Chapter twenty-five
It was only on my drive home from Rosemount that the implications of what I’d just rashly promised Lewis began to sink in.
I did know a specialist accountant who dealt with charity set-ups and specialist funding brokers, but – just my luck – they were located four floors above Jacobs’, in the same building.
Even though I’d resigned, the thought of going anywhere near the office still filled me with a kind of dull, sick feeling, on top of the anxiety I felt at the thought of any face-to-face meeting outside the comfort of my own laptop.
There was every chance I’d have to be in the lift with someone from Jacobs, and thanks to Natasha, I wasn’t sure what sort of reception I’d get.
I hadn’t mentioned it to Allen – or Lewis – but appended to the official job offer email that had triggered my resignation was an official warning for workplace bullying (in other words, telling Natasha to fuck off) which the management apparently took ‘extremely seriously’.
I’d never told anyone to fuck off in my life before, but I could imagine how Natasha had probably rushed straight to HR, ‘so worried’ about my ‘unprovoked verbal assault’ – more concerned for my sake than hers, naturally – and then rushed to the kitchen to make sure everyone else knew too.
I hated the idea that anyone might think I was a bully.
The second stress factor was that this was the first external meeting I’d had in years, and I didn’t have a thing to wear that didn’t look as though Tomsk had been sleeping on it in his basket.
I knew it was time to face facts, so I dragged out the mirrors I’d hidden, then examined myself in the least worst outfit.
It wasn’t a pretty sight.
I’d pinned my grey suit trousers back together, and they fitted better than a month ago, more thanks to stress than the steps and the intermittent fasting, but when I stared at my reflection, wondering where I could get them repaired, I had a moment of clarity: why was I allowing a ten-year-old trouser suit to dictate my life?
Who was in charge here: the trousers, or the woman inside them?
I flinched but forced myself to see the bigger, softer, but still recognisable version of me.
This was who I was now. I couldn’t keep putting my life on hold until I was a different shape.
Maybe I would never be a different shape.
Time wouldn’t reverse if this zip went up.
They weren’t magic trousers. I had to let that version of me – and her increasingly dated wardrobe – go, and focus on the here and now.
Of course, that was easier said than done. The thought of trying on new clothes made my stomach churn almost as much as the meeting I needed them for. So I called the one person who knew where to find reliable makeover help, but more importantly, knew exactly how hard it was for me to ask for it.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Ashley offered, after she’d shared the contact for the personal shopper her mum and sister had booked for her.
‘I’ve got to be honest, Tia’s great but she did talk me into buying a pleather miniskirt.
And that’s me. You know how hard it is to talk me into anything.
God knows what you might walk out with, unsupervised. ’
I think this was Ashley’s idea of an olive branch, so I took it.
We met up outside John Lewis on Saturday morning; I’d brought her favourite takeaway coffee, which was my own idea of an olive branch. It was a double soya latte with caramel syrup: stupidly expensive, in my opinion.
‘Don’t tell me,’ she said when she saw it in my hand. ‘If I gave up a takeaway coffee every day for fifty-eight years, I could buy . . . a house?’
I grinned. ‘You’re welcome.’
We looked each other up and down. It was only a few months since Ash had moved on to a new life with Leo, but there was something different about her, that confident bounce that you only get when your life’s moving forward in a direction you like.
I envied it. Could I ask the personal shopper to bring me a few rails of that?
‘Deep breath,’ she said, reading my thoughts. ‘It’s not as bad as you think, I promise. If Tia brings out the pleather miniskirts, I’ve got your back.’
I left three hours later with a pair of miraculous trousers, a couple of shirts, a crazy print dress, two pairs of shoes, and, don’t ask me how, a pleather midiskirt.
I’d never have picked them off the rail myself and the personal shopper refused to let me look at the size labels, but somehow, when she spun the mirror round, I looked like a different woman.
Not the old Beth, but a new Beth I actually liked.
Tia kept going on about my amazing hair, my gorgeous eyes and my ‘peachy bum’, to the point where I forgot to look at all the bits of me I hated.
In between the shopping, Ashley and I picked our way carefully through our updates; it was easier to confess the whole Fraser debacle between outfit changes than if we’d had dinner, and by the time I was handing over my credit card we were back on familiar ground and discussing where to go for a drink.
‘We need to get together and wear our pleather skirts,’ said Ash in the bar later. ‘We can start the Pleather Ladies’ drinking society.’
‘We can probably spot other Pleather Ladies round town. We can’t be the only ladies Tia’s pleathered.’
Ash snorted, and clinked her glass with mine. I’d forgotten how nice it was to have running jokes.
She tilted her head. ‘You know, you’re looking different. Did you get your hair cut?’
‘I’ve lost a bit of weight?’ I suggested self-consciously.
‘Tshuh. No, not that.’ She peered at me. ‘Have you met someone?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Hmm. You sure?’ Ash gave me a side look.
‘Maybe it’s just the magic of a fresh start.’
‘Maybe,’ said Ash.
I’d arranged to collect Lewis from Rosemount before our meeting with the broker, because I had a strong suspicion that, left to his own devices, he’d cycle there, and I wasn’t sure I could project a confident business persona while Lewis was talking about CQC reports in head-to-toe Lycra.
I was nervous enough about this as it was, despite my new outfit.
‘You look very smart,’ he said, as soon as he got into the car.
‘Almost as smart as you.’
Why had I worried about Lewis presenting a professional front?
He always looked comfortable in his suit and tie, but this morning he’d stepped it up into a different league.
His hair and moustache were freshly washed, his white shirt spotless, and his polished shoes gleamed in the messy footwell of my car.
I kicked myself for not hoovering it out last night.
I’d have to offer him the emergency roll of Sellotape.
Lewis also smelled gorgeous, which I tried not to notice. I’d found the cologne he wore while Ashley and I were browsing in John Lewis: it was Eau Sauvage, a classic.
‘So,’ he said, fidgeting with his leather portfolio, ‘do we need to talk strategy before we get there?’
‘Just so we’re absolutely clear, I’m happy to be here as moral support, but specialist business funding isn’t my field of expertise,’ I said, but he stopped me.
‘It’s not mine either. I can run a care home, but I’ve never tried to buy one.’
I turned to look at him properly, and realised he wasn’t joking; Lewis was nervous.
‘Has something else happened?’ I asked, wondering if there’d been another departure, or an outbreak of locusts in the library.
‘No.’
‘Then what?’ I paused. ‘What’s said in the car, stays in the car. Come on, you can tell me. Is it Linda? Is someone else ill?’
‘No.’ Lewis squeezed his forehead. ‘I’m just not sure this is going to work. I’m flattered that Pam and Ellie think I can snap my fingers and save Rosemount, but it’s not as easy as they think to set up a deal like this. I’m a manager, not a business owner. It’s a completely different skill set.’
‘Well, that’s what this meeting is for. Finding out whether it’s financially viable or not – if it’s not, we won’t get the money, simple as that.’
Lewis looked at me, and I realised I’d said ‘we’.
I’d never said ‘we’ when discussing clients before. That was the trouble with Rosemount; it got under your skin.
I acknowledged that with a wry grimace. ‘Let’s not get overemotional. It’s a meeting to clarify options. We’re not signing over our houses.’ I paused. ‘Not that I have a house to sign over, you understand.’
He managed a weak smile out of politeness more than anything else.
This didn’t fit with the confident, unflappable Lewis who’d gone through Rosemount like a dose of cleansing salts. This was Lewis with his batteries taken out.
‘What is it?’ I said, more gently. ‘Really?’
Lewis turned to stare out of the window towards Rosemount’s impressive facade. ‘I don’t want to let anyone down.’
I turned off the ignition. He sounded so anguished, it felt wrong to drive away now.
‘I should have been able to turn Rosemount around. And I haven’t.
Eric hasn’t given it enough time, but still, there’s nothing that isn’t fixable.
I should be able to do it. But taking it on on my own, with total responsibility for the business, as well as people’s lives .
. .’ He paused. ‘It just feels like something’s not quite right.
I don’t know if that’s Rosemount, or me. ’
I wondered if Lewis had failed before, whether he’d always managed to move mountains with that superhuman energy and nuclear-strength positive thinking. The events of the last few days seemed to have knocked him off track. A little train upside down, with its wheels slowly spinning to a halt.
‘No one expects you to work miracles,’ I said. ‘You’re the only one who expects that. All you can do is get the facts, then decide.’