Father & Son: Book two of the Jensen Family Series (14 page)

Turning part way onto his back, one arm
still wrapped around the baby, he looked up at her, “That’s an understatement,
he screamed most of the night and I had some very interesting nappies to deal
with. Helen said she thought he might be teething and rubbed some stuff on his
gums.”

“I take it he wouldn’t settle in his cot?”

“No, he screamed every time I put him down
so I bought him in here. I shoved the bed against the wall because I didn’t
want him falling out and then I realised that he could still slip down the side
so I shoved the pillows down there. He dropped off to sleep after about half an
hour of being in here.”

“Did he have his head on your chest?”

“Yeah, I guess the whole being able to
hear your heartbeat thing isn’t a load of crap after all. He slept really well
until just now and he seems fairly happy now.”

“He certainly does, hand him over; I’ll
get him some breakfast.”

Paul sat up and passed Gavin to her, “If
you want to get some sleep, I can get him fed and bathed before I go.”

“You’re leaving this morning?” She asked.

“Yeah, I have to get Mum’s car back to her
and there’s a few things I need to get done for work too so I should make a
move sooner rather than later.”
“Ok, I’ll catch some sleep this afternoon when he goes down for a nap.” She
stood, Gavin in her arms, looking down at him. “When will you be back?”

Sitting up, Paul ran his fingers through
his hair before scrubbing his hands over his face, “Not sure but it will be
soon.”

Monica was pleasantly surprised when her
youngest child returned home in daylight instead of his usual dead of night,
she was even more pleased when he announced that he had filled the petrol tank
of her car and had it valeted inside and out on his way home and the car was
looking almost as good as new.

“Thanks for letting me borrow it.” He
smiled down at her.

“As you looked after it so well, you can
take it again.” She returned his smile.

“Thanks Mum.” He said over his shoulder as
he left the room, stopping in the doorway, “I won’t be in for dinner, I’m going
to Jokers, the manager there wants to discuss something with   me.”

“Such as?” She asked.

“Not sure, but he’s been wanting me to
work there for years, I guess now that I’m eighteen, I will be legally allowed
to so that’s my best guess.” It wasn’t completely a lie, he told himself as he
mounted the stairs, he would be working there, although he would only be
considered staff for the shortest time possible as he planned on taking over
the management of the club within the next year.

Within an hour of talking to Jez, it
became apparent that his timescale was in need of serious revision. Due to his
age, it would be quite some time before he would legally be eligible to hold
the licence on the club. Laughing at his oversight, Jez slapped him on the back
with one hand while handing him a club t-shirt with the other and told him to
change and join him behind the bar.

With his hand on his heart and desperately
trying not to laugh at Paul’s weariness as he stepped behind the bar, Jez
solemnly vowed to teach Paul all he knew about tending the bar, keeping the
patrons happy and how to run a club so that when his time came and he could
eventually, with the blessing of the licensing laws, officially run the club.

Not amused in the least Paul took in the
view from this side of the bar before turning to the current club manager, “I’m
a gardener Jez and I play at being an insolvency clerk. I have never served
anyone a drink. Ever. I hope you are a patient man because I have a feeling
that it’s going to be tested to the max.”

Still smiling, Jez put a glass and a
cocktail shaker in front of him, “Sarcasm? Always a good place to start and
trust me Paul, you are going to need that sense of humour. As long as you can
do about ten things at once while being polite, smiling and keeping my valuable
customers happy, you’ll be fine. Trust me. By the time I’m done with you, there
won’t be a thing you don’t know about this place.

Jez spent that first night working by
Paul’s side, impressed by the way the young man interacted with the punters,
smiling and charming the ladies while at the same time keeping their
accompanying men supplied with drinks. He learned quickly and apart from his
lack of knowledge where the cocktails were concerned, Jez knew by the end of
the evening that he had made the right choice when he had earmarked Paul to be
his successor.

Working at the club on Friday and Saturday
nights, going in early and leaving long after closing as he tried to wrap his
head around the cocktail menu, Paul quickly realised that he simply didn’t have
enough hours in the week to devote to his various responsibilities.

Beating his men to site for the first time
in oh, ever, Paul made a point of looking at his watch as first one van then
the other pulled up before him and his workforce climbed out, breakfast rolls
in hand.

“What time do you call this?” He asked of
no-one in particular as they sauntered towards him.

“We stopped to get you breakfast boss,”
one of them answered, holding out the peace offering masquerading as a fully
loaded breakfast roll. “Besides, we aren’t late, you’re early.”

Reaching out and taking the proffered
roll, Paul turned away as he unwrapped it, salivating at the sight of sausages,
bacon and mushrooms nestling there, he took a healthy bite, chewed and
swallowed before turning back to the waiting men, “What? No ketchup?” he asked,
grinning as they began to laugh. “Come on guys, let’s get to work.”

They worked without a break through the
morning, kept going through what would normally be lunch and instead of a late
tea break, Paul told them to pack up for the day and asked for their company
later that evening in one of the local pubs.

He intentionally arrived late, not wanting
to be there before his work force. Buying a round of drinks, he sat in the
chair they had kept for him and began to talk, telling them of his plans to
take over the night club and therefore cut back on the hours he worked with
them.

“I think we need to expand a little and
I’ve put in an order for two more vans so we’ll be able to cover more ground so
to speak.” He said as he traced lines in the condensation on his glass. “I’d
like to take on a couple of more guys and am open to suggestions on that as I’m
sure you all know someone who either needs a job or would fit in well here.”

“What do we do if there’s a problem?” Phil
asked.

“Well, I’ve given that some thought as
well and I’d like you to take on more responsibility, obviously you and I will
have to iron out a few more details but I trust you Phil and I want to leave
you in charge. I just wanted to be up front with you guys. I’m not closing the
company down, with the money it makes I’d be mad to do that, I want to make it
bigger, I want us to get to the point where the councils automatically come to
us when they have a project. It may even pay us to branch out further into the
painting and decorating trade and run that alongside this, I dunno, I’m still
thinking about that but for now, all it boils down to is I won’t be on site as
much as I am now and definitely not at weekends and I’d like to know what you
think of that.”

“Where would we get our time sheets and
stuff like that?” Someone asked.

“For the time being, any staff related
paperwork will still be my responsibility, you’ll get them from me in the
normal way, I’m just stepping back from the day to day running of the
business.”

“I may not want to take on a bigger role
than I have now.” Phil commented.

Paul looked the older man straight in the
eye, summing him up. “That would cause me a few problems Phil, I’m not going to
lie, obviously you and I need to talk further on this but I’d like a basic yes
or no tonight as to whether you feel up to the challenge.”

Phil’s eyes narrowed at Paul’s choice of
words, “Up to the challenge eh? Cheeky bastard, I was practically running the
company before you took it over.”

“I know that.” Paul confirmed.

“What’s in it for me?” Phil pressed.

“More money for starters but you will all
be getting pay rises anyway,” he added casting his gaze around the other men
present. “I’m not discussing your role here Phil, you and I need to discuss
this further. As for the rest of you, as I said, pay rises are imminent, there
will be no more working through bank holiday’s either unless it’s specifically
asked for and then it will be triple pay. I’d like to say you’ll have
structured working hours but we all know that we work longer hours in the
summer months.”

“We’ll still be able to get in touch with
you if we need to? I mean, technically, you’ll still be the boss?”

“Yeah I’ll still be the boss. You’re all
thinking that I’m going to disappear which is not the case. I’ll be on site a
couple of days a week and right now that’s all I can commit to but I’ll be
around if you need me and can’t go through Phil or whoever happens to take the
supervising managers role.”

“So, we get new vans, more money, more
guys but basically the only thing we don’t have to do is look at your ugly mug
all day?”

“That’s pretty much the gist of it.” Paul
nodded taking in the faces of his loyal work force. He stood, preparing to
leave. “Phil, come and see me on Sunday?” He asked.

“Ok.” The older man agreed and also got to
his feet. “I’m sure we’ll work something out between us.”

His week progressed as normal, working on
site Tuesday, he took Wednesday off to catch up on paperwork then went into the
office Thursday and Friday, studiously keeping his head down and avoiding his
father, well aware that he still hadn’t faced the back lash from fronting up to
him. Friday evening, he headed for the club, cocktails running through his
head.

This would be the first night behind the
bar without Jez shadowing him, although the manager was never far away. As he
was still new at this, he was allowed to have notes with him in case he forgot
how to make a particular cocktail but as it turned out, he didn’t need them.
Once he’d made a few, he realised that he’d cracked it and his confidence
soared.

Watching his newest member of staff, Jez
was more than pleased. Paul was a natural and now that he had the cocktails
down, his in built confidence began to show. Add to his confidence his natural
rhythm, easy smile and good looks and he was an instant hit with the patrons
and staff alike.

Having viewed the antics of the staff from
the other side of the bar and quite frankly, been horrified by it, Paul quickly
began to realise the reason behind it from his new found perspective. The club
wasn’t considered to be amongst the classiest establishments but with cheap
drinks, banging up to the minute music and run by management that was prepared
to turn a blind eye, the place was always packed to the rafters and that made
tending the bar an extremely stressful pastime. Therefore, when one of the
female bar staff grabbed him as he reached past her for one of the more exotic
bottles of beer, shoved him against the counter and pushed her tongue into his
mouth while her hands roamed just about everywhere they could reach, he wasn’t
entirely surprised or offended and found that the brief interlude had indeed
decreased his stress levels. She handed him the bottle he had been reaching for
as she turned back to her own customer.

Grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat,
Paul returned to his customer and was rewarded with a drink for putting on the
show with the bar maid. He managed to serve, dance and snog his way through the
rest of the evening and was sweaty, tired but extremely happy by the time the
club closed. On leaving the club that in the early hours and after getting
assistance from the rest of the staff to push start his car, he headed for
home, smiling all the way, the bar maid’s phone number safely stashed in his
pocket.

He slept through most of Saturday only
waking to shower, eat and head back to the club. Being Saturday night, the club
opened earlier and closed later and the staff were rotated out from behind the
bar every few hours. He had an outrageous evening split between working behind
the bar, flirting with the staff there and working the floor, his usual
stomping ground where bumping and grinding with the customers’ was second
nature in between retrieving glasses from the tables and booths scattered
around the dance floor.

The sun was coming up by the time he
pulled his car into the driveway. He was home a little later than usual on a
Sunday morning after having discovered that while possible, sex in the front
seat of a Ford Escort Mexico was infinitely uncomfortable but it did mean that
he hadn’t had to use the phone number the bar maid, Betsy, had given him as she
had helped him discover just how uncomfortable his car was.

Monica finally gave up trying to keep the
noise of the house to a minimum so her youngest son could sleep when the
doorbell rang half way through her dinner preparations. Ushering the man into
the house, she left him at the kitchen table and went to wake her son.

Phil grinned as Paul entered the kitchen,
his boss was dishevelled and that was putting it kindly. Paul staggered towards
the table, yawning and scrubbing his hands across his face. Having to come
awake and get his brain functioning in a matter of moments wasn’t one of his
strong points.

He grabbed a large manila folder from the
Welsh dresser before sitting opposite his foreman and opening the file. He took
a large gulp of the tea Monica set in front of him before meeting Phil’s eyes.

“Morning.” He rasped his throat still
stiff from sleep.

Still smiling, Phil accepted a second mug
of tea from Mrs Jensen, “You look like crap.”

“Heavy night.” Paul shrugged. “Down to
business then.” He pushed some pamphlets across the table, “I think we need a
yard perhaps a porta cabin and someone to do the paperwork, quotes etc.”

Regarding the paperwork in his hand, Phil
knew without a doubt that he was making the right decision and he thanked his
lucky stars for the umpteenth time in his life that he had a calm, level headed
wife who could make him see a good thing when he was onto it. “Before you get
started,” he began as he reached into his pocket and pushed a small square of
paper across the table. “Take a look at that and tell me what you think.”

Unfolding the paper revealed a cheque for
the sum of twenty thousand pounds, he frowned when he realised the cheque was
made payable to him. “What’s this?” He asked.

“Um, it’s a cheque. I talked to my wife
about the changes you had in mind and you stepping back and so on and between
us we agreed that we want in. That’s our life savings; we’d like a share in the
company.”