by Anne Baker
‘I’ll ask him,’ Nigel said. ‘Father has pretty fixed ideas about what he wants.’
‘How is he?’
Nigel shook his head. ‘Not well. No longer well enough to work. He couldn’t cope with a full day’s work now.’
‘Nigel, it must be at least a decade since he worked a full day.’
‘Yes, poor Father. I’ll find out what he wants us to do.’ Nigel smiled at her. ‘I’m glad you remembered. We need to make a bit of a fuss of him.’
Millie went back to the lab shaking her head. It seemed both Nigel and Marcus had forgotten their father was about to retire. What were they thinking about?
The next morning Nigel came to the lab to see her. ‘Father isn’t feeling at all well,’ he said. ‘He says too many people round him exhaust him, and he doesn’t feel he needs to speak to the whole staff. He’d prefer us to call a senior staff meeting on the last morning so he can say goodbye to them, and perhaps a lunch just for the family. He gets very tired towards evening and likes to stick to his usual routine.’
It sounded, Millie thought, as if James was failing more than she’d thought. ‘Did you ask where he wanted to have this lunch?’
‘The Adelphi.’
‘Have you booked it?’
‘Not yet, but I will.’
‘At least he knows what he wants,’ Millie said.
‘Yes. There’s one other thing.’
‘Yes?’ Millie thought he’d probably like a commemorative gift like a gold watch, that’s what she’d done for other retirees. She could see Nigel was watching her closely.
‘He believes a small bonus would be appropriate, a one-off payment to crown a lifetime’s work.’
Millie felt suddenly sick. Alarm bells were ringing in her head. ‘A small bonus? How much does he feel would be appropriate?’
‘He said ten thousand at first, but I told him the company might find it difficult to meet that and persuaded him that you’d probably find five thousand a reasonable compromise.’ He handed her an envelope. ‘I asked him to put it in writing so we could authorise it and put the matter in hand. That’s all right, isn’t it?’
Millie froze. She felt she was being rushed into handing over a large amount of company money to James. Her house had had to be valued for probate and a figure of five and a half thousand had been put on it. So the amount proposed was hardly small. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she said.
‘Yes of course.’ Nigel was smiling. ‘Don’t take too long. We should really present a bonus cheque to him on the day he retires.’
When the lab door closed behind him Millie went back to her desk and slid limply on to her chair. The last thing she wanted was to pay James anything. But a bonus big enough to buy a substantial house when the company was struggling to supply its markets in this post-war era? She asked herself what Pete would do in these circumstances. She didn’t think he’d want to do it either.
It took her a long time to tear open the envelope Nigel had given her and study the contents. It read, ‘In accordance with the agreement made between me and my brother Peter on 3 August 1920, I request in writing a payment to be made to me from company funds as a bonus to reward a lifetime of hard work for the company.’
There was the sum in black and white, £5,000. On the left-hand side it was signed by James and on the right-hand side was a line awaiting a signature, with the name Emily Jane Maynard typed underneath.
Millie took a couple of deep breaths before opening the bottom drawer of her desk. She wanted to see a copy of the agreement that had been drawn up in 1920. When Marcus had demanded the keys to Pete’s desk she’d hurriedly cleared out everything that appeared to be of importance. She hoped to find it here.
She felt all thumbs and couldn’t see what she was looking for, she needed to calm down. She lifted an armful of files and papers on top of her desk and started again more carefully but there was nothing like that here. She dropped them all back in again and closed the drawer with her foot. She didn’t like the way Nigel and James had gone about this. They were trying to pressurise her into setting this up quickly. A small bonus indeed and the story about it being a compromise!
Another moment’s thought and she sprang to her feet, snatched up the letter and went along to Andrew’s office. She found him rifling through his file cabinet.
‘While you’re there,’ she said, ‘would you have a copy of an agreement made between James and Peter in nineteen twenty?’
‘Nineteen twenty? I don’t think so. Would that be when their father handed the business over to them?’ He came back to his desk.
‘I don’t know. No, it sounds more like a legal document drawn up to set out the rights of the partners, and possibly how the business was to be managed.’ She pushed James’s letter across to him and collapsed onto his visitor’s chair. ‘James is asking for a retirement bonus of five grand from company capital.’
He whistled through his teeth. ‘Five grand?’
‘It’s a bit much, isn’t it?’
Andrew was deep in thought. ‘There’s enough money to do it if that’s what you want, over thirteen grand at the moment. Your solicitor should have a copy of the agreement and the best advice I can offer is, don’t sign this until you’ve had a word with him and found out the legal position. It may be they need your goodwill for this, and you might decide it makes better economic sense to spend the money on other things.’
‘I don’t think he deserves a bonus.’ Millie was cross that he’d even asked for it. ‘We’ve been paying his salary for years and he hardly ever comes to work.’
She went back to her office and rang Mr Douglas. When his secretary answered, she asked if she might speak to him and was lucky enough to find he hadn’t a client with him.
‘Is something the matter, Mrs Maynard?’ he asked, and when she told him he said, ‘Bring the letter and come and see me this morning. I shall be free after eleven o’clock.’
She was impatient to have this sorted quickly but had to catch the bus because it was one of the days when she was running short of petrol. She found the quiet, formal atmosphere of Mr Douglas’s office calming.
He had a document laid out in front of him. ‘I looked out the agreement,’ he said, ‘and I’ve run my eye over it. You wanted to know what it lays down with regard to the payment of a bonus to your brother-in-law?’
His secretary placed a cup of tea in front of Millie. ‘He’s asking for one,’ she said, sliding his letter across the desk to Mr Douglas. ‘What I want to know is, does he have a legal right to this? Do I have to agree to him having it?’
‘There’s no mention of bonuses in this document,’ he said, looking over his glasses at her, ‘so the answer to that is no, he has no legal right to be paid a bonus, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have one.’
‘I think the company will need cash soon. No maintenance has been done since before the war and our equipment will need to be brought up to date. I’d prefer to keep the money for that.’
‘Very wise, my dear.’ He took a sip from his own cup of tea. ‘What this agreement lays down is that the profit accumulated by your business is jointly owned and therefore you must both agree as to how it is to be used. That is why you have to sign this if you want James to have a bonus.’
‘I don’t. He hasn’t kept regular office hours for more than a decade. He hardly comes at all any more and I don’t think he deserves it. He isn’t well, you see. That’s why he’s decided to retire early.’
‘Well, there is something here about retirement. Now where did I see that? Yes . . . “It is agreed that retirement can take place and a pension paid from the age of sixty-five. The pension being pro-rata . . .” etc. But he’s retiring early, you said.’
‘He’ll be sixty-three on New Year’s Day.’
‘Ah yes, the younger brother.�
� Mr Douglas adjusted his glasses and went on in his pedantic manner, ‘Then there is no legal requirement for his pension to be paid until he reaches the age of sixty-five, unless you wish to pay it, of course.’
Millie allowed herself a little smile. ‘Thank you.’ Mr Douglas went on to explain the significance of the agreement to her and that gave her the confidence to make decisions. ‘Could I have a copy of this agreement, d’you think?’
‘By all means, I’ll get my secretary to send you one.’
Millie wished him a Merry Christmas and travelled back to the lab with her mind made up. She would refuse to give James a bonus. She felt victorious, what she’d learned from Mr Douglas had given her an insight into what Nigel was trying to do and how she might get the better of him this time.
She’d been a fool to think he was easier to cope with than Marcus. He’d been friendly and agreed both sides of the family had to get along for the good of the company, but she could see now that that had been a façade. Nigel was no better than his father and brother. His methods were different, that was all, and it made him more dangerous.
It was almost lunchtime when Millie returned to the office. She was going upstairs to the lab when she met Andrew. ‘How did you get on?’ he asked.
‘It was good advice you gave me, Mr Douglas has straightened me out.’
‘Good. Have you brought sandwiches today? How about coming to my office to eat them? Come and tell me what he said.’
Millie was in good spirits, she felt she wanted to talk to somebody and who better than Andrew? He was doing his best to help her. Ten minutes later she was in his office biting into her bloater paste sandwiches and telling him what she’d found out.
‘All three are determined to do me down,’ she said. ‘They thought they could get money out of the company this way and I’d feel unable to stop them. I bet Nigel would have persuaded his father to buy a house with it, either for him or Marcus.’
‘He could buy them one each with that. They are beginning to build again, there’s a new estate going up near us.’
‘Not the sort of houses they aspire to. They keep on at me. It makes me wary, on edge, wondering what their next scheme will be.’
Andrew smiled. ‘You’ve beaten them every time.’
‘Yes, with help from you and Mr Douglas.’
‘Millie, I’d avoid another fight with them. It just makes them more determined to have their own way.’
‘I won’t be able to avoid a fight. Not if I refuse Uncle James a bonus.’
‘Well, be sure to work out your reasons first. Get your argument cut and dried and then say what you have to, quietly and calmly. Stay in control. Don’t lose your temper even if Nigel does. Or . . .’ He pondered for a moment. ‘You could just return their document unsigned, with a letter giving your reasons.’
Millie was nervous, she hated having arguments with Pete’s relatives and she was in no doubt this would cause one. If only Pete were here to handle this. Back in the lab, she gave Denis some work to do and then, with a pencil and paper in front of her, wrote out the reasons why she would not agree to this bonus. She’d decided to stay well away from Nigel and was drafting a letter explaining why she was refusing it when he came into the lab.
Her heart sank when she saw him. He pulled out the chair in front of her desk to sit down, and with great affability said, ‘Have you had time to think about Father’s bonus? We do need to move on this if we’re to get it organised in time. Everything’s closing down for Christmas.’
Millie could hear a brass band in the street below playing ‘Hark, the herald angels sing’. She took a deep breath and pushed James’s letter of request back to Nigel.
‘I haven’t signed it,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t think the company can afford to pay out such a bonus when we’re trying to build it up and recover from the war.’
Nigel looked shocked. She could see he hadn’t expected an outright refusal. ‘But there are company profits amounting to thirteen thousand pounds that haven’t been shared out.’
‘Yes, I believe Pete and James agreed not to share out the profits for a year or two, and it has taken time and a lot of hard work to save that. I think we all understand that this building will need a lot spent on repairs as soon as materials are available. Nothing has been done since before the war.’
‘Of course, but surely the bonus could be afforded?’
‘Our machinery is old-fashioned and almost worn out. It would make economic sense to bring the factory up to date, and we are in dire need of a fleet of new delivery vans.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘I think your father and I should both keep our share of the profits in the company to spend in that way. We might even want to expand into new premises if the opportunity comes up. We wouldn’t want shortage of cash to hold us back, would we?’ Nigel was looking desperate. ‘Of course,’ she went on, ‘if you feel your father must be rewarded with a bonus, he could take it out of his own half share of the accrued profit. I’ve discussed it with Mr Douglas. Why don’t you do the same?’
‘Perhaps I will.’
‘But if my share of the profit is reinvested in the business – in new machines for instance – and James’s is withdrawn, then my share of the business increases while his goes down, and I will eventually own the controlling share.’
‘What?’ He looked horrified.
‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’ Millie smiled. It hadn’t been obvious to her until Mr Douglas had pointed it out. Like Nigel, she’d never given it any thought.
Nigel’s face was flushed and angry. ‘Are you trying to grab control of the company and ease us, the rightful owners, out?’
‘No,’ she said, trying to sound as superior as he did. ‘I’m pointing out the legal position.’ Thank goodness she’d found out the facts first. ‘And also, in the same agreement you mention, the retirement age was fixed at sixty-five and Uncle James does not reach that age for another two years. There is no legal right for him to claim a pension now.’
Millie had never seen Nigel so irate and confused before. ‘Are you telling me you’ll deny him a pension too?’
‘No, Nigel, I am not. I said he has no legal right to claim one from the company for another two years, but I am willing to allow him to draw it immediately. After all, he has been claiming a salary for nearly a decade and doing nothing for it, and the pension is lower so it will be to the company’s advantage.’
Millie realised she was doing what Andrew had advised her not to, she was getting Nigel’s back up.
He was so enraged he couldn’t speak.
‘What I’d like us to do,’ she went on gently, ‘is to concentrate on running the business as efficiently as we can. If we can keep the staff working contentedly, and we all work for the same goal, it will be to our mutual benefit.’
Nigel slammed out, leaving his father’s letter requesting the bonus on her desk. It gave Millie great satisfaction to tear it into small pieces and drop them in her waste-paper basket.
Chapter Twenty
It was Christmas Eve, and Sylvie and the boys hung their stockings round the nursery fireplace as they always had. Once they’d gone to bed, Millie filled them with tangerines and nuts and small novelties that she’d been able to buy.
She was woken up early on Christmas morning by the sound of carols being played on the gramophone outside her room and the boys racing round the house in high good humour. Kenny appeared with a tray of morning tea, followed by Simon dragging a sleepy Sylvie and putting her in the double bed beside her.
They’d hardly had time to pour out their tea before the boys were back with their arms full of Christmas stockings and colourfully wrapped presents. They took turns to empty their stockings and open their gifts, cooing over the contents and spreading them across her eiderdown.
F
or her part, Millie enjoyed opening and exclaiming over the little gifts her children laid before her. With help from Helen, Sylvie had made her a blouse, Kenny had made homemade chocolate truffles, and Simon had bought her a new address book, of which she was very much in need. What she enjoyed most was seeing her children happy and excited.
When lunchtime drew near, she drove them to Valerie’s house, with the boys singing carols on the back seat. Helen and her family were already there and the succulent scent of roasting turkey filled the house. The festive spirit was much in evidence, though they all talked of Pete and drank a toast to absent friends before they ate their Christmas dinner.
The evening spent at Helen’s house playing games and singing round the piano was equally jolly, though Millie admitted to herself afterwards that without Pete it could never be as much fun as earlier Christmases.
It was the day of James’s retirement ceremony, and the last time he would come to the office. As arranged, at eleven o’clock Millie and all the senior staff collected in the boardroom. There was an uneasy atmosphere, they didn’t know whether to sit at the boardroom table as they usually did, or collect round Nigel’s desk near the big window looking out over the Mersey. He and his father were already there. Coffee and biscuits were being served.
To Millie, it was only too obvious that James was cross, Nigel was agitated and the rest of the staff were growing increasingly on edge. ‘Where is Marcus?’ James kept asking. ‘Where can he have got to? Has anybody seen him?’
He delayed his farewell speech for fifteen minutes. It was an uncomfortable delay and in the end he started before there was any sign of Marcus. By then, James was unable to concentrate on what he was saying, he kept losing the thread and his speech was neither clear nor coherent.
They were all relieved when Nigel suggested they make their way to the Adelphi Hotel. Andrew had already offered Millie a lift and he took Tom Bedford and Albert Lancashire as well on the back seat. When they arrived, they were surprised to find Marcus waiting for them at the front door, looking nervous.