Now and Always

by Andrea Blake

  “Five per cent—it’s a fairly standard rate,” Jennifer told him.

  Neal doodled on the blotter for some moments. “I don’t think there’s much to be gained from undercutting them,” he said thoughtfully. “The average customer is more concerned with the amount of their weekly payments than with interest rates. We’ll stick to five per cent. Now I’d like you to go round all departments and tell everyone that I want to have a word with them after we close. I won’t keep them more than ten minutes. Five past six on the ground floor by the stairs.”

  There was an atmosphere of excitement and tension when the entire staff assembled at the end of the day’s work. A few people grumbled about missing their buses and being late home, but most of them seemed to sense that a new regime was about to start, and they were eager to have a good look at Neal and hear what he had to say. The murmurs of speculation died away as he and Mr. Fellows appeared round the bend of the staircase. Jennifer was standing among the rest of the staff. Behind her, one of the office girls whispered, “He’s quite a smasher, isn’t he?” and there were stifled giggles.

  Neal’s pep-talk was brief and incisive. Without mincing matters, he told them that the business was in a highly unsatisfactory state, that this could be remedied, but that a great deal depended on them. It was to everyone’s advantage to restore Parkers to its former position as the town’s biggest and best furniture store.

  He ended with an announcement which startled everyone, and shocked Mr. Fellows and Jennifer.

  “From Friday week you will all get a rise in your wages ... not a very big one to begin with, but there will be more to come later—if your work merits it. We shall also introduce an incentive scheme for the sales staff. That’s all, thank you. Goodnight.”

  A chorus of “Goodnight, sir,” was followed by excited comments on his final statement. Then the groups began to disperse.

  Neal came down the stairs. “Are you coming home, Jennifer, or are you going out this evening?”

  She remembered her date with Susan. “Not until half-past seven,” she said.

  Neal turned to Mr. Fellows. “I’ll take the key tonight, Fellows. I may want to come back later on.” On the way home in the Lancia, Jennifer said,

  “When things are as bad as they are, how can we afford to raise everyone’s wages?”

  “We can’t—but on the other hand we can’t afford to lose half our staff.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to start cracking the whip tomorrow. They aren’t going to like it, and some of them may think about getting out. But they’ll hang on till Friday week, and by then they’ll have had second thoughts. Anyway, low wages are a false economy. If you want good staff, you have to pay them well.”

  “But are our people worth higher wages? It’s well known that Parkers don’t pay much, so there’s never any rush when we have a vacancy. We’ve lost all our best people to Fielding Brothers and the other shops.”

  “Oh, it’s surprising what results you get if you handle people properly,” Neal said confidently.

  ‘If you handle them like you’ve handled me, you’ll be running the store on your own,’ she thought acidly.

  But she knew that, whatever anyone else might do, she would have to accept his terms. Much as she would have liked to reject his ultimatum, it would be foolish to leave the store for the momentary satisfaction of seeing him flabbergasted. Or was it possible that he was even deeper than she had realised ... that he wanted her to throw up her job tomorrow?

  Her evening out with Susan, Susan’s boy friend, and a young man called Roger Short was not very successful. Roger was extremely shy, and Jennifer was too preoccupied with the day’s events to make much effort to draw him out. She was relieved when it was time to go home, and told Roger that there was no need for him to see her home as the bus stopped right outside her gate.

  But he insisted on escorting her, and Jennifer had an uneasy feeling that he might also feel obliged to kiss her goodnight. They were walking up the drive—and she was almost certain that he was nerving himself to lunge at her on the doorstep—when a strong beam of light lit the drive, and Jennifer remembered Neal saying that he might go back to the store during the evening.

  The Lancia swept past them and stopped. Neal climbed out of the driving seat.

  “Hello ... had a good time?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you. Neal, this is Roger Short. Roger ... Neal Parker.”

  “How do you do, sir? Well, I’d better be getting along,” Roger said nervously.

  “Come in and have some coffee,” Jennifer suggested, feeling that it had been rather a dud evening for him and this was largely her fault.

  “No ... no, thanks very much. My last bus goes at eleven. Goodnight, Jennifer. Goodnight, sir.” Roger hurried away.

  “I’m sorry if I arrived at the wrong moment. Your escort seemed a rather nervous character,” Neal said, as they went into the house.

  “He’s shy,” she said defensively.

  “Do shy types appeal to you?”

  “I prefer shyness to arrogance.”

  He grinned at her. “You cut me to the quick, Miss Alvery.”

  Louise came out of the kitchen. “Oh, it’s you, Neal. I thought perhaps Jenny had brought her date in. There’s coffee ready, if you’d like some.”

  “Could I take a cup to my room? I have some work to do,” Neal said.

  “Yes, of course. But I’ll bring it to you with something to eat. I’ve been making mince tarts. They’ll be ready in a minute or two.”

  “Bless you. It’s a long time since I’ve enjoyed home cooking.” He went upstairs.

  “If he ever has, poor boy,” Louise said softly, after his door had closed.

  Jennifer followed her into the kitchen. “You’re what they call a ‘soft touch,’ Mummy. Neal doesn’t strike me as the ‘poor boy’ type. I can’t think of anyone more assured and self-sufficient.”

  “One can’t always judge by appearances, dear,” her mother said thoughtfully. “Neal has had to be self-sufficient. I have a feeling that, under the surface, he’s a very lonely person.”

  “I don’t know why he should be. He appears to have plenty of money. He goes abroad a lot. He’s a success. I expect he has dozens of friends.”

  “Perhaps ... but not necessarily friends who like him for himself,” her mother pointed out. “I think you’re forgetting' that he was brought up in this house, Jenny. You’ve been unhappy here, but think how much more unhappy Neal must have been. You’ve had me. Neal had no one at all. It takes a lot of loving kindness to make up for a childhood like that. Now, tell me what sort of evening you’ve had. Was this Roger what’s-his-name nice?”

  Later, alone in her room, Jennifer found herself thinking over what her mother had said, and even wondering if she had been foolish to become so hostile towards Neal merely because he had duped her for half an hour when he first arrived.

  You liked me well enough until you found out who I was, he had said. And it was true. She had liked him.

  At half-past eleven, she peeped out of her room and saw that there was still a rim of light under Neal’s door. She went quietly downstairs and made two mugs of cocoa, one of which she carried back to her room, before crossing the landing to his.

  After she had tapped on the panel, she heard the rustle of papers and the squeak of a chair being pushed back. A moment later the door opened and Neal stood looking down at her.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I thought if you were still working you might like a nightcap.” She held out the mug.

  His eyebrows went up. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Jennifer.”

  Her cheeks grew hot. It was not easy to eat humble pie when he was looking at her with that quizzical gleam in his eyes.

  “I—I also wanted to say that I’m sorry if I’ve been ... obstructive. I’ll do my best to help you get Parkers back on its feet.”

  She turned to hurry back to her room, but Neal said
, “Wait!”

  “Yes?”

  “Come in for a moment,” he invited. When she hesitated, he added, “I’ll leave the door wide open. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

  Uncertainly, she followed him into the bedroom. The dressing-table was piled with ledgers and box files.

  “I’ve been working on an analysis of our sales over the past ten years. It isn’t complete yet, but I’m hoping it may give us some pointers,” he said, indicating several foolscap sheets of paper, each covered with neat columns of figures. “I was wondering if we could bring a typewriter home tomorrow night and go over it together? That’s if you’re not going out?”

  “I very seldom go out. Tonight was an exception.”

  “Why not? Why do you seldom go out, I mean? Was that something else which my uncle disapproved of?”

  “In a way. He didn’t actually forbid it—but it always made him ... difficult.”

  “How old are you, Jennifer?”

  “I’m twenty ... twenty-one next February. How old are you?”

  “Exactly ten years older than you are. My birthday is in February too.”

  “Is it really? We’ll have to have a combined party. Oh, but of course you won’t be here then, I suppose. How long are you planning to stay?”

  “Until everything is running smoothly.”

  “What about your other business?”

  “I’ll have to go up to London once a week. My partner can handle most of it.”

  “I see. Well... I’d better get to bed now. Goodnight, Neal.” She turned towards the door.

  “Oh, Jennifer, one more thing.” He put the mug on the dressing-table and held out his hand to her. “My hand on our truce,” he said, smiling.

  She slipped her hand into his and felt the strength of his lean brown fingers as they gripped hers.

  “A pretty girl of twenty should go out a lot,” he said. “We’ll have to see what we can do. Goodnight, young Jenny.”

  On Sunday morning, Colonel Fletcher brought his sister to see Laureldene, and Louise invited them to stay for lunch. Neal was out. His architect, Conrad Dawson, had arrived from London the night before, and the two men were spending the day at the store, discussing the alterations Neal envisaged.

  “Well, what do you think, Maggie?” the Colonel asked his sister when, after lunch, they were all having coffee in the garden.

  Margaret Fletcher was such an attractive woman that Jennifer wondered why she was unmarried. She had the same thick iron-grey hair as her brother and wore it folded into an elegant pleat at the back of her head. She was probably in her late forties, a few years younger than Colonel Fletcher, and she had kept her slim graceful figure, and was very well dressed in a simple dress and jacket of French navy linen with a triple string of unusual pewter-coloured beads.

  “I like the house, and the garden, of course, is heavenly—but I’m afraid it’s much too big for us, Robert,” she said. “Now that the children are away most of the time, we could manage with quite a small place. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Parker, but I do feel we should look for something more compact.”

  “That’s perfectly all right, Miss Fletcher. Your brother said much the same thing the first time he came,” Louise told her, smiling. “As a matter of fact we may postpone selling for the time being. We feel we may have acted too hastily in deciding to leave.” She paused. “I wonder if you might find something more suitable in the Churchfield part of Midchester. I noticed an advertisement in the News last night, and I cut it out to show you. I’ll just run indoors and find it.”

  She returned a few minutes later with the clipping. “Here it is—‘detached Georgian-style residence, two reception, four bedrooms.’ The address isn’t given, but if you are interested perhaps we could run over there now and try to find it. Churchfield used to be a village until Midchester spread round it.”

  “It’s extremely kind of you, Mrs. Parker,” the Colonel said, when he and his sister had studied the cutting. “I think it sounds promising, don’t you, Maggie?”

  “Yes, it does,” his sister agreed.

  “Then let’s go and have a look,” Louise suggested. “I could give you directions on how to get there, but I think it would be quicker to come with you, if you don’t mind?”

  “We’d be delighted to have you. What about you, Miss Alvery—will you come along?” the Colonel asked.

  “I have some work to do for Neal. I really should get started on it,” Jennifer said.

  After they had gone, she lugged the heavy office machine into the garden and began typing out the second part of Neal’s sales analysis.

  It was five o’clock before the others returned. The Fletchers were very enthusiastic about the house in Churchfield and intended to get the keys from the agent first thing in the morning.

  “It seems ideal for us. Too good to be true,” Miss Fletcher said eagerly. “We’ll ring you up when we’ve looked over it properly, Mrs. Parker. We do appreciate your kindness.”

  Louise insisted on them having a cup of tea before they returned to the cousins with whom they were staying, and who lived about fifteen miles away.

  “What a nice pair they are,” she said, when they had left. “Miss Fletcher is a sculptress—quite a famous one, I gather. While we were alone for a few minutes, she was telling me all about her nephews and nieces. Her brother lost his wife soon after the twins were born—such a tragedy. She said they were absolutely devoted to each other. The eldest boy, Peter, is training to be a civil engineer, and the daughter, Alison, has a lovely voice. She’s at the Royal College of Music. The twins are thirteen now. They are both at boarding schools.”

  “Why are they moving to Midchester?” Jennifer asked.

  “The Colonel has only recently retired from the Army, and he wants to live within a reasonable distance of London and not too far from the coast. They are all very keen on sailing. They chose Midchester because it’s only a couple of hours from town by train, but has a quiet, countrified atmosphere. I do hope there are no snags about this house we saw this afternoon. They’re quite excited about it.”

  Jennifer also hoped that the Churchfield house would prove satisfactory, for a less disinterested reason. She thought the Fletchers were exactly the kind of friends her mother needed.

  In the month that followed, Neal set about implementing his new policies with a speed which was both exciting and rather nerve-racking. His energy seemed inexhaustible, and he expected everyone to work as hard and efficiently as he did. No slackness or carelessness escaped him, and after four weeks he knew so much about the work of each department that it was fatal for anyone to try to pull the wool over his eyes. Jennifer often had to step out of the office for five minutes while he carpeted someone for inefficiency. He never blustered and shouted as Wilfred Parker had done. But his caustic comments, delivered in a quiet, even tone, were far more effective than his uncle’s bad-tempered abuse.

  The staff were scared stiff of incurring his displeasure, but at the same time they respected him. He praised as well as blamed. A new feeling of participation, of joint enterprise, began to be felt in the store.

  Every Monday night, after the doors closed, he held a short staff meeting. Attendance was not compulsory, but unless they had some special reason for leaving early, most people stayed to hear about the next phase in the Parkers revolution. Neal showed them the rough sketches of the new decorative scheme and the structural alterations which would have to be made. He encouraged everyone to make suggestions for improvements and listened intently to their ideas.

  In his uncle’s time, the arcades between the display windows had been barred by high metal grilles when the shop was shut. At night, when all the other shops in the square were lit up, Parkers had stood in darkness.

  Neal had the grilles removed so that people could use the arcades as shelters from the rain, and he also had an automatic switch fitted to the window circuits. Now, from lighting-up time until midnight, the north side of the square blazed as brightly as the rest, a
nd people who had been out for the evening stopped to look at the improved displays. Going home by bus on the nights when Neal did not give her a lift in the Lancia, Jennifer heard several comments on the changes at Parkers, and with the introduction of budget payments and the new eye-catching advertisements in the local newspapers, business began slowly but steadily improving.

  By the beginning of October, when the first stage of redecorating had begun, she had almost forgotten that she had ever felt hostile towards Neal. Then something happened which brought an abrupt end to the truce between them. She was busy in the office one afternoon—Neal had not yet returned from a Rotary luncheon to which he had been invited—when one of the typists came in to ask if she would contribute to a collection for the assistant manager’s farewell present.

  “What are you talking about, Sally? Mr. Fellows isn’t leaving?” Jennifer said, mystified.

  “Yes, he is, Miss Alvery. He’s going at the end of the week. Mr. Parker told me just before he went to lunch.”

  “You must be mistaken. Mr. Fellows doesn’t retire until next September.”

  “I’m not, Miss Alvery. Mr. Parker stopped me on the stairs. He said, ‘Sally, I have a job for you this afternoon. Mr. Fellows is leaving us unexpectedly and I’m sure the rest of the staff would like to give him a memento of his long service here. I want to organise a collection. Come and see me when you’ve been round to everyone.’ ”

  “I see,” Jennifer said slowly. “Well, I haven’t much money at the moment. Come back later, will you, Sally?”

  After the girl had gone, Jennifer pushed back her chair and began to pace restively about the office.

  She had known for some time that Mr. Fellows irritated Neal. She had watched him drumming his fingers on the desk whenever the assistant manager launched into one of his rambling expositions about some matter which Neal had already made a decision on. But she had never dreamed he could be so callous as to dismiss the poor old boy within a year of his retirement.