A Good Man
Copyright© 2011 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 36: Another Offer
Clarissa’s guests started to drift off home after about an hour in the conservatory—it was a school night, after all. Clarissa wanted me to stay the night now that we had her mother’s permission, but I didn’t have a change of clothes for the next morning. Or any pyjamas to sleep in (mind you, Clarissa said I wouldn’t need them). Or my toothbrush. I did, however, agree to stay another couple of hours and leave around half eleven so I could get to bed by midnight.
At around half nine, we’d just settled on the sofa in the living room to watch a DVD when the doorbell rang.
“I bet that somebody’s forgotten something,” Clarissa said, pushing herself up off the sofa. “Probably Grace. She can be stupid like that sometimes.”
I got up to follow, expecting to be able to pull someone’s leg about their memory lapse, but when Clarissa opened the door, it wasn’t who she was expecting.
“Mr Brown? Mr Williams? What are you—?”
“Oh, good, you’re here,” Clarissa’s mum said from behind us. She’d come out of the kitchen and was wiping her hands with a towel. “Shall we go into the sitting room?”
“Wherever you think is best,” said Will, “But...” He looked at me. “Are you sure this is a good time?”
“What’s this about?” Clarissa asked. “Why are you here?”
“It’s about your inheritance,” Chrissy said. “Why else would they be here today? It is your eighteenth birthday, after all.”
“But ... But...”
“Which is why this might not be a good time,” Will said, again looking at me. I got the message.
“I should go. I’ll call you later.”
“NO!” Clarissa blushed, then continued more quietly. “I don’t want any secrets from you, Paul. You’ve told me everything. I want you to know everything, too.”
“Are you sure about this?” Will asked.
Clarissa nodded. “Paul stays. Just like last time.”
“Well, if that’s what you want,” Will said.
We went back into the lounge. I sat with Clarissa on one sofa while the three trustees of her father’s estate sat on the other.
Clarissa switched off the television, threw the remote on the coffee table and said, “So, what’s so important that it couldn’t wait?”
Will looked at the other two and then said, “Obviously, we’re here to tell you about your inheritance. And as I’m sure Paul’s already told you, if he’s told you everything, there are a great many forms that need your signature.”
“Well, yes, I expected that, but can’t they wait until the weekend? I’m not in any rush. It’s not like I’m dying to go out and spend it all or something.”
“True,” said Christine, “And most of it can wait. Right, Will?”
He nodded. “In fact, I’ve already arranged to come back this weekend.”
“So why are you here?”
“Because,” said Will, “there’s one form that cannot wait.” He opened the small leather briefcase he had with him and took out a thin brown file, which he then held out for Clarissa to take.
“The company?” she said after looking inside. “Why? What’s so important? What’s the rush?”
Will looked at Pete Williams, who nodded and took over.
“Clarissa, the company isn’t doing as well as most people in the town think it is.”
Her brow furrowed, and her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘not doing as well as most people think?’”
“He’s right,” I said. She turned to look at me. “I saw a copy of the company accounts for last year the other week, so I know he’s right.”
“Where did you get that from?” she asked.
“From Companies House. It’s like a register of all the companies in the country, and every company has to send them their accounts every year. They have a website, and anyone can go on it and look up the accounts for any company. Will told me about it.”
“Oh. Right. I didn’t know that.”
“Neither did I until Will told me. But since I found out about it, I’ve been looking up all the companies I own shares in. You know, the ones I inherited from Mum and Dad. Including Liddingtons. The company actually made a loss last year.”
Her eyes went wide. “A loss?” Her voice had gone so high it was almost a squeak.
I nodded. “Two and a half million.”
“Two and ... Really? But ... I mean...” She shook her head, then turned to the three on the other sofa. “How? How did it make a loss?”
“The recession has hit hard,” said Pete, “Recessions always hit luxury goods hard. It’s the first thing that people cut back on. But really, the company has been in a bad way for some time. It’s the reason Andy brought me in originally.”
“A bad way? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Pete sighed. “Both Andy and Ben were keen to make reforms once they were in a position to do so. It took them over a decade, but they finally had the power they needed. Both of them knew what needed to be done, but they were so frustrated for so long.”
“Tell me about it,” Will said. “Sometimes we’d get together, and it was all either of them could talk about.”
“The product is still second to none,” Pete said, “but the factory is operating with outdated machinery and work practices from the dark days of the seventies. But in this economic climate, it doesn’t matter how good the product is, people just aren’t buying it. They can’t afford it. And that’s when the inefficiencies in production hurt the most.”
Clarissa had been holding my hand since we sat down. Now she squeezed it so tightly, it hurt. “So, what are you saying? Is the factory going to go bust?”
Pete pressed on. “The problem is that reform is almost impossible. Andy and Ben worked together and had the right ideas. Like I said, they knew what needed to be done. But the Workers’ Trust blocked them at every turn.”
Clarissa frowned. “Workers’ Trust?”
“It’s a... ‘Charity’ isn’t the right word, but you can think of it that way,” Will said. “It owns twenty percent of the company, gifted to it by the founders, and represents the interests of the workers in the factory. I would say ‘best interests,’ but that’s not always the case. It’s ... It’s kind of like an old-fashioned trade union, but it owns shares in the factory and has a seat on the Board of Directors.”
“The Trust has traditionally blocked any reforms that might cost jobs,” Pete said. “But cutting jobs is the only way to make the factory more efficient. It’s no good buying new machines that half the number of people can operate efficiently if you still employ the same number of people to operate them.”
“So is the company going to go bust?” Clarissa asked again.
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