Judith Wants To Be Your Friend (20 page)

Joanna seems a bit brighter at Spanish tonight. We move onto deeper subjects than eating, travelling and public holidays and find ourselves talking about the recession. To be fair, we don’t know a lot about it in English, but we discuss the jobs situation in Cumbria and the price of houses. Senor Rossi tells us about the price of houses in Spain, and how it might be a good time to buy as a lot of English people are selling up. I look interested but know the state of my bank balance. When my mother dies I will inherit half her house and savings, if there are any left after Mill View has taken their fees. I know I should think about doing something more lucrative than working in the cash office, but don’t seem to have the motivation. Contentment is a strange feeling, and not one I am used to.

At tea break Joanna asks me, in Spanish, whether I am still thinking about buying somewhere in Spain. I say no, but am thinking about buying somewhere in Carlisle. I say it because it seems an easier story to maintain but actually feel as though I mean it. What on earth is happening to me?

Alison asks whether anyone is going for a drink after the class, and Joanna says no because she is being picked up straight afterwards. I look at her but she doesn’t offer any further explanation. A few people say yes, and I do too.

Friday 29
th
January 2010

Maureen tells us that our refurbishment will take place on Tuesday night next week. Tuesday is a quiet day and she has arranged for two of the part time staff to come in earlier to help with packing files and paperwork, and moving everything that we can do without in the afternoon and evening to a storeroom. One of the security staff will come in during the evening shift to unscrew table legs and remove chairs, those being the last things to go. The new furniture and shelves will be put up overnight and someone will be in all night to move our things back in as the furniture men finish. She has it all organised and I simply offer my help if any should be required.

‘Thank you, Judith,’ she says, ‘but I think I have covered everything.’

‘OK,’ I nod, ‘but just say if you change your mind.’

Hexham, January 2009

Thursday 1
st
January 2009

Judith drove up to Mill View after lunch. Her mother had been moved back in as the hospitals always try to empty beds before the New Year’s Eve onslaught. Fiona and Rosie had gone for lunch but Judith felt she couldn’t bear it. It was a nice enough afternoon for them all to have a walk around the grounds as long as they wrapped up warmly. There would be afternoon tea and biscuits then she could leave with a clear conscience. She braced herself for the ordeal that was getting through the security doors.

‘Hi Judith. Tina wants to see you before you go through.’ It was one of the staff; one who knew everybody’s business and Judith smiled through gritted teeth as she thanked him.

‘Come in Judith,’ said Tina, ‘I need to make you aware of something.’

Judith had the feeling that she had been summoned to an interview with her head teacher. She sat down and waited for the telling-off.

‘If you are to be a named person on your mother’s contact list, and especially the first next of kin, we need to be kept informed of your whereabouts and availability,’ she launched straight in.

‘Tina, I merely took off for a week’s holiday,’ she said trying to keep her voice light and even.

‘Yes, so I believe. Your mother had a nasty fall. It could have been a lot worse. I have decided that I am going to change our records and have Fiona as the first point of contact for us.’

Bloody cheek
, Judith thought, but took time to consider before answering. She decided to be nice. ‘I think you’re right actually, Tina. Please do so.’ Ha! Now it would seem as though she was ordering Tina to do it.

‘I already have. I just wanted you to know.’

‘Oh, OK, thank you. I’ll go and see my mother now, if you don’t mind.’

‘No, of course I don’t mind. This is her home. Please feel free to see her whenever you both wish.’

‘Thank you,’ Judith said again, wondering why she still felt that she was in trouble and not completely in control of the situation.

‘They’re all in the lounge.’

‘Thank you.’
God, I must stop thanking that woman
.

Monday 5th January 2009

Judith and Helen were back at work, their first day working together since Judith’s holiday. They exchanged pleasantries about holidays and thanked each other for the gifts. Judith asked Helen to make some coffee before they started work on the business of the forthcoming week.

‘I’ve put the advert in the paper to try to drum up more clients,’ Helen said, ‘I did the same one that you did before Christmas.’

‘Yes, good. I’ll ring round the people I met at Chloe’s Christmas drinks as well. And there’s a new course for business start-ups at the Enterprise Centre next week; I’ll see if I can go and give a talk to them.’

‘Good idea. Shall I make up a leaflet for you to hand out?’

God, this woman thinks of everything
, thought Judith,
but then again I suppose I have left her with nothing to do for a few days
. ‘Yes please, that would be really useful. I must see who I should have rung the week I went away; some of them are bound to be upset.’

‘Some rang here and I dealt with them so you don’t need to.’ Helen went through the list and ticked the ones Judith didn’t need to contact. Judith noticed that James’s was one of them. She took the list from her, along with the files that needed to be worked on during the week and queries that needed her attention. There was nothing of any note to worry about.

‘That’s great, thanks Helen. You are truly efficient.’

Helen smiled. ‘I’m glad you think so,’ she said and left to draft some leaflets for Judith’s talk.

Judith worked on two clients’ accounts during the morning and made some placatory phone calls. She waited until Helen had gone out for lunch before looking at the ones she said she had already dealt with. She watched out of the window until Helen had walked around the corner to the town centre then went through to the filing cabinet. Along with James’s, another one of the people ticked had a green sticker and the last one had a red one. She called Stuart James first.

‘Hello Stuart. It’s Judith Dillon here. I owe you an apology for not calling you the week before Christmas.’

‘No problem in the end,’ he said, ‘your assistant helped me out with a query.’

‘OK good. Nothing I need to get involved in?’

‘No, she was fine. Very knowledgeable, actually. You’ve got a good one there.’

‘Yes, she is a treasure. Well, as long as you’re OK now.’

‘Fine, thanks. See you soon.’

So
, thought Judith,
knowledgeable about accounts is she? And there was me thinking I’d employed her for her secretarial skills
. She dialled the next number on her list. It was the other green-sticker company which was a bed and breakfast business just outside of town.

‘Bluebells B and B,’ came Sally Fisher’s sing-song voice down the phone. Judith had known Sally for many years.

‘Sally, it’s Judith. How are you? I owe you an apology for not getting back to you before Christmas.’

‘It’s fine, Ju, it would have waited. I just wanted some advice about something.’

‘It must have been more than that if you rang to chase me up; or were you bored and wanted someone to talk to?’

Judith was joking. She knew that Sally had three daughters who had all had babies in the last couple of years and who all took advantage of her. ‘You are joking! When do I have time to get bored? Anyway I didn’t chase you up; your assistant phoned to see whether she could help.’

‘And could she?’

‘Yes, thanks. All sorted.’

‘Excellent. I’ll let you get on, then. How many are you looking after today?’

‘Just one this morning, but expecting another to be dropped off at any minute. Bye.’

So, Helen had rung her; even more interesting. She called the last one, the one with the red sticker. When Judith finally got to speak to the Managing Director, he didn’t know anything about a phone call before Christmas. Very strange.

Thursday 8
th
January 2009

Judith hated supermarket shopping, and especially on a Thursday evening. Usually she did it earlier in the week or earlier in the day but it seemed sensible to call in on her way back from Mill View. She was deciding whether to buy a steak or stick with chicken when a familiar face pointed to a marbled sirloin steak.

‘We had that last weekend. It was delicious.’

‘Hello Lennie,’ said Judith, then deciding to get straight to the point, ‘I am so sorry to have lost you as a client.’

‘What do you mean? It was your idea.’

‘What was?’

‘To focus on your larger clients and subcontract the small-fry like me to your assistant.’

‘Subcontract? Small-fry? What do you mean? The small businesses of Hexham have been my preferred market ever since I set up. I know what you’re about and how you work.’

‘Well, I thought it was strange but Helen said it was your idea, and that you’d still be there to help her if she needed your background knowledge and your expertise, of course.’

Judith stared at him.

Lennie’s wife Sue joined them. ‘What have you said to Judith?’ she asked him.

‘He has just explained a lot. Thanks Lennie. Come back to me any time. Helen won’t be working for me after tomorrow.’

‘It’s not often you get to wrong-foot Little Miss Perfect,’ he said to Sue as they watched Judith march purposefully towards the checkouts. ‘I wouldn’t want to be in Helen’s shoes tomorrow morning, that’s for sure. Quite like to be a fly on the wall though.’

‘Should we take the accounts back to Judith, do you think?’

‘Helen is so much cheaper. I feel mean, but let’s see how we get on with her for a while. Judith is obviously doing well. That flat she bought last year is stunning, and have you seen her new car? I don’t think she needs little old us.’

Judith drove straight to her office and looked up the number of Sparkles Window Cleaners.

‘Mr. Sparks,’ she said, ‘I will get straight to the point, if you don’t mind.’ She knew him of old and knew that it may take a long time to get to the point.

‘How’s that new assistant coming along? I hear she’s going to be doing our books from now on.’

‘Not if I can help it. Do you mind me asking how she approached you?’

The story more or less matched Lennie’s version.

‘It is good of you to reduce the prices by such a lot. I don’t think I could have afforded to keep paying you the old rate. Times are hard, you know. People have started washing their own windows again – or not. You should see the state of some of them. I feel like putting up a sign saying I’m not responsible in case anyone thinks I left them like that.’

Here we go
, thought Judith, and cut into his flow. ‘I know how you feel. Anyway, Helen won’t be working for me any more so please come back to me any time you wish. You know where I am.’

‘Times hard for you as well, eh?’

She knew he wouldn’t understand what she was saying. Hints were lost on him. ‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘Got to go.’

By eight-thirty Judith had phoned the six businesses that were marked with green and blue stickers. She knew several of them quite well, but still felt a little desperate asking whether Helen had contacted them with a view to taking them over. She had contacted three of them and two were very interested in the proposal to move to a second tier accountant for a reduced price. She collated all her information ready to confront Helen in the morning and suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired. She couldn’t go yet; she needed to go through the filing cabinet to see which files were missing. She was good at thorough and methodical work and soon identified two others by comparing paper files with computer records. Having completed her evidence she went home but couldn’t face cooking the steak she had bought hours earlier.

Friday 9
th
January 2009

Judith sat at the reception desk with her head in her hands.
Deja-fucking-vu
, she thought.
Here we go again
. She cursed herself for being taken in by Helen so readily and, on impulse, she rang one of the companies that Helen had given as a reference. The number was unobtainable so she Googled it. No matches. She didn’t bother with the second reference and put it down to experience.

She called Phoenix Antiques. Louise answered.

‘Chloe’s out buying,’ she said, ‘and I’ve got a customer.’

She called the local paper and asked them to run the same advertisement as last time. She called the temping agency and they said she would have to pay upfront for a temp for the next two weeks. She looked at the neat and tidy office and decided that she could cope with it herself this time without getting into such a muddle. She was up-to-date with all the work and even had time to spend the afternoon and weekend looking at her own accounts. That was the only area that she hadn’t allowed Helen to deal with and she sighed with relief at that one small mercy. At least she didn’t know anything about her private affairs.

Sunday 11
th
January 2009

Sunday afternoon found Judith sitting at the reception desk again with her head in her hands again. Really, for such a skilled accountant she had let herself become so over-stretched. Even with Henry Lloyd’s cheque to pay off her tax bill she was struggling. She knew she had overpaid but didn’t want the overpayment back although it would be handy, as she would need it for the next demand. The next one would be considerably less; that was one consolation. The problem was that the income from her business was not sufficient to cover all of her outgoings. Her mortgage was huge and the new car took nearly £300 a month on repayments. It was time for drastic measures. The car was too good to let go, but hardly anyone ever saw the flat. She considered selling it; it was in a beautiful building with stunning views across open countryside so it was unlikely to have lost value. If anything, she would make a bit of cash. She couldn’t wait for her mother’s house to be sold as all the legal stuff was taking forever. The estate agent would have to be her first call in the morning.

Monday 12
th
January 2009

Chloe felt very pleased with herself. She had sold a lot of her most recent stock and had arranged to go back to the dealer later in the afternoon to choose some more. She treated herself to lunch in Mrs. Peach’s Cafe. She loved going there; the smell of Indian incense as you walked through the shop to get to the cafe was intoxicating and hinted at being illegal. She bought some sticks to take home and browsed the silk scarves on her way to an aromatic concoction of beans and spices on couscous. She was feeling better after a Christmas break and sales still being brisk. A lot of the worries of setting up a shop were subsiding and she had started to feel part of the town again. She was looking at the glass mobile hanging from the window and catching the light when she saw Judith walking through the shop. Her hands tensed slightly on her glass of water and she took a sip. Judith walked straight into the cafe and left Chloe no choice.

‘Join me, Judith? What are you up to today?’

‘Thanks. Decided to sell my flat so I’ve been round to the estate agent.’

‘Selling? I thought you liked where you live.’

‘It’s lovely, but it’s too big for me, and old. I fancy one of the small ones down by the river, you know, being converted from the old warehouse.’