Chapter 28

Sharl chuckled, “What do you think, Marjory? Why did we ask Jimmy to take you on as another wife? Did you think it was because he wanted you to have his baby?”

“No,” Marjory told her. “I thought it was because he saw me as a desirable girl; a girl who was already attracted to him, and a girl who wanted him as a husband; but I was scared you girls might scare him off, preventing me having a chance with him. You turned out to be more considerate than I ever expected.”

Sharlene was okay with this.

“I like it that we are all ‘girls’ to you, Marjory. You see yourself as a girl, that is clear. I suppose as long as you remain a fertile woman, you can consider yourself a girl!”

“As far as I know, I am fertile, Sharlene. Within a few weeks, we should know for certain, if Jimmy manages to knock me up.”

“Does that still suit you, Marjory? Getting pregnant?” Sharl asked for confirmation.

“Most certainly, Sharl. I want my own child, and I will be happy for Jimmy to be the Daddy. But I would also like to have a marriage ceremony to seal the deal, to make it forever. Sorry if I seem needy; perhaps I am. I want that permanance in my life, and I want my marriage to be for life.”

Sharl patted her on the shoulder.

“Don’t we all, Marjory? A year ago I had no vision for the future; it simply didn’t exist for me, other than a continuation of our existing fun activities with no point to them. Now, the future is a solid family life with children, a dependable husband, and reliable friends as other wives. What more could you want?”

“Uh, financial stability?”

“Okay, granted, but Jimmy is doing well, and has boosted his annual salary tremendously in the last few months. Some of us have monthly allowances from our father, and the twins have a father who is willing to chip in towards a fund for educating our children in the years to come. I think our own father will do so as well. Even if you don’t have much cash savings of your own, we can look after you, Marjory. We will be happy to do so.”

“Thanks, Sharlene. You are a good friend to me, and I really appreciate it.”

“Right. Jimmy, set up the wedding ceremony for you and Marjory, as soon as Maeve can get around to it.”

“Is that the twins’ Aunt Maeve?” asked Marjory. “Where does she come into it?”

“Maeve is a senior deacon in her church, and authorised to perform such ceremonies as marriage where the minister is not available. In our case that means when she visits us. The minister knows nothing about us, so she is free to perform the wedding rite, and she writes it up in the church register later. It is one of these cases of ‘what is not expressly forbidden is allowed’, so she can marry you to Jimmy, for her church says nothing about multiple spouses in their rules; they never anticipated that it might happen.”

“Oh. Clever. So it is a formal religious ceremony?”

“It is. Maeve - aunt Maeve - is a friend of our family, so she wants to be helpful where she can.”

Next morning, it was up bright and early, a couple of fucks (Sharl and Cherry), then off to work with a petulant Marjory. I reminded her she had got her lovemaking last night, so she should not be churlish. She settled down, resting a hand on my thigh as a reminder of her pervasive female presence.

We parted with a kiss at the reception desk, and I returned to drafting my report.

The word about my plans must have been getting out, for I got a phone call from the finance department back at my first company in the Yeats group.

“Mr Robertson, what sort of financial input to Copies were you expecting from the group?”

“Rather straightforward, I think: cash reserves, or available assets that we can sell off, such as unused land parcels. Do we have anything like that?”

“Well, one of our companies bought several acres some years back, when they were on their own and thinking of expanding on a larger site. Instead, they became part of the Yeats Engineering Group, and the land was left unused. That might be a possible source of funds if there is no fixed restrictions on its use or its asset use. I hear you have purchased a much larger site for the group to relocate to.”

“It has turned out that way, almost accidentally. We went looking to buy a hangar, and ended up buying the whole base on the cheap. We now have to rent out all the unwanted hangars to other companies for warehousing or distribution depots or whatever, a.s.a.p. How integrated is the group just now? Can we shift the whole kit and caboodle to the airbase without causing too much of an upheaval?”

“For that, you will have to ask the Board, not me, Mr. Hargreaves; I am too far down the tree to answer that. Bye for now.”

He was hardly off the phone before it rang again. This time it was Chairman Yeats.

“Jimmy, son, what is this I hear from Frank Davis? You bought an air base yesterday? Really? An air base?”

“Not me, sir; Copies, and it was the Head of Finance who placed the bid that was accepted. I thought we were only looking to buy a hangar, but he very wisely asked to see the other hangars, and every last one of them had side rooms full of spares, tools and equipment. That stuff alone will repay the cost of the air base, which was a measly fifty thousand.”

“I thought Frank made a mistake when he said that, but you say it is true? Why would they accept such a ludicrously low bid?”

“Simple, sir. It had been on the market for a decade or so, and the Air Force admin people wanted shot of a white elephant. They were paying for essential maintenance and insurance, year after year. We can get insurance at a far lower cost, but Bruce of Finance reckons we can rent most of the hangers to companies as warehousing space, or a distribution hub or something.”

“Hmm ... Bruce sounds like a good guy to have on board our group.”

“That’s my opinion too,” I told him.

“This report Davis says you are writing. When will you have it finished?”

“It is only at the draft stage, sir. I need a couple more days to knock it into shape for you and the board members to read. I know the format to use: section one: what my report is going to say, in summary terms. Second section: the details of the facts, how they link together, and the detailed costs as far as is known. Section three: the same information boiled down to a page or two of simple facts that are easy to understand. I am aware that some board members never read past the first page of a report if they can get away with it. If they read the first and last sections, they will have the gist of it.”

“Sounds deliciously simple, Jimmy. I will probably be the only one that reads the whole thing, apart from Frank. You have learned how to write a useful report in a format to suit any committee!”

He paused momentarily, then continued, “I am more concerned with speed than total accuracy, Jimmy, so can you have it ready for tomorrow, please?”

“Yes, sir. I can do that, if you don’t mind over-simplification. Oh, and please will you tell Maeve that Marjory would like to be married to me by her, as soon as she can manage it. She can phone our home number in the evening to speak with Marjory for her pre-nuptial discussion, sir.”

“That woman genuinely wants to be married to you as well, Jimmy? How do you do it, man? How do you make them want to commit to you like that? My twins were young enough to have their heads turned easily, but I understand that Marjory is nearly thirty; a grown woman experienced in life.”

“I can’t fully answer that, sir. She sort of fell for me, and my wives got together with her for a while, and they all informed me that she would become another wife.

While I was happy with that outcome, I would not have dared suggest it if it had been left to me. I am more than happy with my girls, as you know, but when they insist, I knuckle under and accept the decision.”

“Very well. I will get Maeve to phone her and confirm that all is as Maeve would want. Now get down to that report. I want to know what it is going to cost me and the group!”

I put down the phone and marvelled.

Chairman Yeats had decided that my report would make financial sense, before even getting sight of it! That spurred me to devote most of the day to working on it. A few calls or consultations would be needed to confirm some of my presumptions, such as what commercial value the group’s buildings had in the current market. I had assumed the group owned the land they stood on, but I had to be sure that it was a fact and not an incorrect assumption.

Then there was the question of the installed machines and equipment; were they worth transferring and reinstalling, or was it better to replace them with more modern, more productive equivalents?

One of my calls produced as an aside the astonishing fact that a competitor had recently closed down and their production machines were more modern than those we had in our buildings. The redundant machinery was still sitting there. If we put in a successful low bid for these specialist machines, it might be less expensive to buy them and transfer them to the airfield than to do the same with our older gear. Our old machines could be either scrapped or donated to an industrial museum if the museum would pay for the cost of taking them away. I added that intriguing possibility to the report.

So my day went on; one thing after another being confirmed, amended or adjusted. The final part of my report included financial costings for the total move, and this was where I was not so confident. Even allowing for income from selling land and equipment, and the reserves within the group - which were lower than expected - the shortfall was likely to be between half a million and a million. Would the Chairman have that level of liquid assets available? If not, the move would have to be done in stages as the budget permitted, or we would have to take on a massive loan for some years.

At lunch with Marjory, I revealed to her what I had been doing, and the difficulty I had encountered about the costs of moving the entire group to the airfield.

“In the long term, Marjory, the group will benefit from the move, not least by the immense amount of concrete apron that can be used for parking and turning large vehicles. One notion that I had was that the airfield’s expanse of runway could be used for automobile racing of various kinds. We could even offer it as a test track for the speed limits of new vehicles. All these may bring in cash in the future, but it is the immediate future that is the problem.”

“Don’t worry about it, Jimmy. It is not your problem to come up with the cash. Anyway, it can be covered with a low cost loan, if the sum is not too large. What is your worst estimate for the shortfall?”

“Not low cost, darling; something approaching a million dollars, Marjory. You see then, quite a large amount to fund as a loan, even assuming a bank will come up with it at an interest rate that is not troublesome. I have to at least come up with suggested solutions for each of the problems that I foresee. The cash is the difficult one.”

“No, it isn’t, Jimmy. You can have a million as a loan at a lot less than any of the banks will want.”

“Oh, yeah? Easier to say than to do, Marjory. Where am I going to locate the sort of deal that you suggest? You may have more financial knowledge than me, but it is still a tough call. Are you thinking of some massive endowment fund that is willing to lend out large sums? It doesn’t happen just like that, even if we asked them today. They would want a detailed financial plan to show how they can be paid back over the years and reduce their risk of default to almost nothing.”

“Jimmy, I can lend your group a million tomorrow, if you need it fast.”

I laughed at her suggestion. “Marjory, love, this is not Monopoly money; it is real life.”

She laid down her cup of coffee and stared at me, soulfully. She now spoke slowly and carefully.

“Jimmy, my darling boy, my grandfather left me his entire estate nearly ten years ago, and I have been managing it ever since. Why do you think my mother and I are estranged? It is because I won’t hand over large sums for her to spend recklessly. My father was the direct line, and mother only married into the family. With my father dead, the will left everything to me alone, with nothing to anyone else except a small legacy to my stepsister from my mother’s first marriage. Mother was furious, but I didn’t want the money frittered away by her spendthrift ways. I made sure she gets a monthly stipend from the fund, and she has to live within that. I have no great needs, having no special interests and no family of my own – at least, not up till now, so I have lived on a similar stipend; not even having a car, for I enjoy walking and use ... used ... the bus for getting to work. I can give your group a million, at a reasonable interest rate, for I know you will be there to keep an eye out for my interests.”

She must have noticed my dropped jaw, for she reached out and pushed it closed. “Jimmy, you look so funny like that, with your mouth open like a beached fish.”

“But ... but ... you never gave an inkling that you had much money. You seemed like a pleasant lady living on her salary. At first, I felt sorry for you, until I got to know the real Marjory underneath the facade; but I never imagined there was another Marjory behind the one I thought I knew.”

“That was the way I wanted it, Jimmy. Everyone in the company treated me as the person I was, and not as a rich bitch to be afraid of, or as a target. You and your girls took me on for the person I was, didn’t you? Sharl even offered to help me with the mortgage on my apartment? I loved that!”

We had been speaking quietly from the start, as we were talking softly about my secret report, but now I looked around in case someone was overhearing us. No-one was taking any notice of us. In fact, most of them were finishing their lunch and heading back to work. I had completely forgotten that most of them were junior staff and would carefully avoid getting too close to me in case I turned on them. It was easy to forget when you are a senior member of staff that you are looked on with a degree of suspicion because you have power over the more junior staff.

I decided to be circumspect.