Sing Like You Know the Words (46 page)

The takeover would mean that the
link between David and the company would finally be broken. Even if
he had not been so distracted by politics, there would not have
been much that he could do about it. He still had shares, but these
days he could be outvoted. In any case, the reality was that now
that he was a member of parliament, David had moved on to another
stage of his life. There was all the excitement and ceremony of his
first term at Westminster: a new game with complicated rules to be
learned. There was the feeling that he was going to be part of a
tide of change that had just begun to swell before sweeping over
all that needed to be washed away.

David might have other concerns,
but Matthew had to inform his readers about the new owners of the
works and what plans they had for the future.

Matthew found the offices of
Cromwell Industries much changed since he was last there, though
the plant itself looked no different. In the offices, there were
more people, more workstations, more phones, more glass. An elegant
assistant informed him that Mr Pearson would be with him presently,
when he finished talking with head office.

Eventually he was shown into the
executive suite and introduced to Dan Pearson, a tall man, quite
lean, with a strong jaw and a broad smile. They shook hands

-I’m very grateful to you for
making the time to see me Mr Pearson. I appreciate you are very
busy.

-It’s we who are grateful to you
Matthew. Local connections are key to our success. We are very
conscious that we engage in a partnership with our communities. We
want to play our part. I’m sure this profile will help.

-Well, thank you. You should
know, I don’t normally work on the business pages, but there is a
lot of local interest right now. I suppose we’ll mostly use the
handout that your assistant provided for our piece, it’s very…

-Comprehensive.

-I was going to say, on message,
but yes. Anyway, just one or two questions to flesh things out.

-Fire away

-Thank you again. Maybe a little
human interest, to give a background if you don’t-object? You’re
English I believe?

-That´s correct. We have a place
in Surrey. That’s where my children go to school.

-So England is home to you?

-Well, as you know, Pelican is a
global business, so work takes me pretty much everywhere, but it is
good to have the chance to spend a year or two working in the UK,
yes.

-And could you explain exactly
what it is that Pelican does? I’m sorry, as I say I’m not really a
business journalist. Maybe you could tell me in words that our
general readers will understand. You’re not just an engineering
company?

-Good lord no. That´s a good
question though, Matt. As it says in our handout, we specialize in
leveraging assets to maximise shareholder return, but I guess that
sounds like jargon to you. So no, we are not an engineering company
in the sense that you mean. We like to think that we engineer
efficiencies.

-And how does that work?

-Well, in effect, we buy
companies where we can see that there is a good opportunity to
improve them, to boost their value by making them more efficient.
We realize those efficiencies and then we return those companies to
the market.

-And, if you can say, do you
think that, in local terms, that process is likely to mean fewer
jobs. You know that has particular interest for our readers. I
understand you already own a plant similar to this one in the Far
East.

-Malaysia actually, but that
really is a different business to Cromwell. This is a business with
a very high skill base. If I had to guess, I’d say that we would
probably hope to recruit more people in this area over the next few
years. The current medium term forecasts for demand look very
promising. Of course you know I can’t say too much – can’t risk
giving you information that might be market sensitive. And
naturally, we always remain responsive to market conditions.

-That’s reassuring, I think.
Could you tell me though, are there any plans to invest in
replacement plant? Some people have told me that the production
line here is not as up to date as it should be.

-That is another interesting
point Matt, but you know typically, at Pelican, we don’t so much
look to change the long term infrastructure of our acquisitions;
though that’s not to say it couldn’t happen if we found a business
need. The capital structure of our business is more geared towards
acquisition, improvement and then passing on to a long term holder
of the asset. Normally we’d be invested for, say, two to three
years at most; and you might not see a return on new plant in that
time.

-So in effect, you borrow the
money to buy the company, service the debt from its revenues and
then sell it on for a higher price?

-There’s more to it than that. I
wish it were that simple: but at a very basic level, yes.

-Thanks Mr Pearson, I’m sure
it’s all in the handout but you are making things much clearer for
me

-No problem

-So finally, and thanks again
for your time, you mentioned market conditions earlier

-Yes

-How do you see those conditions
affecting the business in the future? I mean, could you tell us
what factors might affect your decisions?

-You’ll find that summarised in
our annual report, but in the end, the market decides for us
all

-And how do you know when the
market has decided?

-Finally, for us, it’s about the
shareholder value. Like any company, our duty is to get the best
deal for our shareholders

-Interesting; so that’s the only
rule, ultimately

-That’s the way things are. It’s
always been that way in business.

-Thanks Mr Pearson, you’ve been
very generous with your time. I’m grateful to you for explaining
things to me so clearly.

-No problem. If you think of
anything else you need later, give me a call.

Matthew went back to the office
and told the business reporter, an earnest boy who always wore a
suit to work, to print a simplified version of the Pelican handout
with a short introduction in the English language. He left the boy
to pen it, saying that he had to give some bad news to an old
friend. If I have to bet, the factory will be closed within the
year, he thought.

Later that day, Pearson met with
his finance director and human resources chief to discuss the plans
for shutting down Cromwell and moving the contracts to
Malaysia.

-I have to say it’s not a bad
little business, Finance was saying. Better than we´d expected.

-We’ll run it to the end of the
year. That’s a decent interval and long enough to discover that the
market has moved against our forecast. Changing international
economy, sharp downturn in our expectations. Usual stuff. If it
gets rough we can hint at years of under investment by previous
ownership, but not too heavy with that. What do the closedown costs
look like?

-It’s the UK Dan; it’s not like
France or Germany. A lot of the workforce has been here a long
time, which pushes up their entitlements a little, but still
peanuts, comparatively.

Human Resources sounded like he
wanted to get started on the severances right away, but Finance had
a query.

-Are you certain we need to play
it this way?

Pearson looked disgusted.

-Ron, are you with me or against
me here? You know as well as I do that I’m six months into a two
year rotation here as top guy here in Europe. If things go well, I
am looking at main board, Asia Pacific region after that. And the
two of you will be with me all the way, I hope. We need to shift
some assets and do it now. You’ve seen the numbers: if we start
developing this business now it will soak up cost. We’re looking at
seventeen to twenty-three months to see the improvement on the base
case. We might struggle to make our bonus numbers. And what will
the situation be in two years? Correct: you and I will have moved
on and someone else will take the credit. Both of us know Ron, that
in the real world, that isn´t going to happen.

***

David was on the television
again. This time it was the regional news magazine. The outside
broadcast consisted of a few junior reporters being filmed outside
the barracks of the various Yorkshire based regiments, trying not
to look miserable in the rain as they speculated on what
mobilisation might mean for the troops and their families. Next,
the scene shifted to the studio, where David and the senior
presenter were seated in front of a monitor watching the end of the
last item.

- And after that summary, here
to discuss the situation we have local MP David Thomas, good
evening. David, you´re respected in Westminster for your views on
international affairs. You´ve been tipped as a future foreign
office minister. I think you were also a lawyer before entering
politics. What response do you have for the growing numbers of
people in our region who argue that it would be illegal as well as
wrong for Britain to join the United States in military action in
Iraq?

On the screen, it hardly seemed
like David: he looked older and heavier; a figure of authority.
With his dark suit and his practised gestures, he seemed almost
presidential.

-Can I say firstly, no one feels
more than I the gravity of a potential use of military force.
Clearly the government must consider situations like the present
crisis very carefully, taking on board all sides of the argument.
But in the end, it is the fundamental responsibility of the
government of this country to safeguard the security of its people.
Having considered what we know, and unfortunately not all of that
information can be made public for very good reasons; our
judgement, is that there is a threat to the United Kingdom that is
present and real. In that circumstance, this government has to be
prepared to take action with our American allies.

David´s voice was sombre to the
point of exaggeration, like a disappointed parent lecturing a
naughty child. Now the interviewer was speaking again.

-Mr Thomas, you’ve spoken from
time to time about your faith, and how it’s made you stronger in
politics. If there is a war there will be innocent victims. Tell
us, how do you reconcile your belief with being prepared to see
innocent people bombed?

David was leaning forward, on
the edge of his seat, to hear the question, nodding his
understanding of the difficulty. He frowned and his hands came
together for a moment, as if in prayer. Then he sat back in the
chair to deliver his considered response.

-I can´t pretend that is an easy
question, and the first thing to say is that we all hope there
won’t be a war. We´re confronting an evil dictator, who has killed
many thousands of his own people, but even now we are prepared to
work with him for a peaceful solution. If a conflict is forced on
us, then we have to make every effort to minimise the effect on
civilian populations; but we have to be honest; there are bound to
be some tragedies. It comes to this, in my judgement; we have to
ask ourselves whether those tragedies outweighed the good that we
can do, by our intervention, for the people of Iraq, and for our
own people.

Matthew didn´t want to see any
more, but he couldn´t bring himself to switch off. It wasn´t that
it was David: he´d learned by now to separate his friend from the
image he read about or saw on the screen. But how could any of them
talk like this? It was the same story as the Falklands War and the
war after that. He was only waiting for one of them to say, it´s
all bollocks: Tony can tell that cowboy in the White House to get
on with it on his own if he wants. Wouldn´t that be what David
liked to call leadership?

But it wouldn´t happen, and in
his heart Matthew knew why only a few marginal figures would have
the nerve for that. It was a lack of confidence that went back to
the Michael Foot years and the ghosts of ninety three: it was the
safety blanket of party discipline, and the secret fear of being
found out, after pretending to be the same as the Tories to get
power. Now they were all terrified of being caught showing
progressive sympathies. It went back even further than past
political disappointments. It was what he´d told David years ago
about a generation of ex-grammar school boys becoming more
conformist than their predecessors; only trying to fit in and be
taken seriously.

But some of the arguments about
this war were even too childish for schoolboys. Don’t argue with
the big boy. We know he’s a bully, but maybe we can stop him doing
anything too beastly if we play along with him.

Matthew had listened to David
telling him privately that the Americans were going to attack Iraq
whatever anyone thought about it. Some country had to pay for
terrorist acts committed on their own soil, but all the
perpetrators came from countries that were allies. Iraq was the
best available target for vengeance, and since the American public
remembered Sadaam as a cartoon villain from the time of the first
desert war, the administration had an easy job with public opinion.
All that the Foreign Office could hope for was to give what was
going to happen some appearance of legitimacy. The same man who´d
told him this was now on television stoking the fires and talking
about balancing the greater good.

Matthew was trying to write an
editorial on his laptop. The subject seemed meaningless just now.
He put his head in his hands for a moment, wondering what he could
write about such a situation even if he could get it printed. It
seemed a case of four legs good, two legs better; and already too
late to see which was pig and which was man.

***

Two days later, when David left
the house in the morning and went to his car, he was surprised to
notice a tarpaulin of heavy plastic sheeting pitched just outside
his gate, on the grassy expanse between the high garden wall and
the road. Someone had put up a makeshift tent. A handful of people
were standing around it. When they saw him they began chanting. He
didn’t stop to listen to the words. He got in the car and was about
to drive on, but seeing one of the figures made him pause. He was
sure that was Tim standing with them. He had to go and check.