A Liverpool Legacy (19 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Christmas was fast approaching and as this would be Millie’s first without Pete, she was missing him more than ever and was thinking of him all the time. Tom Bedford procured a turkey for her as he had relatives who were farmers. Valerie had invited her and her children to have a midday Christmas dinner at her house and Helen was going to provide a cold supper and singing round the piano in the evening, so she handed the turkey over to them to feed the family.

Sylvie and the boys were invited to one or two pre-Christmas parties and at home they were busy making Christmas cards and additional decorations for the playroom. There was much whispering and secrecy about presents. The weekend before the holiday they brought down the tree and all the old decorations from the attic, and they had noisy fun hanging decorations and dressing the tree. As they’d used the same ones since before the war they remembered each one almost as though it was an old friend and exclaimed with delight as it came to light.

All the preparations reminded Millie that Uncle James had said he wanted to retire at the end of the year. In the past, whenever an employee retired, Pete had arranged some little ceremony and a parting gift to celebrate the occasion. When Marcus took over his office it was one of several tasks Millie had suggested he take over. Millie had had to step in for the last two men who had retired from the factory floor but now James’s retirement date was drawing closer and she felt it might cause resentment if she went ahead and organised something for him herself.

James hadn’t come to the office for the last few weeks so she couldn’t consult him, and as she’d heard no mention of any retirement arrangements, she climbed up to the room in the turret one morning to see Marcus.

He wasn’t in, his desk was bare and his waste-paper basket empty. It was easy to see he hadn’t come to work this morning. She felt a flush of anger; he and his brother had arrived saying that as family members they would step into Pete’s shoes and run the company, but Marcus was following in his father’s footsteps and rarely coming to work, and doing nothing when he was here. She thought he was a waste of time and money, a liability for the business.

Millie ran down to the boardroom to see Nigel. He had impeccable manners and leapt to his feet as she entered. She couldn’t help complaining about Marcus and let him see her anger.

‘What does he do with himself all day? He’s supposed to be here in working hours, and he never gives any explanation or apology for his absence.’

Nigel backed her towards a chair. ‘I’m sorry, I know Marcus isn’t the easiest person to handle at the moment. He’s got personal problems and we’re all worried about him.’

‘I suppose his absence is easier to take than having him here boxing Billy’s ears and causing mayhem.’ Millie relaxed and tried to smile. ‘Straighten him out, Nigel. The business can’t go on carrying him for ever.’

‘I know. Father is losing patience with him too and I feel caught between them. Please give him another chance.’

Millie shrugged. ‘What else can I do?’

‘Why were you looking for him? Did you want him to do something?’

‘Yes,’ Millie explained. ‘I wanted him to arrange something for your father’s retirement. What would he like us to do? I can’t ask him as he doesn’t come in any more.’

Nigel sighed with exasperation. ‘I don’t know.’

‘He’ll want to come in and say goodbye to everybody, won’t he? Make his retirement official.’

‘Yes. Perhaps we could ask him to come in on his last day and give a little farewell speech. Then we could take him out for a celebratory dinner that evening.’

‘But that will be New Year’s Eve,’ Millie pointed out, ‘and everywhere gets booked up well ahead. We might have left it a bit late to book for a large number. Anyway, the staff may want to make their own arrangements for that night. Wouldn’t it be better if we had it the week before? He could come in during the afternoon and make his farewell speech to the whole factory during their tea break. Then perhaps a dinner with the senior managers that evening.’

‘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.’