugh agreed. She rang Owen and told him what she proposed and he immediately agreed. She handed it to Angie to arrange. Angie was thrilled at the responsibility.

The meeting, which went well, took place a fortnight later. It was agreed that work would start immediately after the Christmas-New Year break and should finish by mid-March at the latest. They walked the ground and Kirsty was able to show the area she would want for stores, concrete mixers and a site office cabin. It all fitted without detriment to current operations. Owen insisted on taking everyone out for lunch afterwards and Hugh smilingly agreed subject to Wilkins Distribution hosting a successful end of project lunch which, he added smilingly, meant up to standard and on time.

Owen pretended to take offence that the project would be anything but.

Hugh set about purchasing the six new wagons and Anthea recruiting six new drivers. Grace asked her diffidently whether she would include Greg in the interviewing team and was assured she would.

“As will you be young woman!” she added.

Greg was delighted with the outcome of the tender competition, the new wagons and his involvement in selecting new drivers. The excitement filtered down through the rest of the vehicles team.

Grace and Terry decided that their four complementary tickets to the concert would go to his family and to Chris Lawson. Their bids went in.

Gareth was back at the next choir practice. He made a point of not standing next to Terry in the choir but nevertheless came over to the pair of them after the rehearsal and apologised again for his behaviour. Both smilingly accepted his apologies but Terry, with a grin, added that the restraining order still stood.

Gareth nodded. “Understandable!” he said quietly and smiled warmly but a bit lop-sidedly.

That effectively and pleasantly put an end to the episode.

Grace excelled herself for the sticky toffee pudding dinner. She decided on Irish Stew, buying fresh neck of lamb and slow cooking it with various herbs and spices added to it on the Friday night. It was served with new potatoes and fresh carrots. The sticky toffee pudding, which was enormous, contained muscovado sugar as did the sauce. The whole meal was a huge success with non-stop conversation, much laughter and a lot of gentle teasing. Stephen pronounced himself well and truly paid and also got a soft, sweet kiss from Grace which actually made him blush when Anthea gently poked him in the ribs.