Chapter 26: Efficiency Savings

Chloë and her boyfriend—or was he her husband now, I really couldn’t remember—didn’t go to the badminton tournament finals. She sent me a message saying that she went to one when she was still a student, but even then it had caused a fuss and been a distraction from the competitors, even though most people were used to seeing her on campus by that point.

I wondered if her level of fame was really worth it. Did she ever have the opportunity to do anything normal or was she always worried she’d be recognised and end up as the centre of attention when she didn’t want to be. I’d been with her a few times now when she had been recognised and people had asked her for selfies, but that had only ever been at small scale places, like in a pub or a café. I can’t imagine what it would be like if she went to a theme park, for example.

But whatever...

I still wanted to go though. I really wanted Geoff and Maddison to get one over on Ross and Gemma. It was probably me being petty. It felt petty. But I didn’t care.

Alannah had said she was going to watch too. She joined me and Lily for our evening run on the Tuesday before the final and although we didn’t go as far as we usually did and Lily set a noticeably slower pace than she normally did, it did seem that Alannah was over the pain and discomfort she’d felt in the week or so following our loss in the semi-final.

I called for her on my way down to the sports centre on Wednesday evening. Well, technically, I went out of my way to call for her, but...

“Oh, hi, Paul,” Lily said after opening the door. She was again dressed in her tight-fitting running outfit—well, one of her tight-fitting running outfits, she seemed to have an endless supply of them in pretty much every colour imaginable. She turned away from me and called into the flat, “Lana! Paul’s here.”

Then she nodded me inside and closed the door behind me.

“I don’t think she’s ready. Want a drink while you wait?”

I nodded and followed Lily into the kitchen at the end of the corridor where she grabbed a couple of cans of diet coke from the fridge and then handed one to me. I hated diet coke, but it wouldn’t have been right to complain.

I leaned against one worktop, Lily leaned against the one opposite, and we chatted about nothing while I waited. She had been set a big essay to be handed in after the Christmas break—the same one I’d been set last year—and she was dropping heavy hints that a sneak peek at mine would be very helpful.

I was telling her I wouldn’t do that for about the five millionth time this term when Alannah came into the room.

She didn’t look at all ready to go out, dressed in a baggy hoodie and jeans and not wearing any shoes (or socks).

“Hi, Paul. I’m sorry, I’m ... I’m not coming.”

“Why not? Don’t you want to see Ross and Gemma get beat?”

She nodded. “Yeah, of course I do, but...” She shrugged.

She’d been looking down at the floor up to now, but then she looked up at me and it was clear she’d been crying.

“Hey,” I said, “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“That’s bullshit, for a start,” Lily said. “You look awful, and you haven’t come out of your room at all since we got back from our ten o’clock. Have you been in there crying this whole time?”

She shrugged again.

And started crying.

“Hey, hey,” I said, going over to her and taking her hands in mine. “What’s wrong?”

Alannah pulled her hands from mine, threw her arms around my neck and buried her face against my chest, sobbing even harder.

I put my arms around her and held her until she’d cried herself out. Eventually she pushed herself away from me and looked up into my eyes. “Sorry.”

She walked over to the large kitchen table, pulled out one of the chairs and sat down heavily. Lily and I followed and sat on either side of her.

“Lana, what’s happened? What’s wrong?” Lily asked.

Alannah shook her head. “It’s ... It’s Dad. He’s...” She almost started crying again, but she held it together.

God, I hoped she wasn’t about to tell us what I thought she was about to tell us.

“He’s ... He’s lost his job,” she said.

I suppressed a sigh of relief. I could understand why this might be upsetting, but I was expecting a hell of a lot worse.

“Oh, is that all?” Lily said. “Well, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Daddy says the recession is over and there are tons of jobs about right now.”

Alannah shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. He’s been at Ellpee all his life—ever since he left school. It’s all he knows how to do.”

“Ellpee? You mean Liddington-Phipps?” I knew that some of the workers abbreviated the company’s name, although it wasn’t something I’d ever heard my either of parents do.

Alannah nodded. “Nearly twenty-five years he’s been there. It’s all he knows.”

I frowned. “So what happened?”

“Efficiency Savings. That’s what Mom said they called it.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “You mean like redundancy? But ... I mean ... That German company that bought it said they weren’t going to do that. They said everyone’s job was safe!”

“That was, like, over two years ago, Paul,” Lily replied. “Two years is a long time in business. Or so Daddy says. Well, actually, he says a Week is a long time in Politics, but that’s the same thing, right?”

I shook my head. “I can’t believe this. They lied. They fucking lied!”

Alannah shook her head. “No, not really. Not as I understand things, anyway. They promised to keep everyone on for a year while they evaluated the business or whatever. That’s what Dad said at the time. And they did. It was the start of this year, February, I think—it was all over the school—when they announced they were overstaffed and needed to make cuts. Mom and Dad talked about it at home too. I remember Dad saying they’d offered Voluntary Redundancy that came with a really generous package. Whatever that means.”

“That sounds about right,” Lily said. When I looked at her questioningly, she shrugged and said, “You try living with Daddy for eighteen years without picking up a few things. When companies want to get rid of staff, they offer them a lot of money to leave—and not just money but sometimes they’ll pay for re-training, stuff like that.” She shrugged. “Happens all the time. And it means they don’t have to force people to leave—people volunteer instead.”

“Yeah, well,” Alannah said, “Not enough people at Ellpee volunteered, apparently. So they picked people at random. Dad’s one of them. And because he’s not volunteering, they can pay him a lot less.”

Lily nodded. “There’s a minimum amount a company has to pay by law—I think it depends on how long you’ve been there and what you were earning or something.”

“And that’s all Dad’s getting. The legal minimum—which isn’t a lot. Mom said it was six months pay or something. Seems like a lot in one go, but they have no idea it will have to last them—how long it will take him to find a new job.” She shook her head. “And that means...” She shrugged.

“Means what?” I said.

She shook her head. “It means I might not be able to come back here after Christmas. I might not be able to afford it. I didn’t get the full grant because of what Dad was earning—they were expected to contribute. Mom was sending me some of her wages from working at Tesco, but she won’t be able to do that now, will she? They’ll need all the money to pay the mortgage and the bills and whatever. And without that I’m not going to be able to afford the rent here or food or books or ... You know?”