Читать книгу Modern Interiors - Andrea Goldsmith - Страница 10

Lorraine Pascoe, long-time intimate of George Finemore, and former employee at Finemore’s Fine Wines and Spirits, was standing at the stove in head-scarf and underwear frying fish. She did not need to work, she was thinking, George had taken care of that, rather it was her preference to work. ‘I prefer to work,’ she said out loud. Not that that had been a consideration when, a week before and just eight months after George’s death, she had been fired from Finemore’s, or, as Gray Finemore and Selwyn Pryor would have it, ‘reluctantly let go’ as a result of ‘recent company restructuring.’

She reached across the bubbling oil to open a window – perhaps now she’d get round to replacing the exhaust fan – and gently turned the fish. It was to be expected, she supposed, that the boys would get rid of her, for hadn’t she chafed at their ambitions for years? Indeed, her removal was probably the only action, either before or since George’s death, over which Gray and Selwyn had agreed. But nonetheless, she had hoped, in the uncertain terrain of George’s passing, they would have had the sense to keep her on. Not out of any moral scruples, the boys were devoid of those, rather their inflated ambitions should have convinced them that continued prosperity at Finemore’s required the presence of the person who knew the company best. And with George now gone, that person was Lorraine Pascoe. She knew Finemore’s and she knew liquor; she was competent, astute, energetic, and had the loyalty and respect of the staff – qualities not readily demonstrable in the boys.

Although they would describe it differently. Lorraine Pascoe was a ‘scheming female’ who had ‘inveigled’ her way into George’s confidence and had, in the process, trammelled the Finemore sons. On a daily basis, they had been forced to witness George and Lorraine in earnest and spirited conversation; they had listened while plans were made, promotions discussed, figures analysed, schemes evaluated, and they did not like it at all. If not for Lorraine, George would have consulted them, if not for Lorraine, George would have recognized what Gray and Selwyn had to offer.

Lorraine removed the fish from the pan and added some sliced eggplant to the hot oil. The boys had convinced themselves that sex was the sole reason for Lorraine’s favoured status, and sex, as they were quick to point out, defied fair competition. They saw little point then, in extending themselves until the situation changed; they kept short hours, achieved little, and claimed their subordinates’ successes as their own. Not that George was aware of any of this. Weak links in an organization, particularly when these occur in that spongy layer just beneath the uppermost level, are inordinately common and easily camouflaged. It’s a stratum with little to do; the highest level makes the decisions and the people lower down do the work; in the case of Finemore’s, George and Lorraine made the decisions and the Finemore staff were, almost without exception, extremely competent. Lorraine had more than once remarked to her sister (never to George who could be cutting in his own assessments of Gray and Selwyn but would hear no criticism from anyone else) how fortunate it was for the boys that, in addition to being employee and friend of George, she was also lover, for how could Gray and Selwyn have explained their poor performance if she were not?

Unlike George, Lorraine had always lumped the two boys together; Selwyn with his supple charm and Gray his narcotic self-righteousness were both lacking in integrity and quite as bad as each other. George, however, had admired in Selwyn his personable manner which, he said, augured well for a career in sales and marketing. ‘And he’s smart,’ George invariably added, ‘A university professor has got to be smart.’ It had shocked Lorraine that George failed to see through Selwyn, failed to understand that the convivial drinker and lively raconteur was no more than a carefully packaged commodity aimed at eliciting his father-in-law’s favour.

At which he had been quite successful. Selwyn managed to camouflage his lackadaisical performance with zesty ideas; risky ideas, as far as Lorraine was concerned, with practical shortcomings, but ideas that all too often appealed to George. The Drink and Dream series was one of the early brainwaves, in which cheap liqueurs were packaged in icons of wealth: a glass Rolls Royce, a Porsche, a yacht. More recently, Selwyn had developed The Aussie Collection to capitalize on the tourism boom. This included The Red Centre, a claret that gave ‘the glow of sunset’; Sydney Harbour Bitter for a ‘deep thirst’, and Drysabone Lager, a low alcohol beer guaranteed ‘to keep the man drinking through the long hot Aussie summer’. The worst of Selwyn’s schemes had been, in Lorraine’s view, unequivocally obscene: a variety of spirits sold in molded glass body parts designed ‘to satisfy all tastes’. It was the only time Lorraine and George had a serious business disagreement. She had stood in his office, a glass penis filled with cream liqueur in one hand and a cherry brandy female torso in the other, trying to make him see reason. What she called obscene, he said was bawdy, what she described as pornographic he insisted was ‘a bit of fun.’ The only point on which he gave any concession was her appeal to consider the good name of Finemore’s, so the products were marketed under a different label, although everyone knew where they came from.

Each of Selwyn’s schemes was launched in a blaze of expensive publicity that might have been justified for products with some longevity, but none of Selwyn’s schemes ever lasted for more than a year. And between schemes, when he might have applied himself to the routine workings of Finemore’s, Selwyn always had something better to do. ‘The Academy,’ he would say when a subordinate made a request of him, ‘I’m providing some lectures for a colleague, can’t be bothered now.’ And the subordinate, who as often as not had not attended university much less ‘The Academy’, would take the problem to Lorraine. Selwyn, it seemed, fancied himself as a harbinger of the new; he was a man drawn to the splash and sparkle of fast money. Time and time again Lorraine had pointed out to George, such an astute businessman in all other respects, that good business did not require quick manoeuvres, and while George would agree, while he would admit to some of Selwyn’s shortcomings, he nonetheless maintained that Selwyn would prove an asset to Finemore’s.

As for Gray, he was George’s son, and blood was thicker than water. Or so George believed. Gray would ‘come good,’ George used to say, ‘he’s just a bit slow off the mark.’ And while it was true, he was a bit slow, George never realized Gray liked it that way. Gray interpreted slow as thoughtful, careful as considered. When projects were proposed or problems arose, the snailshell of Gray’s imagination would drag through plans, analyses and options, after which he would subject his colleagues to a seemingly endless trail of advice and opinion. Gray believed that on his birth he had taken up an option on perfection; he was that common individual, a man truly satisfied with himself.

Lorraine had never had any children of her own, yet well knew the allegiances of family. As the oldest of four girls, she had gone out to work early, studied accountancy at night, and contributed to the family upkeep; following her father’s death, she had been the sole support for her mother and sisters. Time passed quickly under these circumstances and soon the youngest child had left home and Lorraine was thirty-three and newly employed at Finemore’s Fine Wines and Spirits. Her first position had been as company secretary, and, until the boys fired her, they would always refer to her as a secretary, as if there were no lower being. When she had been at Finemore’s for about two years, Harry Harrison retired and Lorraine took over as finance manager. That had marked the beginning of the problems with Gray, who, having just joined Finemore’s, considered the role of finance manager to be rightfully his. But George was firm: if Gray wanted to learn about Finemore’s there was little sense in his starting at the top. So Lorraine settled into the office next to George, while Gray was despatched to stores.

In time, Gray worked his way into the executive offices of Finemore’s Fine Wines, but always there was Lorraine guarding the managing director’s door, and when Selwyn Pryor arrived, Gray found himself having to be doubly vigilant. Lorraine had used seduction with George, and Selwyn was not above subterfuge, but whatever the means, as far as Gray was concerned, both of them were intent on wresting his rightful inheritance.

The years passed; Selwyn became head of marketing and Gray managed the purchasing division. As for Lorraine and George, they continued to run the company together. Annual turnover increased at a healthy 15% per annum, a little more in the good years, slightly less in the sluggish. The move into retail occurred about four years before George’s death. For some time, Lorraine and George had realized that if Finemore’s was to maintain its level of profitability, they would need to diversify. While other companies moved off-shore, George and Lorraine turned to the local market for expansion opportunities, specifically, the local retail market, which they had long recognized as underdeveloped. The advantages to Finemore’s were obvious: as a major wholesaler, Finemore’s had a knowledge of the retail market that most retailers didn’t have; all merchandise could be ordered from the parent company only as required thus minimizing the need for the retailer to keep large stocks, and with interest rates low and discretionary spending high, trade in luxury consumerables was assured.

Selwyn was thrilled; at last, he was heard to say, he would control an entirely autonomous branch of Finemore’s; and Gray was appeased: at last, his very own piece of the company. So when Lorraine Pascoe was appointed head of the new retail division, the boys were understandably enraged. For close on a week they took it in turns to visit George’s office, each railing against Lorraine’s appointment and insisting it be retracted, each admonishing George to keep his private life separate from the business. George regarded the former advice as ill-considered and the latter as impertinent; the entire incident, he told Lorraine, showed that the boys had a lot more to learn before they could be entrusted with greater responsibility – and not just about business, he added, but about life in general.

From that time until George’s death the boys avoided Lorraine. They let it be known it was loyalty to the Finemore family that motivated them, but few people were convinced. Selwyn turned his attention to the designer pubs he had finally convinced George to open and Gray took on the presidency of his wine and food society. At the office, they refused to speak with Lorraine and would communicate only through secretaries. At first, Lorraine decided to ignore their silliness, but when they persisted, she ceased to communicate with them altogether. Which was no loss to her: she didn’t need them to do her job, but they needed her. So their jobs suffered, but so concerned were they with their vendetta they seemed not to care.

When George died, Lorraine knew her position at Finemore’s was no longer secure, and yet she thought the boys would have had sense enough to keep her on. What she had not counted on was their arrogance, which is, after all, what protects the mediocre from their mediocrity. Selwyn and Gray fired Lorraine because they were convinced they could do the job better, because she should never have been given so much power in the first place, because they hated her and because she deserved to be punished.

Easy to understand why she was now without a job, Lorraine was thinking, as she lifted out the last slices of eggplant and placed them on brown paper to drain, but a mistake nonetheless. The final straw had come when she refused to give her signature to a loan application. It was Selwyn who had approached her with a plan for three additional designer pubs, a plan which she suspected Gray knew nothing about for his signature could have been used just as well as hers. But whether Gray had been consulted or not, did not alter the fact that Selwyn’s proposal was ill-considered. In the eighteen months prior to George’s death, Finemore’s had opened two designer pubs; since then, the economic climate had changed, as had discretionary spending. Lorraine mentioned the steep rise in interest rates which made borrowing unwise; she reminded Selwyn of the weak dollar and the effect this had on companies such as Finemore’s so reliant on imports, and she was about to explain how the leisure sector would be hit by the economic downturn when Selwyn stormed out of the room: he didn’t need a tart to tell him about business, he said, and within a week the ‘restructuring’ had occurred and Lorraine had been given three months pay in lieu of notice.

She covered the food and left the kitchen. In the bedroom she dressed and did her hair, then sat on the edge of the bed wondering what a fifty-five year old woman with an assured income and a desire to work should do. But her mind was a pudding, no sense to be made, and she gave up. She slipped her feet into some comfortable shoes and wandered into the lounge room, an attractive, strong-bodied woman, long hair caught up in a chignon, dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes; Philippa’s colouring, she had once remarked to George, although not Philippa’s shape. But there was a certain similarity; indeed, when she and Philippa had gone to Japan, strangers had asked if they were sisters. They’d had such an enjoyable time together, although, Lorraine now realized, it had been a mistake to take leave so soon after George’s death. The boys had used her absence to go through every single document, scrutinize every account, not together, each had left his own separate traces in the form of small changes that were well in place on her return. And yet mistake or not, the time spent with Philippa in Japan had been her greatest pleasure since George’s death.

She wondered if the boys had told Philippa about her sacking. Probably not. She rang directory information for Philippa’s new number, poured herself a glass of an excellent semillon – she’d have the rest with the fish that evening – and dialled Philippa’s number. Suddenly Philippa seemed exactly the right person to speak to.