Читать книгу The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker: The most heart-warming book you’ll read this year - Jenni Keer - Страница 10

Richard Tompkins, a silver-haired, quietly spoken man, waited for absolute silence before his low, throaty rumble commanded complete attention.

‘As you all know, Vernon retires on Friday, having been with the company for nearly thirty years, so make sure you all take the time to sign the card that’s going around. Pat has kindly taken the reins with regard to his leaving party and has organised a buffet at the The King’s Arms by the waterfront on Friday evening.’ Pat’s cheeks flushed as she looked at her feet and shuffled the wheels of her office chair slightly backwards. ‘Please make an effort to attend, especially as the company will be providing a case of wine to get the party started.’ A ripple of surprise ran through the office and a few people decided they might tip out for poor old Vern after all. ‘I can also confirm that our replacement general manager, Sam Mulligan, will start first thing Monday. Sam has a solid background in the retail toy market and has been contracted specifically to give the company a bit of a shake-up. I am fully aware we are lagging behind the times and we need to embrace the twenty-first century. Changes and economies are likely.’

‘Is that code for redundancies?’ someone asked from the back.

Lucy’s heartbeat quickened and she stared hard at her sensible shoes. Surely she couldn’t be unlucky enough to be made redundant twice?

‘I won’t lie to you, it’s a possibility. She successfully reversed the fortunes of the failing Toy Box chain, but she had to cut out a lot of dead wood. As you know, it’s now one of the leading online retailers in the country.’

‘She?’ repeated an incredulous Adam. Lucy also lifted her eyes in surprise.

‘I’m not sure Sam Mulligan’s gender should have any bearing on the matter, because I can assure you it will make no difference to her competence. Or is it that you have a problem working for a woman, Adam?’ asked Richard.

‘No, no, of course not. I just assumed…’

‘Never assume,’ said Mr Tompkins. ‘Right, I have some phone calls to make. Thank you all for your time.’

Lucy’s heart gave a little skip. A female boss. All the managers at Tompkins were currently male and had been so since time immemorial. But then it was a traditional firm. It was only five years ago the sales team had stopped posting hand-written order forms down a huge drainpipe for the warehouse team to pick. A shake-up was certainly needed and she was excited to think a woman would be responsible for it, as long as Lucy wasn’t part of the dead wood Mr Tompkins had alluded to.

As Richard left the office, there was hushed discussion.

‘Dearie me, not looking good for you, Lucy-Lou. Last in, first out,’ Adam said, stroking his chin and finding a small patch of whiskers missed by his razor that morning.

‘She wasn’t last in,’ said Jess, putting her hand on Lucy’s knee. ‘There are warehouse staff who only started at Christmas. Lucy’s been here a year. And she’s bloody fantastic. This new manager would be a fool to lose her.’

Lucy smiled at her friend but coloured at the attention.

‘Out of my hands, I’m afraid,’ said Adam, adjusting his cuffs and brushing imaginary fluff from his tie. ‘Back to work now, team. Our customers need us like books need worms. Accounts back downstairs please. The phones are calling.’

‘Someone needs to tell him his expressions are rubbish,’ whispered Jess.

‘Don’t you dare spoil our fun.’ Connor leaned forward, poking his head between Jess and Lucy. ‘I’m compiling a book of them. We need some entertainment to get us through the day.’

An afternoon of customers chasing late deliveries and grumbles from the warehouse went by quickly, but Lucy wasn’t as focused as usual. The meeting had unsettled her. Jess’s job was safe as there were only three of them in accounts and they were always overworked. But this new manager might decide to make economies in the sales office, as there were often times when Adam paced the floor liked a caged, novelty-sock-wearing lion. If he wasn’t always fully occupied it meant they were overstaffed and Lucy suspected the disorganised girl with the messy desk might not make the final cut.

After an unsettled week at work, with everyone trying their best to ignore the redundancy-shaped elephant in the room, the last thing Lucy felt like doing that evening was attending Vernon’s retirement party. As she wrapped her sausage sandwiches in foil and grabbed a yoghurt from the fridge, she saw the skinny black streak of cat leap up onto Brenda’s fence. Not having seen it since that night at George’s, she’d assumed it had moved on to pastures new, but if it was still hanging about, then it was still homeless, and this was something she had to address.

Checking she had ten minutes to spare, Lucy rang the rescue centre for advice, hoping to catch someone in their office. The plight of the cat, with its kamikaze-esque homing device, was weighing on her mind. She was in luck. The cheery gentleman on the end of the phone offered to come out to the neighbourhood and look for the cat later that morning as he had a home check in the area.

‘We can bring the little fella in and scan him for a microchip, but in ninety per cent of cases, these are ferals. I find they make the best pets anyway – ferals. Don’t have the expectations of the domestic. Lovely animals if you take the time to gain their trust. Another black one though, poor little sod might have a long wait for a forever home.’

There was an inaudible twang as one of her heartstrings was plucked.

‘You might like to try having a poke around number twenty-four,’ Lucy suggested. ‘The owner will be at work, but the cat seems to head for him every time.’

Knowing it was less welcome than a ravenous fox in a hen coop full of fat chickens, she could only assume the cat was a reincarnated former acquaintance of George’s who had come back to exact some form of twisted, allergy-related revenge.

The King’s Arms public house sat beside the River Douse as it wound its playful course around Renborough town centre and out into the countryside. In the summer, the large riverside beer garden was a major attraction. In winter, an open fire proved equally appealing. Whatever the season, the view across the river was stunning and, even in inclement weather, large windows offered the same impressive view, albeit from behind the glass. It was always bustling with people and the evening of Vernon’s retirement party was no exception.

Pat, in her whispered and unobtrusive way, had been pushing for all company employees to come dressed as children’s toys or characters. Tompkins was, after all, a toy wholesaler. People responded with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Vernon had merely donned a Mr Men tie, while others had taken the trouble to cobble together home-made costumes of superheroes or characters from nursery rhymes. Jess was a particularly adult Little Red Riding Hood, complete with a black laced bodice and strangely erotic white, thigh-high stockings. Lucy was a vague approximation of Tom Baker’s Doctor Who but was relying totally on her accurate facsimile of his trademark scarf for identification. And one of the men from the warehouse had hired an expensive Buzz Lightyear costume. He spent a lot of the evening waving his laser gun in people’s faces and Connor threatened several times to send him to infinity and beyond if he didn’t pack it in.

Adam had come as Chucky.

‘So, I’d like to end with a toast for old Vern,’ Adam said, his fake scars already having petrified a small boy who’d accidentally wandered into the function room looking for the toilets. ‘A man of few words, and even fewer talents. Ha ha. So, ladies, gentlemen and Pat – only kidding there, Pat-a-Cake…’ Pat’s head sank even further into the hood of her teddy bear onesie. ‘If you would kindly raise your glasses to Vern.’

‘To Vern!’ Everyone stood to toast the man who had given the company the best years of his life but had only been given a stomach ulcer and a novelty clock in return. (Adam had persuaded a local toy manufacturer to make a bespoke Magic Roundabout clock, as Vern had a soft spot for that particular children’s programme.)

‘God bless him and all who sail in him,’ Adam continued, still waving his glass about. ‘And as we’re on the subject of ships, have you heard the one about the old sailor and the prostitute? He put on his uniform—’

‘Thank you, Adam.’ Richard Tompkins stood up. ‘Your fifteen-minute toast was most eloquent but perhaps we should let Vernon take the floor?’

Vernon spoke for less than a minute and then returned to his seat – his verbal brevity one of the reasons for his popularity. He looked quite moved by the clock and kept stroking Florence and Dougal when he thought no one was looking, but Lucy noticed. It had been a thoughtful idea of Adam’s. He did have them occasionally.

Now that the formal presentation was over, people lined up to pile their tiny white tea plates ridiculously high with assorted buffet food. The pub had done a lovely spread and Pat had been in earlier to hang Happy Retirement bunting and scatter silver helium balloons.

‘I see Mr Tompkins has brought a hot date along,’ said Sonjit to a table of female colleagues.

‘She’s not all that,’ huffed Jess, whom Lucy suspected had a tiny sugar-daddy-type crush on their boss.

‘I think this one’s a keeper,’ Sonjit continued. ‘Apparently, he took her to Belgium over Easter, when he went on that extended business trip. She’s very glamorous – quite the trophy girlfriend.’

‘Aww, that’s lovely,’ Lucy said. ‘Everyone deserves to find love. He’s been single for years.’

She craned forward to assess the lady concerned, but her view was largely obscured by a nervous Pat, bobbing about in front of the couple, waving platters of smoked salmon vol-au-vents and vegetarian sausage rolls.

‘Hrmph,’ Jess muttered. ‘I spoke to her in the ladies’ earlier and she was rather too gushy about it all for my liking. All lipstick and liposuction. She’s after his money. I know the type…’

After a small glass of Prosecco and a wobbly feeling in her knees, Lucy tucked herself in the corner to sip lime and sodas as everyone mingled around her. She loosened her scarf and wafted it in front of her face to cool down. Jess was near the bar, throwing her head back and laughing as though she was with the funniest man this side of the Watford Gap, even though it was only the young lad who drove one of the forklifts. Moments later, collecting her third large glass of wine, she glanced across at Lucy and beckoned her over, but Lucy shook her head, content to be tucked away from the hordes.

‘Lucy? All alone? Room for a little one? Budge up, budge up.’ Adam was clutching a bottle of house red by the neck and tried to add a measure to Lucy’s empty tumbler.

‘Not for me.’ She tried to cover the top of her glass but wine dribbled over her fingers.

‘Come on. You don’t have to play Miss Goody Two-Shoes with me. We’re not at work now. What happens in the pub, stays in the pub. You know me? Well, not in the biblical sense, but there’s still time. Ha ha.’

Lucy briefly closed her eyes but unfortunately he was still there when she opened them.

‘I don’t like to talk shippety-shop on a night out, but well done for sorting those problems earlier in the week. Deftly done. I’ll make sure I big you up to Sam-the-Man on Monday.’

‘Except, of course, she’s a woman.’

‘Yes, yes. You don’t need to take me so literary.’

Lucy cast a desperate glance across the room at Jess and wished she’d thought to put the locket on, to give her the nerve to tell Adam where to stick his problems, if nothing else – not that she believed it possessed special powers but at that desperate moment, it would have been worth a try.

‘So, anyway,’ Adam said, leaning in closer. ‘There was this old sailor who visited a prostitute…’