A Vintage Vacation, page 1
A VINTAGE VACATION
MADDIE PLEASE
For Brian, very much loved.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
More from Maddie Please
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
1
I’d worked for XS – ‘Finance with Heart’ – for over twenty years. We were a perfect fit.
I’d risen through the ranks to become senior business manager and the next step up was director. Which on paper shouldn’t have been difficult, because as far as I could see the board was filled with pompous nitwits more concerned with their golf and latest cars than business. Not that that stopped them steaming in at the eleventh hour and claiming all the credit, when in fact other people like me had sorted out all the difficulties of a deal.
That morning I stood in front of the mirror in the executive cloakroom, smoothing down the jacket of my scarlet suit. It stood out so well amidst the sea of grey that usually filled the boardroom. My hair was in its usual tight French pleat, my make up perfect. I rummaged in my bag to find my trademark ‘Rouge Amazone’ lipstick and applied a fresh layer. If Nick Crane, director of HR, wanted a chat, then I was ready.
My instinct, one that had been growing over the last few weeks, was that he was going to escalate the process he had mentioned during the staff ‘Fun Sports Day and Tofu Extravaganza’ in Crawley. I was next in line for promotion, they were going to offer me a seat on the board. Now that the Olafsen contract was millimetres away from agreement and signature, it would be the perfect time. It had been one of the biggest deals XS had ever done, and my stamp was all over it.
I blotted my lipstick with a tissue. It was four minutes to eight o’clock. Exactly enough time to get the lift up to the fourteenth floor where Nick Crane had a glass-walled office, filled with his many meaningless awards and photos of himself with some of the other directors playing golf or in executive boxes at Twickenham.
On my way to the executive lift, I passed a couple of people who moved aside, respectfully murmuring, ‘Good morning, Miss Harrington.’
I gave them a polite smile and hurried on. I tried to bite back a little thrill of excitement. This was it then, the moment for which I had worked so hard, for so many years. I’d known for a while that Howard Leeming was planning to step down from his post as director of business. There was only so much information that could be hidden in a company the size of XS, and Nina, my secretary, was a hotline to office gossip.
I reached Nick Crane’s floor and took a deep breath.
Sheila, his PA, was waiting behind her desk: the gatekeeper. She barely glanced at me.
‘Good morning, Miss Harrington. I think you can go straight in,’ she said, after the obligatory ten-second wait for her to stop typing and look up from her laptop.
Nick Crane was sitting at his vast, blonde-wood desk, fiddling with some papers and files in front of him.
‘Clover,’ he said warmly, as though I was the only person in the world he had been wanting to see. Which was unlikely.
He stood up and came forward to shake my hand, which in itself was unusual.
‘Sit down. Can I get you coffee? Tea? Mineral water? Almond croissant?’
I shook my head. ‘No, I’m fine thanks.’
‘Big muffin?’
Yes, you are, I thought. Tasteless and full of hot air.
‘No, nothing thanks,’ I smiled sweetly.
I went to sit down, my heels catching in the thick pile carpet so that I stumbled a little and had to catch hold of the back of the chair. I cursed, Why at moments like this one did I have to be such a klutz? I really was safer sitting down behind a desk.
‘Good. Good,’ Nick said, as he sat down again, steepling his fingers in front of him and giving a huge sigh.
‘Clover, Clover, Clover. I have a few things to discuss. None of them easy and none of them can go beyond these four walls for now. Is that okay?’
‘Of course,’ I said, folding my hands in my lap and adopting a professional expression.
He slapped his hands down on the desk in front of him. ‘Well, I won’t beat about the bush. XS – “Finance with Heart” – is being taken over. Yes, yes, I know it’s a shock. It’s going to be a shock to all the little people. XS has been in their sights for a while now, it’s an American company, and the deal will be finalised on Friday.’
I’ll admit I was completely poleaxed. None of this had reached my ears. Or Nina’s, which was astonishing.
How would this affect me, I wondered, my thoughts whirling. As one of the supposedly ‘little people’, how would things change? Perhaps it would mean more trips to America? I wouldn’t mind that. Better than Scandinavia, where I had spent a lot of time over the last year. It was a beautiful place and the people were lovely, but I’d been there in January; it was dark most of the time, and everything seemed so expensive.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘How interesting.’
‘Isn’t it,’ he said with unnecessary emphasis.
I began to get my thoughts together and feel a tiny bit optimistic. ‘I’ve a great pipeline, plenty of opportunities, which could be very beneficial to the company. I’ve completed so many since I have headed up business, I can’t remember exactly.’ I noticed he had my personnel file open in front of him. ‘Well, you can see in there. It must be dozens.’
Perhaps he was looking so uncertain because he wanted me to transfer to a new office, New York, or Washington perhaps. I wouldn’t mind that either. I was in a relationship that was going nowhere, my only son was living in Canada. Perhaps I would be able to see him more often too? Which would give me the chance to…
He closed my file with a firm hand. ‘Well, you see it’s not quite that simple, Clover.’
For the first time I felt a little chill of doubt.
‘You see, it’s Water Cheeseman Pole. They are the firm taking over.’
I rummaged around in my memory banks. Water Cheeseman Pole, yes, of course I’d heard of them. The name always made me imagine some Dairylea cheese triangles floating down a river in a punt. One of the biggest finance companies in New England. Maybe Boston, I thought. No, they were in Hartford, Connecticut. That’s where a lot of finance and insurance companies were based. So perhaps I would end up there.
‘How exciting,’ I said, ‘what a marvellous opportunity.’
‘I knew you’d understand,’ Nick continued. ‘They will be bringing in some of their best people. To work here, deal with the handover while things get settled. Get rid of the dead wood in the company.’
I nodded. ‘Of course. I’d be happy to help with that. Once I get the Olafsen deal all wrapped up. And there are several other—’
Nick held up a hand. ‘You mustn’t worry about that, Clover. I’m sure after all the pressures of the last few years… what with one thing and another, at your age, you’ll appreciate having more time.’
‘Time for what?’ I said, confused.
By far the most infuriating part of that morning, and the thing I later couldn’t un-see, was Nick Crane’s shoes. Why did they bother me so much?
I’d just been made redundant. I wasn’t just one of what he had patronisingly called the little people, which was bad enough. I was also part of the dead wood.
As I’d been escorted, shellshocked, out of his office, I had hurried past the people waiting for the lifts and he had followed me down several flights of stairs. Almost at the bottom, I had turned to remonstrate with him one last time. He had stopped too, standing several steps above me, presumably to keep as far away as possible from the disease of my downfall.
His shoes were in my direct eyeline. They were a bright chestnut brogue, the leather laces neatly threaded and tied in a prissy little bow. They were narrow, like little model canoes, polished as bright as a showroom car and rather pointed. He had small feet for such a big, fat liar.
I guessed, knowing Nick, they were new, Italian, and very expensive. I had an overwhelming urge to pull my lipstick out and draw a smiley face on them with Hermès Rouge Amazone. But of course, I didn’t. That would have been petty and undignified.
We both stopped for a moment.
‘Sorry, Clover,’ he said, in a voice that said I’m not sorry at all, ‘these things happen, there was nothing I could do. Trust me, I wrestled with the board on your behalf.’
An unpleasant image of him in a black, wrestling singlet came to mind and I felt a bit nauseous.
‘How kind of you to try. On my behalf,’ I said through stiff lips. ‘Yet here we are.’
‘Now take care on the stairs, sweetheart, we don’t want you to have a fa ll, do we?’
He gave one of his smarmy smiles. He was enjoying this.
I’d always known what an untrustworthy, sociopathic weasel Nick Crane was underneath his carefully tailored suits, overpowering aftershave and bright teeth. This was probably the most enjoyable thing he’d done since he caught his PA in the stock room with a junior accountant at the Christmas party.
‘You’re going to be such a great loss to XS,’ he said, as people dodged around us on the flashy steel and glass staircase leading to the front doors, their eyes averted, keen not to be dragged into this. The brown cardboard bankers box Nick was carrying for me spoke volumes.
‘I am, aren’t I? Tell me where I have made mistakes? Where have I let the company down?’
He gave me a sad smile. ‘Oh, you would never do that, I know.’
Patronising git.
‘No, I know I haven’t. I’ve brought in every deal I have ever made. Except this last one. And I would have done. I can’t imagine what you will do now with the Olafsen takeover,’ I said. I tapped my temple. ‘It’s all in here.’
‘Oh, I expect we will manage,’ he said smoothly, ‘after all we will have your laptop. I’m sure that will help.’
‘I hope—’ I stopped.
I had been going to say I hoped the rest of his life would morph into a long, disappointing nightmare, starting with his veneers falling out, but I didn’t.
‘I hope you will look after Nina,’ I said. ‘She is an excellent secretary. She’s invaluable.’
‘Of course,’ he said, shuffling his vile footwear, eager to carry on with his task of escorting me out of the building like some sort of creepy nanny.
I couldn’t help myself. I rummaged in my handbag, pulled out my Rouge Amazone and after giving him a furious look, daubed it all over the pointy toes of his shoes. He looked down in silent horror for a moment and then he started to bluster. His voice became rather squeaky.
‘New… my mother bought… birthday present!’
I clipped the top back onto my lipstick. ‘Perhaps next year she will buy you some Lego. Now, come on, hurry up, there’s a good boy.’
He hopped about for a moment and then silently followed me. His mouth set in a nasty little line.
As we reached the front doors, he put my pathetic box of possessions down with a meaningful thump and made a great play of winding the lanyard of my security card around his fingers. It was only eight twenty and people were still arriving at the XS offices for work. They looked at me sideways, curious. Schadenfreude, I suppose you could call it.
Rather her than me.
Nick Crane tried to hide his feet behind a potted palm.
I looked around, wondering if I would see anyone else doing the walk of shame. No one. I picked up my box of possessions; it felt pathetically light. Over twenty years I had worked for XS – ‘Finance with Heart’ – and all I had to take away with me was a porcelain mug, a Manilla envelope stuffed with redundancy documents, a leather pencil case Jack gave me for Christmas, two framed certificates and a hideous glass award from last year’s company event.
I was sixty-one, shouldn’t I have more to show for twenty-two years than that?
I swallowed down my panic. Whatever happened, I was not going to cry in front of Nick Crane.
But what was I going to do? I wasn’t prepared for this; I wasn’t ready to retire. I loved my work; I always had. Without it I was lost. No one was going to employ me now, not at my age. Even though I felt and looked younger thanks to a lot of money and effort. I looked down at my newly manicured nails, which were immaculate. Trying to gain some comfort from them. I was effectively being retired against my will. To do what?
‘Well, that’s it then,’ Nick said, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief and making feeble attempts to clean the lipstick off his shoes without falling over. He was forty-seven: he had years left in front of him to fill with reports, complaints and dismissal procedures. He would have been eager to get back to his glass-walled office and his brass plaque and his shelf full of stupid trophies and start gleefully phoning around his friends to tell them how he had just ushered Clover Harrington out of the building. And adding embellishing details, no doubt.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I replied.
My right eyelid was itching, but I wasn’t going to scratch it in case he started a rumour that I had broken down in tears.
‘Well, there we go. Good luck with everything, and if there’s anything I can do, you just have to ask,’ Nick said, through his now-gritted teeth.
He had recovered some of his composure by this time, although I didn’t think his shoes would ever be quite the same again. Perhaps his mother would spend the evening digging out the lipstick with a cotton bud.
I was suddenly very angry. I used to wipe the floor with boys like you, I thought. I still could. Just come out with me behind the office building to the smoker’s lair and I’ll smack the smile off your face in five minutes, you utter twat. His Ferragamo Oxford brogues would have been the least of his worries.
I remembered when he started here, wet behind the ears and thinking he was Bill Gates. And yet he had somehow risen through the ranks to become director of HR. A living, breathing example of the Peter Principle, where people were shunted ever upwards in a corporation until they found a role where their incompetence wouldn’t be noticed.
‘Just tell me the truth. Why?’ I said.
He looked hunted for a fleeting second and then his layers of professional smarm washed over him again.
‘Just one of those things,’ he said. ‘Blame the Americans. You know what they are like.’
I know what you’re like, I thought.
And we both knew the real reasons although of course no one would have said them for fear of a lawsuit.
The first glass ceiling in life was being a woman, only broken through with a lot of hard work, persistence and determination. The second glass ceiling was age and that one seemed bullet proof.
‘You could open the door for me,’ I said, my voice very calm.
‘Oh, of course,’ he said, darting forwards, his knees rather high, treading carefully around me.
‘How kind. I can’t understand why everyone talks about you the way they do,’ I said, and gave him a frosty smile.
His expression faltered as I walked past him and out into the world of the unemployed.
2
Outside the building that spring morning was cold and crisp. There had been snow the previous week and dirty clumps of it still hung around. I picked my way through to the taxi rank at the end of the street, passing people hurrying towards the building, ecologically friendly coffee cups in hand. They were starting their day, off to punch in numbers, pore over spreadsheets, have back-to-back meetings in various offices where everything would be discussed, and nothing would be decided.
‘Where are you going, Clover?’ someone shouted.
I turned to see Gerry Sage, senior something-or-other. He was just arriving, a horrifying vision in red Lycra and a stupid cycling helmet to match his stupid bike. I couldn’t think of what to say so I ignored him and just kept on walking.
I went towards the taxi at the head of the line, the pedestrians parting on either side of me as I approached them. Avoiding my gaze. Carrying my distinctive banker’s box, I felt like a leper ringing a bell.
I was going home, back to my beautiful apartment overlooking the Thames, where I would sit in the quiet kitchen, make coffee with the complicated machine Jack had bought me for my birthday and watch the traffic on the river.
I thought of phoning Jack but of course at that moment I couldn’t. Nick had confiscated my work phone and my personal one was left at home because I hardly ever needed it. I was a woman with no laptop, no phone and no job.
