The Money Makers (25 page)

The inevitable, of course, took place. Sarah broke off her engagement to Robert Leighton, who had only the very foggiest memory of his supposed crime. Baffled and unhappy, he handed over his Wiltshire estates to a professional farm manager and enlisted in the Coldstream Guards, there to bask in the company of men and horses, neither of which had ever let him down.

Meanwhile, Zack and Sarah cautiously began to make friends. They met for drinks in the City. She invited him to dinner parties, some of which he managed to get to despite his frantic work hours. She talked to him about Robert Leighton. With hindsight, it wasn’t just the scene at the ball, she saw that she needed more than Robert. could have offered. She had no hard feelings, but it wouldn’t have worked out. Zack was generous with his ear, his time and his sympathies.

As time passed, a real friendship began to grow between them. One day, she asked him out of the blue to spend a weekend with her down at Ovenden House, home of her father, Lord Hatherleigh.

‘You’re not scared I’ll throw a tantrum?’

‘You’ll be out on your ear with the Ovenden Hunt hounds at your backside if you do. But you’ve grown up a lot, you know. The idea of you meeting my dad used to be my worst nightmare. Now I almost forget to worry.’

‘I’ll be on my best behaviour.’

‘You’d better be.’

‘But don’t get mad if I start drinking out of the fingerbowls or use the wrong fork.’

‘We don’t have fingerbowls, unless we’re eating something messy,’ Sarah began snappishly, then stopped. Zack had been joking. ‘Sorry. Just do what I do, bring a decent dinner jacket to wear on Saturday night and don’t intentionally annoy my dad.’

It was Zack’s tum to be unsure of himself.

‘Do you really mean it about bringing a dinner jacket?’

‘It’s casual most nights, but on Saturdays we like to keep it formal, black tie. Just bring it. Wear it. Then take it off. It won’t kill you.’

‘No. Don’t worry. It’s fine. I just didn’t know if you meant it, honestly.’

And so it was arranged. Zack sent his dinner jacket to the dry cleaners and did what he could to prepare Weinstein Lukes for the horrible idea that one of its employees might want to stay away from the bank for the whole weekend.

9

For those in the furniture business, trade fairs don’t get any bigger than the British Furniture Showcase. Furniture manufacturers, great and small, advertise their wares to buyers from Britain and the world. The product stands are dressed to catch the most fleeting glance: there are desert-scapes, graffiti-spattered New York subways, minimalist backdrops in pure white; even a stand, built on a slant, calling itself ‘Ballroom on the
Titanic’.
And always and everywhere, wherever you looked, there were furniture, salesmen, and lists of prices.

And then there is Gissings.

Gissings, of course, couldn’t afford one of the giant stands in the main hall. In fact, its budget could only run to a small stand in a room off the hall a little way back from the corridor leading into the main hall. George tried to be upbeat, but the truth was that most of those arriving at the Gissings stand only did so after taking a wrong turn on the way to the loos.

Their products weren’t bad. Far from it. Their traditional furniture ranges had been completely overhauled and now looked up-to-the-minute at competitive prices. But unquestionably the star of the show was the Bright and Beautiful collection. Even amidst the clamour of the trade fair, the Bright and Beautiful lived up to their name. They were modem, they were eye-catching, and by God they were cheap. They deserved to sell and to sell well.

‘Anything to report?’

George had just come back from a tour of the other stands.

‘Nothing, really. We’ve had a few enquiries, but nothing like an order.’

It was Josephine who answered. George had asked her to help out in an effort to bring a bit of style to the Gissings stand. Val was there too, of course, and knew everything there was to know, but she was hardly a sight for sore eyes. Josephine, on the other hand, wearing one of her designer dresses, was smart enough for venues even more prestigious than this.

‘It’s always slow the first day,’ said Val. ‘Buyers look first, buy later.’

‘As slow as this?’ asked George, but got no answer.

They both knew it shouldn’t be this slow. More buyers drifted in, a few of them surprised to see Gissings at all.

‘Heard you’d folded. Under new management, are you? You
are
the new management? Well, good luck to you. Last time I saw old Tom Gissing, he said things were a bit dire.’

Nobody wanted to place an order with a firm which might collapse before fulfilling it. George fretted another hour away, then cut another five percent from their prices.

‘It’s a really great display,’ said Josephine. ‘I’m sure things’ll come right.’

‘Thanks. Yeah. It’s OK,’ he answered. ‘Thanks for coming, by the way. And how are you? How’s Mum? Sorry, I hadn’t really thought to ask.’

‘Well, it’s tough,’ said Josie. ‘Mum’s stopped making any real progress and it’s a struggle finding the money for daycare. People tell me I ought to put her in a home, but I’m damned if I’m going to.’

‘No, Jesus, of course not. I wish I could help, Josie, but I’m not even drawing a salary at the moment.’ George paused unhappily and opened his wallet. There was about forty quid there, Val’s money really. He hesitated, then handed it all to his sister. ‘I’ll give you more when I can, I promise. If things get really tough, I can always chuck this in. Get a job that pays.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Josie. ‘Hold on - buyer alert.’

Josephine put on her widest smile, ready to greet the group of buyers, but it was another false alarm, another group trying to find the loos. Val redirected them, while George and his sister played noughts and crosses on the back of a price list. It was gone midday and sales had been terrible.

Then, unbelievably, a miracle happened. Followed by a crowd of beautiful young people, Kiki appeared. Her cream cashmere dress looked stunning against her tanned skin. A pair of Armani gold-rimmed glasses teetered on her little turned-up nose.

‘Georges, my darling, why do you hide in this funny little room? It is to be very exclusive, no? Do you like my new glasses? I bought them so I would look
tres
business. I am very
industrielle,
no?’

The designer frames carried clear glass lenses. Kiki’s eyesight was perfect. She looked about as
industrielle
as a Versace evening gown. George had left her a message on the off chance that they might meet for tea or something, but he hadn’t heard back, nor had he expected to. He longed for her still, despite his continuing relationship with Val, but he knew that life was carrying him ever further away.

‘Kiki! I’m amazed! How nice of you to come.’

He introduced her to Josephine and Val, whose face showed what she thought of the newcomer. The beautiful crowd accompanying Kiki milled around the stand, crowding out any real buyers.

‘But Georges, of course I came. My papa is looking for a new desk and I wanted to get him one as a birthday present. But he is fond of Louis Quinze antiques. I do not think these will do. And Georges, where are the
toilettes?
We thought they were here or we would never have found you.’

‘You’re not the only ones. That’s why we’re not bloody selling anything. Nobody comes for us to sell to.’

George’s misery flooded out. It was stupid. Nothing was more certain to drive Kiki away. She left for the toilets following George’s directions, her retinue swarming after her. The super-rich are pack animals and don’t survive long alone. George thought that was that. No Louis Quinze writing bureaus. No Kiki. After a quarter of an hour, he gave up hoping for her return. She’d probably remembered about a party that had to be rushed to or a dress that had to be bought. His gloom deepened, unassuaged by Val’s companionable presence.

She did come back, though, arms full, loaded with half a dozen white plastic signs marked ‘Toilets’. Her companions also bore their trophies. They must have stripped the place bare.

‘Sorry we were so long, Georges. Some of these stupid signs were very high up and so difficult to reach. I hope it wasn’t so bad taking them, but you know they really weren’t working. And I am afraid we might have got into a tiny bit of a muddle. I think sometimes we might have put some of these stupid things up again pointing into this little room. But it is so horrid this place. I do not think it is nice at all. You see I didn’t have very long to see you and now I have already wasted so much time. So now I will have to go, but I suppose you will have to have these,’ she added dropping the signs. ‘They are not so clean and my dress is brand new.’

With a last meaningless kiss, she flitted off. George and Val hid the signs underneath the stand, but it wasn’t long before they needed to straighten up. People began to drift in, asking for the loos and complaining about the terrible signing. George agreed, but unfortunately didn’t know where the loos were. For the first time the room was full, almost crowded. The display drew a lot of admiring comments, to which George and the others immediately responded with a price list and a sales talk. It didn’t always work of course, but it worked often enough. The first orders began to come in. George began to relax.

That evening, George, Val and Josephine all went back to Helen’s house in Kilburn. George slept with Val in his old room, but he felt uncomfortable about it. Sleeping with his landlady-cum-secretary seemed natural enough in Yorkshire, but bringing her to his family home, meeting his mother and sister - well, it made things seem a lot more serious than they were. At least Darren and Dave, who had come down to set up the stand and clear it away again afterwards, weren’t there to see them. They had opted to stay with a mate of theirs in Brixton - ‘my old dope dealer’ as Darren helpfully explained. The two lads had worked like horses to get everything ready, and apart from a few odd jobs to be done at the fair, George had given them the days off. It was less than they deserved.

The evening was a strain. Helen was quite well, with good control over her movements and able to speak fuzzily but fluently.

‘Ah, George,’ she said, patting Val on the hand. ‘Your fiancée? Very nice, dear. Like your grandmother said, always live in Yorkshire, always marry Yorkshire. I did, and ... and ...’

Her train of thought led off down the wrong track, and she began to cry. George was killingly embarrassed, too much to notice the flush on Val’s cheek, as she leaned forward to explain. For the rest of the evening, Helen was dreamy and peaceful, but she never shook the idea that Val was George’s intended.

On the way up to bed, George stopped Josie.

‘Er. Tomorrow. Your outfit, you know. Urn, do you think it would be OK - I mean, would you mind very much - um -’

He broke off. He didn’t know how to say this sort of thing. She laughed at him.

‘Longer, shorter, tighter, brighter?’ she said.

‘Eh?’

‘Heels, skirt, top, lipstick,’ said Josephine, tapping each in turn. ‘Longer, shorter, tighter, brighter?’

‘Yes. Yes, please. If that’s OK.’

It was OK. The next day Josephine wore an outfit which would have startled a
Sun
editor. It was short. It was pink. It was clingy. It was sexy.

That day, when people came in search of the loos,

Josephine said she wasn’t able to help, but perhaps they were interested in the products? She bent down low to point out the important features and goggle-eyed buyers were treated to as many important features as they could possibly wish to see. They drank their sparkling wine, ogled Josephine and listened to George’s sales pitch. They liked what they saw and orders rolled in.

They sold so much furniture in the morning that George added ten percent to all the prices. Things hotted up even more after lunch, as more people needed the loos. Overnight it seemed that some joker had poured cement into the main toilets at the far end of the complex, so the only ones left functioning were those close to the Gissings stand.

The crowds got so heavy that George raised prices by another five percent. People kept buying. The fact was that people even started coming because they’d heard that Gissings had good stuff at good prices. They sold twice what they had sold the previous day. A journalist from
Furniture Today,
the monthly bible of the furniture trade, came to interview George for a short piece, to be entitled ‘Back from the Brink’. George told him that Gissings had been completely recapitalised, and bankruptcy fears were a thing of the past. Buyers could buy with confidence. The journalist swallowed the bait and told George how much he loved the products. George was ecstatic.

The next day was slightly less good. The exhibition authorities had managed to establish some emergency toilets close to the entrance, and the chaos which Kiki had introduced in the signing system had been tidied up, at least a little. All the same, they sold about four fifths of what they had sold the day before, and this time all the sales were at the higher prices.

Going back up the motorway that evening, everyone was exhilarated. Darren drove, claiming to have a valid licence, though Val said the only licence he had was poetic. They counted up the orders and tried to work out how to fill them. It would be tough, but it was a nice problem to have.