All Change: Cazalet Chronicles (45 page)

She would sometimes allow him to kiss her, to hold her in his arms if they were sitting on a sofa, or put one arm round her shoulders in a cinema – indeed, she sometimes seemed to long for these affections – but if for one second he overstepped the fine and, to him, initially invisible line, she would freeze, sulk or, worse, rant at him until she burst into tears. And how do you comfort someone in tears if you may not touch them?

Back to the telephone: he had an idea.

‘Couldn’t I come with you to meet the Frankensteins? You never know, they might have unexpected good taste and take to me.’

Almost before he finished saying the last bit, she started to reject the idea. ‘Oh, no, Teddy! I couldn’t stand Mummy being rude to you – I’d hit her.’

‘I’m deeply touched that you would even think such a thing. But don’t worry, I’m tough, I can take it. You’ve got two options. Either you ring them up and ask them or you just turn up with me as a surprise.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Sabrina, darling, Friday is in two days. Don’t think, just do. And ring me back about which you’ve done.’

‘Goodness! You are being masterful,’ she said. ‘I’m going to stop talking to you before you think of more awful things for me to do.’ She rang off.

He spent the rest of the day trying to find out why an order placed by some builders in Portsmouth six weeks ago had not reached them. It turned out that the wood had been delivered to the wrong builders, a firm with a vaguely similar name. There wasn’t a lorry free to collect it and redeliver the order to the right firm until late next week. McIver, who had imparted this information, stood stolidly by while Teddy raged at everyone’s incompetence, then asked if he might see the order book. He looked at it for what seemed a long time, and then, as he handed it back to Teddy, said, ‘It seems that the error was made in the office. If you’d care to look, Mr Teddy?’

He looked. It was entirely his fault. Without thinking, he had written the name of the wrong builders. It was true that Cazalets’ dealt with both firms, but that was no excuse. He had been hopelessly careless and one minute’s lack of concentration had caused this mess: a bad mark for the firm. Word would get around and the workforce would rightly sneer at his incompetence. And Uncle Hugh was coming on Thursday and would have to be told about it. He became conscious of McIver watching him, but refused to meet his eye.

‘It’s all my fault,’ he said. ‘The muddle is entirely my fault. I’ll ring up Dawson’s to apologise, and let them know we’ll deliver as soon as possible. And I’ll get in touch with Dorling Brothers and apologise to them, too.’ He looked despairingly at the older man. ‘I’m so sorry, McIver. You should be doing my job and I should be your assistant. But is there anything else I can do about it now?’

There was a distinct thawing of the atmosphere while McIver rubbed his chin consideringly. ‘Well, Mr Ted, I might be able to persuade the transport people to change their schedule and do the redelivering today. Then we could at least show Mr Hugh that we’ve done our best.’

The ‘we’ and ‘our’ were very comforting to Teddy; he almost loved McIver for it.

‘And perhaps when you ring Dorling’s you might be able to sell to them. They like hardwoods, and we’ve been cutting a nice piece of padauk.’

‘I’ll certainly try. I’m most grateful for your support.’

They parted on good terms, McIver remarking as he left that it was a wicked world, a view that he invariably expressed when he was feeling sanguine about it.

When he had gone, Teddy resolved not to smoke, not to think about Sabrina until he had made the horrible telephone calls, the second of which he couldn’t make anyway until he’d heard from McIver. Meanwhile, he would go through the order book to see whether he could rustle up some more business. He struck lucky with Dorling’s, who wanted teak for a fitted kitchen they were making for a client. He asked them to submit the order in writing, addressed to him personally; he had begun to realise that many written orders had gone straight to the manager of the sawmill, which had meant he hadn’t been keeping track of them. And behind that lay the sinister implication that that was exactly what the manager had intended.

However, Sabrina rang back just before the office was closing to say that she’d told the Frankensteins about him, and they had been asked to arrive in time for dinner on Friday. His spirits rose: life was not too bad, after all. He would have the whole weekend with Sabrina, and the prospect of meeting her parents instilled in him nothing more than the mild excitement that curiosity engendered. It was true that he had inflated the hint Uncle Hugh had given him of there being serious changes at work: the possibility of Uncle Rupe coming down to run things had developed into the likelihood of himself being moved back to London, but he was an optimist and always tended to think that what Teddy wanted Teddy would get.

THE BROTHERS AND MR TWINE

There was a long silence after Mr Twine had finished speaking. Then Edward said, ‘What I can’t understand is how the bank can do this to us without warning.’

Mr Twine coughed nervously. He had been dreading this confrontation. The Cazalets were old clients. ‘I think if you consult your file you will find that they have, in fact, issued more than one warning expressing their dissatisfaction.’ The bank had actually been writing such letters for the past three years with no replies except for one brief missive, signed by Hugh, to the effect that the matter would be seriously considered.

Hugh now said: ‘I know that when I went to see them for some more money, they were distinctly sticky about it, but not a word was said about foreclosing on previous loans.’

Mr Twine selected three sheets of paper from the large pile and handed them to Hugh, who sat at his desk flanked by Edward and Rupert. He had known this old office when the Old Man was chairman and it hadn’t changed at all. Panelled in koko, his favourite hardwood, its walls were hung with faded framed photographs of men standing by colossal logs or enormous old trees, heavily captioned with names, provenance and dates. There were two very large photographs showing the London wharves after the Blitz that had destroyed them. A scarlet and peacock Turkey rug covered most of the floor. Hugh’s desk, in addition to pictures of his family, was still encrusted with the old blotter, the Dictaphone and an ancient typewriter. All that had changed was the man now sitting in his father’s chair. ‘Well, I’m damned! I don’t remember any of these letters.’

That, Mr Twine thought, was probably because you never read them.

Edward, who asked to see the letters, now said, ‘But if we sold off Southampton surely there would be enough money to pay off the bank, and then we could concentrate on London. Or, better still, perhaps we should bite the bullet and go for turning the whole business into a public company. I’ve been urging that option for years.’

Mr Twine coughed again, a sign, Rupert recognised, that he had something to say and was not going to enjoy saying it.

‘I’m afraid, Mr Edward, that it’s too late for that. The value of the Southampton business has become so much less, due to the last years’ track record of loss, so now you would not get sufficient capital from its sale. And it’s too late planning to go public. That would take at least two years, and in any case the bank does not consider that the business is any longer yours to sell.’

There was a short silence. Then Hugh said, ‘Does that mean we’re going to be bankrupt?’

‘I’m afraid it does.’

‘And that means that we, personally, are bankrupt. They’ll take everything – our houses—’

‘No, Mr Hugh. If you will remember, I advised you to put your private properties in your wives’ names. As you most sensibly agreed to that, you will keep your houses. And, also, the directors’ pensions. Mr Hank and I saw to that when you became a limited company.’

‘What about Home Place?’ Hugh then asked.

‘That will have to go, I’m afraid. Your father bought it in the firm’s name.’

‘What about Rachel? It’s her home! I won’t have her turned out of it!’

Twine coughed again. ‘According to Mr Hank, with whom Miss Sidney made her will, her house in London, together with its contents, were all left to Miss Rachel, so she will not be homeless.’ His mouth, unused to smiling, made a heroic effort now.

‘She may have a house, but she has no income other than her shares in Cazalets’. She will be literally penniless! We have to do something about that.’ Hugh looked defiantly at the others; their faces showed varying degrees of concern and hopelessness. ‘It’s awful, but I’m out of my depth,’ he concluded mournfully.

‘I think we’ve had enough for one morning,’ Edward said. ‘One more question: what is the time scale for all of this?’

Mr Twine, who had been returning papers to his file, looked up. ‘I cannot give you precise dates. The assessors will probably take at least two months to produce their report to the bank. In the meantime, you should continue trading and say nothing to anyone about the impending bankruptcy. Nobody at all. Particularly not to any of your employees.’

‘So that they will be thrown out of a job at a moment’s notice without the chance to look for a new one,’ Rupert said, with deep bitterness.

‘Anyway, it will get around,’ Edward observed.

‘Even if it does, do not tell anyone that you know anything. I will be in touch with you as soon as I have any more to communicate.’ Twine got thankfully to his feet, shook hands with each of them and made his escape.

The trouble, he thought, as he boarded his bus, was that none of them were businessmen. He felt sorry for them in a way, but had lost respect. He would not personally have put any of them in charge of a sweet shop. He opened his paper and decided to take the afternoon off and go to the motor show. He was rather keen on the new bubble cars that sounded both cheap and practical; ‘bus suppositories’, the French called them, an insult probably generated by sheer envy of the Germans being better at car manufacture than they were.

Yes, he’d get a sandwich and a pint at one of the Earl’s Court pubs, and then he’d have a good look round the motor show before catching an earlier train back to Crouch End.

After Mr Twine had left there was a heavy silence in the room. Nobody moved. It was rather, Rupert thought, as though the injection of reality had paralysed them – as though they had become a still in an action film. Noises from the street below impinged: a paper boy crying for people to buy the latest edition of the
Evening Standard,
a squeal of brakes and some shouting. He heard the brief crescendo of an aeroplane, before they all finally stirred and became animate. Hugh reached for his pills and swallowed two with the dregs of his coffee. Edward flipped open the laurel-wood box, always kept full of cigarettes, and lit one. He offered the box to Rupert, who shook his head, then changed his mind.

Hugh said, ‘If only we knew what they will sell Home Place for, we would know what money to raise.’

‘We’re in no position to raise any money at all,’ Edward replied glumly. ‘Speaking for myself, I’m broke. I’ve got debts, and nothing but my salary to live on and try to repay them.’

‘Edward! Do you mean you’ve saved nothing?’

‘I did have a nest-egg, but it’s all gone now.’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t got anything saved either,’ Rupert said. ‘What with moving from the flat into a house, and the children getting steadily more expensive, I really haven’t been able to. I’m sorry, Hugh, but I can’t help you there. About buying Home Place, I mean. You and I pay our bit towards its upkeep as it is.’ The fact that Edward had refused to help with that still riled him. ‘Anyway, as Twine said, Rachel has the house in London.’

Edward looked at his watch. ‘I must leave you. It’s business not as usual. A Danish bloke wants to buy teak for hi-fi speakers.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and got to his feet. ‘I should go home, old boy. You can’t do anything when your head’s giving you gyp.’

Hugh scowled at him, but he pretended not to notice.

Christ! Edward thought, as he collected his hat and overcoat from his office. What the hell am I going to do? The thought of facing Diana with even worse news made him feel cold at the back of his neck. He again thought of Villy then. She would have been easy to tell: she would have grasped the essentials at once, would have supported him and also been intelligent about how to cut down expenses . . . If only she had enjoyed going to bed with him . . .