A Good Man
Copyright© 2011 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 37: Let’s Not Fight
“She’s locked herself in her room and won’t talk to me,” Christine said as she returned to the lounge. She’d followed Clarissa after she stormed out, leaving me alone with Will and Pete. We discussed the implications of a possible sale of Liddington-Phipps and the consequences of not selling during the ten minutes she’d been gone.
“Let me try,” I said.
Christine waved her hand dismissively. “Feel free. But it won’t matter. I doubt you’ve ever seen her when she gets into one of these moods. She can be as stubborn as her father was. Worse, probably, because I know I can be stubborn too. She gets it from both of us.”
I left Clarissa’s three trustees behind, climbed the stairs and walked along the landing until I found myself outside her bedroom. I knocked once.
“Go away, Mum!”
“Riss? It’s me.”
“Paul?”
“Yeah.”
“Go home.”
“What?”
“Go. Home. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
“Riss, Please—”
“I said, go home. What are you, deaf or stupid? I said I’ll talk to you in the morning.” This was a side of Clarissa I hadn’t seen since we got to know each other. The side that had earned her the ‘Ice Princess’ label at school. And I didn’t particularly like it.
“Fine, I’ll go. But there’s no need for the attitude, Riss. I’m on your side. Just remember that.”
I started to walk away, but after just a few steps, the door opened and she spat, “Are you? Are you really on my side? Because it didn’t fucking sound like it down there. It sounded like you wanted me to sell out my family’s legacy, just like the rest of them.”
I took a deep breath before answering. “If I were in your position, then yes, I’d seriously consider selling. And I might not sell. But what I wouldn’t do is jump to a snap decision. I’d think it over. I’d listen to the advice of the experts. And if you ask me, you’ve got two pretty knowledgeable experts downstairs. Experts who just happen to have been your father’s best friends. But it’s up to you, Riss. It’s pretty much your company now, so...” I shrugged. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
As I started to walk away again, she called out, “Paul?”
I stopped and turned to face her.
“I love you.” There was a hint of sadness in her eyes that I couldn’t quite explain.
I nodded. “Love you, too.”
Her eyes brightened, and she smiled, then turned and went back into her room, closing the door behind her.
I went back downstairs and into the lounge.
“You were right,” I said to Chrissy. “It made no difference. Although, she did at least talk to me.”
“You didn’t change her mind, then?” Pete said.
I shook my head. “Her mind’s made up.”
“For now,” Pete said. “She didn’t sign the forms. That means it doesn’t matter what she said tonight. It’s not a final decision. We’ve still got time to change her mind.”
I fixed him with a questioning stare and said, “Are you sure that’s the right thing to do? Sell the company, I mean.”
He nodded. “Andy brought me in to consult on the sale before he died. And things at the factory have gotten worse since then, not better. Trust me, the only way to keep that place open long term is to sell it. Otherwise, I think it’s got five years at the most. And if that happens, the Germans will swoop in and buy the brand anyway at a knock-down price.”
“But wouldn’t the brand be damaged if the factory were closed?”
He nodded. “To some extent. But after a few years, as long as the goods remain the same quality and are still on the shelves, it won’t matter. Ultimately, the brand will survive, even if it does so outside of Micester.”
“Our job is to make sure it survives in Micester,” Will said.
Clarissa usually arrived at school before me and would greet me at my locker with one of her trademark nuclear kisses. That Friday morning, she did greet me at her locker, but the kiss was absent. Instead, she stood in front of me, her arms wrapped around herself, clutching her books against her chest like a shield, and addressed my feet rather than my face.
“You didn’t call me last night before bed.”
I shrugged. “I kind of thought you didn’t want me to.”
She lifted her head to look at me, her eyes ablaze, and said, “Of course I wanted you to!”
“You said, ‘I’ll talk to you in the morning.’ To me, that means don’t call me tonight.”
“Paul, I’ve told you—” She must have realised her voice was rising and people were looking over at us because she glanced around the room, then continued quietly. “Yours is the last voice I want to hear before I go to sleep. I told you that.”
I nodded. “I remember, but...”
She sighed. “Do you realise that last night was the first night I haven’t spoken to you before bed in ... I don’t... Ages. Even when we ‘weren’t together’ and Mum was making me see other people, we still spoke to each other before bed.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”
She nodded and looked at my feet again. “Me too.”
There was an uncomfortable silence between us until Clarissa said, “I have to ... I need to...” She shook her head, turned on her heel and left.
I watched her walk away, my heart sinking to somewhere south of my gut.
“Trouble in paradise?”
I damn near jumped out of my skin and spun around. “Grace, you really need to stop sneaking up on me like that.”
With a giggle, she said, “Sorry. I guess I should know you get lost in some other world when she walks off and leaves you like that. You know, if it were me—”
“Stop right there.” I held up a hand. “Riss is just ... She had some news last night, and it’s shaken her up a bit. I think she realised that being who she is comes with some responsibility. Responsibility that she’s not ready for.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Nothing.” I shook my head and said again, almost to myself. “It’s nothing.”
She hardly spoke to me for the rest of the day. It wasn’t like she avoided me. She was ‘there,’ she just wasn’t really ‘there,’ if you see what I mean. As if her body was present but her mind was elsewhere. I suppose this must have been how I seemed to other people the day after I received my inheritance—and I didn’t have a huge decision weighing on me like Clarissa did.
She wasn’t speaking to anyone else either. At lunchtime, despite the main topics of conversation being her dinner party the night before and her upcoming party the next night, she couldn’t have spoken more than a dozen words. She was usually an active participant in lessons, both asking and answering questions, but apart from acknowledging the register at the start of the lesson, it was as if she wasn’t even there. Instead of holding my hand while walking to and from those lessons, she walked beside me, hugging her books to her chest.
And at the end of the day, she got in her car and left the site without even saying goodbye to me, Emily or Grace.
It felt strange entering the house alone because I’d become so used to Clarissa coming home with me and doing our homework at the kitchen table. I dumped my bag on a chair, grabbed a Coke from the fridge, and sat down, pulling out my books and trying to decide which assignment was more urgent. I had narrowed it down to either an English Literature essay, which I wanted to do with Clarissa, or a French translation, when the screen of my mobile lit up, and the classic opening riff of ‘Sweet Child O’Mine’ started playing.
I slid my finger across the screen to answer the call. “Hello?”
“Paul, it’s Pete Williams.”
“Mr Williams? What can I do for you?”
“You can call me Pete for a start. I thought we’d already got past the Mr Williams thing.”
“Sorry, er, Pete.” I don’t care, calling adults by their first name still felt weird.
“Look, Paul, I’ve just taken a call. Do you know where Clarissa is right now?”
I shook my head, even though I was on the phone and he obviously couldn’t see me. “Not a clue. She took off straight after school without even saying bye. We usually go out on a Friday, but with the meal last night and her party tomorrow, I don’t know if we are going out tonight or not. I’m kind of pissed off about it, actually.”
“Yes, well, she’s at Will’s office.”
“Will? As in—”
“Of course. Who else would I mean? She’s gone over there demanding to sign all the paperwork for her inheritance. She called me right after signing the Liddington-Phipps documents to confirm that she didn’t intend to sell and that I should tell the Germans that straight away since they were so desperate for an answer.”
“And have you?”
“No, of course not!”
“But if she—”
“Look, it’s late on a Friday, and it’s even later in Germany. They’re an hour ahead of us, don’t forget. So I can justify not informing them of Clarissa’s decision until Monday. But I really can’t delay it any longer than that.” I didn’t much care for the emphasis he placed on the word ‘decision.’
“Why are you telling me this, Pete?”
“Because you’ve got until Monday to change that girl’s mind, that’s why!”
“Why me?”
“Oh, come on, Paul, I thought you were smarter than that. It’s clear she listens to you. It’s obvious you’re the only one who has any chance of persuading her to sell. And make no mistake, Paul, if we want to keep this company alive and that factory running in the long run, you must persuade her to sell. We need to finish what Ben and Andy started.”
“Pete, I’m sorry, I’m not going to talk her into doing something she doesn’t want to do.”
He sighed. “Fine. But at the very least, can you get her to listen to me? Get her to give me a chance to explain the situation properly? Look, Paul, Both your dad and Clarissa’s dad were one hundred percent on board with this. They knew this was the only way to save the company. For their sake, for your dad’s sake, please just try and persuade her to hear me out.”
I took a deep breath. Was that true? Was this sale what my dad wanted? I sighed.
“Okay. I’ll ... I’ll talk to her. If she’ll let me. But don’t be surprised if she doesn’t listen.”
After a few hurried pleasantries, we ended the call. I held the phone in my hand, staring at the blank screen and shook my head.
“Bollocks.”
Can you come over at 7? I don’t feel like going out but maybe we could watch a DVD
I’ll say one thing for Clarissa’s new smartphone—it had improved the grammar and punctuation in her text messages. Guess it’s the advantage of having a proper keyboard on them.
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