Out Late with Friends and Regrets (25 page)

They finished after 9 p.m., paint nearly dry, debris cleared, windows dressed and stock temptingly displayed.
 
They stood outside, checking the new look with all the lights on.

“Well done, Dek,” said Fin, “it looks fantastic!
 
You and Yvonne and your dad have done a brilliant job.
 
How about taking the morning off tomorrow to catch up on your sleep?”

“No chance, boss,” he grinned, “I’m going to be here for the ribbon-cutting and the rush!”

“Don’t forget the ads in The Advertiser and the Echo aren’t out till mid-week. It’ll just be an ordinary Monday.”

“You wait.”

The trickle of Monday customers failed to turn into a torrent, but Dek managed to sell one of the new sweat tops and Fin a jacket; three customers commented on the new look.

Fair start, thought Fin, whilst unable to get too excited. The Roxoff invoice, with its scary bottom line, sat on her desk and weighed on her mind.
 
The refurbishment had been badly overdue, but with the willing help of Dek and co. the cost had been pared to the bone. However, she had rather pushed the boat out with the advertising; despite her experience telling her that word-of-mouth is a small local business’s best asset, she thought the new image required launching with as much publicity as she could afford.

She didn’t go in on Tuesday, spending the day on cleaning the cottage and doing the last of the packing.
 
She had been hoping to move on the coming Sunday, but couldn’t get the keys to the drab little city-centre flat, her new home, until Monday.
 
It wasn’t as though it would be a major problem; she had hired a Transit for everything she was taking and would leave early to beat the rush hour.
 
Then she would unload, return the vehicle to Cantlesham Car and Van Hire, pick up her car and hand in the house keys to Victoria before driving back to Harford.
 
It was just that now the move was imminent, she couldn’t wait to get on with it.

The Advertiser came out on Wednesday.
 
She had to go through the paper twice before finding O-T-T’s advert near the back, just before the classifieds. This was not the prominent position on one of the centre pages she remembered asking for, the one which had been promised by the over-manicured young woman behind the desk at the newspaper’s tiny office.

This needed sorting.
 
She drove into Cantlesham, and parked outside The Advertiser’s backstreet premises.

Normally a stoic with a fair bit of tolerance for the mistakes of others, Fin was disproportionately angry.
 
The fact she had to wait twelve minutes to allow the butcher and his wife to rejig their regular two-columns-by-ten-centimetres for next week’s edition, definitely didn’t help.
 
Then she found that she had forgotten to bring her copy of the paper with her, and had to ask Talons to bring one to the desk.

“I was under the impression-” she began.

“Just a sec...” interrupted Talons, reaching for the warbling phone. Another four minutes dragged by, spent on some impressively thorough customer care.
 
Fin began again, trying not to let her voice shake with annoyance.

“You definitely gave me the impression that my ad would be on the centre pages, since I couldn’t afford the front or back,” she said, “and look!
 
Would
you
notice it, back here, with the plumbers’ suppliers and possibly the most old-fashioned dress shop on the planet?”

The girl, whose name-badge peeked coyly from under the collar of her blouse with only PA showing, pursed her plum-outlined lips and studied the layout.

“Well, Edna sells clothes, and so do you,” she said, “that’s normally considered a good thing, for most of our customers, to have similar businesses close together.”

“Similar!” Fin could hear her voice starting to squeak at the edges, “Edna’s probably still sells lisle stockings, and directoire knickers!
 
My shop is young casual fashion, cutting edge stuff – they couldn’t be more
dis
similar!”

It was plain to see from the look on her face that Pa had no reference point for either lisle stockings or directoire knickers, and was having a hard job to associate Fin, in scruffy mode, with a shop selling anything cutting edge, much less young fashion.

This wasn’t getting her anywhere.
 
A deep breath and a fresh approach were required.

“OK, let’s start again, Pat-”

“It’s
Paige!
” The dark-edged lips pursed even harder.

“Your badge is hidden behind your collar.”

The girl fussed with the badge, repinning it.
 
The first sign of weakness?

“Put it this way, Paige,” said Fin, “you promised me a position in the paper for my advertisement which you failed to deliver. So what can you do for me, do you think?”

The door clicked behind her, and someone else came into the front office.
 
Normally Fin would have felt deeply uncomfortable holding up a queue, even a queue of one, but not this time.
 
Paige was looking past her at the new customer, smiling in a manner that had been notably absent when Fin herself had come in.

“Hello, Mr. Jebb,” sparkled Paige, “won’t keep you a moment!”

That slimeball.
 
He could wait his turn.

Paige brought out her order book, and opened it out flat, tracing the words with her nail extension.
 
Then she turned the book for Fin to see.

Under the date and the size of the advertisement was scrawled: “Best poss. near centre – NRA.”

“You told me it would be on one of the centre pages.”
 

Fin was doubly angry at herself, for failing to check her receipt.

“We never really know how the layout’s going to be, till the end of the week – I never actually promise, unless you’ve booked a prime position, or a half or full page advertisement
.
 
And
unfortunately-
”

The emphasis suggested that the ‘un’ was an ironic addition.

“-we were quite pushed for space, this week.
 
See that NRA there? That stands for ‘Not Regular Advertiser’.
 
Naturally, our regulars get first priority for the best positions.”
 

Fin controlled a quiver of uncharacteristic rage with enormous difficulty.
 
She needed to clear her throat to prevent her voice coming out as a loser’s whine.

“Your paper has no interest in attracting new business, then?”
 

Paige shrugged, then did that sing-song “Sorreee,” thing, calculated to inflict maximum insult.

“Now, Mr. Jebb,” she said, matter concluded, “apologies for keeping you waiting, how can I help you?”

Fin walked out as steadily as she could, not looking at Colin Jebb.
 
She felt him smile, and look her up and down.
 
He was primed to make a smart remark as soon as she closed the door behind her.
 

Her car was parked in a nearby side street, but she hurried past it and began to run, settling into a punishing run encircling several backstreet blocks, until some of the adrenalin and bile flooding her system had been dispersed.

Then she drove home sedately, opened up a neatly taped box labelled ALCO, and poured herself a stiff whisky into a teacup.
 
Well, it was four o’clock, sort of teatime.
 
Horrible,
horrible
little town.
 
Vile, narrow-minded people.
 
She’d soon be out of it, thank God.
 

But then, it was where her source of income was based, like it or not.
 
And what about the good guys, Dek, Margaret, Yvonne, Dek’s dad, and all the lovely customers who kept her business turning over, week after week, year after year?

She sank back in an armchair, recognising her returning sense of proportion with relief.
 
Later she rang Dek, and related a brief and good-humoured account of the incident.

“Wankers,” was his only comment.
 
He was more concerned with how soon he could get off a top-up order to Roxoff, and maybe look at a companion range from a company rather repellently called Deet.

“Not yet.
 
Definitely
not yet.”

“And you could do with some more girly stuff – there’s this Lara C label-”

“Dek, I’ll give you a little tutorial on small business economics after trading on Saturday.”

“Sure, boss, anything you say, boss.”

“Cheeky sod.”

“Respect, boss.
 
Just respect.”

Fin went in on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
 
The advertisement in the Echo on Thursday was to her satisfaction in every way, except she wished she had spent more on making it bigger.
 
She could have done it, too, if she hadn’t wasted money on the Advertiser.
 
Annoying, but how could she have known?

Trade was brisker than usual, with a number of the new items walking out of the shop in the navy blue carrier bags, but Fin was concerned that the response still wasn’t sufficient to justify all the recent expense.

“Don’t forget, people on a monthly salary don’t get paid till next week,” said Dek.

“True,” said Fin, counting the takings, which for all her misgivings were nearly fifteen percent
 
up on the usual.
 
Perhaps she was just being unrealistic, or greedy.

She went round to the rentals firm and picked up the Transit.
 
Noting the crease in the offside wing, and the rust spots around its hemline, she was careful to check the description diagram, pointing out to the foreman a ding in the bodywork and scrapes on the wheel rims which hadn’t made it on to the form, and politely requesting their addition.
 
She could do without getting shafted for someone else’s carelessness, just for the lack of paying a little attention.
 
The Advertiser’s sharp lesson was still fresh in her mind.

Feet up in front of the television after dinner, she picked up the Cantlesham Echo to admire her advertisement again, trying to see it through a target customer’s eyes.
 
Yes, it was good.
 
It ought to attract business.
 
She tore out the page, to put it into the advertising file in the ADMIN. packing case, refolding the remaining paper into its original creases. She put it on the pile for stuffing in the top of the food box to keep the contents stable, and glanced at the front page.

“Jobs fears at Mauger” she read “Electricals giant may pull out of UK – Cantlesham plant faces possible closure”.

“Oh, fuck,” she sighed, and went to bed.

It might be her imagination, but Fin thought the van had a pronounced list to port.
 
She shifted some of the boxes which she had carefully stacked for balance, not an easy job considering that the Transit didn’t have quite the capacity she had expected.
 
Or maybe it was a case of having underestimated the amount of stuff she had.
 
More heavies to the right, lights to the left?
 
No, it still wasn’t working.
 
And it had started to rain, gently but persistently, so she didn’t want to get everything out and put it on the damp ground.
 
Perhaps it was the springs.
 
The Transit was traditionally a forgiving workhorse, and this one had obviously carried many tons of goods for many masters by its fifth birthday.
 
She stepped backwards and down on to the gravel to check the level of the floor by eye.
 
Quite a tilt.