A Woman of Courage (23 page)

‘You've never liked Davis.'

‘I think Davis Lander is a detestable man. He is arrogant and a bully and, as my mother-in-law said to me once, I rue the day he married my daughter.'

Sara was interested. ‘Did she really say that to you?'

‘Mrs Madigan said it, yes. Jennifer's grandmother, not yours.'

‘Why?'

‘Lots of reasons. She was fishing, you know.'

‘Mrs Madigan?'

‘Jennifer. She was looking for answers to a number of questions I did not intend to answer. The interesting thing was that she was willing to ask them, which is more than she would have done once.'

‘What questions did she ask?'

But the shutters were up again. ‘Nothing that need concern you at the moment.'

‘I still want to know why you've decided to move on when the business has been your life.'

‘Not all my life,' Hilary said. ‘A major part, I grant you. As to my reasons, I'll tell you when I'm ready. Or not, as I decide. Now, let us talk about your upcoming work schedule.'

‘I must do tonight's show.'

‘Of course. Tomorrow morning I have asked Martha to brief you about Hong Kong. Two hours should be ample. She'll expect you in her office at seven-thirty. Bring an overnight bag and don't forget your passport: you'll be going straight to the aircraft from here. Any queries, sort them out with Martha.'

‘You're saying she's in charge.'

‘I am.'

It was another test but Sara had no trouble with it. She was the new kid on the block; of course Martha had to be in charge.

‘You'll be taking the Airbus.'

‘Surely there's no need for that,' Sara said.

‘There is every need. It is too big an investment to sit in the hanger when it can be usefully employed, and one of your first lessons is that from now on everything you do will send a message, whether you like it or not.'

‘What message will the Airbus send?'

‘That you and Martha are speaking with my voice. It should help things along a little.'

‘You mean it will give us face?'

‘There is a lot of nonsense talked about face but in this instance I think you are right.'

‘How long will we be away?'

‘Five days should be sufficient.'

‘Will it take us so long to deal with the Lennoxes?'

‘There are other things you'll be looking at while you're there. Martha has all the details.'

‘Five days with only an overnight bag?'

‘Buy whatever you need while you're there. Martha will open an account in your name at Shanghai Tang. The quality of their clothes is excellent and the prices reasonable. The company will pay, of course, but be careful. Mr Henderson or one of his assistants check all accounts and he isn't called Eagle Eye for nothing. I'll expect you back here at the weekend but we shall be in daily contact every day you're away.'

‘When you said I'd have to work hard I can see you weren't joking.'

‘You'd better believe it. Welcome on board,' Hilary said. ‘Desmond is mad at me for taking you away from him but he'll get over it. I am glad you made the right decision.'

‘I hope you won't regret it.'

‘So do I. Now, you'll be wanting to get back to Channel 12, will you not?'

A whirlwind would have been more peaceful.

Back at Channel 12 Millie was waiting and she was as sour as vinegar. ‘You're on your bike, then?'

‘Seems like it.'

‘I knew you wouldn't last. The boss's daughter? You'll be looking for a soft landing, no doubt.'

‘If you think I'll be getting that you don't know my mother.'

‘I'm not sure anyone really knows your mother, herself included.' Millie ironed the anger off her face. ‘Now: Primrose Rice will be taking over from you. Let's get her in and we'll talk about the show…'

A MOMENT TO LOOK BACK

Hilary had a full morning of meetings with more stacked back to back as far as the eye could see but at twelve she had a two-hour breather. She was feeling a bit frazzled. A shower, she decided, that's what I need. That and a few minutes' lie down and some fresh clothes and I shall be like a new woman.

She stood under the sharp double jet, hot and then cold, letting the water hammer down on her head, and indeed felt refreshed by it. She towelled herself dry and added a discreet squirt or two of Mademoiselle. Naked, she stood in front of the full-length heated mirror and stared critically at her reflection. Not how she'd looked at twenty, but two kids and forty-three years later you could hardly expect anything else. Not too bad, all the same. Her tummy was trim, arms and breasts firm, thighs still shapely. Even in her youth she had never been the beauty Sara had grown to be, but she'd had enough about her to draw men to her or at least those she had wanted to be drawn. Tim Pattinson had been the first – dear God, how wonderful to be sixteen again, with all challenges still in front of her – but Sean Madigan had been the one she had married, back in the days when life's adventures had all been before her.

1965–66

MOVING UP

1

Hilary Brand and Associates. Neither Sean nor his mother had liked that. ‘My name not good enough for you?'

‘Don't be silly. It's just business.'

His expression had shown what he thought of that.

The golden letters, each a foot high, were inscribed boldly over the door to tell the world of her arrival and for the information of customers, but as the drizzly evening closed in with the smell of fried food from the takeaway next door there were no customers and the door was closed.

Inside the smartly carpeted office Hilary Brand was alone. Wearing the smart new clothes she hoped would make her look like the tycoon she was determined to become, she sat in her smart new executive chair at her smart new executive desk in her smart, newly painted office and looked at nothing. The smart new doorbell remained silent. The winter evening brought gusts of chilly rain to splatter the shop window and she knew that unless something changed very soon she was looking down the barrel of disaster. Instead of the queue of eager buyers she had envisaged there had been nobody for over a week. It was 26 June, the rent was due in four days' time and she hadn't the money to pay it. Or to pay for the telephone she knew would be cut off if she didn't settle the account very soon. Or for the electricity. Or for her petrol bill and the registration on her car that would be due at the end of July.

You, she told herself, are on the bones of your arse.

The truth was supposed to make you free but recognising it didn't help unless you could do something about it. But do what? She had the know-how, or at least enough to make a meaningful start on her quest for her first million; she had the premises and the will. Her track record with Jack Almond had given her every reason to be confident of the future yet every day it was becoming more and more obvious that nobody was interested in doing business with a sheila from the eastern states with no local connections.

‘We,' she told the antique hatstand the salesman had told her would bring a touch of class to her office, ‘are in the shit.'

The trouble was there was blow-all she could do about it; she couldn't change either her gender or her background.

Husband Sean, goaded by his mother, was on her back every day. ‘Give it away,' he said. ‘Talk sweet to that Mrs Shargey; she might take you back. You were earning good dough at her dress shop before you started getting grand ideas.'

‘Thought she was too smart for the rest of us,' she had heard Mrs Madigan say. ‘Little Miss Nobody from back east who was gunna take over the town. Now look at her.'

Hilary set her jaw. If all else failed she might have to go to Mrs Shargey and eat humble pie but not until she was down. She wasn't down yet.

She looked out at the rainy darkness. The lights of the takeaway were still shining but down the street the wet pavements were empty; nobody would be coming by tonight. She switched off the lights, locked the door behind her and headed home. Without Sean's wages they'd be eating sawdust tonight and not too much of it, either. And didn't he like to tell her so.

He was still after her two or three nights a week. It never lasted long: two minutes, mostly, five if she was lucky.
Wham, bang, thank you ma'am.
Except that with Sean there wasn't too much of the thank you ma'am, either.

Something else to live with, although – with less and less optimism – she was still hoping things would improve.

Next day the skies had cleared and it was a brisk thank-you-for-having-me morning as Hilary walked to work. She turned the corner and saw a young couple waiting outside the shop door. Not even eight o'clock, she thought. They must be keen. And the first customers she'd seen all week. She quickened her pace.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting…'

Then she realised she knew them; they had bought a block from her while she was with Jack Almond. Actually two blocks.

‘How nice to see you again. How can I help you today?' Unlocking the door, mind scrambling, trying to remember their names. ‘Dave and Sandy, isn't it? Dave and Sandy Peterfield?'

She made them coffee; she made a royal fuss of them. Why not? Customers were an endangered species at Hilary Brand and Associates.

She sat at her desk and gave them her million-watt smile. ‘Are you looking to buy more land?'

‘Not exactly.'

She hadn't expected that. ‘Then how can I help you?'

‘We've done well out of the blocks you sold us,' Dave Peterfield said.

‘Very well,' Sandy said.

‘That's good.'

‘And we enjoyed doing business with you,' Sandy said.

‘We thought you were very efficient. Business like, you know,' said her husband. ‘But nice with it.'

‘I am sure you haven't come out so early in the morning to pay me all these compliments,' Hilary said. ‘Not that I'm complaining.'

‘We doubled our money on both blocks,' Dave said.

‘More than doubled,' Sandy said. ‘And we thought other people must have done the same.'

‘The same or better,' Dave said. ‘So we thought –'

‘We thought we'd like to get in on the property boom,' Sandy said.

‘Before it really is a boom,' Dave said.

Hilary looked at them in turn. ‘You want to come and work here? Is that what you're saying?'

‘If you're willing. We are both local born and bred,' Sandy said. ‘We've got loads of contacts.'

‘I turn out for the local footy team,' Dave said.

‘And I'm involved with the local children's centre. We like to be involved with the community.'

‘Which we thought might help,' Dave said.

‘I'll be honest with you,' Hilary told them, ‘I've no money to pay either of you. I've hardly got a business.'

‘You think a local face might help?' said Dave.

‘Two faces?' said Sandy.

‘You see,' Dave said, ‘we have faith in the product and in the future.'

Sandy, who had been a book-keeper before her marriage, agreed to run the office and keep the books, field telephone calls, handle clients. This freed up Hilary and in no time both she and Dave were in the field.

‘One thing we must do,' Hilary said.

‘What's that?'

Two days later they stood and looked admiringly at the new sign. Hilary Brand, Peterfield and Associates.

‘Now we'll show them,' Dave said.

2

They did, and in spades. The deals and the dough began to roll in. The bills were paid, there was money in the bank, everything was looking rosy. But six months later sales started to taper off.

‘There's a limit to what we can do in one neighbourhood,' Hilary said. ‘It's time to go further afield.'

A week later she came across a big block of land for sale. People said it had been on the market for a while with no one interested, even for the asking price of a hundred quid. Hilary couldn't see why but when she walked across it she soon found out. Twenty yards in and she was in water over her boots. There it was and she could see why it had put buyers off, yet it didn't seem right. The land was not particularly low-lying so she could see no reason why it should be so wet. She went to the Lands Office, met someone called Lance Bettinger, who gave her a hand interpreting what the records showed. He seemed a dinky-di sort of bloke a few years older than she was. Not bad looking, tall and trim with dark hair and an open face. No fool, either; in no time he confirmed what she'd thought, that it was not standing water but run-off that would be cured when the drains for nearby developments were put in.

‘And when's that going to be?'

‘That's confidential.' But there was a smile in his voice when he said it.

‘Let's put it this way,' she said. ‘If you were me, would you buy it?'

‘You can't expect me to answer a question like that,' he said.

‘It would be most unprofessional,' she agreed.

‘But property is always good.'

All in all she quite fancied Lance Bettinger. You are a married woman, she reminded herself. But her gonads were not listening.

She went back, parlayed the purchase price down to seventy-five pounds and agreed to pay it off over twelve months. She went back to see Lance Bettinger.

‘There's a block going cheap. Really cheap.'

‘My sister could always use a quid,' Lance said.

‘Consider it done.'

Six months later the drains were in, Hilary's land was as dry as the Gibson Desert and she sold it for a couple of grand.

Not a huge killing but a start.

On the domestic front things weren't so rosy. Sean wasn't comfortable with the idea of his wife earning five and ten times more than he did. Said he felt diminished by it.