Bob of Small End (60 page)

Bob was
tempted to knock on Jane’s door when leaving but he was with Ken,
so they loaded the overalls in the boot and Ken drove him home. He
consoled himself, knowing that she’d call as soon as she gets
home.

He put the
overalls on the kitchen table and was tempted to check the Centre.
Perhaps Sam was inside but he decided not to go because Jane might
call. Whilst waiting he put the overalls in the washing machine,
dug some carrots and picked the last of the peas. He’d steam them
later and have them with the white fish he had bought as he drove
home Wednesday. Then the phone rang. It was Jane.

“
Hi Bob.
It’s good news, they’ll let you have the hall.”

“
Oh
that’s wonderful Jane. I’m so relieved. And Ken will be too. Do you
know when we can have it?”

“
As soon
as we have moved all our stuff to the new Centre. We’ll do that as
soon as they’re finished.”

“
Okay.
Can we have it for a year?”

“
Yes.”

“
Can Ken
and I visit it tomorrow and take some measurements? I’m sure Ken
will want to design a workshop to fit the hall as soon as he hears
the news.”

“
Yes.
I’ll let you in tomorrow morning. How about nine
o’clock?”

“
Perfect. Unless Ken can’t come. I’ll phone him now and find
out if he’s free and I’ll call you if he can’t make it then. What’s
the rent Jane?”

“
There
was quite a lot of argument about that. Some said we should charge
you several thousand pounds a month. They think that you must be
earning lots of money since you are expanding so quickly. Two of
them said we shouldn’t charge you anything because you are
providing jobs for our kids. Then others said that most of your
people come from Big End, rather than Small End. Eventually it was
decided to charge you five hundred pounds. That’s each month. Can
you afford that Bob?”

“
Oh yes
I’m sure we can, especially in a month or two when money from this
month’s or July’s sales comes in. Thank you Jane. Thanks for
helping us out. That’s twice now, this place and your milking
parlour.”

“
Do you
still want to keep the parlour Bob?”

“
Yes we
do. We’ll need both places.”

“
I’ll
tell Joe. And I’m glad to help. I’ll see you tomorrow, in the
morning at nine or in the Crown for supper.”

“
Yes.
‘Bye Jane. And thanks again.”

“‘
Bye
Bob.”

Bob
immediately called Ken.

“
Ken,
guess what? I’ve some great news. We can rent the old Community
hall.”

“
What?
We can rent the hall? How did that happen?”

Bob told him
about the last two weeks, how he had been hoping for the best but
afraid to say anything in case they wouldn’t let them have it.
“Isn’t it wonderful Ken?”

“
It sure
is. When can we have it?”

“
Ah
there’s the rub. We can’t have it until they’ve moved all their
stuff to the new hall and that won’t be finished until the end of
June.”

“
Oh.
That’s too bad. Can we look at the place? I’d like to know exactly
what we will be getting.”

“
Jane
will let us in tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. Can you make that
time?”

“
Yes. I
can. Mary and I were going to Poole for lunch but we’ll change
that. Tomorrow at nine will be great. Do you know how big the hall
is Bob?”

“
No. It
seats over three hundred when full. Oh, there are forty two seats
in each row if that’s any help. And when they put the chairs out
they leave an aisle at each side of the hall.”

“
And at
the front and back too I know. I’ll play with those figures tonight
and work out how many benches we could put there. That’s wonderful.
I’ll see you tomorrow then. ‘Bye.”

“‘
Bye
Ken.”

Bob thought
about the hall size as he ate dinner. It must be forty or fifty
feet from the stage to the back and a hundred or more feet from
side to side. They could have eight or ten benches in that space.
And he guessed where Ken would put the sanding and painting booths,
in the area at the back of the stage, where the scenes and props
were kept. ‘I wonder if we can remove the stage? I’ll have to ask
Jane that. I suppose it depends on what they decide to do with it
in a year’s time. I shouldn’t be thinking about this kind of thing,
that’s Ken’s job, not mine.’

He was so
excited about the news that he didn’t remember until eight thirty
that he would be calling Maria that night. Thoughts about her and
the hall kept his mind churning as he sat in his arm chair and
waited until nine. He called her apartment and the phone was picked
up on the first ring.

“
Hello?
Is that you Bob?”

“
Yes
Maria. How are you?”

“
I’m
fine Bob. And how are you? Very busy I’m sure.”

“
Yes I
am. It’s lovely you’ll be coming to England and I do want to meet
you. On Saturday, June 29th, you said. At what time and where
Maria?”

“
I’ll
have to get the group through the check-in procedures to go home
before I’m free. I’ll be done about twelve o’clock. I’ll go to the
arrivals area and wait at the Meeting Point. Do you know where that
is?”

“
This is
at Gatwick?”

“
Yes.”

“
Well I
think I know where it is. I think I passed by it when I returned
from Faro. I’ll find it anyway. How long can you stay?”

“
Only
until Sunday. I’ve arranged to catch the four o’clock plane
home.”

“
You
said you’d like to go to a play in London?”

“
Yes.
I’d like to see
Les Mis
. Have
you seen it?”

“
No.
I’ve heard about it. They say it’s good.”

“
Well
I’ll book two tickets then. It’ll be lovely to see you
again.”

“
That’s
what I think about you too Maria.”

“
Take
care of yourself Bob.”

“
You too
Maria.”

Thoughts of
meeting Maria pushed everything else out of Bob’s mind. ‘If we’re
going to Les Mis we going to the centre of London. I don’t want to
drive there. No, that’d be terrible. I’ll leave the car at Gatwick
and we can catch the train. There must be plenty of trains between
Gatwick and Victoria. Where shall we stay? I’ll let Maria decide
that, maybe she’ll book the hotel. I should have asked her about
that. Oh, it’ll be great to see her again.’

Bob and Ken
were waiting at the Centre’s entrance when Jane arrived. She
unlocked the door then crossed the corridor and opened one of the
doors to let them into the main hall.

“
Here.
I’m sure this is what you’ll want to look at first. You’d put your
work benches in here, right?”

“
Yes,”
said Ken. “I bet this is a hundred feet wide Bob. Here,” he took
out a surveying tape, “hold this at that side and I’ll go to the
other.” They separated, straightened the tape then Ken called out.
“Yes. As I thought. It’s exactly a hundred feet. Now let’s measure
from the stage.” Bob walked to the front of the stage and held the
tape on the floor as Ken moved to the back. “Forty five feet.
Perfect,” and he noted the distances in his notebook.

“
Where
are all the chairs?” asked Bob.

“
Under
the stage,” she replied.

“
Do you
think they’d let us work in the hall before you move everything to
the new place Jane? I’d love to do that. We’d not move anything you
have stored and it would allow us to start making toys immediately
after you’ve taken your stuff. We’d start paying the rent from
today if we could do that.”

“
I’ll
ask them. I think they’ll agree but I won’t know until next Friday
afternoon.”

“
All
right. Can we look through the rest of the building?”

“
Yes of
course.”

They walked to
the front of the hall and climbed the stairs to the stage. Ken and
Bob measured the distance from the front of the stage to the
outside wall. “Hmm, another twenty five feet,” said Ken. “Okay.
Let’s see the other rooms, please Jane.”

They left the
stage down some steps and through a door that led to the end of a
corridor. On their left was a pair of emergency exit doors opening
to the back of the Centre. They walked along the corridor, looking
into two long meeting rooms and what used to be the games room,
turned right and went along the entrance corridor, then right again
and down the other side, checking the cloakroom, the toilets, the
two rooms that were used by the actors as dressing rooms and
another meeting room. This corridor also ended with a pair of
emergency exit doors.

“
We can
have the wood delivered through these doors and store it in there
Bob,” and Ken pointed to the room at the end of the corridor. “We
could use one of the dressing rooms for our lunch and tea room. And
we could store thousands of toys in the rooms on the other side of
the hall and there’d still be other rooms we could use if
needed.”

“
Where
would you put the office Ken?”

“
We
wouldn’t need one in this building, we’ll use the one we already
have in the workshop. We’d have people working there too. Our only
problem now is to find people who can work for us. Do you think any
of your committee members would know of anybody Jane?”

“
I’ll
ask them. They’ll be glad to help you find workers. One of the
members mentioned that newcomers have already asked about jobs. Our
secretary will have their names I think. I’ll ask her to call
you.”

“
Thanks
Jane. Oh, one last thing. We have to exhaust the dust from the
workshop. That means we would want to run a duct through the back
wall. Can you ask the committee if we can make a hole in it? We
would re-brick it when the year was up and no one would notice
where it had been.”

“
Yes
I’ll ask. I don’t think there’ll be a problem with that. They knew
you’d have to make a few modifications if they rented the
place.”

Jane locked
the door as they left and they walked back with her to the farm.
She left them at her kitchen door and Bob and Ken went to the
workshop office.

“
We’re
going to need more money now Bob. We’ll need between three and five
thousand to equip the hall and for the first two or more months
we’d need more to pay our employees.”

“
How
many do you want?”

“
Eight I
think. That would be a bit more than four thousand pounds a month
if we paid them one hundred and twenty five pounds a week. We’d
have to have enough to pay them weekly for at least two months,
until sales from the toys they make covers their
salary.”

“
I don’t
have anywhere near that kind of money Ken.”

“
Well we
can get a business loan. Trouble is, if we go that way we’d have to
prepare a business plan and show what we have done and exactly what
we plan to do. That’s an awful lot of trouble and I don’t know if
the bank would like the way we’re managing things.”

“
There’s
another way to get money?”

“
Yes.
You could mortgage your home. That’d be a lot easier and a bit
cheaper for us I think.”

“
I
couldn’t pay the monthly principal and interest Ken. I’ve just
enough in my savings to pay for my August holiday and a little more
for emergencies. My pension wouldn’t be enough; it only covers my
normal living expenses.”

“
There’s
a way around that too, Bob. Lets see, if we added twenty five
thousand to the business you’d put in just over twelve and a half
thousand pounds. You could easily get a mortgage for fifteen or
twenty thousand pounds and then use the excess to pay the monthly
mortgage fees. You could also ask for a mortgage where you just pay
the interest each month. Don’t forget, you wouldn’t need the
mortgage for very long because we’ll soon be rolling in money. What
do you think?”

“
Oh
dear. I’m a bit scared about taking out a mortgage Ken. I’d lose
the house if things went wrong. What are you going to
do?”

“
I’ve
money in the stock market, I’ll sell some shares.”

“
All
right, if you’re willing to do that then I’ll get a mortgage. I can
see we need the money. I’ll go to the bank this
afternoon.”

“
Good.
I’ll phone my broker on Monday. We’re off to Poole when I get home
so I’ll work on the plans for the hall tomorrow. You’re off to
Bristol on Monday?”

“
Yes.
I’ll call you in the evening.”

“
Okay.
Safe trip Bob.”

“
Thanks
Ken.”

Chapter 26 The mortgage

Bob thought
carefully about the money he had in his savings and what he would
need in the future while eating lunch. He’d need about a thousand
pounds to pay the balance owing on his August holiday and some more
for pocket money during that tour. He could cover that by
transferring two thousand pounds from his savings to his checking
account. He’d do that first then tell the bank he wanted a
mortgage.

Transferring
the money was easy. The teller handled that but when he told her he
wanted to arrange a mortgage she told him that he would have to
speak to another officer. “Please wait here and I’ll find out who’s
free.” Two minutes later a young woman approached and asked him to
come to her office. Once seated Bob told her that he wanted to take
out a mortgage on his house.