Girl on the Run

by Jane Costello

  I knew it the second I got the phone call from Matt, though it’s only just becoming apparent how deep this particular shit is.

  My £8,000 VAT bill is now overdue. I have another big tax bill – for PAYE – due in three days’ time. The money I intended to use to pay both was from my biggest and most reliable client – Diggles – which has now gone into administration. So, after taking on an extra staff member to do their work, spending hundreds of pounds on materials, putting in hours and hours of work to rebrand their website and create new marketing collateral, we are on course to be paid the grand total of . . . zero.

  The result is simple. I am about to go bust.

  ‘I didn’t even get to speak to Jane Bellamy, the Marketing Director,’ I bluster. ‘I’ve been dealing with her for more than a year. A year!’

  Egor hands me a tissue. I blow my nose violently.

  ‘The phone,’ I sniff, ‘was diverted to a company called Lawrence Hugh and Company.’

  ‘The administrators,’ Egor nods.

  ‘I was put through to Mr Pugh—’

  ‘Hugh,’ corrects Egor.

  ‘Do you know what he told me?’

  ‘I can guess.’

  ‘He told me that I was – and I quote – “An unsecured creditor”.’ I spit out every syllable of the sentence. ‘And do you know what else?’

  Egor raises an eyebrow.

  ‘He said that if I wanted to be paid for the work we’d done, the only option I’d have is to—’

  ‘—claim in the Administration,’ Egor finishes.

  ‘Correct. And do you know what else?’

  Egor opens his mouth, but I jump in first. ‘He said that there was a list of people who had to be paid before me. You’ll never guess who was at the top.’

  ‘Him?’ Egor ventures.

  ‘Yes! Then came the “secured creditors”,’ I say in a la-di-dah voice. ‘Then the staff. Then, at the bottom of this horrendous financial caste system, came . . . you guessed it: little old me. An unsecured creditor.’

  I knew none of this would be news to Egor. To be honest, none of it was news to me. I know how the system works, but somehow, being at the sharp end makes the whole thing so shocking I can barely get my words out.

  ‘I asked him when he thought I might get the money they owed us. Do you know what he said?’

  Before Egor can speak, I go on: ‘He said, I could go through due process and every case would be considered carefully. But, off the record, I didn’t have a cat in hell’s chance of being paid. Ever. Can you believe that?’

  Egor looks like he can believe it only too easily.

  ‘This is for work we’ve already done!’ I wail. ‘For materials we’ve already bought! I took on an extra staff member for this. An extra staff member! I told Lawrence Pugh—’

  ‘Hugh.’

  ‘Hugh,’ I hiss. ‘I told him in the strongest possible terms: they simply have to pay us. They HAVE to.’ I stamp my fist on the table.

  Egor looks at me in pity. I gaze out of the window and feel my eyes heavy with tears again.

  ‘They’re not going to, are they?’ I whimper.

  Egor shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry, Abby.’

  ‘Tell me I’m missing something,’ I plead. ‘Tell me there’s a number I’ve got wrong; or a fact I’ve misinterpreted. Tell me that the VAT bill and the PAYE bill landing at same time as my biggest client goes into administration and refuses to pay me, leaving me with absolutely no money in the bank . . .’ I pause and draw breath. ‘Tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means.’

  He squirms. ‘What do you think it means?’

  ‘The end of River Web Design.’

  His face is etched with pity. ‘I wish I could reassure you, Abby.’

  I throw up my arms in frustration. ‘What will happen?’

  ‘When you go bust? Well,’ he begins solemnly, ‘you’ve seen how it works with Diggles. It’ll be exactly the same with your company.’

  ‘What about the staff?’ I manage.

  ‘They’ll be out of work immediately and will have to apply to whoever your administrator is for their wages. All work for clients will cease. Your landlord will apply for unpaid rent and probably disallow you access to the building. Then there’s the bank and your overdraft – they’ll be looking to reclaim that. So any guarantors you have against it will find them knocking on their door.’

  None of this surprises me, yet when Egor spells out the list, it makes my throat tighten until I can hardly breathe.

  I stand and walk to the window.

  ‘What if I just don’t pay those two bills?’ I say recklessly. ‘What if I keep things going in the hope that something comes up and . . .’ But my voice trails off, knowing that this isn’t an option.

  ‘This business is insolvent,’ Egor spells out firmly. ‘You simply don’t have enough funds coming in to pay what you owe. If you carried on trading for any length of time under those circumstances – well, it’s not legal and it’s not moral. You know that. You owe it to yourself and to the clients to stop before this hole gets even deeper.’

  My heart feels as though it’s being crushed.

  ‘You’ve got to wind this business up, Abby,’ he continues. ‘It’s the only option. I can put you in touch with an insolvency specialist who can—’

  ‘There’s got to be another way, Egor,’ I say bitterly. ‘I can’t allow this to happen. I won’t allow it to happen.’

  I deliver this speech with the zeal of Elizabeth I before the sailing of the Spanish Armada. The reality is, I feel like going home and topping myself.

  He shakes his head. ‘The only way out of this would be a massive injection of cash. I can only presume if you had access to that sort of resource, you’d have mentioned it.’

  ‘Obviously,’ I croak.

  ‘So unless some extremely wealthy relative springs out of the woodwork . . .’

  I spin round and glare at him.

  ‘What is it?’ He looks at me in shock. ‘Have you got someone who has that sort of money knocking about?’

  ‘I . . . I couldn’t,’ I mutter.

  ‘Couldn’t what?’ asks Egor.

  ‘Ask my mum to bail me out. That’d mean I’d failed. Completely.’

  He takes in what I’m saying and his expression changes as he realises that the answer to his question is yes.

  ‘This is your business, Abby,’ he tells me urgently. ‘It’s up to you how much you want to save it. But people’s livelihoods are at stake, not to mention your reputation – everything you’ve fought for, for the past two years. You need to do anything you can to stay afloat. Anything.’

  ‘You’re not seriously suggesting I go running to my mother?’

  But even as I say it I know I’m going to have to do what I vowed I would never do when I started this company. I’m going to have to cheat. I’ve never felt more pathetic in my life.

  Chapter 74

  By anyone’s standards my mum is a super-successful businesswoman. She trades with all corners of the world, doing deals in everywhere from Milan to Tokyo. So it’s difficult to describe how it feels, having to knock on her door so soon after starting my business, to beg for money to rescue me.

  Actually, I know I won’t have to beg. I’ll barely have to ask before she’s writing a cheque and thrusting it into my hand. But that’s not the point. My mother managed to keep her business running without this – and scores of others do too. The force of my humiliation, combined with the urgency of the situation, bears down on my brain like a pressure cooker as I enter her office.

  ‘You sounded strange on the phone, love.’ She kisses me on the cheek. ‘You’re not getting those funny tingly sensations in your hand, are you?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Good, because you should never ignore symptoms like that.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It could be a trapped nerve. I had one of those once. Gave me terrible gip while I was in Hong Kong trying to do a deal with a depa
rtment store. Try and work a pair of chopsticks with a dodgy carpal tunnel – honestly, there were dim sum everywhere!’ she hoots.

  ‘Mum,’ I begin, sitting opposite.

  ‘Coffee?’ she asks.

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do, do you?’

  ‘Of course not, but—’

  ‘Isabella,’ she says, buzzing through. ‘Do me a cappuccino, will you, love? My usual. Easy on the chocolate though. My love handles might explode. Fry’s Turkish Delight?’ Mum opens her desk drawer.

  ‘No. Thanks.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got pineapple chunks, toffee pincushions, some Fizz Wiz and – ooh, I forgot I started this earlier.’ She picks up a Candy Whistle and gives it a toot that almost pierces my eardrum. ‘Can never resist those. Now, what is it?’

  ‘Right,’ I begin. ‘Well . . .’ My voice trails off and I see her eyes glance to the clock.

  ‘Are you all right for time?’ I ask uneasily.

  ‘I’ll always make time for you, darling.’

  ‘Okay, well—’

  ‘Though if you could be done by a quarter to, that’d be very helpful.’

  ‘Quarter to?’

  ‘I’ve got a conference call with Sydney.’

  ‘Sydney who?’

  ‘No – Sydney, Australia.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Well, the thing is, Mum. I’ve got something I need to discuss with you. That is, something I need to tell you.’

  She smiles and crosses her hands. ‘Fire away.’

  Then, as I look into her eyes, something comes out of my mouth that I never intended nor expected. I don’t know why it does. I don’t know how it does. I only know that it does.

  ‘I know about Dad and Aunt Steph,’ I say.

  In the twenty-nine years I’ve known her, I’ve never seen my mother cry. It’s not that she’s a cold fish – far from it. She’s the most over the top, effusive human being I know sometimes. I suppose, like the very fact of Dad’s betrayal, there are some things she’s chosen to shield me from. Rightly or wrongly. The result is that, as tears flood down her cheeks, I barely know what to do, except put my arms round her and listen.

  She gives me the whole story from her perspective. Her shock. Her devastation. Her fury. And she holds back something else which I can’t put my finger on. Regret?

  ‘I often wonder what would’ve happened if I’d forgiven him there and then,’ she sniffs, grabbing a handful of tissues. She looks into my eyes. ‘But I couldn’t, Abby. Honestly. My sister. He slept with my sister. How could I have lived with that?’

  ‘You couldn’t,’ I reassure her. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Every time I looked at her – or him – I’d have been reminded. I tried it for a few weeks, but there are some things even the strongest of people can’t cope with.’

  I nod.

  ‘So I left. We left . . .’

  There are more than tears now, with moments of hard, uncontrollable sobbing, before she recovers enough to form her words.

  ‘In the months after we’d moved out, I considered going back. But to do that would have meant confronting it all again. This sounds so weak, but it became easier not to. It became easier to convince myself that what I was telling everyone was true. That we’d grown apart.’

  ‘So you hadn’t grown apart? Before it happened, I mean.’

  She stares numbly into the middle distance. ‘We’d had a difficult couple of months – we’d both been under stress at work and your Grandma Cilla had just died. But, basically, I’d thought your father worshipped me. That it was just a blip. I couldn’t have been more wrong, could I? He wouldn’t have done it otherwise.’

  She stares at her hands, her eyes glazed and empty. ‘It was a huge shock, Abby. The biggest. Maybe in hindsight I acted hastily; I should have done something to keep the family together . . . but I couldn’t. So, instead, over the years I’ve told you and everyone else a whole host of completely irrelevant “reasons” for my leaving, none of which were true. Yes, your dad is hopeless with paying his bills and all that other stuff. And it was sometimes difficult being married to someone who lived away for long stretches of time. But none of that mattered to me. This did.’

  ‘Mum, I’d have done the same thing in your shoes,’ I tell her.

  ‘Would you?’ she sniffs. ‘I suspect you’re more forgiving than me, Abby. And more honest.’

  I stiffen. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ she smiles. ‘You don’t keep secrets. You’re honest and hardworking and—’

  ‘Oh God, Mum – stop.’

  ‘What is it?’

  I swallow and put my head in my hands. ‘I didn’t even come here about the Dad and Aunt Steph thing. It’s . . . I don’t know how to tell you.’

  She breathes in deeply. ‘Oh my God, my baby is pregnant! This time it’s true . . . my baby is—’

  ‘Mother!’ I snap, unravelling myself. ‘I’m not pregnant. Why do you always think I’m pregnant?’

  ‘What is it then?

  I try to compose myself and then say baldly, ‘I’ve screwed things up with the company.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re exaggerating.’

  ‘I’m not. I’ve got two massive tax bills and was intending to use the money from my biggest client to pay them. Only they’ve just gone into administration.’ I look into her eyes. ‘I’m about to go bust, Mum.’

  She stares at me for a moment. When she speaks, it’s entirely matter-of-fact – as if the alternative simply isn’t a possibility. ‘No, you’re not. You’re not going to go bust.’

  I sigh. ‘I knew you were going to want to write me a cheque and say that the whole thing will go away and—’

  ‘I’m not going to write you a cheque,’ she responds, to my surprise.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, I’m not going to write you a cheque. Or give you any money at all, in fact.’

  ‘Oh.’ This is not the turn of events I had imagined. I can’t say I’m entirely relaxed about it. ‘Right. Well, I’m very glad. Obviously. Because I really do want to stand on my own two feet and . . .’ A flicker of panic registers in my brain. ‘Really? You’re really not going to give me any money? Or even let me borrow some money?’

  ‘Really,’ she says firmly.

  ‘But there are people’s jobs at stake and the company and my clients and—’ I realise my voice has risen several octaves since the start of this conversation.

  ‘What I’m going to do is sit down with you and your accountant – what’s he called?’

  ‘Egor.’

  ‘Egor. And we’re going to work out a solution. A solution that involves you sorting this out. All by yourself.’

  Chapter 75

  Egor and my mum get on well. I don’t know why, but this surprises me. Perhaps he’s simply less flashy than her staff members, as demonstrated by today’s shoes, the toes of which look as though they’ve had a run-in with a paper shredder.

  They agree on virtually everything – including, bizarrely, their view about my role in this. I’d expected to be told off, but they’ve been very sympathetic.

  ‘Listen to me, Abby.’ Mum is facing me, her hands gripping both my shoulders in the sort of move that preludes police brutality. ‘It’s a well-known statistic that fifty per cent of businesses fail in their first year and ninety per cent by their fifth. This is not because the majority of people who start businesses are imbeciles.’

  I raise my eyebrows.

  ‘It is because it is bloody hard.’

  She lets go of me and paces the room as we’re treated to the full force of her oratorical skills. ‘You have to learn as you go along. The odds are completely stacked against you – particularly in a recession when companies such as your poor, dear garden centres are going under all over the place . . . and taking other companies with them.’

  ‘You can’t seriously be saying there was nothing I could have done?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, no, I’m not saying that,�
� Mum concedes. ‘And when we’re out of this mess, we’re going to work out some future-proofing techniques to stop it happening again. But you’re not the first person to run what is a fundamentally sound – no, fundamentally great business, only to become a victim of a situation like this.’

  ‘Your mum’s right,’ adds Egor. ‘It happens all the time. Simon Cowell went bust and he’s hardly on the breadline now. And the guy from Dragons’ Den – Peter Jones.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ says Mum firmly. ‘But this business isn’t going to go bust, is it, Egor?’

  He smiles uneasily. ‘Hmmm, no,’ he replies, as if responding to a question from one of Stalin’s generals.

  I’m not sure who came up with the idea first – him or her – but they’re both agreed it’s the best way forward. It’s very simple: I need to revisit every iron I’ve had in the fire for the last twelve months – and reignite them.

  Whether it’s a potential client who never came back to me about a proposal, or one I’ve failed to follow up, I need to win some business – some lucrative business – quickly. We’ll then use the promise of future earnings to go to the bank and beg. Specifically, for them to temporarily extend my overdraft long enough for me to go on trading responsibly while I get this business back on its feet.

  I explain that I’ve already spoken to the bank and asked them to do this, but was refused. However, Mum and Egor are determined that it will be a different situation if I have some guaranteed future income.

  ‘It all sounds wonderful,’ I say. ‘Except for one problem.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Mum smiles.

  ‘I haven’t got any irons in the fire!’ I explode. ‘None that are going to pay those sorts of dividends. Even if I did manage to turn something around that quickly, the chances of it being big enough are virtually nil.’

  Mum tuts. You’d think I was a four-year-old refusing to try to swim without armbands. ‘Come on, Abby,’ she says blithely. ‘It’s time to think creatively. Just think.’

  I slump in my seat and close my eyes. Just think, she says.