Meltdown (7 page)

‘And that’s where I pulled
him
,’ Lizzie laughed.

‘And I don’t know about Lizzie,’ Robbo shouted, raising his glass, ‘but I personally have lived happily ever after! Garçon! More beer!’

‘You can get the man out of the pub,’ said Jimmy, clinking his glass against Robson’s, ‘but you will never get the pub out of the man.’

‘And confusion on anybody who tries!’ Robson shouted, accepting his pint, quaffing half of it and accidentally putting it down on a spoon so that it fell over and the rest of its contents spilt across the table.

‘Come on, you, that’s your lot,’ Lizzie said, as she had said a hundred times before. ‘Home time.’

‘A
nasty lasty
, love, surely?’ Robbo protested. ‘I spilt most of that one.’

‘Exactly,’ said Liz, ‘which might be God’s way of telling you you’ve had enough. Any more and I won’t let you drive, and you know how you hate me changing gear on Churchill.’

Churchill was Robbo’s big and beloved old Wolseley, a vehicle as comfortable, as shambling, as worn-looking and as terminally unhip as he was, and driving it was (as Robbo was the first to admit) the
only
thing that Robbo did better than his beloved wife.

‘Yes, can’t have that.’ Robbo got up. ‘I shall have to drink your health at home.’

‘Come on, Rob!’ Jimmy protested. ‘You can’t go yet, we’re celebrating your wedding anniversary.’

‘And the
reason
there’s an anniversary to celebrate, mate,’ Robbo replied, ‘is that I have discovered the secret of a successful marriage. Do what your bloody wife tells you! The bill’s on our account. Don’t order any malts older than your last girlfriend, Rupert.’

‘Lovely!’ Rupert beamed. ‘An eighteen-year-old Glenfiddich.’

Rupert had been a mature student and was already thirty-three.

‘Honestly, Rupert,’ David scolded. ‘Have you ever dated a girl who’s made it to her twenties?’

‘Well, I certainly try not to.’

‘But what do you find to talk about?’ David enquired.

‘Talk? We don’t fucking
talk
.’

‘Night, all,’ Robbo said, leaning over to kiss the ladies goodbye. Inevitably his glasses and fountain pen slipped out of his top pocket and into a half-finished massala.

‘Don’t put them back in your pocket, Robbo!’ Lizzie shrieked. ‘Let me wipe them properly.’

But it was too late. Robbo had already scooped up his glasses and having given them a cursory wipe had put them back in his jacket, thus depositing bright-red curry sauce all over it.

‘
God
, Robbo, you are
such
a klutz!’ Lizzie said as if scolding a ten-year-old. ‘Don’t worry, I shall iron the grease out over brown paper.’

‘Actually I wasn’t worried,’ Robbo said, turning and winking at the lads as Lizzie headed for the door, then adding, ‘God! Look behind you, Henry! It’s Neil Kinnock!’

Henry fell for it like a sack of spuds. Robbo had grabbed his pint of Kingfisher and sunk half of it before Henry realized he’d been had.

‘Got to grab it while I can, Henry,’ Robson said. ‘When your lot get into power you’ll probably ban beer.’

Lovely, lovely things

Lizzie was truly a pioneer of the
lovely, lovely thing
. Without Lizzie and a few others like her, the populations of Notting Hill, Kensington, Primrose Hill and many other not quite so salubrious but rapidly ‘improving’ areas of London in the late nineties would have had nothing to give each other for Christmas.

For what do you get for people who have everything they could possibly need or want, plus a shitload of stuff they
don’t
need and often don’t even want?

‘You get them something
lovely
, of course,’ said Lizzie.

It didn’t really matter to Lizzie what that thing actually was, only that it should be
beautifully presented
. That was the real issue.

To previous generations of purveyors of luxury items a biscuit had still been essentially a biscuit. That was the main item on the agenda. Of course it needed a nicely designed box, but what really mattered was what was inside the box.

‘That,’ Lizzie assured her young design team, ‘is bollocks. What really and truly matters is the
box
.’

To her it was instinctive, a truth instilled in her by a good (and very pretty) fairy at her birth. Presentation was everything.

Lizzie
adored
a box.

She gloried in choosing the thick, creamy card from which it was constructed. Comparing the inks and dyes with which it would be coloured. Studying the weave on the ribbon with which its lid would be secured. Considering the dimensions of the cellophane window through which the scrummy cookies within could be glimpsed. All three of them.

Lizzie
loved
a box.

To her a box was a means of communication. She revelled in all the things a box could say, and in so many beautiful tones and typefaces.

In the long run it didn’t matter what was in the box at all. Everybody knew that a Malteser was actually nicer than Lizzie’s raw ginger nuggets smothered in bitter chocolate, but who cared when the ginger nuggets were so beautifully presented?

You couldn’t take a packet of crisps as a gift to a hostess, even though pretty much everybody likes crisps. But you
could
bring some of Lizzie’s shaved turnip curls. Even though they tasted pretty grim.

They were just so beautifully presented.

Half a turnip diced and
lightly
fried (in sustainable, organic rapeseed oil) then vacuum packed in plastic before being placed in a bag of purest raw cotton which was then put in a little wicker basket designed to look like a miniature version of the sort of basket that a fantasy farm maiden might have used on Fairy Tale Farm to take her home-grown lightly fried turnip curls to market.

Lizzie designed and packaged
everything
. Her kitchen-accessories range with its great rounded plastic handles in bright Day-glo colours earned her a half-page in
Vogue
. Her salt and pepper shakers with their cute little feet and hands were the subject of a lawsuit when a major retailer pinched the idea and tried to flog a range at a tenth of the price.

Lizzie offered stationery boxes containing six sheets of writing paper and envelopes handmade from
rag cloth
to people who only ever sent emails.

She put gorgeous fountain pens with little bottles of green ink into the stockings of people who’d forgotten how to write by hand.

She sold individually wrapped shards of
genuine Louisiana peanut brittle
to people who threw up in the toilet if they ate a cornflake.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing, no matter how impractical, no matter how pointless, that Lizzie could not box up and make desirable.

Practicality wasn’t the point.

The contents certainly were not the point.

The point was
loveliness
. Pure and simple.

And loveliness had made Lizzie and Robbo very, very comfortable indeed.

A loan secured

‘Lizzie, it’s Jimmy,’ Jimmy said, trying not to sound desperate. Hoping to replicate the tone that he had used on the thousands of times he had said that same sentence when he had been happy and secure and not about to beg for money. ‘Monica’s told me all about your offer and I can’t tell you how grateful I am and I never would have asked in a million years, but since you’ve brought it up yourself . . .’

Jimmy knew that he
did
sound desperate, but suddenly he didn’t care. All at once he decided to go for broke, throwing shame to the wind as he suddenly upped the ante, explaining to his old friend that simply finding the money to pay off David’s firm’s outstanding invoices would not actually solve anything either for him and Monica or for David and Laura.

There was a bigger picture which, unless addressed, would make small fixes a waste of money. The problem was that the Webb Street job was only half finished and the real fear was that, with property prices currently in free fall, the whole development would collapse under the weight of its negative equity before the upturn came.

‘I’m going to be straight with you, Liz,’ Jimmy said. ‘If I can’t service the interest on the mortgage, the bank will repossess and I’ll be officially bankrupt, leaving all my creditors, including David and his firm, to divide up the value of my remaining assets, which are basically a bit of furniture and five flat-screen tellies. Which is of course ridiculous because I own a street. A fucking
street
! But if I can’t keep the bank’s hands off it for what I’m guessing will be at least a year it all goes to shit.’

There was a pause during which Jimmy could feel himself sweating. The answer came in that wonderful voice, warm and honeyed. The voice that listeners to Radio 4 knew for its mouth-watering ability to describe the
loveliest
and most
indulgent
puddings. Lizzie sounded exactly as if she were reading a bedtime story and in a way she was, because she was about to produce a happy ending.

‘How much do you honestly think you need?’ Lizzie purred.

‘Honestly?’ Jimmy asked.

‘Honestly,’ Lizzie replied. ‘We’ve all been in denial about this for months. We’ve known you’re in trouble and Rupert says it’s big trouble, but until Monica phoned me today none of us had really sat down and
talked
about it. Tell me the truth.’

Jimmy gulped. ‘Liz, if I could borrow a couple of million for a year . . .’

He could see Monica’s jaw drop and her eyes widen in alarm, but he pressed on.

‘I think that would just about keep the bank, David’s firm and the other immediate creditors at bay. I mean this thing has to end, doesn’t it? Of course it does. Capitalism is cyclical and Mon and I own a
street
. Look, I know you’ve said you’ll take one of the houses as collateral, but how about this? How about I give you and Robbo
half
the entire future profit on the development? Only nine months ago that was projected at
twenty million quid
, Liz! I’ll give you half. Lend me two now and post-crunch you’ll be looking at ten, minimum.’

For a moment it seemed to Jimmy as if the figures were real again, like they had been before. Not fantasy figures as he had now got used to seeing them, but real hard money that really did exist. Or soon would. It was so easy to slip back into that familiar mindset and it felt good to do so.

Lizzie clearly sensed this and her voice, when she replied, seemed even warmer, even kinder, even more soothing than before and gently scolding in that wonderful, rather sexy way she had.

‘Jim. Don’t. This isn’t a deal. You don’t need to pitch me and you don’t need to sell me. It’s about
mates
, that’s all. I know you’ll pay me back when you can and that’s all I need to know. Forget collateral. When it’s all over you can get me a case of something yummy if you like. Some
really good
dessert wine would be lovely, or a nice
big bold red
, a Margaret River Cab Sav or something. But that’s it.’

‘So you’ll . . . you really will?’ Jimmy’s voice was breathless with hope. ‘Two million?’

‘Are you sure that’s enough?’ Lizzie replied.

‘Yes. That’s enough, Liz.’

‘Good, then we’ll do it. And I don’t want us to have to discuss this again. Mates help each other but it defeats the object if it affects the mateship. So we’ll do this and then forget about it until you sort things out. I’ll get Robbo to transfer you two million in the morning, it’s pretty simple. We’ve got easily that in gilts. And I insist that you do not ring to thank me. I do
not
want to discuss it again. We’ll get through this together. As mates.’

Jimmy could not believe it. After months of ever-increasing despair everything was suddenly turning around. Two million would definitely see him through for a year, eighteen months probably. Lizzie was just
amazing
. She always had been. Impulsive. Instinctive.
Organic
. Like her biscuits. She followed her heart and it never let her down. She’d married Robson, for God’s sake! Only Lizzie could have guessed how good a marriage that would turn out to be. Everybody loved Robbo, of course, but surely no one in their right mind would
marry
him? But Lizzie had, thus ensuring herself a lifetime of domestic contentment to go along with her great business success.

‘I’ll set up a new account tomorrow,’ Jimmy replied.

He did not need to explain further what he meant by that. Lizzie was easily a good enough businesswoman to understand that if Jimmy and Monica were borrowing from her then they must have exhausted all other forms of credit and that if Jim wasn’t careful any new windfall would simply get sucked into his ravenous overdrafts.

‘Just send Robbo the details,’ Lizzie said. ‘Now put Mon on. I want to hear how her nipples are bearing up.’

After Lizzie and Monica had discussed lactation for a while Monica hung up the phone. Then Jimmy put Cressida down and Monica put Lillie down and they allowed both toddler and baby to scream away to their hearts’ content as they embraced, holding each other close as the full extent of the rescue package sank in. Jimmy almost cried with relief. Monica did cry, sobbing and sobbing with tiredness and happiness and surging emotions that she could scarcely contain.

‘So we won’t have to leave our house?’ she said finally.

‘No. We can stay,’ Jimmy said.

‘Oh Jimmy,’ she said, her body shaking against his.

‘I know,’ Jimmy whispered, ‘I know. Shh!’ as her tears wetted his shoulders and her breast milk soaked his pen pocket.