Chapter Twenty-Three Downtown
I didn’t sleep last night wondering how much this fine is going to be. According to Google it could be anything between one hundred pounds per sign and one thousand, so that wasn’t much help. Then there’s the defamation and whatever else he can claim against us. Getting dressed I can’t even muster up the enthusiasm to fake it with the power dressing. We’re working so hard to come up with ideas and our regulars appreciate them but no one can ignore the cut-prices he’s giving out. I switch on the radio hoping there’ll be something to cheer me up, even a little.
‘This week only at Launch, two thousand miles for two thousand pounds. Business class flights and five-star hotels in the most sought-after long-haul destinations.’
I plonk myself down at the breakfast bar, head in hands. He’s trying to take out the long-haul market now and at those prices, well, he simply has to be subsidising them, maybe with that inheritance he talked about. I wonder how much money his father actually left him. He has to run out soon surely.
I start the walk to work but I really don’t know why I’m bothering going in. He seems to enjoy destroying us. Maybe we should cut to the chase now and surrender or maybe we should just move. I doubt he’d still keep attacking us if we simply relocated, if we weren’t directly opposite his shop. The thought of taking on anything else overwhelms me, so I give myself a shake as I open the door to the shop and make an effort to smile.
‘Morning, campers,’ I say with unconvincing breeziness.
Charlie looks worse than I feel as he puts the phone down.
‘That was Josie,’ he says. ‘She’s phoned in sick. She sounds awful and thinks she might be off for the whole week.’
‘I don’t blame her,’ I reply, thinking that maybe a few months hibernating in bed could be another solution to our current situation. Not that I think Josie is faking it. I’ve never known any lurgy manage to defeat Josie but she’s had a tough time recently with Lorenzo. When you’ve been feeling a bit down, illness takes hold more easily. So if she is having a duvet day, then that’s fine with me. A cheesy film and a glass of red wine are such good homeopathic cures (I think they’d count in that category) ― they make you feel happy and when you’re happy, cold and flu have no chance. I myself am an expert in this particular field of medicine. If it brings her back to us in fighting mode then she can take as long as she likes.
However, Josie being off only adds to the sense of emptiness in the shop and after I tell Charlie about the radio ad I heard this morning, neither of us can maintain the fake cheeriness we need to sell holidays for long. We need someone like Josie in the office. Even at her lowest, she has a way of connecting with people on social media and customers are always telling us they look forward to her funny posts. Now more than ever we have to keep up the emails and newsletters to show people that we still exist, if nothing else. If we stop talking about our new ideas, customers might think we’ve given up. We can’t really afford to hire anyone and the only people I know who are at a loose end at the moment are Mum and Patty. Both of them have a knack of staying cheery when the rest of the world is down, although obviously neither of them are known for their tact and diplomacy. I go for the least-worst option, the one who can at least use a PC.
‘Stand back,’ declares my best friend as, forty minutes after my call to her, she nearly takes the doors off their hinges. ‘Your fairy godmother has arrived to save your souls and sell holidays.’
That cheers me instantly. If Patty is responsible for saving souls and deciding who gets into heaven then we’re probably all going to get there. Her moral compass has always been fairly flexible.
‘OK, Godmother, cast your wand over that PC there,’ I tell her, pointing to Josie’s desk.
Patty salutes me. ‘Absolutely, boss. What do you need me to do?’
‘With Josie off sick, we’ve got no one to do all the marketing,’ I explain. ‘But she had a really unique style, so we need you to be funny.’
‘Not a problem for a world-class entertainer like my good self.’ She takes up residence at Josie’s computer and switches it on, stretching her fingers like a grand master pianist and running them along the keyboard. Charlie watches her.
‘So do you know much about social media?’ he asks.
‘Charlie, what I don’t know...’ she begins, ‘I will soon make up. Now how does this machine work?’
She looks up at us and flicks the screen around. A password box flashes in the centre of the screen.
‘Damn, I’d forgotten about that,’ I say. ‘Josie keeps her password top secret since the email issue. Before then it was always something that she’d like to do to Harry Styles, either sh@gStyles or M@rryStyles. They were two of her favourites.’
‘Have no fear, I shall apply all my cunning to cracking this password,’ she tells us, leaving Charlie and I staring at each other in disbelief. Since when did she become Alan Turing?
‘How?’ asks Charlie.
‘I’m going to call her and ask what it is.’
We leave her to ring Josie and hear laughter bellowing through the office again as Patty calls her an ‘Aussie weakling’ and threatens to steal her job if she doesn’t get back soon. It’s good to have some fun in the place again and I bet Patty is already making Josie feel much better. Patty manages to open Josie’s account and with instructions being given on speakerphone, starts to work out where the details are to develop all the marketing. The first thing she does is to tell all our customers Josie is off sick, or as she puts it, ‘The Aussie has been flawed by a British cold — what a wuss.’ She encourages customers to send Josie get-well messages to try and coax her back and within minutes we’re inundated with them. Josie is obviously reading them as she posts a little ‘Thank you’ emoji.
‘What’s this little thing?’ Patty asks me and so I explain the concept and show her a few more on the screen.
She studies them with interest and then gets that look on her face, the one that declares a cunning plan is on its way. The one we all dread and love in equal measure.
‘Stand back and get ready to sell holidays,’ she says, attacking the keyboard using a single finger on each hand.
Despite the fear and anxiety we feel, Charlie and I leave her to it and try to concentrate on our accounts. We have to seriously review things now to stay in the fight. After about an hour, the door starts opening and the phone starts ringing. Customers head straight to Patty’s desk.
‘Smiley face, plane, snow-capped mountain, love hotel please,’ declares one.
‘Romantic break to the Alps when you’re ready,’ Patty shouts to Charlie.
Charlie gets back to the booking screen and invites the smiling customer to sit down.
‘Hamburger, saxophone, quaver, sad face,’ requests another customer.
‘Blues festival Chicago for you, Angie,’ Patty yells again.
It feels as if we’re in a fish market rather than a travel agents, but what the hell, we’ve got customers coming in and they’re not asking for discounts.
‘What’s this one?’ asks more than one customer.
‘Football, horses, wine?’ replies Patty shaking her head in mock disbelief. ‘Argentina obviously, now sit yourself down over there and that handsome man will sort you out in no time.’
OK, so it’s still only a handful of people but they’re laughing, smiling and most importantly, booking trips. The shop feels like Mercury again and we’ve given people something to talk about — we’re innovating again. Online they’re sharing the emojis with friends and somehow it’s easier to say ‘yes’ to a pleasure boat and smiley face than to a lengthy holiday description — especially as we’re also offering discounts on all the trips booked today. I hope Josie can see it all and that it’s cheering her up just as much as us. I drop her a quick text: You’ve inspired Patty — hurry backx
Disappointingly, I get no answer, but perhaps that means she’s having a restorative sleep and she’ll be back to her old self tomorrow. We have a good day thanks to Patty and I never thought I’d be saying that when she first walked into our office. We close up thinking we might live to fight another day after all. As I’m locking up I can see the lights are still on across at Launch. I walk along the street opposite so as not to be seen and take a discreet glance through the window when I get close. My heart sinks as I see it heaving with people. It’s early evening and he’s got more people in the shop now than we’ve had all day. That long-haul offer was incredible, though, and he limited it to this week so no wonder he’s crammed. Clever idea to open up later for the after-work crowd though — maybe we should do that. I feel like we’re constantly chasing our tails. He seems to outwit us no matter what we do. He even reneged on his offer to give us the advertising he’d booked and now on a day that seemed to have gone well, he’s managed to fill both the start and the end of it with angst and misery.
I get home, throw my coat and bag down then head for the fridge to pour myself a glass of wine. I go over to the mantelpiece and pick up the People’s Champion trophy. Some businesswoman I’ve turned out to be. I take it down and stuff it in a drawer. I sigh. I should tell Charlie about the evening-opening idea. I dial his number and he answers immediately.
‘Has she called you too?’ he asks before I can get a word in.
‘Who?’
‘Josie. She’s just emailed me and resigned.’
Like a demonically possessed woman in a horror film, I open my mouth and a splurge of every single expletive I know (and a few I didn’t know I knew) leaves my mouth. Fortunately, my head isn’t spinning through 360 degrees — yet.
‘This has to be down to him,’ I say, ‘you know it does. Josie loves Mercury and would simply not do this. I’m calling her.’
Charlie rings off and I start stabbing at the numbers on my phone.
‘Josie, please call me.’
‘Josie, you have to call me.’
‘Josie, I know something is up and whatever it is, I’ll help. Just call.’
I must leave twenty messages, some encouraging, some desperate, but I get nothing. I think about calling or emailing Lorenzo. I’m dying to unleash torrents of abuse on his Facebook page but I know he’ll use it against me. Common sense gets the better of me and needing to keep myself busy, I call Zoe.
‘Hello there,’ she says. ‘I don’t normally hear from you on a weekday. Is everything OK?’
I’m about to say yes but I can’t form the word and I end up telling Zoe all my woes.
‘Oh, Mum, he sounds awful. You must be really stressed out.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to burden you but yes, it has been horrendous. Part of me just thinks I should give up. There have to be easier ways of making a living. Maybe I’ll go and work for him,’ I snort.
Zoe takes a deep breath and I can tell she’s choosing her words carefully.
‘I remember when Dad left,’ she eventually says. ‘You didn’t know how things would turn out but you just kept pedalling. That’s what you used to say in any sticky situation — just keep pedalling. That’s the only way to keep the bike upright. That’s what you always tell me, Mum.’
I smile at her words. The advice was given to me by my life coach at the time and it served me well. Sometimes the bike wobbled but as long as I pedalled, I didn’t crash.
‘So I guess that’s all you can do now, Mum,’ continues my wise and mature daughter. ‘Just pedal and, somehow, you’ll get there.’