The Three Rs (25 page)

I manage to find my way back to the desktop, the rows of familiar looking icons. From there, telling myself to calm down, to breathe, I carefully retrace the steps Phyllis took to find my way back into the company accounts. I heave a sigh of relief, it all looks to be there. Wherever it went to, it’s back now. All of it, as far as I can see. I carefully scroll down the sheet, the words and numbers whizzing past my eyes. It looks the same. I think.

But I’ve had enough. Enough shocks and pressure and enough of bloody computers. I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s only just after three o’clock, and I didn’t even start work until half-past nine so I really can’t slope off home this early. I look around the cluttered office. Everything here requires reading, writing, numbers. There’s absolutely nothing I can safely do—anything I touch has the potential for disaster. My ignorance could, will, do real damage. I nearly wiped out half the accounts just now. I might be on the point of upsetting lots of really good clients. It can’t go on. It really can’t.

On impulse, I dig in my bag for my phone and find Sally on my speed dial. School should be finished by now and hopefully she’ll have turned her phone back on. Sure enough, she answers after the second ring.

“Hey, Abs. How are you?” She sounds so happy, so cheerful, and so familiar. A wave of homesick longing hits me from nowhere. I hadn’t even realized I was missing Sally, missing my old home. But I definitely miss my old job. At least I knew where I was back then, mopping classroom floors and wiping down the school toilets. I had no invoices to worry about then, no computer hiding files from me and giving me heart attacks, no one banging on about imperial or metric whatever those might be. But in that moment I know, however safe and familiar it might have seemed, I don’t want to go back. All this might be beyond me now, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve seen things here in Berwick, working with Cain, that really interest me, really spark my imagination. I can use my talents here, but I need to do some basic work first. Otherwise I’m just an unguided missile, a disaster waiting to happen.

“I’m great. You?”

“Not bad. Missing you though. How are you making out with your builder buddy?”

Builder buddy?
And the rest. Sally’s my closest friend, but some stuff is just too private. I’m not about to tell her anything about my out of hours relationship with my new business partner. Instead, I go for it, the real reason for this call, and I need to get it over with before I lose my courage.

“Is your offer still open?”

“My offer?”

“To teach me to read.”

There’s a brief, stunned silence, then, “Hell, yes! Anytime. Are you coming back then?”

I consider that. I suppose I’ll have to, at least for a while. “Yes, I guess I am. How long will it take?”

Sally seems uncertain. “That’s impossible to say for sure. But, Abs, you’re not starting from scratch are you. You can read a bit. It’s more that you need practice, familiarity and to build your confidence with written words. It really could come together pretty quickly you know, if you set your mind to it.”

“My mind
is
set, Sal. I want to do this. How soon can we…?”

“School breaks up for half-term in a week. I’ve nothing planned. What about if we do one week, all day every day, intensive reading recovery, and see how far we get? How would that suit?”

“Sal, you’re a star. Shall I come to yours?”

“Yes, that’s best. I’ll make sure I have lots of suitable resources here ready to go. I don’t suppose you fancy practicing on kids’ books do you? Although Bob the Builder might be suitable…”

“Something more adult, if you don’t mind.” Although the opportunity to practice some new skills on my very own, personal Bob the Builder has been perfectly acceptable over the last few days. Not that this need concern Sally.

“Do you mean ‘Fifty Shades’ adult, or something more wholesome?”

“Fifty Shades? What’s that?”

“My friend, you really do need to read more. Do you want to practice on mucky books, erotic fiction or something else? Do you fancy adventure, romance, science fiction, crime thrillers? What sort of stories do you want to read first?”

Although the mucky books sound like the sport of stuff I really could do with reading, we settle for a selection. I promise to show up at Sally’s house on the first Saturday of the school holidays, ready to throw myself into this project.

At last, the end is in sight, light at the end of my tunnel. And with any luck, it won’t be a train coming.

* * * *

“Hello, anyone here?”

I jerk up from the cupboard under the sink in our tiny office kitchenette, banging my head. Now that I’ve made my plans, spoken to Sally, agreed where and when my great re-awakening is to begin, I feel justified in abandoning my allotted tasks. I’ll do all the things Cain and Phyllis want, and more, in time. And I’ll do it well, or if not well at least competently. But not now. Not today. Today, I’ll stick to what I know, which is cleaning out the kitchen cupboards.

I scramble to my feet, rubbing my head as I stand up. I peel off my rubber gloves and head back into the office.

“Ah, there you are. The door was open…”

It’s Mrs Henderson, the lady with the cottage in Morpeth. I hadn’t expected her, we don’t usually get our clients actually coming to our offices. But I do my best to extend suitable hospitality to what I hope is to become a valued customer.

“Good afternoon, Mrs Henderson. Please, won’t you sit down? I was just about to make a coffee, could I offer you something?”

She politely declines the offer of refreshments, but does take a seat, at Phyllis’ desk. “I was passing, on my way to a conference in Edinburgh. Well, sort of passing…” She pauses.

I smile my encouragement. I’m glad she decided to call. The A1 is the route to Edinburgh, and it runs about a mile west of where we now are. Not too much of a detour, not really.

She continues, “I need to be getting off soon, but I thought I’d call in and see if you’ve had a chance to work out the figures for my extension. I need to talk to my bank you see, and I was hoping to be able to do that before the weekend.”

I nod, nervously scanning Phyllis’ desk for the print out of the costed proposal. It’s my own sketch that identifies the correct bundle of papers from among the piles of everything looking exactly the same.

“Of course, we did it earlier. It’s here.” I pick up the proposal and hand it to her, my own sketch on the top. “I think Cain was intending to post it, but since you’re here.”

“That’s what I was thinking, save me some time and you a stamp. Oh, what a pretty drawing…” She breaks off to study the sketch. “Who did this?”

“I did. It’s what I imagine your house could look like, after the work has been done, obviously. I embellished it a bit, added the patio, and the pot plants. And the dog…”

“It looks lovely. And this is exactly the end result I’m hoping for. You’ve clearly understood the brief perfectly. And this picture is just what I need to convince me I’m right to do the alterations. Can I keep it?”

“Of course, it’s meant for you. I’m glad you like it.”

She’s leafing through the sheets pinned to the back of the sketch, nodding slowly. “I do. And I like these figures too. Yours is by far the cheapest quote. And your drawing tells me you really do understand what I want to achieve. The job’s yours, Miss…”

“Fischer, Abigail Fischer. I’m one of the partners here.” I stick out my hand and she grasps it, shakes warmly.

“I’ll email of course, formally accepting the quote and confirming Parrish Construction as my selected contractor and agreeing the start date. It’s been nice doing business with you, Miss Fischer.”

I smile at her, pleased to have done my bit. “And with you…”

She waves cheerily at me as she heads for the door, the papers tucked safely under her arm, looking for all the world like a seriously satisfied customer.

Chapter Fifteen

I’m lost in thought as I stroll along the main road heading out of Berwick toward our house. The rocky shoreline is to my right, the gray waters of the North Sea rippling darkly. This is dramatic coastline, and I know those waters are exceptionally cold, even in the summer. It’s mid-October now, and even the most determined paddlers would think twice. I keep stopping to admire the swooping, screeching seagulls, though I know the locals detest them. Phyllis calls them a menace, says they make a mess and are too noisy. Maybe if I live here long enough I’ll come to share that view, but for now I love them.

“Need a lift, miss? Would you like to come and show me your etchings?”

I turn sharply to see Cain hanging out of the van window, curb crawling beside me.

“You’ll get us both locked up.” But even so, I’m pleased to see him. I open the passenger door and hop into the van beside him.

“Good trip?”

“Yes, not bad. What about your day?” He grins at me as he puts the van into gear and pulls away.

I think for a moment. It’s been a weird sort of day, on reflection. A day of ups and downs. And of momentous, hopefully life-changing decisions. Which reminds me, I need to explain to Cain that I’ll be going back to Bradford for a week. But not yet.

“It’s been good. Really good. We got that job in Morpeth, Mrs Henderson’s cottage.”

He glances at me, puzzled. “How come? I didn’t sign off the quote yet.”

“Oh, well, Phyllis did the costings from the measurements we took yesterday, and printed it all off. Mrs Henderson called in about an hour ago, on her way to Edinburgh, so I gave her the figures. I didn’t realize it needed signing off. But anyway, she said it was the cheapest quote she’d had and the job’s ours. And I did a sketch, a sort of artist’s impression of how her house will look when we’ve finished. She loved that, said it showed we’d been listening and understood what she wanted.”

“Oh, she did, did she? Nice touch then, maybe you can do more of those—it could be our USP.”

“USP?”

“Unique Selling Point. Something that sets us apart from other building firms. Those sorts of things are important, this is a competitive trade we’re in, Abbie. But in future, I want to see all quotes before they go to the client. Sometimes I can find ways to reduce costs, increase our edge a bit. Sounds like that wasn’t needed this time though. So, where do you want to eat tonight?”

“At home?”

“Could do. But since we’re both fairly presentable, how about we adjourn to the Fisherman for a pub meal? It’d save on washing up.”

I smile happily as he signals left to pull into the car park behind the pub. It’s going to be another exceptionally pleasant evening.

* * * *

Cain shoves his empty plate aside as he leans over to pull his phone from his pocket. He’s just done justice to a huge steak and ale pie, with roast potatoes and vegetables. My chili con carne jacket potato was more modest in comparison, but delicious even so.

“Would you mind going to the bar, order us some coffee. Unless you want something stronger? I’ll just skim through my emails.”

“No problem. And just coffee’s fine for me. You want black, as usual?”

“Naturally. Get them to add it to our bill.”

I’m uncomfortable at the mention of the bill. So far, Cain has paid for everything, and it just won’t do. For heaven’s sake, I’m going to be earning twice as much as he does from the business. We need to talk about money. I return to our table, coffees safely ordered to find Cain staring at his phone, his brow furrowed. He looks up sharply as I retake my seat.

“Fiona Henderson has confirmed that contract.” The news is not unexpected, nor is it unwelcome as far as I know, but he doesn’t look as pleased by it as I might have expected.

“Yes, she said she would. Is there a problem?”

“Yes, could be. The price she seems to think we quoted—where did she get that from?”

Seems to think?

“It was there, in the papers. Phyllis worked it out from the measurements.”

He shakes his head, and I can tell by his darkening expression that something is seriously amiss. “No way those measurements arrived at this price. We couldn’t build her a garden shed for this.”

“If there’s been a mistake, maybe we could give her a ring, tell her what the cost really is…” My voice trails off at his disgusted glower.

“I’ll say there’s been a fucking mistake. And there’s no way we can go back to a customer, after a contract has been offered and accepted, and say ‘oh, by the way, it won’t cost what we said, it’ll actually cost nearly ten times as much’.”

“Ten times as much? How could we be that far out? Surely…”

He’s not listening to me. He punches numbers into his phone, glaring at me as he waits for someone to answer.

“Phyllis? Hello. Cain here. Sorry to bother you at home…” He waits, evidently being told it’s quite all right. Then he launches in. “Those figures for the Henderson job, where did you get them from?” He waits a few moments. “Yes, but what Abbie wrote down was correct, I checked it while we were still on site. How come the build cost has come out at about ten percent of what I would have expected? Less than six grand for a two story stone built extension, for fuck’s sake.” He pauses again, then, “What?” He looks sharply at me, still listening intently.