Time to Let Go (25 page)

“Sweetheart!”
Brenda tried again. “We are your family. We are looking out for you and we will help you through this. Together we can shake this off. We help you and you help us.”

“As far as the legal battle is concerned
, I am all up for that but I will not become an advertising tool with my personal life. I hope you will forgive me,” Hanna said assertively.

Afte
r a pregnant pause, Thomas said. “If you are quite sure about this, I better be off,” he had been sitting on the edge of his seat and looking out of the window while the discussion was going on. “I am sorry but I have a rather important meeting later. If you change your mind it is never too late,” he shook her hand and rushed off without even properly looking at her.

“I’d better be going then, too,” Michelle said. She collected her papers and files and left with a forced smile.

Martin drew closer to Hanna and whispered: “I wish you would reconsider.”

“The campaign is not as distasteful as y
ou might think,” Brenda added. “Just like you said, if it were not properly done the effects would be adverse. We want to bring the concept of customer care back into our brand perception. Business is bad for all the airlines. We don’t offer the best or the cheapest. What we want to demonstrate to people is that we care. You did care, everyone knows that now.”

Hanna kept still and remained untouched by these persuasions.

“Think who you are up against, darling. You need the support of the company,” Brenda said with an intense look.

“Are you saying that the airline is not going to help me, if I don’t accept the offer?” Hanna asked.

“I don’t know what the managers at the top will decide, but with your current attitude they might just do the bare minimum for you” Martin admitted.

“Is th
at a threat?” Hanna asked.

“Of course not!
I am telling you this as your friend. I know those guys and I have seen them in action. If you are not playing along then you are probably better off if you leave the airline,” he warned her.

“I hear you. Now when would be the meeting with the lawyers?” Hanna asked,

“Will you consider our offer?” Martin asked.

“I promise I will think about it but I doubt that it will be for me,” Hanna replied.

The meeting with the company lawyers was short. Richard went over Hanna’s official police statement and handed them photocopies of it. He expressed his concerns regarding the toilet checks and they were duly noted down on paper. She had expected Tony to stir things up but he only made notes and kept quiet. If Nicky had been here she would have dominated the discussion, not witnessed it as Tony did.

Martin handed out a document with key points for the joint defence and repeated the company’s express wish for Hanna to hold no press conference
s, without prior consent of the press office. The entire affair was over in not more than twenty minutes.

Hanna thanked Richard and promised to be in touch.

“It would be hard for the airline to get rid of you,” he reassured her. “You have a very high profile now. Those threats were less of a serious blackmail, but more of a tactic to persuade you. Keep that in mind!”

As she drove on the motorway she kept trying to picture herself in airports all
over the world talking about new exciting offers and the great service customers could expect on board. She just could not see it: she was more of a doer than a talker.

Come
to think of it she found it equally hard to imagine being on a plane again, and work as if nothing had ever happened. She would never be able to open a toilet door on an aircraft and not think of Mrs White. Did she really want to carry on with this life? Continuously going from A to B to Z? Maybe the incident had been the wake-up call she had needed to take a closer look at her priorities. Wouldn’t it be nice if she could take care of someone whom she liked and knew more personally than she did with her random colleagues and customers on every flight? Fariba’s offer suddenly had a lot more appeal than that of the airline and it would solve a lot of issues in one go. At least it would buy her time.

She left more messages for Patrick on his voice mail
, tried two of his musician friends and one of his business partners in the hope that word would reach him. With that she had exhausted all of her avenues to reach her brother.

Inside the flat
, Walter was working on his family chronicle and Biddy was fast asleep.

“
Pumpkin, how was your day?” her father said without really looking up from his paperwork. He was so entranced in his chronicle work that he didn’t even ask about her meetings.

“All fine, thanks Dad,” Hanna said quickly, relieved not having to go over everything again and possibly face
yet more harsh criticism and ‘constructive’ help from her father.

“Good. You know you can talk to me any time
you need to,” he said, then carried on writing.

“Thank you!”

“Oh, Henrik called earlier. Could you please ring him back?”

“Any idea what it was about?”

“Of course not. He never tells me anything,” Walter said. “Nobody ever does.”

Hanna left the room and rang Henrik.

“Sis, I had a call from Patrick,” he said, overly cheerful.

“Great. How is he?”

“No idea, he was busy. He told me that he got all your messages about wanting to talk and needing his help,” Henrik said pointedly. “He would love to speak with you but is very busy. He gave me the number of his current secretary, Hilary. She has his schedule and can make an appointment with you for him.”

“Excellent,” Hanna said excitedly, deciding to ignore his jealousy. “Why did he call you and not me directly?”

“You have not answered any of Hilary’s voicemails, so they had to go through me.”

“Well, if I don’t recognise the number I assume it is the press.”

“Never mind, the main thing is he got through to you. I, however, have much bigger news than that,” Henrik announced. “Are you sitting down?”

“Sunita is pregnant!” Hanna guessed.

“No. I have news regarding you. I had another phone call.”

“And…?” Hanna said impatiently. She hated those all important moments her brother seemed to enjoy beyond necessity.

“I hope you are sitting. I had a call from nobody other than Mr White’s personal assistant. The man wants to meet you.”

“What?
Me, meeting Mr White? I don’t think so,” Hanna said. She had to sit down though and steady her suddenly very rapid heart rate. “Did they say what he wants?”

“He wants to sort everything out. Those were the exact words,” Henrik told her.

“Crickey. Tell him to contact the airline instead. I don’t think I am even allowed to speak to Mr White with the legal proceedings going on. Or is that American law? I think I watch too much TV,” Hanna said confused.

“No, don’t worry,” Henrik assured her. “To me the call sounded more like the meeting will be an apology rather than an offer for an out of court settlement. I am usually pretty good at reading between the lines. He wants a private and personal conversation and he wants it as soon as possible. I went ahead with it on your behalf. I have arranged a meeting for you with him at a country hotel in Wiltshire, which our chain runs. It is not far from you. It would take you no more than half an hour to drive. He is on his way there now and is expecting to meet you at 7pm. Can you
make that?”

“Of course I can make it. I am just not sure I should. It may be a ploy to compromise my statement in court,” she worried.

“My mate Carl from university will be at the hotel tonight as well,” Henrik assured her. “He is a lawyer and if you need him he has agreed to come to the meeting.”

“Can’t you come to the meeting?”

There was a short silence before Henrik continued.

“I would play it cool, Hanna. See how it goes. If Mr White has people with him then ring Carl Sutton, but I don’t think you will need anybody with you. I am sure he has come to his senses.”

“I need to think,” Hanna said. “I’ll call you back later. I’ll have to clear this with the union and the airline first.”

“Sis, if he is offering an informal meeting with you - you
should take it,” he shot back at her.

“The company made it clear that their support for me is conditional on my silence,” Hanna told him.

“Yes, to the press,” Henrik pointed out.

“Get this: t
hey want me to become the new face of the airline for their promotional campaign. Can you believe that? At my age!”

“That sounds like a pretty decent thing of them to offer,” Henrik pointed out. “But that also means that they will reap benefits from the publicity. If you and Mr White come to an agreement it will take the wind out of their campaign. Don’t speak with them, speak to Mr White.”

“I turned the airline down. Maybe now they want it settled quickly, too?”

“I would consider their offer, though. Do you know what Sunita would do for a chance like
that?” Henrik asked.

“Exactly!
They should give it to people like her. It just doesn’t appeal to me. My job is more about people than anything else, not the commercial aspect of it.”

“Without the commercial aspect there would be no airline,” Henrik said agitatedly.

“I know, Henrik,” Hanna tried to calm him. “I know. That is why they have lots of people like you in their head-office, who think like you and who run the show, and pretty women like your Sunita to look the part on the posters. I don’t think I would be good at it.”

“You are turning down an amazing opportunity, I hope you realise that,” Henrik said
, resigned.

“Oh, yes I do. Even worse, the guy from Human Resources implied that there might not be a job for me to return to if I refuse their offer.”

“Oh, that is just persuasion,” Henrik reassured her. “Imagine the headlines if they sacked you?”

“Karim’s mother has offered me a job as her personal assistant and biographer. She says she will match my current salary. I would be near mother, which is a big thing for me now.”

“It’s great that you want to look after Mum but she has got to go into a home soon: you’ve seen how Dad struggles. It is a matter of time before he has to let go. If I was you I would be very careful risking my airline salary for a temporary job with a batty old woman. No job security, a dodgy relationship with Karim; it is a mine field,” Henrik warned her.

“I know, I know,” Hanna admitted.

“I get it now. That is why you called Guru Patrick, the life coach for all of your important decisions,” Henrik said angrily.

“Yes.”

“If my humble business success puts any weight behind my words and opinion, and can be considered relevant in your decision making at all, then please take on board that I, your more earthly brother, consider it absolutely vital that you go to this meeting with Mr White tonight. I am sending you directions and numbers in a text and via email. You decide!”

“I hear you,” Hanna said.

“Bye now! I have to go,” Henrik said curtly and hung up.

The conversation with Hilary, Patrick’s assistant, was the exact opposite to the one she had just ended. Not
what you might have expected from a secretary, she spoke very slowly to the point of sounding dopey. Hanna had serious doubts that anything she told this woman might reach her brother at all.

After lengthy and rather chaotic consultations of two separate diaries
, Hilary could finally offer Hanna a ‘telephone slot’ between 6:30 and 7pm tonight. Patrick might have to speak and eat at the same time. The seminar had reached the ‘vital clearance stage’, Hilary stated; at that point the participants would be particularly vulnerable and in need of extra attention.

Hanna confirmed the timing and jotted down the number to call. This left her little time to speak to her mother or father before having to get on the road and making sure she was at her brother’s hotel in time to make the call to her brother, and then meet the infamous Mr White.

Walter had just finalised the article on Helvi, and was pleased with his compromise of short official statements and lengthy confidential articles for the family.

He noticed that his daughter spent a long time on the phone. It made him remember how Biddy had done the same. His wife could spend several hours on the phone every day, advising large parts of the family, who all seemed to look up to
her for her advice and insight. They knew they would always find an empathetic listener in her, someone who could find a positive spin on a bad situation, and make them feel better about whatever bothered them in their life.

Sometimes this had reached such extremes that Walter felt his wife was neglecting her duties to her immediate family and he had threatened to unplug the damn thing while she was still talking.

“Please don’t, Walter,” she would say. “Rosie needs my help. I can’t hang up on her.”

“Tell her to come here then,” Walter would bark. “You are blocking the line and if she was here you could talk while you are doing your chores.”