The Emerald Valley (69 page)

As Joe hung up Amy heard another click on the line, closer to home and quite distinctive. Damnation! she thought. It's that woman at the telephone exchange, listening in again!

That was the trouble with the telephone. Sitting in her own front room, the woman who operated the Hillsbridge exchange could plug in to whatever conversations she chose – and she was never slow in broadcasting what she heard. In no time it would be all over town that Roberts Haulage was in trouble, and even if that was still an exaggeration at the moment, it might not be for long …

Amy's heart sank. She hated the idea of people saying the business was failing even more than she hated being branded a scarlet woman, for the business was her pride and joy. But there was no doubt about it, and as the weeks went by she was forced to admit that things were not going well. Apart from the two lost contracts, there was a shortage of casual hirings, with only one new booking coming in over a month. Too much of the time the lorries were idle. But the bills still had to be paid and the bank loan still ate up the fast diminishing profits.

How long would it take to ride out the storm? Amy wondered. How long before the talk died down and people began coming to Roberts Haulage again – if indeed that was the reason? Or would that never happen? If her former clients were satisfied with the new haulage firm, then they might very well stick to it. Well situated for both quarries and woodlands, Amy could not think why it hadn't taken off at her expense the moment it opened up.

In an attempt to drum up business, she spent a whole day drawing up a list of likely clients and telephoning round to them, but this too was a frustrating affair. In the bigger and more prosperous firms she found herself being fobbed off by a lady clerk without ever reaching the principal or even the transport manager; and though she was given a polite enough reception by the small one-man businesses, her persuasive powers got her precisely nowhere.

Could it be that she had been wrong to attribute the falling-off in business solely to the rumours about her reputation? Amy wondered. Was it rather the cautious expansion of the last few years was grinding to a halt and firms were pulling in their horns? For a little while it had seemed that the golden years might be just around the corner not only for the men who had survived the Great War, but also for those too young to have known anything about it. When the Kellogg Pact had been signed by every nation of the world, ensuring that conflict would never again be used as a solution to problems and promoting lasting peace, it had spread an umbrella of hope over the nation, even here in the depressed Somerset coalfield. But now, as she made her telephone calls, Amy sensed a change of mood which had nothing to do with her escapade with Oliver Scott – and hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry that that might not be the sole cause of her problems.

If only I had someone to talk it over with, it would not be quite so bad, Amy thought wretchedly. But there was no one. Mam wouldn't understand – she never had. Her watchword had always been caution, and any advice she had to give now would probably centre around disposing of the assets and making sure Amy had a credit balance in a piggy bank rather than owing money to ‘the proper bank'; the latter being one of the few buildings in Hillsbridge which, along with the billiards hall and the mortuary, were beyond Charlotte's pale – places in which she would never be persuaded to set foot.

In any case, Mam was far too preoccupied these days to talk about anything but the King's health, Amy thought. In the middle of November a lung infection had laid him low and the daily bulletins on his condition were not encouraging. Always an ardent royalist, Charlotte followed the downhill progress as the cold turned to congestion of the lung, tutting knowingly when an increase in fever was reported and shuddering when pleurisy was mentioned.

‘Poor soul – with all those doctors, you'd think they'd able to do something for him, wouldn't you?' she commented regularly and on the day when Amy was worried sick about the balancing of her accounts, all Charlotte could talk about was that the Prince of Wales was racing home to London from ‘somewhere between Lake Tanganyika and Dar-es-Salaam'.

‘He's a wonderful man, but I hope and pray he won't become King just yet,' Charlotte said. ‘Now, Amy, what were you saying about the lorry?'

‘Nothing,' Amy said wearily. ‘At least, nothing that would interest you half so much as the next bulletin on the King's health.'

‘You're getting very cheeky, Amy. I don't like it,' Charlotte scolded her.

By the beginning of December the condition of His Majesty was improving a little, though the strain on his heart was giving cause for concern, but Amy's problems had done nothing to diminish. She still had the long-term contracts, of course, but they would not produce sufficient work to keep the lorries fully occupied and she found herself wishing she had not been so hasty in rejecting Ralph's request to quote for the long-haul journeys. Perhaps there was still a chance for her in that direction, she thought. Going back and crawling to him would not be easy – but it might produce more work.

She tossed it over in her mind for a few days, anxiety fighting with pride, but eventually – faced with the prospect of laying off one of her drivers, and with a bleak Christmas looming – Amy decided it was no use being squeamish any longer. If there was any possibility of getting the extra work she needed, then she must go all out for it.

She reached for the telephone and placed a trunk call to Gloucester, but when at last she got through she was told that Mr Porter was in Hillsbridge.

‘I can give you the number where he can be contacted,' the impersonal voice told her over the roarings and cracklings on the line.

‘I have the number, thank you,' Amy replied.

She disconnected, then sat for a moment with the receiver held between her hands, getting used to the idea that he might be just up the road. Then she called his home number.

Amy had expected the housekeeper to answer it, but in fact it was Ralph himself whose voice came down the line.

‘Ralph, it's Amy.' She made an effort to sound cool and businesslike. ‘I telephoned your Gloucester office, but they told me you were, at home.'

‘That's right. My sister has been poorly and I've come home to pester the doctor who's treating her.'

Amy went cold. Had Ralph heard the rumours? She did not imagine Oliver was his doctor, since the Porters would almost certainly be private patients and on the list of one of the more senior doctors in Hillsbridge. All the same, at the rate the gossip had travelled, nothing was impossible.

‘I'm sorry to hear she's ill,' she said lamely.

‘She's improving now, though in her state of health that's probably the most we can hope for,' Ralph said. ‘What can I do for you, Amy?'

She drew a deep breath. ‘It's about the long-haul journeys. If they're still on the cards, I'd like to quote for them.'

‘I see.' He paused. ‘I'm sorry, Amy, but when I thought you weren't interested I made alternative arrangements.'

‘So I'm too late,' she said in a small voice.

‘I'm afraid so.' Another pause. ‘You haven't given any further thought to opening another depot, I suppose?'

She half laughed – it was almost funny that he should be talking about opening another depot when she had scarcely enough business to keep one going – but the laugh came out closer to a sob.

‘I don't really think …'

‘Amy, is something wrong?'

Wrong? Only that I'm in one hell of a mess. Unable to pay my debts. Liable to lose everything … That was what she wanted to say.

‘No. No. I'm fine.'

‘You don't sound it.'

‘I've got a bit of a cold, that's all.'

A pause. Then Ralph asked, ‘Are you at the yard?'

‘Yes.'

‘And will you be there for the next half-hour?'

‘Yes. Why?'

‘I'm coming down to see you.'

No! she thought wildly. I don't want to see you! It won't do any good, you'll just confuse things again. And I won't be able to hide the fact that I'm close to my wits'end …

But she heard herself saying ‘Oh, right. I'll be here …'

During the five minutes or so before his car drew into the yard, Amy did her best to compose herself, though her mind spun with conjecture as to why he was coming. But when she saw him walking towards her office, collar turned up to shield his face from the icy wind, shoulders hunched, cigar gripped tightly between his lips while the smoke blew away in curls and puffs, her heart seemed to swell within her so that breath was almost cut off.

Fool! she told herself. Why do you let him do this to you? He was never right for you and he found someone else. This is a business visit only …

She opened the door of the office and he came in, the cigar smoke instantly perfuming the small, cramped room.

‘That's better. Telephones are fine for convenience, but there's nothing like conversing face to face.'

‘No,' she said. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?'

A corner of his mouth lifted. ‘There you are, demonstrating the point, you see. A telephone never offered me a cup of tea! Yes, if the kettle's on, I could drink a reservoir.'

She busied herself with the familiar motions. He was perched on the corner of the desk and she could feel his eyes following her. When she put down the mug beside him he spooned sugar into it, then, still stirring, looked up to meet her eyes.

‘Is the business in trouble, Amy?'

It was so direct, so unexpected that she was taken completely off guard. So he had heard the rumours, she thought in panic. But his questioning eyes were still holding hers and there was no time to think of an evasive answer. She drew a hesitant breath.

‘There are a few difficulties …'

‘What kind of difficulties?'

‘We haven't been so busy. We've lost a couple of regular hirings, through no fault of our own, and the extra business just hasn't come in. It's not a catastrophe yet, but we're not big enough to absorb that kind of loss of business.'

He nodded, his eyes narrowed, his lips a tight line around the half-smoked cigar.

‘What do you mean when you say it's no fault of your own?'

‘We've done the work quite satisfactorily. Neither firm has ever had any cause for complaint.'

‘So why have you lost them?'

She bit her lip. ‘A new firm of contractors started up over towards Stack Norton a while back. I think they're getting our business,' she hedged.

‘Why?'

She shrugged. It was making her uncomfortable, the way he was sitting there firing questions at her. And she did not want to tell him about Oliver Scott.

‘Why
are they getting your business?' he repeated.

‘Perhaps because they're closer to the quarries and the woods that are being cut.'

‘No. No, that won't do. It's a good six months since they started up. If your clients were going to change for that reason alone, they would have done so before now. Besides, it makes no difference to them, does it? An extra four or five miles on your journey is neither here nor there. Choosing the nearest haulier might influence new trade, I grant you, but the others would stick with the tried and trusted when there's so little in it. There must be more to it than that.'

‘Well, I'm sure I don't know.'

‘Then you should find out!' He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table top. ‘The answer must lie in the way the two firms are being run. Word travels fast in this kind of business …'

‘What do you mean?' she demanded, stung by his criticism.

‘I mean that you've done wonders, Amy, but you're not really business-wise yet. There's something you're missing.'

That was the one key which could unlock what Amy believed to be the truth – the accusation of incompetence.

‘I'm missing nothing,' she retorted. ‘It's not my business that's at fault; it's the wicked gossip that's been spread about me.'

‘Gossip? What gossip?'

So he hadn't heard!

‘Dr Scott, an old friend of mine, called to see me a few times and people are only too ready to put the wrong interpretation on it.'

‘Oh, I see.' But there was a slight hardening of his expression.

‘It's hardly my fault if his wife has suicidal tendencies,' Amy flared. ‘The silly woman has everything she could wish for, yet she tried to drown herself and somehow or other I found myself getting the blame, though it had nothing to do with me. People can be so unfair!'

‘Yes, they can.' He looked at her narrowly through his cigar smoke and for a moment she thought that in this probing mood he was about to ask her whether she was sure there was nothing in it. Then he drew the last smoke and ground out the cigar butt in the ashtray on her desk. ‘I still don't believe it can be anything but coincidence. It must be to do with the way the two businesses are run.'

‘I don't agree,' she argued. ‘All my troubles started along with this stupid, malicious gossip. You don't know what people round here can be like.'

‘Oh, but believe me, I do!' he said drily. ‘I've been the subject of gossip and speculation for as long as I can recall. But I can't see it interfering with your type of business. It might be different if you were running a little shop with a lot of old pussies for customers, but a businessman isn't likely to be influenced by such a thing. He has more important things to think about.'

‘Perhaps. But his
wife
might think about it,' said Amy bitterly.

‘Possibly. But how many wives have a say in details such as who gets the transport contract in a business? Most wouldn't even know their husbands were dealing with you. Would you have known who Llew's contacts were when Roberts Haulage was his concern and his only? I doubt it. The only people a wife gets to know are those her husband brings home to wine and dine. No, it's far more likely that there's a simple rational explanation for all this. Have you checked how your charges measure up, for instance?'