Page 5 of The Happiest Ever After
‘So who had the affair then, him or her?’ asked Sheridan.
Polly stared at her incredulously. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, isn’t it a thing, that people who have almost buggered up their marriage decide to wipe the slate clean and start again with the vows they’ve just smashed into smithereens?’
Neither Camay nor Ward were the affair types. He wheezed getting out of a chair; humping some young thing would definitely be beyond his capabilities. Plus, Camay wouldn’t allow it. And she would never risk being parted from his pension prospects for an extramarital fling of her own. Unless it was with Richard Branson.
‘Maybe, but not in their case,’ replied Polly. ‘They’re solid as a pair of rocks.’
‘Seems like a right old waste of money to me then,’ said Sheridan.
‘They have it to burn,’ said Polly. Her plum satin wedding gown and Polly’s shapeless beige bridesmaid bag, the cars, the champagne, the hair and make-up woman and pink lamb main course wouldn’t even make a dent in their savings.
‘I’d love to be super rich, wouldn’t you, Pol?’ Sheridan sighed wistfully.
Polly nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said knowing that she was going to besuper poorfor the foreseeable future, at least money wise. Her wealth would be in the form of freedom, and she planned on spending it liberally.
Just after lunch Jeremy bobbed his head out of his office not to ask for a drink for once, but for Polly to pop in. She followed him and he closed the door behind them and asked herto sit. He plonked himself in his leather swivelly executive chair behind his desk and smiled.
‘I wanted to fill you in about Nutbush,’ he said with a smile so greasy it was a wonder it didn’t slide off his lips. She noticed how deliberately he spoke, as if choosing every word with care.
‘Okay,’ replied Polly, not giving away that she’d heard the good news already.
‘You’ll be delighted to hear that they are on the steepest of upward trajectories.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ replied Polly. ‘I knew they would be.’
‘Suffice to say that they are extremely glad they reached out to us at Northern Eagles.’
‘Great stuff,’ said Polly, nodding.
‘I’m aware this was initially your client,’ Jeremy went on. ‘And you did an admirable job of pointing their ship in the right direction.’
It was a slight understatement. Nutbush was a sports company, on the brink of receivership. They had a lot of competition in the market, both bargain stores and high-end and they didn’t offer enough to divert custom from either. Polly had gone out to visit them and found their shops a mess. But not beyond hope,neverbeyond; her old boss Alan had trained her to see that there was always that, if they were prepared to listen to expert advice. There was nothing that couldn’t be spun around, it was just finding the right combination for the safe holding the treasure, as Alan used to say. And when she did find it, the Nutbush file was whipped from her with the alacrity of a champion greyhound on amphetamines.
‘I wanted to formally acknowledge your input,’ Jeremy went on, pressing his hands together and doing thatthank-you gesture that gave her the ick. ‘I know it was hard at first to get them to accept the changes we suggested, so well done on that.’
We.Polly laughed inwardly.
‘… But I must give you credit where it is due, Polly, you were able to get through to them that ours was the path they should follow. Pretty basic stuff of course, but nonetheless… good show.’
It wasn’t basic stuff at all. It was a massive gamble. Every other business was closing stores and upping their online trading and that’s what Jeremy and his team had expected her to suggest. But Polly’s instinct was to do exactly the opposite and expand their high street presence in areas where they were strong, in towns being regenerated where planners wanted to lure people away from their computers to shop in person. She had the vision of making Nutbush a seductive space to wander around. She wanted to make it cool to shop there and deliver an impact that couldn’t be felt online. She spent a lot of hours visiting their stores to absorb what the problem with them was, who shopped there now, who might shop there in future. The fixes she suggested raised eyebrows but they worked. Retro music pumping through the speakers, less stock on the floor so it looked cleaner with more space, lowered ceilings, warmer lighting instead of the harsh bright white, even a change of coathanger. Then she discovered there was a premiership footballer by the name of Cedric Nutbush. She wormed her way around his PR. Did he want to help out an ailing sports firm, set up by a young man who’d had a promising football career until a car crash shattered his leg? An inspiration to young kids that there wasn’t just one road to success? Could they use his image (for the price of a hefty donation to his underprivileged kids’charity) and the slogan:Nutbush. No Limits.Cedric Nutbush went for it and the whole combo worked like magic.
And Polly wasn’t even invited to the reopening of their flagship store in Manchester although Jeremy and his merry band of male managers were. The photo of them, Cedric and the Nutbush founder ended up in all the national papers. That weekend she took the train to Manchester Piccadilly, walked around the shop, felt the vibe, saw the length of the queue at the till and felt a massive sense of pride, albeit tainted with some rightful anger and frustration. Her old boss Alan Eagleton would have put her on a pedestal for what she’d done for them, not shoved her in a cupboard out of sight.
‘The company owes you,’ said Jeremy, jabbing his long, thin finger at her. Everything about Jeremy was long and thin: his nose, his chin, his legs, his fingers. He’d have long slim feet with elongated toes as well, she just knew, though her imagination forbade that she went any further than that. ‘I’ve had a word with HR and we are upping your salary by a thousand pounds. So, what do you think about that?’ He beamed. Jeremy beaming was not a good look because his mouth turned into a deranged V shape.
What do I think about that? Polly mused. She could imagine Alan sitting at the desk Jeremy now occupied raising his shaggy eyebrows and urging her to tell him to stick that grand up his arse, one fiver at a time.
‘Good good.’ Jeremy didn’t wait for her answer, but picked up a file from his desk and handed it to her. ‘Knew you’d be thrilled. Now, if you could take a look at this. You won’t have heard of them and that’s the point. They have a big budget to spend on improvements. If anyone can make them into the next Warburtons, you can.’ He stood, signifying their meeting was at an end. He was still smiling, inthe way the Pope would smile having granted a poor person a blessing.
‘What’s up, Pol?’ said Sheridan when Polly returned and threw herself down on her seat. ‘Your cheeks are very red.’
‘I’m cross, that’s what I am,’ said Polly. ‘Cross enough to storm out of his damned… building and never come back.’ Jeremy’s V-shaped lips were branded on her brain. V for the victory he’d claimed for doing nothing other than regurgitate her ideas, her suggestions and then he’d had the nerve to fling her a bit of icing from his celebratory cake.
‘I’ve just typed up a letter from Germy for HR. Is it—’
Polly held up her hand to stop Sheridan from saying any more. Her heart was racing, her head was full of words unsaid. She’d taken two years’ worth of crap from him now, and it was enough. She really did need to bemore Sabrina.She couldn’t wait for her effect to kick in.
